INCORRUPTIBILITY
[p. 412] INCORRUPTIBILITY
Romans 1: 21 - 23; 2 Timothy 1: 8 - 11; Romans 2: 5 - 7
It helps in the understanding of incorruptibility to see that it is characteristic of God — He is the incorruptible God. That shows clearly that a great spiritual thought is suggested to us in incorruptibility. It has been too often limited in our thoughts to bodily condition, but incorruptibility is a spiritual thought; we see that when we recognise that God is the incorruptible God. That is the key to the subject. Indeed what God is must be the key to the whole system of divine truth; in the universe which is for the pleasure of God everything must correspond with Him.
It is impossible that there could be any change or decay with God. Whatever there may be on the side of the creature, whatever God may have to say to in the creature, and He has had to say to the creature as innocent and fallen, as sinful without law and as a transgressor under law, and as a hater and rejector of Christ, but whatever there may be on the side of the creature, God remains the incorruptible God; there is no change in Him; nothing can by any possibility make God to be other than what He is. The secret of all blessing and spiritual stability, and of our confidence in God, lies in our knowing Him as the incorruptible God. But if God is the incorruptible God everything that is for His pleasure must be brought into correspondence with Himself, and therefore He is going to put the impress of incorruptibility on the whole reconciled universe.
The object of the enemy in setting up the vast system of idolatry was to destroy the thought of the incorruptibility of God. We read in Romans 1 that they “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and quadrupeds and reptiles”.
[p. 413] Satan would have men to think of God as being like what man is, or some other inferior creature. A false thought of God must be destructive. “They glorified him not as God”. The root principle of stability for our souls is that we should glorify God as God. The whole population of the world stood round Noah’s altar; they all knew God; but they did not continue to glorify Him as God. The two things which mark the ruin of the creature are that he does not glorify God as God, and he is not thankful.
Man is corruptible; there is no correspondence between God as incorruptible and man as corruptible. Man as made out of dust is corruptible, and at every phase of his history he has been manifested to be so. In innocence, the moment temptation came he lost the character which attached to him by God’s creation, and we see all through Scripture that whatever glory or distinction God was pleased to put upon man only served to make manifest that man was corruptible.
Incorruptibility was not brought to light until the gospel came. There was a long period in which it was being manifested that man the creature was not in correspondence with God. But it was that state of things which gave God occasion to work to bring about that man should be brought into correspondence with Himself by our Saviour Jesus Christ. God has now secured an incorruptible Man. It is of all importance for us to see that we have to do with an incorruptible God whose nature does not change, whose attributes do not change, whose thoughts and purposes do not change. And it is equally important to see also that God has secured an incorruptible Man, and if men are to be blessed at all it must be by and in that Man.
Life and incorruptibility have come to light and subsist; there is a blessed Man with God now in life and incorruptibility. The man made out of dust has fallen under sin and Satan’s power; he is marked by weakness and death; he is lost. But the power of God has come in by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and by His annulling death, to save [p. 414] us from everything that was connected with the corruptible man. Death had to be annulled, for it was the judgment of God upon man as having sinned. It was met by our Saviour Jesus Christ going into it, and tasting all its dread reality and power. But the fact that He entered into death has annulled death. So far as Christ is concerned death is absolutely void and of none effect, for it has not been able to hold Him. He lives as a risen Man for God’s pleasure eternally. Life and incorruptibility have come to light, and are available for men.
Man in the Person of our Saviour Jesus Christ is in blessed relation to God outside the power and shadow of death, and in an incorruptible state and condition. And He is the subject of God’s glad tidings to sinful men. There is a necessity that man as under the power of sin and death should be saved. Paul writes to Timothy of “the power of God; who has saved us”. Paul and Timothy were saved men, and if these two — and many others — were saved, it shows what the power of God is doing for men. It has come to light as acting in the way of salvation, and bringing in life and incorruptibility.
Paul says, “I have been appointed a herald and apostle and teacher of the nations”. He heralded forth in the glad tidings salvation and life and incorruptibility, and he taught the character of the glad tidings that men might learn to seek after glory and honour and incorruptibility. We see in Romans 2 that these things become objects of pursuit to men. They are substantial realities set forth in Christ, and presented in the glad tidings so as to become a goal of pursuit. The effect of the gospel is to put people in movement in the direction of glory, honour and incorruptibility. The measure in which the gospel has come in power to our souls is the measure in which we are in movement in that direction.
I believe the thought of “glory” is that everything will be made to correspond with God. He is the God of glory and the Father of glory — the Originator of the whole system of [p. 415] glory. He will eventually bring the whole moral universe into correspondence with Himself so that ultimately He will be all in all. It is a wonderful conception of glory. I am sure that God would awaken desires in men’s souls for glory, honour and incorruptibility. One great secret of spiritual weakness is that we are not intensely interested in these things. If God presents a goal we may be sure that it is an intensely attractive one.
In the world, if a great prize is offered it awakens interest and there are many competitors. But God sets before us the most wonderful goal that could be presented to intelligent creatures. Paul says, They do it “that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible” (1 Corinthians 9: 25). In view of winning such a wonderful prize he kept his body under. If we have incorruptibility in view we must keep ourselves in training; it can only be reached in a spiritual way. The practical line on which it is sought is “patient continuance of good work”. The soul moves on with good. We are in a scene of unspeakable disorder; the will of the flesh and all that we are naturally is on the line of evil; but if we come under the powerful influence and attraction of glory, honour and incorruptibility as set forth to our faith and affections in our Lord Jesus Christ it will put us on the line of patient continuance of good work. It is work in the singular — the life looked at as a continuance in good.
There is a necessity for a divine beginning in the saints. Peter says, “All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass”. That is the corruptible man which decays, but in contrast with that he says, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the living and abiding word of God”. He adds that “the word of the Lord abides for eternity”, and that “this is the word which in the glad tidings is preached to you”. The believer has been born again by that which expresses God, and is therefore incorruptible. His word is incorruptible seed, and we are born again by it. One desires to look at one’s brethren in the light of the [p. 416] incorruptible element that is there — something that is in contrast to the flesh which is as grass, and the flower of grass. If our souls were brought more into the reality of these things we should be marked by incorruptible affections. We read of love in incorruption at the end of Ephesians. If we love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility we are marked by affections that are of an unchanging and imperishable order. One covets this, for one has had a little experience of the changeableness which one finds in one’s own nature. A servant of the Lord has said,
‘No infant’s changing pleasure
Is like my wandering mind’. (51:2)
If we have realised that, it awakens longing for an incorruptible and unchanging character of things, where
‘Filled with Thee, the constant mind
Eternally is blest’. (178:3)
As we are filled with God made known to us in Jesus His beloved Son, an element of incorruptibility is brought in. It is well for us to desire to get morally apart from the fickle changeability which marks us naturally, and to reach the incorruptibility which marks the divine nature. Peter shows the beautiful way in which the incorruptible element will develop in the saints. He speaks about the “hidden man of the heart” and “the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit”.
Being made partakers of the divine nature is the result of learning God. It is by “the greatest and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4). Indeed God Himself becomes to His people the great Promise of everything
‘In the desert God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found’. (76:6)
Every trial and testing casts us upon God, and we find God pledged to us in love, and as we learn Him thus we are [p. 417] formed in the divine nature, and we come into correspondence with Him. “Be ye holy, for I am holy”, and then, “Love one another out of a pure heart fervently”. Holiness and love pertain to the divine nature.
Then the thought of incorruptibility is connected with teaching in Titus 2: 7. A wrong thought of God or Christ is an element which may develop into any amount of error. If what is taught is the truth it is marked by incorruptibility. We should not in teaching go beyond what we are assured to be of God. “If any one speak — as oracles of God”. However little a man knows, if he does not go beyond his depth he will not teach error. We blunder by going beyond our depth, but there is divine support if we keep within our measure. If I only said to others what I could truly say I had learned from God I should say nothing wrong. In true ministry there is no place for crude or undigested thoughts, or for things being said in self-confidence through the activity of the human mind. Teaching should be according to the measure in which we are taught. The Lord Himself taught that way. “The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed” (Isaiah 50: 4). If we only taught others what God had taught us the teaching would be incorruptible.
Resurrection will be an appropriate finish to what we have considered. If the saints move on the line of these characteristics and affections the appropriate conclusion of such a course will be to put on incorruptibility even as to bodily condition. “For this corruptible must needs put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15: 53). “Pious men buried Stephen”. I have no doubt they were deeply sensible that they were sowing a suitable seed for the resurrection unto life. The body of a saint has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and it has been devoted as a living sacrifice to God. If he puts off his tabernacle it will be sown in corruption but “raised in incorruptibility”. God will find His pleasure eternally in an order of things brought into perfect correspondence with Himself. Neither inwardly nor [p. 418] outwardly will there be any element of change or decay. The stability of the whole system will be secured by the place God has in it, and by everything being brought into perfect correspondence with Him. It is a conception which is in every way worthy of God.