WHAT GOD WOULD HAVE IN OUR HEARTS
I wish to speak, dear brethren, of what God would have to be in our hearts. First of all His desire is that the Christ should dwell in our hearts, through faith; and secondly there is the thought of Paul being in our hearts, as the one in whom, as a man of like passions to ourselves, the features of what is heavenly are set forth, so that he is presented in the Scriptures as one whom we are to imitate. And then finally the saints are to be in our hearts, as Paul says, “ye are in our hearts, to die together and live together”. Well now, it is a great thing that the Christ should dwell in our hearts. We read in 2 Corinthians that God has given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts; that is a wonderful thing, because the earnest is more than mere light, it involves some substantial entering into the enjoyment of the things of Christianity, things which in their fulness and actuality are still future, but which may be known in a very considerable measure of present power and enjoyment in the Holy Spirit. It is a most touching thing that the Holy Spirit should take up His abode in us, in order to bring in our heavenly portion in a substantial way to be known while we are still in conditions of humiliation.
In Ephesians the apostle prays that we might be strengthened with might by the Father’s Spirit in the inner man, so that the Christ might dwell through faith in our hearts. ‘The Christ’ is an arresting expression, it is not only Christ as He might be known in relation to our own needs, but it is Christ personally as the One who is the anointed Man of God’s pleasure and purpose. We have been hearing this afternoon that God’s choicest thoughts centre in man. He has other creatures, in angels, but it is not angels that are primarily in His mind, but it is man that is primarily in the mind of God. And in having these thoughts in regard to man, what was before God, of course, was the incarnation, a divine Person entering into manhood, and thus inaugurating in Himself an order of manhood great enough to satisfy the heart of God, and to bring in a character of response to God worthy of Himself. But then God’s thoughts in regard of man do not finish with Christ, but they involve that which is feminine, as we know from the first chapter of Genesis; God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”, and then it says, “male and female created he them”. From the very start God had in mind the great thought of the assembly. This is of the greatest importance to us, dear brethren, not simply as a matter of having intelligence in the thoughts of God, though that is important, but because it has been given to us to live in the day in which the assembly is being formed; in that sense we are greater than Abraham, or Moses, or Daniel, or any of these great persons of whom we read in the Old Testament. Not that we would make anything of ourselves, it is just a question of what God in His sovereignty is pleased to make us, and what He has in mind to effect in this dispensation in which we are living. And from that standpoint it is of the greatest importance that we should have an increasing understanding of what the assembly is according to the mind of God, because it is that which He is chiefly occupied with at the present time. It is a vessel immense in extent, in that it is taking God nearly two thousand years to form it, and it is embracing those of every nation under the sun. It is the masterpiece of God’s wisdom, and the expression of His love.
Let us think of such a vessel, formed of so vast a number of persons, each naturally having different features, but all wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit baptised into one body, and formed after Christ. Not merely so many individuals formed after Christ, but formed in such wonderful wisdom, that the assembly, when finished, will be absolutely complete as the body of Christ, the fulness of Him who is to fill all in all; there will be nothing lacking, and nothing superfluous. Such is the wisdom of God. And hence, dear brethren, we can see how urgent it is that we should have a real sense of the greatness of the mind of God and the importance of the assembly, because it is that which He is forming at this present time.
But first we must have a right apprehension of the Christ Himself. You remember Simeon had it revealed to him, by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ; the Christ of God. And in Luke’s gospel Peter is recorded as having confessed the Lord as the Christ of God. It is an immense thing to get an apprehension of Christ as the Christ of God, He is the One in whom God will head up all things. God has been pleased to let us into the secret of the mystery of His will for the administration of the fulness of times, that is, the world to come, and that is to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth. But then it goes on to say, “In whom we have also received an inheritance” which brings in the place which the assembly has in the mind of God as united to Christ; so that what He enters into as Man we enter into with Him.
Now all this was indicated early in a hidden way in Genesis, for as we know, God not only created the heavens and the earth, and not only operated to bring the earth out of the condition of chaos into which it had become, but then He operated to bring about a world on it. Hannah says in her song, “The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he hath set the world upon them”. So that not only did God bring the earth into view as a platform of His operations, but He set a world upon it, a world of life in infinite variety; the birds of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the cattle and beasts of the earth; and great variety in each class. God loves variety of life, and He brought into being a world with variety of life in it. And then having done that He created man, and He set him over the whole position. And having done that, He said, “It is not good that Man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate, his like”.
Now that is the position typically, dear brethren, in relation to the Christ. Of course, when you come to the Christ as the anti-type of Adam, He was not created, He is the Word become flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”. And then lower down we read, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. A stupendous thing, the most momentous thing in all history, that God Himself should become Man, in the Person of Christ, in order that all God’s thoughts regarding man should now come into view, in One competent to set them forth and maintain them. But then what is perhaps equally marvellous is that God should propose that Christ should have a helpmate, His like; that He should have a complement, formed of those who are only creatures; that by means of God’s operation in those who are creatures, there should be brought into view this vessel which in its completeness is to be the fulness of the Christ.
Well, dear brethren, this is no longer a matter only of light, but the assembly is here, the time for it has come. Many years went by in the ways of God since He gave this hidden indication of what was in His mind, before Christ came. But now He has come, and the Spirit, too, has come. We might ask, Why did God allow so many centuries to go by before He introduced Christ, when the thought was in His mind all along? That, of course, is deserving of enquiry but among other things, I have no doubt God intended to demonstrate that none of His thoughts could be made good in any other man but in the second Man out of heaven. It needed a divine Person in manhood as the only one in whom God could effect His thoughts in regard to man. But I say again, dear brethren, that the time for this has come, and therefore let every brother and sister ask himself why has God wrought in me in new birth? Why has He opened my eyes to Christ, when perhaps my neighbour living next door has no appreciation of Him? Why is it that God has wrought in me? Let everyone ask himself about it; the wondrous sovereign operation of the blessèd God, that has taken you up for no less than this. And then you might say, what has God in mind in all His ways with me? because God has His own perfect ways with every one of His children, and they all have in mind the formation of this vessel, the assembly; and so great is it in the sight of Christ that He has loved the assembly and has given Himself for it.
That is another thing we have to bear in mind, not only what God is working, but how Christ loves the assembly. As the woman was brought to the man, as formed from the man, the man said, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. Now the Lord can look upon the assembly in that light, although it is not yet complete. He can see something tangible there amongst the saints, and He is entitled to clothe it with complete thoughts, and the Christ has loved the assembly, and has delivered Himself up for it. I would that every brother and sister might get a real sense that there is that on earth at the present moment which is the peculiar object of the love of Christ. There are other families, and all will stand in the value of the redemption accomplished in the death of Christ, but no other family, in heaven or earth, has the place in the affections of Christ that the assembly has. And therefore the Supper is so precious; it belongs exclusively to the assembly. In it we get a definite sense that there is that which is unique in the love of Christ for the assembly, which is our own portion and belongs to no other family. All that, dear brethren, would quicken our desires that the Christ should dwell in our hearts by faith; because, speaking reverently, He belongs to us, as we belong to Him. The feminine speaker in the Song of Songs says first of all, “My beloved is mine, and I am his”, but then later on she says, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine”. She first thinks of what Christ is to her, but as she moves on, she says, “I am my beloved’s”, putting that first, as though her heart rises to the sense of what the assembly is to the heart of Christ, and she glories in that. And that is what we should glory in.
The assembly is a wonderful conception, we can easily understand what a wonderful place it will have with Christ in the day to come, when He administers the whole scene, heaven and earth, for the pleasure of God and for His glory; He will have available for Him a vessel which is entirely of Him, His own fulness. In it all that He is morally as a Man can find expression, and He will use it as the heavenly city coming down out of heaven from God, in order to express the glory of God. Not only has God been perfectly expressed in Christ, the Word become flesh, but now the Lord has available under His hand, and will have in completeness in a day soon to come, a vessel in which the glory of God can be perfectly expressed. And what that must mean to the heart of Christ, for there was nothing that He cherished more than that God should be glorified.
But it is not only what the assembly will be to Him in that day, as a vessel in which the glory of God can be expressed, but it will also be, what it is already, thank God, in large measure, a vessel under His hand, in which the service of the blessed God can be maintained eternally, in intelligence and affections which are derived from Christ, by the Spirit. So that there will be an answer to God worthy of God, Christ Himself giving character and impulse to it, and the Holy Spirit sustaining and energising it, for the assembly is united to Christ by the Holy Spirit which dwells in it. I doubt if there is any more exalted conception in Scripture than the thought of the assembly in Christ Jesus. It says, unto Him, that is to God, “be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”. With that in mind the apostle bowed his knees, as though he had the feeling that whatever is said cannot of itself bring the saints into the good of it. Even the apostle Paul, with his wonderful knowledge of the mystery, and the outstanding gift that the Lord had given him, realised that that by itself would not suffice to bring the saints into these things. And so he says, “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit, the Father’s Spirit, in the inner man”. The Father is the source of these great thoughts, and the Father’s Spirit is able to bring the Father’s thoughts into our hearts, the Father’s appreciation of Christ; the Father’s delight in Christ, and the Father’s thoughts in regard of the assembly. The Father’s Spirit is able to bring all that into our hearts. It is very interesting how the Holy Spirit will assume different characters according to the need of the moment; He will operate as the Father’s Spirit; and He will operate in our hearts as the Spirit of God’s Son, He will operate in many different ways according to the need of the moment.
It is a most touching thing that the Spirit of the One who has conceived these things, the One who is the Head of the whole system of glory, that is the Father, should be operating in our hearts with a view to this, that the Christ might dwell in our hearts by faith. He is not to be dislodged from the place that is due to Him, He is entitled to this place in the affections of the assembly, and He is not to be dislodged from it. If He has His place in our hearts, one result will be that we shall be devoted to His interests in His absence. That is a sure proof of Christ having His place in our hearts, and if we are not devoted to His interests in His absence then it may well be questioned whether He has His place in our hearts. And so it says, “Being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. I do not enlarge on that, dear brethren, because what I particularly wanted to stress at this time was the great thought of “the Christ” dwelling in our hearts by faith.
Now I pass on to Philippians, because the apostle there in writing to those saints says, very significantly, “ye have me in your hearts” and the ‘me’ is emphatic. As you read the epistle you cannot but be impressed with the bond of affectionate sympathy which existed between the Philippian saints and the apostle Paul. And another thing that runs right through the epistle, and especially the first chapter, is the thought of the glad tidings, so Paul says, “both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation of the glad tidings ye are all participators in my grace”. We are not to have any low thoughts as to the glad tidings, or to become careless in regard of them, because the glad tidings are God’s public testimony in the world, the name of God is bound up with them. Let us not forget that, they are God’s public testimony in the world, He is to become known as a Saviour God. And not only is there to be the verbal testimony to the glad tidings, as it says, How shall they hear without a preacher, so the preaching must go on, it is essential in the ways of God that men should hear through a preacher, but what is possibly even more important than the verbal testimony is that the saints themselves should commend the gospel by being the exponents of the power of the gospel to save them practically, so that they are not overcome by any principle of evil of this world, or by the pressure of things in this life. They are able to stand forth in the world, whatever comes upon them, as saved persons, persons who through the power of the glad tidings are superior to the influences to which they are subjected.
Now Paul represents that in this epistle to the Philippians. He represents one who in an outstanding way was formed by the gospel; not a popular gospel but the heavenly gospel, that had been the means of transforming a man who had been a vessel of Satan, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, so that he took on the Spirit of Christ, and moved in this world completely superior to the circumstances of pressure through which he was called to pass. That is the power of the glad tidings. And Paul was the exemplification of that; and being such he was in the hearts of the Philippians; and I put it to myself, dear brethren, and to you, that Paul is to be in our hearts, because he was specially taken up by God as one in whom the truth of Christianity was to be exemplified.
Of course we should all be minded to exemplify the truth, but Paul is taken up by the Spirit of God as one who can say in the Spirit, “Be my imitators as I also am of Christ”; and indeed in this very epistle he says, “Be imitators all together of me, brethren”, hence Paul is to be in our hearts. Christ, of course, is the great standard, but at the same time Paul is given to us as one in whom, a man of like passions to ourselves, the truth in its heavenly features was worked out in a remarkable degree. And therefore we are to have Paul in our hearts. And so Paul, knowing the place he had in the affections of the Philippians, says in this first chapter, “But I would have you know, brethren, that the circumstances in which I am have turned out rather to the furtherance of the glad tidings”. He was in prison in Rome, but his bonds were being made manifest as being in Christ; he was not there through any misdeeds on his part, he was there on account of the testimony of the Christ. His bonds were being made manifest as such, and this shows the superiority of Christianity to all that went before.
You remember how the Lord speaks of John the baptist as the greatest born among women, but the least, He said, in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Now when John the baptist was cast into prison for the testimony’s sake, he came under the power of the depression connected with his circumstances, and began to lose faith, sending to Jesus and saying, “Art thou the coming one? or are we to wait for another?” But not so Paul; see the contrast in a man who is the living exemplification of the power of the glad tidings. He recognises that it is not in any power of his own that he can become superior, he counts on the supplications of the saints, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. What a victory it would have been for Satan if Paul had been overcome, if he had given way to complaining and discouragement! But Paul is sustained, through their supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, right through to the end. Paul was in their hearts, and I believe we can well afford to have him in our hearts.
Take the third chapter of this epistle and see what marked him as he drew near to the end of his life; a man whose life had been so full of devoted service to Christ, and I have no doubt he was still carrying the burden of all the assemblies in his heart, and concerned too about the ministry, because in the prison he wrote some of his choicest epistles. But then instead of being over-burdened by these things he shows us in the third chapter what was before him. He says his great desire was to gain Christ—you marvel that Paul should say that, and to be found in Him. He is looking forward to that which he is going on to, to be found entirely in Christ, with not a trace at all of Saul of Tarsus, not a trace left of the natural, and yet it would be Paul; but Paul in Christ. But he was looking forward to it, and we may well look forward to it. And if we have it before us as the great goal to which we are being led, the concern will be with us to accept everything as God’s ordering for us, and as that in which Christ may be magnified in our body whether by life or by death. That is what he had in mind, and that is what the Lord would help us to have in mind too, because if Paul is in our hearts we shall see that what governed Paul has a place with us.
Well now, in closing I refer to Corinthians because Paul says, “ye are in our hearts, to die together, and live together”. He has been opening up much to the Corinthians and he arrives at a point where he urges on the Corinthians to come out from every link with evil and be separate, he says, and touch not the unclean thing. Notice how emphatic the Spirit of God is, “touch not what is unclean”. And there is the promise of the Lord Almighty to the one who will answer to these injunctions and come out from among them and be separate and not touch the unclean thing. God says, “I will receive you” and further, “and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, that is, there is that promise on God’s part. And now the apostle says, “Having therefore these promises”, I understand the thought of a promise is that God gives us something that faith can rely upon; if God makes a promise, He has committed Himself to it and He will not fail. And therefore in all the testing exercises that compliance with these injunctions may result in there is this promise to support faith, and God will stand true to His promise. “I will receive you”, He says, “and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”. Not only is He faithful but He has the power to make good all that He has promised, because He is the Lord Almighty.
And so Paul says, “Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in God’s fear”. The fear of God is a most important thing, it is one of the greatest preservatives there is. It is something that should mark us all through our course, the oldest or most spiritual of us has to recognise that he has to be in the fear of God all the day long. “Be thou”, Solomon says to his son, “in the fear of the Jehovah all the day”, Prov 23: 17. There is nothing so preservative as the fear of God. I believe the fear of God is what answers to the salt that we often read of in Scripture; in all our offerings there is to be salt, and we are to have salt in ourselves. And then he says, “Receive us: we have injured no one, we have ruined no one, we have made gain of no one. I do not speak for condemnation, for I have already said that ye are in our hearts, to die together, and live together”. How the apostle stresses the thought of ‘together’, to die together first, and then live together. That is the principle of Christianity, life out of death; but he says ‘to die together, and live together’. We know well that in Corinth there had been a setting up of particular leaders in a spirit of rivalry so that Paul had to say that they were saying, “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas”. But he tells us later on that he had transferred those things to himself and Apollos so as to bring the matter out more clearly and appeal to them more tenderly without exposing the particular local leaders that were really involved. And then he says in the third chapter of the epistle, “Who then is Apollos, and who Paul?” putting Apollos before himself. They are but ministering servants, that is all they are, ministering servants; to be honoured indeed by the saints for their work’s sake, but they are ministering servants according as the Lord has given to each. And what hast thou, he says further, which thou hast not received? There is no point in our accrediting ourselves with what we have of spiritual things, for we have nothing that we have not received; and if we have received it why do we boast as if we had not received it. It is a question of having received it, as the Lord has given to each.
So this is intended to regulate us in our relations with one another, that there should be no rivalry, either on my own part or on the part of others on my behalf, or anything of that sort. But the apostle says, “ye are in our hearts to die together, and live together”. And that is the great thing, dear brethren, to be together, to be together in love, and anything that will promote it is to be followed up by us; and anything that will hinder it or be prejudicial to it is to be avoided. We shall be together at the coming of the Lord, it says, “Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds ... and so shall we ever be with the Lord”. And so it is a great matter to have the saints in our hearts. “Ye are in our hearts”, the apostle says, “to die together, and live together”. Satan is always busy in some way or another to seek to bring in disrupting influences; but Paul had the saints in his heart, to die together, and live together.
May the Lord help us in these things for His Name’s sake.
BROOKLYN
22nd February 1950
From Notes of Readings in New York 1952, vol 21
(Ministry of James Taylor—Old Series, vol 190)
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