WHAT WE RECEIVE IN CHRISTIANITY

A. M. Brown

John 1: 10–13; ! Corinthians 2: 9–13; Galatians 4: 4–6; Acts 17: 10, 11; Romans 15: 5–7

I have been thinking of the blessedness of what we receive in Christianity. In 1 Corinthians 4: 7, Paul says to the Corinthians, “what hast thou which thou hast not received?” He then warns them against boasting as though they did not need to receive. What he is bringing before them is the fact that, other than what they had received, they did not have anything. That is the situation in Christianity. We do not bring anything to it. We come into the blessed circle of Christianity as becoming believers in the Lord Jesus and we receive everything. My exercise would be to appreciate more what we have received. The word ‘received’ has an active sense. It is more than accepting something that is given, although it would include that. Receiving something implies there is a willingness on the part of the recipient; there is an active force in receiving. We are not to be indifferent as to the things that we receive. Certainly we are not to be indifferent as to the things that we receive in Christianity. There are glorious things for us to receive, and we are to go in for them and enjoy them and value them.

There is another aspect of receiving things which comes out of that. It is that as we receive things in Christianity we are changed by what we receive. We speak about how the truth is set before us objectively, that is, the truth on the page of scripture for us to accept as true. We see it set out perfectly in the Lord Jesus; the truth is in the mind of God and then it is expressed towards us in the Lord Jesus. We speak about that sometimes as the truth set out objectively. The truth is set out for us in its attractiveness for us to accept and to receive, and as we receive it, it changes us. We say that it becomes formative. That means it forms something in believers that was not there before.

So receiving what is presented to us in Christianity changes us. It forms us. Another expression that we use is, it becomes appreciated subjectively. That means that it is enjoyed and experienced and appreciated in the soul of a believer. As it is enjoyed and appreciated, it shows. Something is changed in that person and others can take account of that, and say there is something there that was not there before. Something has been formed in a young person or in an older person as they receive and accept the truth and are changed by it. I trust that we might see how that is true in these five passages that we have read, certainly in the first four.

The last passage is a little bit different, speaking as to receiving one another. Now there is one other introductory point as to receiving. If we receive, then we become receivers. In audio engineering a receiver is a very sensitive device that is attuned to vibration and it picks up even very faint vibrations. These can be amplified, and the microphones and loudspeakers that we have today work on that principle. The receiver has to be sensitive and it picks things up and it replicates what it has received—the higher the degree of agreement between the original wave and the product of the receiver, the higher the fidelity of the device. That is where the words ‘high fidelity’ come from. Now fidelity means faithfulness. If we are faithful receivers of what comes to us, what we receive will be preserved faithfully.

We will accurately reproduce what has come to us and there will be something that emanates from us. I would just encourage myself to be a faithful receiver of divine things, so that I might preserve the truth and the accuracy of them and be able to shed them out, to broadcast them as it were, as a result of being affected by what 1 have received. Another feature of electronic receivers is that they resonate in tune with the incoming signals. We have to resonate in tune. Our hearts and souls are instruments under the touch of the Lord Jesus, and He looks to us to resonate in tune with His touch. I hope these things are of some help in giving a picture of how we receive things.

We have read about the Lord Jesus. “He was in the world, and the world had its being through him, and the world knew him not”. He was in the world and the world did not know Him, even though it had its being through Him. It says, “He came to his own”, the very people, the Jews, who should have received Him but “his own received him not”—but then John moves on to say “as many as received him”. It was open to all to receive Him, and there are many who have received Him. There was abundance there in Christ, and His desire was that He should be received. God’s desire is that Christ should be received, and my desire is that He should be received into the hearts of every one of us. I trust that every one here can count themselves among those who have received Him. Christ is no longer here on the earth, He has died and He is risen, ascended and glorified. But His word is here and His testimony is here for us to receive. It is still the time of receiving Christ. That means willingly taking Him in, taking in His word, taking in His Person, receiving Him into our souls and into our hearts and being changed by that. Nobody can receive Christ without being changed, without being converted—converted means being changed. It is a wonderful thing to receive Christ.

What blessing there is in receiving Him! The blessings are immense. It is said here, “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name”. That brings in the matter of belief. How important it is to believe in this blessed One, the One who came to the world. How blessed to believe that He is the Son of God and to know Him as your Saviour, the Saviour of sinners, the One whose work has answered every moral question. He has taken away everything that stood out against you before God, dear friend, so that God who is of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk 1: 13) can look upon you as a believer in His Son, the Lord Jesus, and He sees Christ there. How wonderful it is to have peace and blessing and joy, “joy and peace in believing”, Romans 15: 13. That is all available to us as receiving Christ. I trust that every one here has received Him.

And then it says, “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”. That conveys something of the effect of receiving Christ. There is something that is worked out in those who are children of God. There is something of God that is seen in these persons, something that bears reference to the One who is the Father. In other words as receiving Christ there is a change, there is something worked out morally in the soul of those who are given the right to be children of God. What a dignified matter that is. What a tremendous right to have. You might think that you are only a child, and you have no rights really, not of an age to have rights. But “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”. He gives that right to those who receive Him now. We have features formed in us that are like Him, we receive something of Him and are formed by Him and come out like Him. You might say that such hearts resonate, in tune with that flow of love from the Lord Jesus. There may be one here who is listening and able to understand, who has not yet received Him. May you receive Him, may we all receive Him. May we all be formed and changed by receiving Him, so that we can be recognised as children of God, and those who believe on His name.

It says, “who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God”. A transfer takes place; instead of these other things that were the source of our lives as away from God, and as not having received Christ, whatever that source might be, the source of the believer, the origin of the believer is born of God. It is a wonderful ting, the purity of the work of God. The origin and the nature of the work is pure, and the way to come into it is through receiving this blessed One, “as many as received him”.

Every one who receives Him will be affected in this way. There is also the sober side that no one will be affected in this way without receiving Him. So how vital, how important, how foundational it is to receive Christ. As receiving Him we receive God’s foundation. “For other foundation can no man lay besides that which is laid”, Paul says, “which is Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 3: 11. Those who receive Christ receive God’s foundation. That is something that is outside of ourselves, and yet is embraced and is received into the heart and soul of the believer, and it is altogether according to God. It is the foundation that God has laid and we are to receive Him. The foundation is in a Man; it is not in a creed, it is not in a collection of writings exactly, although the word of truth is conveyed to us in the Scriptures, thanks be to God for that, but God’s foundation is in a Man. This Man was not received by His own but, “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”. May we all receive that blessed One.

The next scripture we read was in 1 Corinthians 2 as to receiving the Holy Spirit. One thing that we can say about the things that we receive in Christianity is that they fit together. They build upon one another, they build together, they build up something that is precious and substantial in the soul of the believer. You cannot receive the Holy Spirit without having received Christ, the blessed Son of God. As having received Him, the heart is prepared to receive the Holy Spirit. That is not to say that that does not involve exercise; I believe it does, because the scripture speaks of obedience and prayer and asking in relation to the reception of the Holy Spirit. The point is that these precious things that we receive build together.

There is the reception of Christ with a view to the heart being so affected that we are able to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God Himself, He is a divine Person, and in His grace in adapting Himself to us He is prepared to come and dwell in the hearts of those who love the Lord Jesus. We should never lose the sense of wonder and worship that that should be so. In this period of time—the Christian period—when Christ is in heaven and Christians, saints, are here the great feature of Christian life on earth is that the Holy Spirit is prepared, and indeed delights, to come and dwell in the hearts of believers who love Christ and who are obedient to Him. The Holy Spirit does that; how blessed to receive Him.

One thing the reception of the Holy Spirit leads to is the understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of the things “which God has prepared for them that love him”. There are “Things 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”. Do you love God? I trust that we all love God.

Well, God has prepared things for you because you love Him. They are wonderful things and, by the power of the Spirit, you come into the understanding of them, and not only the understanding, but the active enjoyment of them. What you will find is the enjoyment of things that are very much better, incomparably better than anything that you will find in this poor world. It says, “But we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God”, that is the characteristic Spirit of that blessed One, that we may know the things which have been freely given to us of God. It is a wonderful thing to receive the Spirit, and then to know and enjoy the things that God has freely given to us. He freely gives these blessed things to those who love Him. He desires to give the things to every one, but cannot give them to those who do not love Him. He offers Christ as the Saviour for all men, the Saviour for sinners, the One who gave Himself a ransom for all. Then God has in mind special things for those who love Him. He gives the Spirit for us to receive so that we might accept, know, understand and enjoy these things that He has in mind for us.

It is also interesting that Paul speaks here about things that are taught by the Spirit, communicating spiritual things by spiritual means. I feel the edge of this because of the need to give the Spirit more way in myself, to be a more faithful receiver, as it were, of the Holy Spirit so that I might have more understanding of spiritual things. Spiritual things are not like natural things. They are communicated in a different way. They will be received and understood and enjoyed in the hearts of those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That is how God proceeds. In His grace He adapts Himself to our needs and communicates spiritual things by spiritual means, and it is by the Spirit that we understand them. I encourage myself and all of us to ask the Holy Spirit to help, not only to understand—important and essential as it is to understand what is written in the Scriptures—but also to enjoy them. The Holy Spirit would love to bring in that inward spiritual enjoyment of the things that God has prepared for those that love Him. May we be encouraged to receive and give more place to the Holy Spirit.

We read in Galatians 4 as to receiving sonship. This is another wonderful blessing, the greatest blessing. How can we find words to describe the blessedness of what God has purposed to do? He desires to draw us into the liberty and blessedness of the relationship of sons with Him. He makes Himself known as Father, and His desire is that we should enjoy being His sons. Now we are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3: 26). As we place our faith and trust in that blessed One, then it is true of us that we are sons by faith in Christ Jesus. As regards the matter of receiving sonship, Mr Darby’s footnote speaks of it having an active force; there is something there that lays hold of the heart and is received.

God has brought us into a blessed relationship and He desires that we should receive sonship; that is, that we should be affected by it, that it should change us. We should begin to resonate, as it were. As our hearts are affected by the love of God, by His making Himself known to us as Father, and desiring to have us for Himself as sons, our hearts should resonate towards the Father, through knowing Him as Father. You think of the blessedness of such a relationship that God introduces! It is with a view to bringing us into it, not in some formal way—although we have the wonderful status of sons that cannot be taken away—but to enjoy the nearness and intimacy and blessedness of sonship.

Then the apostle goes on to say, “But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. We were saying that the things we receive build together and they are linked together. Here is a reference to the Spirit, active in the hearts of those who receive sonship, so that there should be a resonant answer, a vibrating affectionate answer, towards the heart of God Himself. “Abba, Father”, conveys intense affection. It conveys the thought of intimacy. These words are the same words that the Lord Jesus used, “Abba, Father”. You think of the blessedness of what is opened out to believers as receiving sonship, and knowing the blessed quickening power in our affections, through God having sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba, Father”. This is a tremendous scripture to contemplate. God has found His delight in one blessed Man. But then such is His delight in that blessed Man that He wants to see features of the Lord Jesus, His character, reproduced in believers. He sees Christ again in the saints, and these are people that He wants in His very presence. He has made it possible for that to be so through the work of Christ. We were speaking about the matter of reconciliation, God bringing us close without any distance and with nothing standing against us, in His very presence, reconciling us to Himself. And we are to receive sonship. It is ours and the challenge for me is as to receiving it. That means that I become like Christ and there is something for the Father from me that was never there before, something Christ-like that God is looking for. May we be exercised to receive the blessings that God makes available to us, in His shining out towards us. May we receive these things and then, in the power of the Spirit, live them so that they become effective and active in us as those who cry “Abba, Father”. May we have affection and feeling towards the Father, stimulated by the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts as those who have received Christ.

We read in Acts 17 as to the Bereans; they received the word. This is very important. It was a matter of nobility, “these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, receiving the word with all readiness of mind, daily searching the scriptures if these things were so”. What was in view here was the preaching of Paul. Paul came to Berea, and went into the synagogue of the Jews. They received the word with all readiness of mind. They received the words that Paul had spoken, and then they searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

The Holy Scripture identifies these people as noble. This was a dignified characteristic, that they were “receiving the word with all readiness of mind”. I would just encourage myself, and each one of us, to be characterised by receiving the word. That would primarily be the Holy Scriptures, the teachings that are in the Holy Scriptures.

We now have the tenor of the words that Paul would have spoken in the synagogue in Berea. We have it in the books of the New Testament that were written by Paul. We can read the Scriptures and I trust we all do. It is very important to read the Scriptures, but then do we receive the word? Do we take it into our hearts, and are we affected by it, and do our hearts respond? These Bereans became very attached to Paul, they protected him. When the Thessalonian Jews came along to try to stir up the Bereans against him, the Bereans must have surrounded him and have seen to his safety. Some of them may have gone as far as Athens to make sure that he proceeded on his way, that he was protected. They valued Paul. I wonder if I value enough the words that Paul has written, and the words that the other scripture writers have written? Let us be acquainted with the Scriptures, let us read them and know them, but then let us also receive the word as these Bereans did. How encouraging it must have been to Paul.

There was something came out in the Bereans that was noble. They were formed by what they received; they searched the Scriptures, they did that daily. They were believers who received the word with all readiness of mind. I would like to have a more ready mind. We can ask the Holy Spirit for help in understanding the Scriptures. He would love to help us to receive them, and help us to understand them and put them together, so that we have an outline of sound words, and are able to relate it to that foundation that is in our souls. Having received the Lord Jesus, and having received the Spirit we are able, in receiving the word, to see how everything in God’s building and God’s ways fits together. They fit together absolutely truly. When these Bereans listened to Paul and received his word, and then searched the Scriptures, they would find absolute consonance between the word that they had received and the Scriptures that they searched. It is the great mark of the truth, that the truth is one whole. The words that Paul was speaking, and which they received, were absolutely consistent, because they were part of that whole truth that had proceeded from the mind and heart of God. They were absolutely consistent with what the Bereans would find in the Scriptures. We can ask the Holy Spirit to help us to see the unerring truth of the Scriptures, and to find encouragement and help and edification in that as we receive the word.

The last scripture we read was in Romans 15. We have spoken about the effect in the believer of receiving the Lord Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit, receiving sonship and receiving the word and how that changes us. As we receive

we are affected, we are changed by what we receive, and that comes out in practical expression in the way that we live our lives, in what our interests are, and how we spend our time. Another way it comes out is in our relations together. Paul says, “Now the God of endurance and of encouragement give to you to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus”. So this is not like-mindedness in worldly things, nor is it like-mindedness because you and I get on particularly well together. It is like-mindedness according to Christ Jesus. What a standard the believer has as having received what we have been speaking of. It is with a view to everything that we do, our activities and our relationships, being according to Christ Jesus. If we are like-minded according to Christ Jesus then that cannot be broken in upon, because the bond which makes us like-minded is Christ Jesus, the One who is altogether what He said, “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8: 25. He is the way and the truth and the life. What a basis believers have for like-mindedness!

And then, “that ye may with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. So there is a unity that is expressed towards God in glorifying the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think that as we receive these blessed things that we have been speaking about, and are affected and changed by them, there is glory and praise for God. You might say it is an effortless result. Of course there must be exercise and application and strong desire in the matter, but then there is an expressive result of what is inward.

Having received certain things, the result is glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then it says, “Wherefore receive ye one another”. That would relate to what we were speaking about as to reconciliation working out among saints. And then the apostle adds “according as the Christ also has received you”. That is the standard by which a believer is to do everything; the standard by which I accept you and you accept me is according “as the Christ also has received you”. It is a wonderful matter that Christ gives character and tone to everything in God’s world. Then it is to the glory of God, so that as these things that we have been speaking about are known and enjoyed and experienced and lived here, there is glory to God. May there be greater glory to God as a result of our speaking of these things together, for His name’s sake.

Address at Dundee
8 September 2007