EPHESIANS 5 (READING AT EXETER, 4 JANUARY 1933)
EPHESIANS 5 (READING AT EXETER, 4 JANUARY 1933)
CAC It is noticeable that of the nine references to the assembly in this epistle, six of them come in the few verses that we have read, so that it is peculiarly an assembly setting of things that is before us here. And it seems to be worthy of note that what is brought before us in this section is brought out in an affectionate relation. It is rather remarkable that Paul did not bring out the truth of the assembly as the wife in the teaching part of the epistle; he does not bring it out until he comes to address wives and husbands. That is, he puts it in an affectionate setting and brings it out in connection with the most affectionate relations that are known to men.
Ques In instituting the relationship in the beginning, had God this [p. 90] before Him?
CAC Yes. I have no doubt at all that the original relationship of husband and wife was established in view of the relations that were to subsist between Christ and the assembly. When they were instituted they became an affectionate setting in which the truth of Christ and the assembly could be developed, but the type was not adequate to set forth all that was in the thought of God. On the part of Adam there was not any self-devotion in love nor any intelligent service of love towards Eve. The type was there but like all other types it was only a shadow; it was not the very image of the thing. Types are precious and exceedingly helpful but for the very image of the thing we have to come to Christ and to the assembly. There is a difference between a shadow and an image; a man’s shadow on the wall does not give you his features; it gives you an outline and that is what we should look for in a type, the outline. The New Testament gives the filling out, the very image. There is a great deal in Ephesians 5 that we get no intimation of in Genesis 2.
Ques Do you get it in any of the other types?
CAC I do not know that you do. There are different types of the assembly; certain women of old represent the assembly in different features, but there is a surpassing fulness and preciousness in this chapter. One feels the need of a spiritual atmosphere for the consideration of such a scripture. Paul had said much of the assembly in the course of his different epistles, but it is not until this chapter that he speaks of her as the wife.
Ques Is this view of the assembly particularly connected with eternity?
CAC Well, it is eternal because the great thought is what the assembly is for Christ, and this is peculiarly precious. Paul dwells much more on the truth of the body than he does on the truth of the wife, and I suppose that is necessary. The great thought in the body is derivation — [p. 91] the body derives from Christ. Eve derived from Adam in a way that is not set forth in any other type; she was taken out of Adam. That is more the idea of the body; the assembly, as the body, is derived from Christ; it comes out of Him and it could not really be for Him if it did not come from Him. But then, after Eve was taken out of Adam she was brought to him; now that is Ephesians 5. Chapter 4 teaches that the body derives from Him: “Holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply, according to the working in its measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love” (verses 15 - 17). All there derives from Him, but here (chapter 5) the thought is that the assembly as the wife is secured for Christ. She is for Him in the sense that He is free to carry on all the service of His love towards her, so that in result she may be everything that His heart desires for its complete satisfaction. It is a wonderful thought.
Ques Is that producing fruit for Christ?
CAC Well, the thought hardly comes in Ephesians 5. It is the thought of the service of His love towards her, and what she becomes for His satisfaction. It ends in His presenting the assembly to Himself glorious, without “spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things ... holy and blameless”; she is absolutely perfected for His satisfaction.
Rem And she is like Himself.
CAC Yes, His counterpart. Eve was the counterpart of Adam, and the assembly is destined to be the counterpart of Christ.
Rem The unspiritual could not understand why the apostle kept this wonderful truth until the close.
CAC He kept it back because it is the crown [p. 92] of everything. J.B.S. used to tell us that the climax of things was union; now that is what we get in this chapter, it is the only place in Paul’s teaching where the assembly is seen as the wife.
The aspect of the Lord’s death here is very precious, and it is all the more precious because it does not say in so many words that He died for the assembly. What is before us here is not what He has accomplished in the way of purgation or reconciliation or the glorifying of God in death; all that, of course, was true, but there is something in a sense greater than that, and that is the devotion in which He was prepared to deliver Himself up. In the intelligent action of His love He gave Himself entirely over to whatever might be involved in what He had undertaken to bring about.
Ques Does the thought of the Hebrew servant come in?
CAC Yes, in connection with service. If you think of the Lord’s death as the supreme service of His love, which it was, there is the type there. The Lord perfectly understood the value of what He was delivering up when He delivered up Himself. He gave Himself up to whatever might be involved in securing what His heart was set upon. Whatever was involved in, or necessitated by that path of love on which He had entered, He delivered Himself up. It brings out the amazing value of what He devoted in love.
Ques How this would enhance the value of the assembly! Would the climax be presenting it to Himself?
CAC Yes, if such preciousness and value and infinite worth has been delivered up for the assembly, there must be an adequate answer. The adequate answer is that He gets the assembly and has the joy of serving it in love until it becomes the perfect reflex of every thought of beauty that is in His own heart.
[p. 93] Ques Does the apostle refer to this when he speaks of “the fulness of him who fills all in all”?
CAC I thought we saw at the end of chapter 1 the universal headship of Christ, and in that universal headship the assembly stands in relation to Him as His fulness. The fulness of the Head is expressed in the assembly in a way that will never come out in any other company of saints. He is Head over all things to the assembly, and she is His fulness; she stands in relation to Him in His universal glory as His fulness; that is there will be a shining out in the assembly of His fulness. The king’s wife is linked with him; however great the glory of his kingdom and the extent of his dominions, when he goes about in his royal visitations the queen is by his side and is seen to share all with him.
Rem Paul speaks of “a light above the brightness of the sun”, Acts 26: 13. The sun had paled in comparison, so the type in Genesis pales in the presence of what we have here.
CAC Yes. You feel, after all, that is only the shadow, and now you are in the presence of the glorious substance. Adam is the great type of Christ as Head and, in a certain sense, he is a figure of Christ as Head over all things, for all the created domain was under Adam and Eve was his fulness. She was his counterpart; the features that came out in Adam could come out in her; there was no disparity between them.
The work of God is to prepare us to be influenced by Christ. A great point in this epistle is that He has been set at God’s right hand, and He is there according to Psalm 19; the heavens have become a tent, or tabernacle for the bridegroom. In that Psalm we read that “The heavens declare the glory of God”, and the supreme glory of the heavens is the sun. God has set a tabernacle for the sun; “He is as a bridegroom going forth from his chamber”
[p. 94] and He goes through the whole circuit of the heavens, “and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof”. There is a supreme and commanding influence in heaven at this moment, and that influence is the influence of Christ as the Bridegroom. Shining down from the heavens of the divine glory are beams that shine from the Bridegroom and the work of God makes us sensitive to the influence of that light. We have in this chapter, “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee”. The result of Christ shining upon us is that we come under the influence of His love. It is the influence of the Bridegroom whose tabernacle at the present moment is in the heavens and who is moving over the whole appointed course until every soul that has been chosen of God to be part of His wife comes under the shining and influence of what is emanating from Him in heaven; that is how the assembly as the wife is formed. She is formed under the influence of the love of the heavenly Christ.
Ques Do you connect all that with the thought of derivation?
CAC This is how the assembly is brought to Him, not how she draws from Him. Chapter 4 opens out how she derives from Him, just as Eve derived from Adam. But it was another side of things when Jehovah brought her to Adam, and that is the idea here, that the assembly is brought to Christ. The result of coming under His influence by the work of God is that the assembly is brought to Christ and she is subjected to Him; that is the point.
Ques Do I understand that the assembly existed before Christ loved her?
CAC Well, she is presented as being in view of the mind and heart of Christ; all that the assembly was to be for His satisfaction was present to His heart and mind, so [p. 95] that in His love He devoted Himself for her. He delivered Himself over to everything that was needed to make the assembly His own.
Rem I suppose we have to take in one thought at a time; the derivation has to be looked at at one time and this at another.
CAC Yes. The thought of the body and the wife blend ultimately, but we can look at them separately. As the body, all derives from Christ. As the wife, all is for Christ, subjected to Christ. This precious section is full of the activity of the love of Christ. We are told that Christ is Head of the assembly and that she is subjected to Him, and after that all is His activity in love.
Ques Is it the love of Christ that has brought that subjection about?
CAC Yes, and the work of God prepares us to be influenced by the love of Christ, by the warmth of it. That is a wonderful word in Psalm 19, “There is nothing hid from the heat thereof”; not only the light thereof, but the heat thereof. The heat speaks of the love of Christ, but none of us would have been influenced by the love of Christ apart from the work of God; the work of God makes us impressionable to the love of Christ and then we come into the place of being subjected to Christ. The assembly is subjected to Christ; she is not merely to be obedient to Him, but to be the subject of the service of His love, for what we find here is that He does everything. He does much more than Adam ever did for Eve.
Ques Is the thought of sanctifying and purifying the present activity of His love?
CAC Yes, the assembly is subjected to Him in the sense that she becomes the subject of His service. It is most important that, through the work of God, she should be subject to the service of His love. He would carry it on; He delivered Himself up in order that He [p. 96] might do so.
Ques Does that limit the thought to the assembly?
CAC It is limited to the assembly clearly. Christ is Head of the assembly here. It has been said, and I think it is quite true, that “the assembly” is a very exalted designation, because it implies intelligence, and Christ can stand in marital relation to the assembly. Adam could not stand in marital relation to any of the creatures that were there for there was disparity; there was no counterpart for Adam. Now, the assembly is a company formed through divine working to be intelligently and affectionately the counterpart of Christ, so that He can stand in marital relation: He can be her Husband — to that company, and that company can be to Him all that a wife should be for such a Husband. Very wonderful!
Ques Is this work of Christ going on during the sin period, and does it cease at His coming when the assembly is translated?
CAC Well, I think the divine thought is that it finishes before the assembly is translated, because the point is that the assembly as the fruit of the service of love and the purifying of love becomes all that He wants her to be before she is translated. She is to be presented “to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”, as the result of His purifying service, not as the result of His translating power. Her suitability to Him is brought about morally and affectionately. Christ serves her in love so that the assembly may have this character of holiness and blamelessness and everything that answers to His pleasure before she is translated. He delivered Himself up for the assembly in order that He might sanctify it. The Christ, the Head, would have us apart from every impression that does not come to us from Himself and through His own death. There is that in Himself, particularly in His delivering Himself up for [p. 97] us, that is sufficient to set us apart from every other influence. Then there is purifying by the washing of water by the word; there is a moral process carried on. The blessed character and import of Christ delivering Himself up for us is brought home in purifying power by ministry in the assembly. I do not know whether I am right but I have an impression that this is properly the character of assembly ministry.
Ques What do you mean by assembly ministry?
CAC Well, ministry when the saints are convened in assembly. I believe there has been a great disregard of the love of Christ in regard of that. There should be liberty for this purifying service to be carried on through ministry in the assembly, that which would have the character of direct service of the Head towards the assembly, in the character of the wife. I feel that if we were more awake to that we should get peculiar touches from the Head when we are together in assembly. We must not think that what we can say to the Lord or even to the Father is the greatest thing in the assembly; a word from the Head would surely take precedence of all else in the assembly. I am sure that if the Lord actually came into our midst in a visible way, we should wait to hear what He would say. We should not be in a great hurry to speak to Him; we should all feel instinctively that there was something better than that we should speak to Him and that is that He should speak to us. That must be greater. I think we suffer from the fact that in bygone days there used to be too much of what I might call sermonising in the morning on levitical lines. Men able to minister give a word pretty much as they might at any other time, but in the assembly should we not look for ministry that is in a special way from the Head? So that it is not merely that a brother gives a word, but there is something which we can recognise as from the Head, Christ’s service of love [p. 98] bringing the purifying influence of the delivering up of Christ, and all its import in purifying power to our affections. What a precious thing it would be. The scripture before us tonight suggests that there is such a thing as the purifying of the assembly, the saints viewed in assembly character.
Ques Would it flow out of the breaking of bread?
CAC There is no time more favourable for the service of Christ as Head in love than the meeting for the breaking of bread. I wonder whether we have left enough room for the service of the Head; that is the question.
Rem It should be a great concern for us all to feel that the Lord speaking to us is greater than our speaking to Him, and it would make us all desire that there should be room for the Lord to speak. When He did, it would carry conviction that it was from the Lord and it would have the effect of bringing in this holy element.
CAC Yes, and it would result in worship. You may be sure that Christ as Head would never say so much that there was no room for response. If the Head ministered to us, it would be with a view to bring us into line with Himself so that He might carry us with Him into the presence of His God and Father.
Ques Do you connect the word from the Head with ministry particularly, or might it not come through a hymn?
CAC A hymn is evidently addressed by us to the Lord or to God; it is our speaking to divine Persons.
Ques We speak of calling Him into presence. Do you not think if we really knew what that was that we should get this word from the Head?
CAC I think so, and its purifying efficacy would be known, so that all that is unsuitable in His wife would be got rid of. The purifying goes on until the assembly becomes suitable for presentation to Himself. It is [p. 99] brought to that point morally before being actually translated. It is very great; one feels how little one has entered into it.
Rem In the Revelation it says, “His wife has made herself ready”.
CAC I think the Revelation largely presents things from the responsible side, and hence we find that His wife has made herself ready. It has been said, and I believe it is right, that it regards the saints as having passed the judgment seat. At the judgment seat everything will be adjusted; all the things that have not been adjusted before will be adjusted then, and she has made herself ready. “It was given to her that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints”, Revelation 19: 8. She is seen there adorned in a wedding garment that has been made stitch by stitch through moving on spiritual lines in the responsible course here. But things are looked at in Ephesians 5 entirely from the side of the service of Christ, and to get the benefit of this there is only one thing necessary, and that is subjection. The only feature mentioned of the assembly is that she is subjected to the Christ. The feature of subjection makes room for all His service of love and its results, and Paul’s adding, “He is Saviour of the body”, shows how practical it all is. He looks at the body of a sister (because it is sisters he is speaking to) as being a subject vessel. Now Christ as Head of the assembly is “Saviour of the body”; He looks at the body as a subject vessel. There may be an intimation in it of the body in a spiritual sense also, but I believe it refers to the actual body. It is in the bodies of the saints that the spirit of subjection comes out; it is not something up in the air but a very practical thing, and the saving power of the Head is vouchsafed to every subject vessel. It is a comfort to know that as part of the wife we have [p. 100] not to be concerned about active service but about the spirit of subjection. Having said that Christ is the Head of the assembly, Paul says, in a kind of parenthesis, “He is Saviour of the body”. The assembly is committed to subjection; we are assured of support and preservation for every subject vessel. If we want His support, we must see to it that our bodies are vessels of subjection, then the precious service of the love of Christ can go on.
It is very striking that the assembly is not said to do anything in this chapter. He does everything. He loves, He delivers Himself up, He sanctifies, He purifies, He presents, He nourishes and cherishes; it is all the service of His love. That is Headship: we get His universal Headship in chapter 1, His Headship of the body in chapter 4 and derivation of everything from Him, and now we get His Headship of the assembly, an intelligent company marked by subjection, a company that is subject to Christ for His service in love to bring the most precious and divine influences to bear upon them. He delivered Himself up in order that He might be able to do it. We have just to be subject; that is the place of the wife, the place of the assembly, subjection. That is what we want to be more exercised about.