THE ASSEMBLY EXPRESSING THE GLORY OF GOD
The assembly must be an expression of the glory of God in localities; it is God’s masterpiece and perhaps the greatest presentation of it that we can find in the Scriptures is in Ephesians 3: 21: “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”. We have to consider this affirmation: the assembly is indeed the expression of the glory of God through all generations of the age of ages. It is clear that it must be wonderfully formed in intelligence and in deep affection for God and for Christ. What grace of God that we can have part in it!
It is exalted and distinguished—a vessel composed of men, but men in Christ Jesus, men who belong to an exalted order of manhood, an order that God had in His mind to present.
In order that the assembly should take this character, a divine Person has become Man. Every moral excellence is now found in Christ and in all those who are in Him by the Spirit. We need to consider well our calling in order to give the Holy Spirit the full place that He seeks, so that what corresponds to Christ Jesus may be formed in us. The present time is a time of formation. The Holy Spirit is here, come from Christ in glory to accomplish this great work in the assembly. God is working at the present time in view of eternity, but also in view of securing today a testimony in the presence of evil.
It is wonderful indeed that in the midst of evil, it is possible to have going up to God a sweet odour of what is agreeable to Him by Jesus Christ. This is what the Lord and the Spirit have in view to secure for Him among the saints.
In 1 Corinthians 1, it is a question of the assembly in its actual expression, seen in localities. The epistle is addressed to the assembly of God which is in Corinth, but also “to all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”—so that the instruction it contains applies to every local assembly in each place where the truth is maintained.
Two great thoughts are in view: Jesus Christ—that is to say, another order of man—and the Holy Spirit.
When the Scripture speaks of Christ Jesus, it has in view the Man that God has always had before Him, the Man according to His purpose, the One in whom all His thoughts relating to man are realised. When the Scripture speaks of Jesus Christ, it is a matter of the same Person, marked by the same features, but as destined to replace every other man. The Holy Spirit is occupied with Jesus as He has been known by men down here, and it is Him that God has anointed and made Christ. He has chosen from among men One in whom He has found His delight. This implies putting aside every other man. God’s mind is that the assembly should be a vessel to which He can confide His Name and in which He is to be glorified. He cannot confide either His Name or His glory to the first man, who always seeks his own glory and his own will. Jesus has come, the Man who has always done God’s will: “to do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart”, Ps 40: 8.
Having the light of the assembly, Paul draws attention to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified. We must have this thought constantly before us, for God would confide His Name to the assembly in a locality, and if a feature of the first man is manifested, it is dishonoured.
We have this thought in the tabernacle, that God commanded, so as to dwell among His people and to be served by them. This tabernacle had to be carried in testimony, and I say again that if the testimony is to be entrusted to men, they have to be men according to Christ, for every other order of man is corrupted. The centre of the testimony was the ark of acacia wood and the boards were also of the same, acacia wood; the saints have to be of the same order as Christ.
When the tabernacle was constructed, each part was anointed in the smallest details, the priesthood was also anointed. We have to understand that it is essential that the service of God should be characterised by the Holy Spirit. All that is done in the assembly must be undertaken in the power and dignity of the Spirit.
Paul was determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ. He brings in the Man that God has anointed. When David was brought out, how attractive he was! The more we consider Christ, the more we become attracted.
At the temptation of the Lord in the wilderness, it was proved that there was an incorruptible Man: Christ who alone has resisted every temptation. We have a place in this order of incorruptible manhood by the Holy Spirit, by the fact that redemption has been brought in.
The apostle presents Christ to the Corinthians and tells them that Christ has been crucified, bringing before them the moral importance of this fact: the Lord had not been announced publicly as the Christ until He had been crucified and raised. The angel had indeed announced, “a Saviour, who is Christ …” but we see that to His disciples the Lord was not announced publicly as the Christ until His resurrection. At the cross, what man is had been manifested and judgment expressed; it is not only a matter of putting the man aside, only deserving a cross, but God has expressed there His complete abhorrence of the first man. This must get into our souls. The moral importance of the cross must be before us. The Holy Spirit is always occupied with the exaltation of Christ. He would lead us in accord with what God has done at the cross. The result of the Holy Spirit’s service should normally lead to a growing appreciation of Christ and an increasing displacement of what is natural. This is essential because there can be nothing for God in the assembly if it is not by the Spirit. The Spirit cannot have any agreement with the flesh. The anointing oil could not have contact with the flesh of man, Lev 8: 22, 23 and 30. If the foundation is secure, the Spirit will be free and there will be enlargement.
The apostle presents the truth to us in an attractive way: if we arrive at being delivered from a carnal state, the Spirit will have His full liberty. The Corinthians were such that the apostle could not speak to them of God’s great things, but He says enough to them to show them a little of what the result would be if they arrived at this knowledge.
The wisdom of God is a mystery. To stimulate us therefore, the apostle speaks of immense riches: “which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed to us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God”, 1 Cor 2: 9, 10.
The fish of the sea are a suggestive allusion to the riches which are open to us by the Spirit. The fish have never been numbered or exhausted. God alone knows their quantity. For centuries they have been there, they can be drawn on for food. What inexhaustible riches in the things of the Spirit! “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God”. If therefore we give ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we will be enriched. The service of God is not to be marked by poverty, but by variety and richness.
The passage read in Samuel illustrates the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ must gain His place in the hearts of the saints. Every other kind of man must be displaced in localities.
Samuel knew that this mission would encounter opposition: “if Saul hear it, he will kill me”—“Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah”. The elders and Jesse were to be there. In localities, all must take part in what secures God’s pleasure. Everyone contributes to it: it is a sacrifice. Christianity is a system of sacrifice, beginning with the sacrifice of God giving His Son; then we have the sacrifice of Christ offering Himself, then the sacrifice of the Holy Spirit pleased to accept a subordinate place in the service. The Persons of the Godhead lead us in the path of sacrifice. The whole system is characterised by this. “Even the Christ pleased not himself”. May this thought be on our hearts. If there is anything here for God, this can only be on the line of sacrifice.
When Jesse and his sons come before Samuel, he is at first attracted by Eliab, but he is rejected. This shows how easily even the most spiritual can be attracted to the first man. In the previous chapter, Samuel has been faithful, now he is misled because of Eliab’s appearance. In the following chapter, Eliab shows what he is: jealous of David. Samuel goes through exercise until all the sons have passed who are to be rejected. Three are named, representing what is attractive according to the flesh. The other four represent man in his entirety. All are rejected.
It is thus that David is brought in: “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”. The sacrifice to Jehovah could not begin before he was brought in: “we will not sit at table till he come hither”, v 11. This does not signify that we cannot take the Supper until Christ comes, for He is absent, but we cannot commence the service until Christ has been brought in.
The seven who have been rejected as men are retained as brethren. This speaks to us of the setting aside in the cross of all that we are according to the flesh. We can be seen according to the order of Christ, partakers of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit received is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We are of His own order, the order of the heavenly Man. We can be with Christ as those of whom He is not ashamed. The Spirit of Jehovah came upon David. The Spirit would Himself consecrate what is of Jesus Christ.
What we have to carry in our minds in the assembly is Jesus Christ—and the man according to this order—it is by the Spirit that we are maintained in this order.
May the Lord help us to secure such conditions with a growing desire. That will strengthen us in the thought of sacrifice which affords pleasure to God.
BEAUVOISIN
5th November 1949
Translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’,
September 1950
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