ELDERSHIP
ELDERSHIP
Revelation 4:4; Revelation 5:5; Revelation 5:8-10; Revelation 7:13-17
I wish to say a word, beloved friends, in regard to eldership, and so I have turned to these scriptures. I take eldership to be the result of experience acquired in identification with the testimony of God. Hence it is that which lies at the end of christian experience. What I have to say therefore will take the form of the consideration of experience through which God passes His people.
When God gives an expression of any feature of His testimony, you will find that a course of experience follows, so that the divine thought should be worked out in man. God never forgets His testimony; it stands out as the standard with which the experience consequent upon it has to agree. The Lord Jesus Christ was the Son as man here upon earth, and every feature of God’s testimony was expressed in the Son becoming man. God took occasion to call attention to Him as “my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, Matthew 3:17. There was the proclamation from heaven in regard to His Son, and every testimony of God found expression in Him.
Now the Lord has left the earth, but ere leaving it He set up the divine standard, and the history of the assembly under divine teaching and culture is to bring out in result, in the experience of God’s people, that which agrees with what was set forth in Christ. Hence the great importance of experience; as the apostle Paul says, “I have learned”, Philippians 4:11. We have to come to that; we have to learn.
The Lord in Matthew 11, having borne testimony to Israel, was rejected, and He looks up and thanks the Father in the presence of His disciples. He is in all the liberty and dignity of a Son with a Father; and He is going to carry out all the Father’s thoughts [p. 128] in that liberty and dignity. Furthermore, He speaks of revealing the Father, and thus He stands forth as the model, directing attention to Himself as the Son; He says, “learn from me”, Matthew 11:29. The Son is the great model, and we have to learn from Him. We have to take the yoke of the Son upon us, which He says is “easy, and my burden is light”, Matthew 11:30. There we have set before us the divine standard; and the heavenly city is the answer to it.
The heavenly city comes down from God in the liberty and the dignity of the spirit of sonship. She comes down, she is not sent down; and she has the glory of God. She comes down, the most wonderful spectacle conceivable, the answer to the divine standard set forth in Christ, and the marvellous product which through all these centuries God has been working to produce. He never deviates from His standard; He works patiently in our souls so as to bring us to that which is in perfect agreement with His standard, and that is seen in the heavenly city. The heavenly city is very much on my mind, having been suggested by what some of us have been considering, but I only touch on it now in connection with the position taken up by Christ in Matthew 11. He is the only standard; the Son in all the consciousness of the Father’s affections is the model; we have to learn from Him, and God never deviates from His standard. The outcome of it all is seen in Revelation 21 — the holy Jerusalem, the heavenly city. It is a marvellous picture, and it is the result of the experience wrought out in God’s people by His Spirit.
Turning back to the Old Testament for a moment, we shall see how these principles obtain there. I may say here that all the saints from Abel downward were in the light of the Son in some sense. I am not prepared to say in what measure, but I have no question about it, that in some way or other there [p. 129] were glimmerings of light in regard to Christ as the Son, and some trait of His character was in measure set forth in every man of faith from Abel downward. Abel is an example. To say nothing of his offering, he was a keeper of sheep. That was the foreshadowing of a trait of Christ, for the Lord Jesus Christ, beloved friends, is the true Shepherd. Thus some trait of Christ is seen with every man of faith. They were, so to speak, elders; by faith “the elders obtained a good report”, Hebrews 11:2. The character of Christ was being built up into their experience; this is what marks an elder.
Now if God gives expression to any feature of His testimony, He is never diverted from it until He brings it to pass in the experience of man here upon earth. I wish especially to speak of government; for the elders here, as you will observe, are connected with the throne. God gave expression to His thought in regard to government in Noah. God deposited in that man a testimony; he was to rule over the new world. We know how he failed, and how he was unable to rule himself; he was devoid of the experience of a ruler. He had affection for his house, and he prepared an ark for the saving of his house, but he was devoid of the ruler’s character, for he was unable to rule himself. But the testimony of God must be maintained, and hence the next man of faith, Abraham, has the spirit of the ruler; he has it in his conception of government; as if God had said, It fell to the ground in Noah, but it shall be maintained in Abraham. He took Abraham into His confidence on the ground of the fact, among others, that he would “command his children and his household after him”, Genesis 18:19. There you get God reverting to His testimony committed to Noah. He had not forgotten it. He knew Abraham, He knew that He had put something into that man;
[p. 130] that He had formed him in such ways that he would maintain His testimony in his own house.
Well now, we find subsequently that God intervened in connection with Abraham’s seed, and having delivered them out of Egypt, He would be their Ruler. He never departs from any of His thoughts; He would be the Ruler of His people. That began with the ministry of Moses. Moses, as we know, represents not only the Lord Jesus Christ as our Deliverer, but also as our Ruler, for he was “king in Jeshurun”, Deuteronomy 33:5. Though not an official king, he represented the authority of God in the midst of His people; God was King. That state of things continued until the days of the judges, which brings to light the solemn fact that in spite of all their privileges every man was his own king; “there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), and there was complete departure from God’s testimony.
Elimelech, in Ruth, is the typical Israelite of that day. His name signifies that Jehovah was king, and yet we find him leaving the land and going into Moab. That shows he was but little in the light of what his name conveyed. In the book of Ruth God amends that situation by the introduction of the king in prospect. Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. In other words, before the people sought a king, as recorded in the book of Samuel, God had already prepared the king. He knew Abraham beforehand, and He knew David before He anointed him; before God chose him, David was a man after God’s own heart. What we find in the history is that God set up the kingdom in Saul. The people wanted a king; it was better to have one king than to have every man a king, and so God acceded to their wish, and helped them to acquire a king. It was wonderful grace, but God had His own thought in it. He was giving them an [p. 131] opportunity to see what He could do in regard of His testimony, as under rule in His king. There was complete breakdown in Saul, but God had David in view.
Now what I want to show is that even in David you find the same principle; that there must be experience and exercise. After he was anointed he had to spend a long period of time going through the most terrible experiences; so that, as thus disciplined and taught of God, he should become a qualified vessel to maintain divine rule. David is the typical king, and hence the Spirit of God takes him up to convey to us in inspired words what a king should be. “He that ruleth over men”, says David in his last words, “must be just”, 2 Samuel 23:3. That was in his heart; it had been wrought out in his experience, so that he could tell what a king should be: “ruling in the fear of God, and he shall be as the light of ... a morning without clouds”, 2 Samuel 23:3,4. But David could not come up fully or answer morally, to the divine idea. A “morning without clouds” could only find an answer in Christ, but it is very beautiful that in the last words of David we get that perfect expression of what a king should be, 2 Samuel 23.
We have in these instances a confirmation of what I have been saying in regard to the New Testament. Both Abraham and David found their full and complete answer in Christ. We have in Christ, One who ruled His house perfectly, and One who exercises the power of the kingdom perfectly. Now eldership must of necessity be the result of experience wrought out in our souls in the light of what shone so perfectly in Christ, and I have taken these verses in Revelation as giving a true idea of eldership. It seems to me that it is the goal, as it were, to which each of us should look forward. As the Lord Jesus Christ takes us up, making the truth of the gospel a reality in our souls, and relieving [p. 132] us of every soul trouble, He would direct our attention to Himself. We see an illustration of that in John 9. The Lord says to the man to whom He had given sight, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” and the man replied, “Who is he, Lord?” “Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee”, John 9:37. Thus the Lord reveals Himself to him, and he worships Him! That man is captured, beloved friends, and Christ henceforth is his model. We need to have that before us.
The “twenty-four elders” in Revelation 4, represent the whole company of God’s people, as I understand it, from Abel onward, but it is God’s people viewed in the light of having acquired experience in suffering, toil and conflict. The Holy Spirit directs our attention to the experience that is to be acquired by learning from Christ. Now there is a great deal of experience that is not that; experience that results from our eye being on another model, and there is no growth as the result. If you have a slave in your house, that slave has the spirit of a slave; he has not the spirit of your child. There are many slaves among those known as God’s people, and there is much experience among them which is not that which produces eldership; there is legal experience. The great thing is to see Christ in the presence of the Father — to see the Son. If God wishes to express that which is most precious to Him, it is the Son; not simply the Person, but the Person who stands in that relation to Him as Son. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son”, John 3:16. It is the Person who stands in that relation to God. We need to get hold of that; it is the kernel of the gospel; to get a hold in our souls of the position that Christ has as Man with God in sonship. It expresses on the one hand the gift; He who was most precious to God the Father, has been given; and on the other hand,
[p. 133] that Man stands in all the liberty and dignity of a Son with the Father.
Now that is the true starting-point of christian experience; any other leads to “Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children”, Galatians 4:25. That is seen in Christendom. Jerusalem which now is, is in type mount Sinai — a legal system, and God has a perfect title to cast her out at any time. He will do so, for Jerusalem which is, is in bondage, is a slave. Hagar was a slave, and Abraham had a right to cast her out of his house; but the true wife remains in the house. Jerusalem which is above is free; her place is in the house for ever, and she is “the mother of us all”, Galatians 4:26. We remain in the house with our mother. It is the conception of sonship as seen in the Lord Jesus Christ as Man with the Father. That is the true beginning of christian experience, but that experience becomes very wide. Testimony branches out, I might say, but once you are in the liberty of sonship in your soul it is wonderful how every feature of experience takes character from it. There is a certain dignity about you. In everything that you do, in everything that you say, in all your manner and deportment there is a heavenly dignity; and it increases; there is constant increase, beloved friends, until, as John puts it, you attain to the degree of a “father”, and nothing more need be said to you than, “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning”, 1 John 2:13. He wrote unto them, in other words, because of what they knew, and of what they had acquired by experience.
Now what we find in Revelation 4 is the result of the experience which we acquire here upon earth as the sons of God, as having learned from Christ. Having taken His yoke upon us, we are “meek and lowly in heart”; we have found rest to our [p. 134] souls, Matthew 11:29. In the gospel of Matthew there is a wonderful sphere of activity opened up. I cannot touch upon it now, except to show how the Spirit of God supersedes the legal system, with which the testimony of God had been connected, by a system established in the liberty and dignity of sonship. On the mount of transfiguration in chapter 17 the Father announces the Son. Others had spoken — Moses and Elias, but here was the Son! “This is my beloved Son ... hear ye him”, Matthew 17:5. Peter would have made three tabernacles, but the true tabernacle was there, the Shekinah glory was overshadowing it, and every testimony of God was centred in that Person. The Father directs attention to Him. The tabernacle of God is in sonship; the testimony is there, and the Father’s cloud is there; the cloud that was over the tabernacle in the wilderness was there, but here it was the Father’s voice, not Jehovah’s. The Son was there with all His affection for the Father, and every testimony indicated that the tabernacle was there. And then the voice says, “hear ye him”, Matthew 17:5. Every communication is from His lips; there is no other speaker save the Son. The gospel and all the divine counsels are what are spoken; everything proceeds through the affections and through the lips of Him who is in the consciousness of sonship with God. And then — wonderful grace! in the end of the chapter Peter is a son; he who would have made a tabernacle for Moses and Elias on the mount is placed on the platform of sonship with Christ. The Lord says, “Then are the sons free ... that take and give it to them for me and thee”, Matthew 17:26,27. The sons are free. Jesus was the Son, and Peter and the disciples were sons; they were brought into sonship. In chapter 18 we find that which answers to the city. In chapter 17 its foundations were laid in principle in “the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16) and in chapter 18 we have the administration worked [p. 135] out here upon earth by those who are sons. That is for the present moment. It is a wonderful thing to come into contact with such people. The early chapters of the Acts show a company of such sons here in this world, in the liberty and power of the Spirit. Never had there been such a spectacle as that; all divine administration went out through them, and it was to be continued. If we are to have it now, it must be according as we are formed in the liberty and dignity of sonship.
I must go on to Revelation 4 for a moment. You will notice in these elders what I have been saying; they are in entire sympathy with the throne and with Him who sat upon it. I think God delights in that! We know how the Lord delighted in the sympathy of His people when He was here. Indeed, we read that He looked for sympathy and found none, Psalm 69:20. He had to accomplish the great work of atonement alone, without sympathy, but He sought it, and where He found it He valued it, as in Mary in John 12. She had sympathy with Him; she thought of His death. The atmosphere was rife with the spirit of murder, but there was one there who thought of Christ, who had sympathy with Him; she anointed Him for His burial. Well, the elders are in complete sympathy with the throne. I do not go beyond that in chapter 4, save to show that they fill their position divinely. Their seats were prepared for them; there were twenty-four thrones, and they were occupied by twenty-four elders. One could dwell upon their sitting there in all the dignity acquired by their experience upon earth. They had crowns of gold; they were not only inwardly in sympathy with Him who sat upon the throne, but in every respect they were in accord with that scene. Their crowns I need not say are moral crowns; they are the effect of the work of God in them. A crown is what one’s heart cherishes.
[p. 136] They were crowned with golden crowns, which sets forth what is of God.
I will just refer briefly to the other chapters which I read, to show what marks them. In chapter 4, as I have said, the elders are seen in their dignity, and in sympathy with the throne. Now in the next chapter they can tell you about Christ; they can explain the whole situation. “One of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book”. They know about Christ, and you will notice that when He took the book their hearts were moved. One is affected in seeing the intense interest in Christ which marked them. They give ample reasons for their homage and their praise, and everything they do is in affection and intelligence. They can tell you about the Lord, and they can give a full account of what they do. All their movements are governed by affection and intelligence; just as Paul says, “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also”, 1 Corinthians 14:15. That is to say, they are completely governed in regard of themselves, and everything that they do is in the full light of the divine intelligence which they possessed. Then in chapter 7 we find one of the elders giving an account of the saints.
I might speak of the vials or bowls full of odours in chapter 5 and the harps. It is all intensely interesting, and indicates the characteristics of the elders. The living creatures are coupled with them; on the living creatures I do not dwell except to say that the golden bowls are filled with prayers. They are not only sympathetic with Christ, but they are sympathetic with His people, and have sympathy with the prayers of the saints upon earth; they have harps also, with which they sing.
Then in chapter 7 as I have said the elders can give an account of the saints. The inquiry is, Who [p. 137] are these? Now an elder in the assembly ought to know about all the saints; that is his business, so to speak. He ought to know their histories and where they live, etc. A true elder can give an account of the saints, so here we find that this elder knew all about these saints. He raises the question as to who they were and “whence came they”, and the prophet replies, “Sir, thou knowest”. Then he proceeds to enlarge upon what they were. They had come through great tribulation, and they had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. He goes on to say what God will do for them; they should have a place in His temple, “and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes”. To my mind it is very beautiful, and how one longs to see that spirit among God’s people, a care for the saints, to have their prayers in your heart, and to know all about them. The Lord Jesus Christ knows them; He is the great Elder, the great Bishop; He has them all written down in His book. As Paul said, “The Lord knoweth them that are his”, 2 Timothy 2:19. He knows them all, and every elder takes his pattern from Christ; He knows who they are, and all about them, and their blessings.
In closing I would say, you may depend upon it that the truth cannot be maintained without experience according to God. Everything is set forth objectively in Christ, and it is worked out subjectively in us. The city — eldership — is the result of the work of God in the souls of God’s people.