ONE GOD AND ONE LORD
[p. 156] ONE GOD AND ONE LORD
This scripture has for its subject the question of eating or not eating what was sacrificed to idols: we may find great matters brought before us in connection with it. Indeed it is characteristic of Scripture that great things are often developed in connection with exercises, comparatively small in themselves, which arise in the pathway of the saints. For instance whether a woman is to cover her head when she prays is seen to involve the whole truth of headship. Again the question of going to law before the tribunals of the world is seen to call in question the fact that saints are called to judge the world and angels. So we find this question of eating meat offered to idols raises the question of the place divine Persons have in the affections of the saints. It was with the thought of considering this that I suggested reading this Scripture. We should all admit that there could be nothing greater, or of more practical importance, than the thought of the place divine Persons have in our affections: the apostle shows the contrast between knowledge and love, and it is important to note that. All of us here tonight have knowledge. The apostle says, “We all have knowledge”: that is, we know a good deal about God, but that does not give us recognition with God. “If any one love God, he is known of him”. I may know a great deal but one would desire to be marked by that of which God can take account, to be characterised by what has value with God. “If any one love God, he is known of him” — there is something there that God can recognise — God can be truly known in a nature that suits Him. The Lord raises these questions with us; for instance He tells us that in a coming day many will profess to know Him: “Have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” but He says, “I never knew you”. This raises a serious consideration. I may say, I know God and I know the Lord, but the question of real importance is, Does the Lord know me? Is there anything in me that God can recognise as being of Himself?
It is evident that the elect of God, those called according to His purpose, come to light as loving Him. There is no evidence of a person being one of God’s elect till it is manifest he loves God.
[p. 157] Romans shows the wonderful way in which God has approached us in grace. He has set forth His righteousness, His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He has made Himself known as the Justifier and the Deliverer, He has given us the Spirit of adoption, and His Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, and He has shed His love abroad in our hearts. The result is we love Him: God gets a place in the affections of men.
What I have before me tonight is what comes out in verse 6. “Yet to us there is one God, the Father”. I take it He is referring to those who love God. There is a company here on earth, the product of divine love and working, a company to whom the blessed God has become an object of affection; the one God is the object of affection to those who form that company, and the one Lord is held in affection by that company. I desire that we might see the way in which divine Persons would seek to be held in our affections. It is not a question of what we know but how we love. I believe it is only this that will deliver us from idolatry. I say it advisedly that idolatry is a terrible snare: not in the gross form in which it was found in Corinth, the worshipping of stocks and stones, but there are gods many and lords many, ruling powers in this world. There are many ruling influences in this world that are always bidding for a place in the hearts of men; the Christian company is to be found in complete separation from all this and that separation is brought about by the place the one God and the one Lord hold in our hearts. I do not think anything else will deliver us from idols. Idolatry is anything that is inconsistent with one God and one Lord having supremacy in our affections. I trust all here tonight have a real desire to give divine Persons their place in our affections, the place due to them, which they must have if we take proper regard of them. The affection for divine Persons cannot be worked up, we cannot do that! Then how can it be produced?
In this epistle the apostle takes the ground of what Christianity is in itself. He could not take the ground of what was made good in the Corinthians, but he speaks of what they were in God’s thoughts, from the standpoint of what Christianity really is, a blessed system that stands in relation to what God is and to the Lord as Head. If we could not be taken on that ground there would be no leverage. Certain things are [p. 158] positive divine realities. The one God is a blessed reality. I may never have given Him the place due to Him, but if I were to take into account what He is, what His nature is, and how He has acted, and how He proposes to satisfy His love — if I took that in I should love Him with all my heart. And so with the one Lord. All that He is is true for everyone of us so no one need fall outside of it.
It is important to weigh these words in verse 6, “yet to us”. I should like to emphasise that. It is not here what God is in Himself, but what He has become to those who love Him — “for us there is one God, the Father, of whom all things and we for him” (see J.N.D.’s Translation). Take note of those little words, “of whom” and “we for him”. It involves the whole delight of God in man, it involves the making known of His love to us, He proposes to find His delight in us eternally — we for Him. “Of whom are all things” brings God before us as the blessed One who has given birth to thoughts, has originated thoughts for His own pleasure before creation. God found thoughts in His love that craved satisfaction before the creation of the world, and the creation of the world had in view the satisfaction of the love of God. All that He proposed utterly failed in connection with the first man and his race — all broke down, sin and death came in; but that could not change what was originally in the thought of God, in His own heart: He could not give up the satisfaction of His love. It is beautiful to see in Proverbs 8 how wisdom was the delight of God. This, as we all know, looked on to Christ, but the point is that it was a delight to God to think that, in spite of anything that might come in, He had a resource. He cherished the wisdom that would be His resource: wisdom was the nursling of His love, His delight. It was His delight because His own wisdom was going to secure the perfect satisfaction of His own love. The satisfaction of His love is revealed because wisdom rejoices before Him, delights in the habitable part of His earth. We see that before creation God’s delight, the satisfaction of His nature, was to be found in men. A universe created in wisdom would not suffice for God. I desire that we should realise our greatness as being necessary to the delight of the love of God. What a dignity everyone of us would carry out into the streets of this city if we had that in our souls — we are necessary for the satisfaction and delight of the love of God! Could you help loving Him then?
[p. 159] We are not occupied tonight with the way God is for us, but with the wonderful way God is for Himself. I delight to think of the way God is for Himself. “Of whom are all things” — everything that will satisfy the love of God is of Himself, and then the wonderful words are added, “We for him”. Oh, the delight of God in men! This is the one God who is held in affectionate regard by those who love Him. It is in that character that we love Him; we hold Him in our affections as the One who has proposed to satisfy His own heart and love to the full. And men are necessary; He must have men, for no other order of being, however exalted, could satisfy the love of God. And we are that company, called and brought to the knowledge of God through grace: we are that peculiar satisfaction which His love seeks. This secures a place for the blessed God in the affections of men; it forms the intelligent spring of the Spirit’s cry, Abba, Father.
“We for him” covers the whole responsibility of our position. If we think of ourselves as bondmen, we are for God: as children we are for God: as priests we are for God: as sons we are for God. Every position in which divine love has set us is all for the satisfaction of God. If even the youngest of us took this in — I am blest for the satisfaction of God — it would produce a profound effect on us. I am put in a wonderful place and relationship, all for the satisfaction of God, that His love might find its delight and rest and profound joy. If you think of it you begin to love God! A spring of affection is opened, and touches and operates in your heart, and you find that you love God.
This prepares us to appreciate in our affections the one Lord, because when we come to the effectuation of all things, it is all dependent on the one Lord. The Father is the source and spring of everything, as we sometimes sing, ‘Father, spring and source of blessing’. He is the Originator of every purpose and counsel of love, but the Son became Man, the one Lord, in order to effectuate, to bring to pass, everything. There is a divine Person in manhood: the one Lord is Jesus Christ, Jesus the anointed Man, a divine Person in manhood. He is to be held in affection as the One by whom are all things. When we come to the one Lord, it is “by whom are all things, and we by him”. What gives the Lord His place with us is the wonderful service and activity that He has taken up for the pleasure of God: all that the pleasure of God proposed [p. 160] has been carried out by the one Lord. When we see that we cannot help loving Him; we hold Him in our affections as the one Lord. This is an aspect of lordship that we do not think enough of, or dwell sufficiently on.
One Lord is in contrast with many lords; there are many influences in the world. We are not left to be the sport and prey of a thousand and one influences: the one Lord is exclusive. We ask Him sometimes to ‘reign without a rival there’; but, if He is held in our affections as one Lord in relation with all that is brought to pass in Him, He must be without a rival. He cannot contemplate the thought of a rival. At Corinth they were not holding the one God and one Lord in their affections. This may be true in a practical sense of many here tonight: the Lord brings it before us that He may get the only place. I am sure there is not one here tonight but would gladly say to Him, ‘reign without a rival there’.
If sin and death had not come in there would have been no need for one Lord, no need for the Mediator as He is presented here, but the satisfaction of the love of God could not have been brought about otherwise. The creation of an innocent man did not suffice for the satisfaction of the love of God, because what God was in the depths of His nature did not come out in that. The coming in of lawlessness and death has brought out the glory of the Lord: one Lord could never have been held in affection by millions of human hearts if sin and death had not come in. The presence of lawlessness, Satan’s power, sin and death has rendered it necessary that lordship should come in. When you speak of one Lord you have a majestic thought in your mind, you have the thought of supremacy in dominion: no power of evil can stand or challenge the one Lord. He wants to be held in the affections of the saints in His majesty and greatness as one Lord. He came into a scene under ruin, and touched the lawless creation, and glorified God in doing it. He touched death with the touch of a conqueror, He rules over the dead and the living. What a glorious Person He is! What a Lord! The twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped! And we all feel like falling down this moment! Think of the wonderful character of the one Lord!
It is dominion exercised that the love of God might be satisfied. The one Lord has had to prove His greatness, the [p. 161] greatness of a divine Person in manhood, He had to come out by the way of death. He dealt with lawlessness and death, and now He has relieved us — I am speaking to believers. Believers are those who know in their souls the truth of what is in that Person. I know the truth of what is in that Person, how He has died to relieve me of judgment. He has died for me, to relieve me of lawlessness and death. The believer recognises Him, and we are free to sit down together tonight and think how He has exercised lordship in order that the love of God might be satisfied, and that by Him we should be placed in the presence of God for His satisfaction. That is the one Lord! He is incomparable! He is the one Lord, and by Him are all things; the pleasure of God prospers in His hand. Everything that the blessed God was looking for for the eternal satisfaction of His love, He has committed to the one Lord. In the face of sin, death and Satan’s power, God has entrusted the effectuation of His purpose to that divine Person come in manhood. The moment He touched humanity the mind of heaven broke out in glad acclamations, heaven’s host speaking at once of delight in men — not of forgiveness, not of salvation, but of delight in men. The presence of the one Lord was sufficient to be the pledge of the overthrow of every adverse power, so that God could have delight in men.
All through the Old Testament the thoughts of God kept gleaming out: it spoke of Israel as being His own people, a possession for Himself; He acknowledges them as sons of Jehovah. He could in the prophetic word speak of joying over them, resting in His love, exulting over them. All that is prophetic, but as soon as the Lord came in humanity, we get the essential thing, the real essence, delight in men. The one Lord is the One who died: this is what touches my heart. The fact that He died shows what regard He had to me in my low estate; He has touched everything that I was involved in with that mighty touch that not only removed every moral stain, but left the glory of God where the stain was. He has gone up in glory. He abolished death, He went up as Mediator, the One entitled in the glory of His own Person to give effect to everything for the delight of God. That is the Person to be cherished in our affections.
I do not think we get this in any Old Testament type. In comparing the Old Testament with the New, we find that what answers to the type in the New glorifies the type: there [p. 162] is a glory in the anti-type that we cannot get in the type. Every scripture quoted from the Old Testament is glorified in being transferred to the pages of the New Testament; it gets a glory and a meaning which it had not in the pages of the Old Testament. In Joseph we see a marvellous type of the Lord as Administrator to meet the need of man, but the thought of ministering to the perfect satisfaction of the love of God is not there: that is what we have in lordship. Solomon in all his glory sets forth the glory of Christ as the Son of the Father’s love. He is set upon the throne of Jehovah his God so that all that God could be as known to men in beneficent rule, the blessed enrichment of everything which could be known on earth, is set forth in him. But what we see in connection with Christ is One who can fill the Father’s house.
I like to think of the one Lord, Jesus Christ, as coming out of eternity, and saying, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”. That is eternal in its character, it goes beyond all the glories of the kingdom. That scripture involves the perfect satisfaction of all that the love of God proposed for itself in eternity: it will have its culmination in eternity. Think of all this, and that we can say, “We by him”! Think of the greatness of that Person! I do not want to occupy you with yourself in any way: if you are a believer you belong to a blessed company that can say, “we by him”. We are placed by God in a position which is a witness, the necessary answer to all the greatness and glory of the one Lord. Could you surpass that?
The glory spoken of in John 17 which we are to behold is just the subject that we are speaking about tonight. It is the glory of a divine Person in manhood who is great enough, and blessed enough, and has resource enough in every way to give effect to the whole delight and satisfaction of the love of God in the blessing of men. He is great enough to bring into being, so that it might subsist in eternity, all the delight that God in a past eternity looked to have in man. When we are in the Father’s house in company with the Son we shall share the love that flows out of the Father’s heart on Him. And when we know the Father in the intimacy of the home circle, in the blessedness of His love, what a delight it will be to turn to the beloved Son and adore Him in the greatness of that glory which attached to Him in manhood, the One great enough to give effect to all the eternal thoughts of the Father’s love!
The distinctive glory of the Father is original counsels,
“of whom are all things”. The distinctive glory of the Son is to give effect to all the counsels — “by whom are all things” — and it is by that blessed One we are with God this moment. Now do you not love Him?
If the one God, in the character we have been looking at, and the one Lord are held in our affections in the character in which they have disclosed themselves to us, we shall be absolutely preserved from every idolatrous element in the world, we shall be as completely freed as if we were already in heaven. I felt it pressed on me to bring these thoughts forward, feeling the need of it myself, and feeling the need of the saints. We need to be fortified by what is positive, and to have our affections commanded by what is positive, by the one God and one Lord. There should be real exercise whether these divine Persons are what they are to us: not what they are abstractly, but what they are to us.
Now that is the assembly in its true blessedness — a company here on earth that stands in the affectionate regard of divine Persons as they are presented to us. How wonderful if we could all join together and say, “To us ... one God, the Father ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ”: that is, they have become to us what they really are. There is nothing mystical about that, it is not trying to work up spiritual sentiment, it is just divine Persons in positive reality and blessing.
Think of divine Persons getting their place in our affections! It is not what we know about one God and one Lord, but how we love. We cannot measure one another on that line, but the blessed God and one Lord measures us on the line of how much we love. How blessed if the Lord could bear witness of us as of one of old of whom it was said, “she loved much”! The Pharisee could not measure her. One would like to be measured by divine Persons, to come out in such a way that they could find delight in the recognition of our affection.
May the Lord bless His word!