GOD'S WORKING AND OUR CALLING
GOD’S WORKING AND OUR CALLING
I suppose every Christian must be conscious that there is peculiar fulness and blessedness in the truth as presented in this epistle. We have things unfolded here as they are in the mind of God; the ministry is not limited by any consideration of feebleness or failure in saints.
The first chapter is chiefly connected with “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory”, verse 17. I understand the use of this name to convey the thought that God is the Author and Originator of a circle of things characterised by glory. It is a scene of glory that is brought before us where everything is headed up in Christ. We are brought in according to God’s eternal choice, and the good pleasure of His will, to obtain an inheritance in Christ, “to the praise of his glory”, verses 12, 14. God has marked us out for sonship in a universe of bliss. And as the bride of Christ the church will inherit everything in Him and with Him.
Then we get the power by which all this is effected. There is no doubt that man has gone from the lowest place in God’s universe to the highest place by “the working of the might” of God’s strength. The Lord Jesus came into death for us, to maintain the glory of God in respect of all that we had done and all that we were, and God’s mighty power came in and raised Him from the dead and set Him in the highest place in the universe. It is that power that is “towards us who believe”. Nothing less than that power could take us up from death, and put us in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
In chapter 1 we see that God has marked us out for sonship “to the praise of the glory of his grace”; and we have obtained an inheritance in Christ that “we should be to the praise of his glory”; and in chapter 2 we see how God has taken up such as we for the satisfaction of His own love.
“God, who is rich in mercy”, comes in because of out state and condition; nothing but the wealth of mercy could have met us. But on God’s side it is “for his great love wherewith he loved us”. God has taken us up, not only in the depth of mercy, but to satisfy His own love.
There are three wonderful and blessed things stated in connection with this: (1) He has quickened us with the Christ; (2) He has raised us up together; (3) He has made us [p. 173] sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. The object in view in all this is that we may be brought consciously into the presence of the holy love of God.
In Old Testament times men were not in the presence of the love of God. I have no doubt the Old Testament saints knew something of God as being rich in mercy, but it was impossible they could know Him in the satisfaction of His Jove. The reason is simple. The Object which alone could furnish satisfaction to the love of God was not yet revealed.
But when the Son of God came here “the heaven was opened ... and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”, Luke 3: 21, 22. The Father’s love found its perfect repose in that blessed One, and He found His repose in the love of which He was the Object — He was “in the bosom of the Father”.
But the beloved Son was alone in the presence of the Father’s love. If we were to be brought into it He must die. There was necessity for our sinful flesh to be removed. The death and judgment due to us have come upon Him. Sinful flesh could not be brought into the presence of God’s love, but it has been condemned in the death of Christ. And another thing — that condition of being — human life in flesh and blood — with which in us din and death have come into contact has been brought to an end before God in the death of Christ. The end of all flesh has come before God.
And when Christ rose from the dead it was in an entirely new state — quickened in the Spirit; a state with which sin and death never had, and never can have, any contact whatever. “In that he liveth, he liveth unto God”. He is for ever absolutely apart from every question of sin and death — having taken up all those questions once at the cross for the glory of God. And He now lives in resurrection in the presence of God’s holy love.
The great thing for us is to see that God would bring us to live together with Him in the presence of that wondrous love. To be quickened together with Christ is to be made to live in spirit outside everything that has been touched by sin or that has come under death in the presence of God’s holy love.
How we are brought into this may be seen in John 20:15-18; John 20:22. In the first place there was a ministry which gave the disciples the light of an entirely new association with Christ [p. 174] as the risen One. This was in the message sent by Mary. Then when He breathed upon them I think it was, in figure, bringing them into the consciousness of their association with Him. We get the light of things through ministry, but we only get the consciousness of them as we are energised by the Spirit in the affections of our inward man.
Mary is, in a certain way, a figure of gift; she was the great apostle of Christianity to the apostles. I think the Lord sent this message by a woman to show that in connection with His things affection is the chief qualification. It was love that qualified Mary to receive this message and to carry it. She was not required to add anything to it. The most important qualification of a gift is the jealousy of love that the message should not be marred in any way.
When the light came to them they were affected by it. If we are rightly affected by divine light we shall soon get the consciousness of what is presented to us as light. The light conveyed in Mary’s message put the disciples outside what was of man, and gathered them together with the doors shut upon the religious man according to the flesh, i.e. the Jews. Then the Lord came and stood in the midst, and after speaking peace to them, and showing them His hands and His side, He breathed on them. He imparted to them, in figure, the consciousness of being in association with Him in life. He would have them to know that they lived with Him in the presence of the Father’s love.
Then God has “raised us up together”. The idea is that we are lifted entirely off the earth — Jew and gentile lifted up in spirit into an entirely new atmosphere, where all the old distinctions are left behind. I have read that all the storms are on the surface of the earth, and that it is an eternal calm when an elevation of six or seven miles is reached. God would lift us in spirit above the region of storms — above the things that are here. We have responsibilities down here, and often we get worried and anxious about them. But we ought to know what it is to live above. “Business below, residence above” was on a christian’s door-plate, and it is good to have it so in a spiritual way.
Mr. Stoney used to compare the Christian to a man going up in a balloon and losing his natural senses but getting new and spiritual senses suited to the new scenes to which he was introduced. God would carry us up in spirit to the region [p. 175] where Christ is. There are no politics or nationalities or worries there. We have all heard the story of the cobbler of whom his wife said that he lived in heaven and only came down here to mend shoes! “And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. God would have us in perfect repose in a scene of absolute rest, and there in the presence of His love, and for the satisfaction of that love. Of course, it is in spirit only that this can be realised now, but God gives effect to it with a view to bringing into display the surpassing riches of His grace in the ages to come.
The result of apprehending all this is that we come out in a new character down here. We enter upon our calling. There is one new man and one body; we have access to the Father; and we are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.
What marks the new man is that he takes his character from God (chapter 4: 24). It takes all the saints on earth to make up and express the new man.
Then the great privilege of Christianity is access to the Father. God is fully revealed in love, and we approach Him through Christ and by one Spirit. We go to Him in all the sweet savour of Christ, and have the consciousness of this by the Spirit.
Then, lastly, we are builded together for a habitation of God. This is our testimony, God dwells here in grace and blessing in His house; He is known in His saints. Many things might suit us, but do they express what is of God? The fact that we are God’s habitation has a most practical bearing, in this way. The whole company of saints on earth form the habitation of God, and each individual believer is responsible to be true to his character as forming part of that holy habitation.