WHAT GOD HAS MADE US

W. S. Chellberg

1 Corinthians 3: 19–23; Romans 8: 14–17; Philippians 3: 20, 21

Along with our inquiry, dear brethren, regarding what we have and what we possess, there runs another thought and that is what we are. In this first scripture we read, “and ye are Christ’s” or “and ye Christ’s”. Many scriptures come into it, and I am sure that the brethren can fill in other scriptures as we go, but I think it is a wonderful thing for us to consider what we are, and who we are. I am not speaking now at the moment collectively, I am speaking about you and me as individuals.

Think of how the Scripture speaks, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. Another scripture is, “Do ye not know that your body is temple of the Holy Spirit?”, 1 Corinthians 6: 19. These things are all for us to consider, who we are and what we are. One scripture says that “God is not God of the dead, but of the living”, Matthew 22: 32. So there is a wonderful area of life, as Abigail said to David that he was “bound in the bundle of the living”, 1 Samuel 25: 29. I trust that we may have some impression this afternoon of this area of God’s grace and God’s mercy. It is an area where God is blessing, an area where God has great delight, and it is made up of these persons. It is not a nebulous thing, you know, the land; God’s inheritance in the saints is not a nebulous thing, it is real and concrete, and I trust we may be helped to lay hold of it. Christianity is not merely an idea. Men have had ideas over the centuries, many ideas from great thinkers. Think of the greatness of the minds of these men, the great thinkers of history—Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and others. What thinkers they were, what men of ability, that they were able to conceive ideas and scientific things which have held even to our day. I think we must regard the ability of man’s mind. Think of the measure to which civilization at the present day has grown, and the scientific advances of men; I am more impressed about it as I think about it, and yet the apostle says, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God”.

Well now, what thoughts go through your mind when you come to that point where you see the greatness of the mind and development of man on the one hand, and then the Scripture says it is foolishness with God? What goes on in our minds when we get to that point? Do you reject the scriptural statement as foolishness? Are we sympathetic with God? Or do you reject it? We are forced to acknowledge the skill which men have, we cannot deny it; we cannot deny it, for example, in medicine and in space. We cannot deny it, but is it to

regulate us? Is it to rule us? Is it to influence our desires, our wishes? Is it to influence our lives, our aims, our goals? I was reading about a person who has set aside money for a ticket to go to the moon. I just use it as an illustration of what people are setting as their goal, their aim. Well, what foolishness when you think of it, over against the wisdom of God, when you think of it over against what God has given us, what He has made available to us for our taking.

Think of the “free gift”; Romans 5: 15 speaks of God’s “free gift in grace”. Think of it, dear brethren, let it sink into our hearts and dominate our lives, what God has done, what God has, and what He says we are. “And ye are Christ’s”. He has redeemed you; and then it speaks in another place of the assembly that God “has purchased with the blood of his own”, Acts 20: 28. Think of the blood of Jesus. Think of how that comes into your life and mine. “Ye Christ’s”, that is what Paul says. Are you Christ’s? One might speak to a person on the street and say, ‘Are you the Lord’s?’. That is a good question; I would just put that question to you. Are you Christ’s? Well, that is what this scripture says. Of course, Paul is speaking to believers here, persons who he knows have put their faith in Jesus. It is a wonderful thing to come under the shelter of the blood of that One, as Peter says, “Precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”, 1 Peter 1: 19. Oh what precious blood it was!—the blood of Jesus.

The next thing—we did not read it—is, “Do ye not know that your body is temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God?”, 1 Corinthians 6: 19. The apostle is asking this question. Do you know that? Then he says, “Glorify now then God in your body”. I desire to present this matter

in as attractive a way as possible, that you might be lured—and that is a right word, the scripture says, “I will allure her”, Hosea 2: 14. I would desire that we might be allured into the active life of christianity, the active enjoyment of it. So this is one of the first things, “Do ye not know that your body is temple of the Holy Spirit?”. Think of the greatness of it—over against all the wisdom of men that we have spoken about; here is a divine Person, the Holy Spirit of God, indwelling persons. Your body is a temple, you become a temple as the Spirit dwells there, so Paul just says, “Glorify now then God in your body”. That is the word in itself, and I could not enlarge upon it. Just do it!

Then we come to Romans 8, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”, the greatest thought of what you are, a son of God. Think about Moses—would he be called son of Pharaoh’s daughter? Young people often aspire to great things; have you thought of what it would have been to be called a son of the daughter of Pharaoh, that great monarch? Maybe Moses would have had a pyramid; he might have, the Pharaohs had them. Moses might have succeeded him, he might have been ruler of Egypt, he might have conquered lands. Think of what it would mean. Do you aspire to such things today? The scripture says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. There is nothing finer at the present day, dear brethren, than to be among the sons of God. Nothing finer, absolutely. You could be high up in business, you could have the greatest job in the world, you could be the President or Prime Minister, or whatever. But sons of God are persons led by the Spirit; that is, they are not doing their own will, they are subject to the Spirit of God. They are a temple, the Spirit of

God dwells in them, and they are led by the Spirit. How important is the leading of the Spirit of God in this present day, for it says, “There are gods many, and lords many”, 1 Corinthians 8: 5. I think we can each one assess that, as we are conscious of what is going on in the world, that there are lords many and gods many; that is, men are dominated by certain things, they will go to all lengths, they will sometimes die in the pursuit of their god, money or power—it is usually one of these two, and it eventuates in power. “Yet to us there is one God, the Father”.

Well, dear brethren, there is what men are led by, but what I would like to present, and entrance your heart with, is the thought of being sons of God, being, as it also says, “children of God”, “heirs of God, and Christ’s joint heirs”. It is a wonderful area for us to develop and I am sure that none of us has developed it to its fullest extent. The wonderful area and scope that there is for us to enter into in the appreciation of divine things, has barely been scratched. I often think of the border of Judah in the book of Joshua; it says, “as far as ... the great sea” (Joshua 15: 47), as though you get to a point where there is just vastness beyond, and that is what you find when you come to the point of realising that you are one of the sons of God, and that God has made these things true of you. Then we find that there is just a vastness beyond that has hardly been touched in the knowledge of God and in the enjoyment of divine things.

How wonderful it is, and if only we could just be affected by it more at the present time, as the apostle says in the last scripture we read, “for our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”. Oh what a commonwealth, dear brethren, what a country we belong to! We are strangers and

sojourners here; you are here in Canada, but our commonwealth—we belong to the same commonwealth, dear brethren—“our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”. That is, it is not made here and taken up by God, but it is made there, and it exists there, and it is ever there; that is our land.

Well, I trust that these things will just sink into our hearts. I cannot say much about them, because of not being too much in the good of them myself, and yet seeking to be moved by them. I trust that each one here acknowledges what he is, a son of God. God has set you up, as it were, in this wonderful and exalted place. I repeat, there is nothing finer than to be a son of God, even if you were the most despised person in this world. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4: 13, “We are become as the offscouring of the world, the refuse of all, until now”. Think of Paul saying that, a man who was a Hebrew of Hebrews, educated in the finest school of his day, “at the feet of Gamaliel” (Acts 22: 3), the greatest teacher of his day, and yet he says, “We are become as the offscouring of the world”; that man was a son of God.

Oh how wonderful it is to think that whatever place you may have here does not matter, but what place you have there—and what a place it is! It is what is true of you as a son of God, and one who enjoys his commonwealth, “our commonwealth” which “has its existence in the heavens”; that is where our heart is, that is where our minds are. That is where everything is, we are centred right around that thought, the commonwealth, “sons of God”, “children of God”, “heirs of God”, and “Christ’s joint heirs”—all these things, and you think of how wonderful they are. We could go on, we could expand on what we are in a collective sense, the brethren of Christ, the bride of Christ, think of all this area. How little,

perhaps, we touch it, dear brethren; how much more there is for us to go in for. I trust that our appetites may be stimulated, as the psalm says, “Taste and see that Jehovah is good”, Psalm 34: 8. Well, I trust that each one will go in for it put your mouth into it, as it were, begin to have a desire and an appetite for God’s things, and I am sure that each one will find the enjoyment that there is in being a son of God, this wonderful privilege and place that God has given us, for His name’s sake.

Address at Toronto, Ontario
12 July 1975