THE FORMATION.

THE FORMATION.

It is a new building. Bear in mind that christianity is altogether new. In christendom the thought in building a church is that it should resemble the Jewish temple. The formation of the spiritual house is that every believer, everyone who has “tasted that the Lord is good”, comes to the living Stone: “to whom coming, a living stone”. The step is to come to Him. He is risen from the dead, and there is no way of coming to Him but by the Spirit of God. You come to Him risen. If you want it illustrated, you get a pattern of it in Matthew 14, where Peter walks on the water to go to Jesus. That is as true now morally as it was then literally. In order to reach Him you must go to the other side of death. It is very easy to come into a room to a meeting, but that is not coming to the Lord, that is not coming to the living Stone; you have to come to Him, and you could not come to Him but by the Spirit of God. You ask, What precedes it in the history of a soul? It is that you hear His voice and follow Him. You may say, How can I get to Him? You begin by following Him, and thus you ^[p. 398] leave everything that is not of Him. In following Him you break from all religious systems. He had entered the fold, and now “He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out” (John 10: 3), and He adds, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (verse 27). Peter literally left the ship to follow Him. You see the Lord at the other side of death, and you cannot cross over but by the Spirit of God. You may say. I am following Him. If you are, you follow Him outside all that is of man, of religious man. Practically you will be like the man who was blind in John 9: 35 - 38, he is eventually outside of everything religious, in the solitude of light, a wonderful place! outside of everything recognised among men as religious according to the law of God; then the Lord meets him, and says to him, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Now he has come to the living Stone; he said, “I believe, Lord: and he did him homage”. This is the step in coming to the living Stone.

One remark more before I pass from this section. In coming to the Lord, in following Him, you will be conscious of your infirmities, not of your sins; they are purged, as we read in Hebrews 1: 3, “having made by himself the purification of sins”, etc. I would explain it as one who has travelled the road; you will be conscious of your infirmity, like Peter when he began to sink. He felt his inability to encounter the winds and the waves; and “he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. And ... Jesus stretched out his hand and caught hold of him”. He did not alter things here, but He brought him to His own side. Now that illustrates His priestly service; He knows your pressure, and He brings you out of the pressure to Himself where there is none. Thus you learn Christ’s sympathy, One who has passed through the heavens, a great Priest, the Son of God. He not only draws you unto His own side, but eventually He conducts you into the company which surrounds Him; you are not merely relieved of ^[p. 399] your pressure, but you have boldness to enter the holiest, where He is a great Priest over the house of God.

I trust you now understand the formation of the house. When you are in, and have found your place, you learn next the nature of the place. No one has conscious knowledge of anything into which he has not been brought experimentally. The exposition of Scripture does not give it to you; it sets it before you, and as your heart is exercised you are brought into it by the Spirit, and it becomes a part of yourself; it is then the engrafted word.