NOTHING IN THE TRUTH BUT CHRIST
[p. 530] NOTHING IN THE TRUTH BUT CHRIST
Hebrews 8: 1 - 13; Exodus 29: 42 - 46
There is nothing in the truth, beloved friends, but Christ. Christ objectively is everything for the saint. He is the true God to begin with, and, on the other hand, He is the perfect expression of God regarding man — God brought into contact with man, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”. Here is the Man, therefore, the Mediator “between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”.
In the truth there is nothing outside of Christ. Christianity has been made to accommodate itself to suit man. The Lord foresaw all this and gave His disciples the parable of the kingdom of heaven where the woman took “leaven” and mixed it with three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. The whole was leavened, and the Lord foresaw what would become a religion that suited the world.
A very common idea in christendom is that a man does not need to be converted. We know that that is pretty much the common idea, and if we take stock of the leaders and rulers in christendom, such as the clergy, many of them are unconverted men and scoff at the idea of conversion. In a general way conversion is spoken of as connected with the heathen, but in the sense we are accustomed to use the word it is scoffed at. Christianity has been accommodated to man — with outward formality, and carried on by the clergy so that it should make the least possible demand on man.
In the truth Christ is the object, and in everything in connection with it. Everything is set forth in Him. Then, on the other hand, a saint is the reproduction of Christ in the power of the Spirit. This is a very important point. I know there is no perfection in saints, but in what is presented in Christ for saints you do get perfection. God found fault with the first covenant, “For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come ... when I will make a new covenant”. Christ presents, on the one hand, the perfect revelation of God, and, on the other, man is perfectly presented to God. When we look at ourselves there is no perfection. You and I are perfectly aware of that. But what we have to remember is that Christ is the truth. I just refer to that in passing.
We want to be brought into bond with Christ; we are all lawless till we are brought into bond with Christ. Scripture says, “if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him”. I quite allow that there is a work antecedent, but what I want to press is, that there is no attachment to Christ without the Spirit, and what has brought us into attachment to Christ is attraction to Him. We may be very poorly attracted, but we must be attracted to Him before we can be attached to Him. Beloved friends, on the one hand Christ is the perfect expression, of righteousness, and on the other hand He is the vessel of God’s mercy to man. It is very wonderful. The secret is, that being the righteous Man, He suffered for man.
He was the vessel of mercy, too, it came out in the pathway of His life here; it was all perfect righteousness, and then there was the ministry of mercy down here to man, “doing good” in every detail, for God was with Him. Now I want to pass on to what is the purpose of Christ in regard to His people.
His purpose is to conduct us in to God “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”. I view that expression “bring us to God” morally. I think I am quite justified in this. Those attached to Him are brought to God. Then, having been brought to God, we have to come out as witnesses for Christ.
Now one word as to our experience of this. Many [p. 532] speak of being brought to God in their conversion, but it is much more true to say that God is brought to them then. The love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Spirit — they receive the Spirit, and in a certain sense when the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts it is much more God being brought to them.
Just look for a moment at a verse in Exodus 15, “The Lord is my strength and song ... he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation”; then again in verse 13, “... led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”; then verse 17, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”. Any one reading these verses will notice a difference in them. In verse 2 it is the idea of God dwelling with His people, then the same thing in verse 13, corresponding to the Holy Spirit given unto us. God’s holiness resides in the habitation of His holiness. Then in verse 17 there is an added thought, they were to be brought into the Sanctuary which His hands had established. A great many may think I refer to heaven, but I do not mean heaven, but that we may be conducted into the land of promise. That is God’s purpose for us at the present moment, and all the objects in that land of promise are presented to us.
Now, beloved friends, I just throw out these thoughts for your consideration. God’s great thought in regard to Israel was that He would be served. Turn to Exodus 29: 44, 45; we get two distinct things here: “I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest’s office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel”. It was an inner thing as regards Aaron and his sons, He would make [p. 533] Himself known to them in the sanctuary. He would be approached by them. The children of Israel did not approach. God did make Himself known to Aaron and his sons; all the service of God was in regard to the tabernacle. The priests compassionated the people, but that was not their service. Scripture in the hands of man is turned to account for his own ends, and the tendency is to be satisfied in bringing Christ down to the level of his own things. If the priests had been always occupied with the things of the people, their ailments and what not, the service of the tabernacle would have suffered, but the priests were sanctified to minister to God. The mass of Israel did not understand it, but the priest ought to have done so, and that his place was in the service of God, in the place where He was to be served in regard of things for His own purpose. I would not care to eat my food without giving God thanks for it; at the same time I plainly see if God is to be served aright it is not in regard to man’s things but in regard to His own things.
Everything in the tabernacle was typical of things yet to come, and it is in regard to those things God has to be served. In the tabernacle there was the ark of the covenant, the mercy seat, the candlestick, the table of shewbread; and it was in regard to these things that Aaron and his sons had to serve, and in connection with these things the service of the tabernacle consisted — and it was God’s thought that man was to be brought in for His service, figured by Aaron and his sons. There can be nothing more important for us to get hold of.
It is a great contrast to see how things are carried on at the present moment in christendom, where men are in prominence and things are done suitably to themselves; what pleases man takes the place of what suits God. The tabernacle was not set up on that ground.
[p. 534] I do not think for a moment that the children of Israel understood what was implied by it, but if the service of the tabernacle was carried out according to God the people had the benefit of it, and when the tabernacle got corrupted the people suffered.
A great many people may read Leviticus and know very little of its true meaning; so Israel in the presence of the things then carried out according to God’s orders would know little of their real meaning, but these things were written “for our learning”, and we can in a kind of way understand the meaning of them. The service of God which was proposed was not for the people as they were then, but is applicable to the ways of God in a time to come, and shows how that God would have a people to serve Him, that by a way opened by Himself He could have man go in to Him into the holiest.
The priests did approach, and it was for God’s pleasure. The failure of man only brings to pass God’s purpose. “The way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest”. The going in of the sons of Aaron was entirely on the ground of their being the sons of Aaron, they had to be kindred to the one who was called to be priest; and so it is with us, we are not called to be priests, but we go in with One who is called and as kindred to Him, and thus Aaron and his sons are figures of Christ and the church, sanctified to God’s service.
Now there are two or three points I should like to show you in the gospels where Christ identified His disciples with Himself that they might be with Him. Look first at Mark 3: 13, He “calleth ... whom he would ... he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach”. Why, do you think, were they called to be with Him? Nothing but to conduct them in, and then they were sent to witness for Him. If we have not been conducted in, we are not very fit [p. 535] to preach. The point in regard to our service is, that we have to be fitted by God for it by being conducted in to Him. Many have taken up levitical service before they have been conducted in as priests. Let us pass on to Luke 14: 15, then verse 22, and also chapter 20: 22. Now, beloved friends, I should like to make one remark in regard to the gospel. It presents things to us as a rule as individuals — not so much of the company in view. I point out one or two leading landmarks.
In Luke 7 we have the two debtors, but the Lord addresses Himself to the woman at the end of the chapter and says, “Thy sins are forgiven ... go in peace”. He evidently does not conduct her in, she has to go on in her wilderness pathway. So, too, in regard to the parable of the good Samaritan — the man is picked up and left at the inn. An inn is for people travelling on the road; he is left there, but cared for. But now, when we come to chapter 14 we get the house, and the supper is prepared for a great many to be conducted into it; “compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”, and then in chapter 15 the prodigal is seen brought into the house sitting with the father, in complete suitability to him. The elder brother was outside. Then at the end of the gospel you get the thief on the cross; to him the Lord says, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise”.
Now you will notice there is distinct advance in the gospel. A woman sent on her way through the world in peace, a man placed in an inn by the roadside amply cared for, a prodigal brought in in suitability to his father, really in reconciliation, and then the thief assured “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise”. In the end we find the thought of Christ coming out in His blessing the disciples as He went up to heaven, and He has sent down the Holy Spirit [p. 536] from heaven, thus identifying His people with Himself in the place where He has gone.
Now look at John 14: 1 - 10. Here He again tells His disciples He will receive them, “that where I am, there ye may be also”. It was to be in His Father’s house — connected peculiarly with His Father — so that they might be in the place of approach to the Father. All His ministry had been to lead them into that place. All the time He had been so expressing the Father, they were not up to their place of privilege, and one of them says, “Shew us the Father”. It is impossible to know God except by approaching Him, and if we are in the place of approach an immediate response will be given. “We love him, because he first loved us”. We can be conducted to the Father’s heart, and that is in the Father’s house. All the gospels are alike. In chapter 13 the Lord speaks of “part with me”, part with Him where He went. That is the thought in all the gospels. What thought else could He have had but to make God known, so that they might get near to God?
Now, beloved friends, I want to touch upon the Lord’s present activity for us, His service and ministry. Turn for a moment to Hebrews 7, “such an high priest became us”; and then to chapter 8, He “is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle”; then verse 6, he hath “obtained a more excellent ministry”. Now, there is one thing a believer can be said to have literally, that is, the forgiveness of sins in the witness of the Spirit. A great deal more, I know, but I am prepared to allow that everyone can have forgiveness of sins in the witness of the Spirit: “being justified” — a purged conscience. But then, what is qualifying you for God’s service? I will tell you, what answers to it is what we find in chapter 8, “A minister ... of the true tabernacle”. I take it the true tabernacle was pitched on the day of Pentecost. The Lord pitched it, and man had no hand in it whatever; it was the work of the Lord, and the Spirit sealed it by His presence.
Now I venture to say that the holy places are to be found in this tabernacle. There it is that God dwells and walks, and He has got a ministry there among the saints — they are all going to be offered up to God — but the ministry goes on with that end in view. In this chapter we get “a better covenant”. Did you ever consider what that covenant was? It is now a faultless covenant. It is Christ! Two things made up the covenant: (1) the law written in the heart, that was true of Christ. (2) Then God shall be known in mercy and Christ was very well known in that way.
The one great thing in His ministry for us now is to conform us to Himself, to qualify us to serve God. “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one”. The activity of His ministry indicates divine teaching, so the details of the law come out in the love of God and love to the neighbour. The righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled. God is going to be glorified in us, and to all of us God should be known in His righteousness and in His mercy in redemption. God is known by the rights of mercy.
The more we know God as expressed in the death of Christ, “the cup of blessing”, the more really qualified we are for His service. We are the subjects of mercy looking for the mercy of God. Christ has His own great place, but He took part with us that He might identify us with Himself where He is as the true Aaron in God’s rights of mercy. Christ brings us into His presence in entire accordance with Himself. The result will come out: all the vessels suitable for His holy use. The vessels are all real [p. 538] believers, and all His ministry is to conform us in mind and spirit to Himself. The result will come out when He will present the church “to himself a glorious church”. It will then be entirely according to Himself.
Aaron’s was a very poor ministry. It is for us to present Christ as we get practically conformed to Him. When we come together in assembly it is to bring the holiest with us, morally qualified for the service of God, and this comes to pass in greater appreciation of Christ, to bring a little of His sunshine with us, whereas the tendency is to get back to the forms of the first tabernacle and to expect a service prepared for us. This is a very poor kind of thing, and it would be better to give it all up than to continue such a thing. We want to come to what is true, and the effect of His ministry is to qualify us for what is true.
May Christ be more appreciated by us! Everything in Christ is true and pure, and He acts in the rights of mercy. All is secured in Him and in accord with His mind, and if we are in accord with Him we shall be so with one another.