SPIRITUAL DIGNITY
P. van den Berg
Psalm 133: 1–3; Ephesians 4: 1–3; John 17: 17–23
I desire, dear brethren, to speak of spiritual dignity in the last days. As we have said already, the testimony is marked by the dignity of the anointing. We could not think of a more dignified position than to be in an environment that is equal to having the divine presence.
What dignity is involved in that!—the divine system, the anointed system, and the service in it marked by the anointing. The blessed Holy Spirit has formed an order of things that is equal for the divine presence, and it is filled; the divine presence is in the assembly, the habitation of God in the Spirit, and the service of God is in it, the priestly service as marked by the anointing.
So there is a great realm of things where God is being served according to His own thoughts in the light of what He Himself has set out for His own pleasure, and we are thankful to be in the days we are in, thankful for the way God in His grace has granted a revival at the end of the dispensation in order that He might have for Himself a practical answer to His original thoughts; for God never reverts to second thoughts. He stands by His original thoughts, even at the present time in the day of small things. There is one Spirit, and there is one body, which is still here, and the great thing for us is to be marked by the dignity of what we have been called into, because the calling of God today is what it was at the beginning; there is a sanctified position here, and it is maintained by the Minister of the sanctuary.
So we have a presentation in Psalm 133 of this glorious Person, typified in Aaron, and in a sense the whole dispensation is seen. What was seen in the high priest of old was a representation of the dispensation; there was a change when the high priest died, and you get a kind of picture of the dispensation in the Priesthood of Aaron. Of course, the Person we are speaking of is a Priest according to the order of Melchisedec; which shows the exceeding greatness of the Person of Christ, He has neither beginning of days nor end of life (Hebrews 7: 3). He is eternal in His own Person. Then, following the order, there is the function of the priesthood, and I think in Aaron we have the function, marked by the dignity of the anointing.
Christ is the Man of God’s pleasure, the anointed One. It says “Grace is poured into thy lips”, Psalm 45: 2. Think of the way it was expressed; when He opened His mouth words of grace went forth. A brother was saying to me that it used to be said that grace is love in activity away from home. I am just passing it on because it is very affecting. Think of it, dear brethren, we being here and the activity of grace, love active away from home. So we have ‘The Person of the Christ, enfolding every grace’. We have the picture here of Aaron and the remarkable connection with brethren dwelling together in unity.
What a wonderful thing it is that God has given us a revival at the end that is marked by brotherly affection; affections for one another. The Holy Spirit having come, and the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by Him, the practical answer in the power of the Holy Spirit is in brotherly affections marked by life, indeed it involves eternal life.
Eternal life is not an individual matter, it is collective enjoyment, it is what we enjoy in the company of one another in an altogether different world, an out-of-the-world condition. It is a world where Christ the Priest has gone in and our interests are bound up with that glorious Person in the place where He is. It works out in a practical sense here as we are in the gain of our place with Christ in glory, the One who is Firstborn among many brethren, the One to whom we are united, our glorious Head. As we enjoy relations with Him where He is, and are in the good of that together, there will be in evidence what we have here, brethren dwelling together in unity. That is, as John says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”, 1 John 3: 14. It is a practical matter—we love the brethren; John makes a great point of that in his ministry. John is God’s reserve for the last days, and shows how divine affections are found here company-wise in God’s own family, those who are together in family relations. They are not brought together on social lines; they are not persons who have chosen one another in any sense, but those who have been set together in the grace of God in the light of the truth and with whom it is our privilege to work out what is for the divine pleasure in the testimonial setting, and in the service of God.
So it says, “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”. It can only be on the basis of departing from iniquity—separation from evil is God’s principle of unity. We could not enjoy unity together if there was evil present; we could not enjoy unity if the truth was not our bond. What brings us together is the truth; the test in the last days is the truth, and the truth puts us in the testimony and is our bond. The testimony is marked by this descending character of things. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, and He came down when the church was formed. What marks christianity is what is coming down out of heaven, a wonderful order of things here that has its origin in heaven, but it is coming down out of heaven. Finally the city in administration in the world to come is seen coming down out of heaven. Whilst it is here, it is really in a heavenly position marked by coming down out of heaven, and that is just what is here in the assembly, it is an order of things that is marked by what is of heaven. “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one” (Hebrews 2: 11); their origin is all of one.
There is a holy company here, a sanctified company, sanctified by the truth, sanctified by the Spirit’s presence, and marked by the features that were seen in Jesus, the heavenly Man, the Man out of heaven, who moved here as One who was from heaven. That is how Jesus was here; what marked Him was lowliness, the descending line, and that is where God is working at the present time, dear brethren, in our minds—the mind which was in Christ Jesus. If you want to know where God is moving, it is not in proud minds, it is not in obstinate minds, it is in subject minds, lowly minds. The sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees (2 Samuel 5: 24) indicates the way God is moving in the mind that was seen in Christ Jesus, and thus there is victory. There is the line of the testimony that will go through in victory in this lowly attitude of mind, the mind that was in Christ Jesus, the One who in that mind maintained the rights of God and completed the testimony which the Father had given to Him. What a privilege it is, dear brethren, to be found available to the Lord at the close of the dispensation, and to find things running on in spiritual dignity, the oil descending upon Aaron’s beard, the dignity that would be presented in it, and then going on to the hem of his garments, showing how things will go through to the close.
The hem of Aaron’s garments is the finish, it shows how things in this character, on a descending line, will go through to the end, to the completion of the dispensation. What marks the hem of Aaron’s garments is the pomegranates and the bells; that is to say, there is what is seen in the light of the assembly in local companies, the pomegranates. I think that would be connected with what the Lord says at the end, ‘ I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies’, (Revelation 22: 16), in the plural. So that at the end of the dispensation there are the twos and the threes, perhaps in the smallest outward conditions, but seen as set together as pomegranates, an ordered setting of things. I think the Lord has concern for local assemblies, to see that there is conformity, to see that there is no independence, no congregationalism, amongst us; we would not think in one locality differently from what our brethren are thinking elsewhere; we are to be governed by divine principles.
The Lord has His own rights in the local assembly, which are not to be interfered with, each standing on its own ground in its own responsibility to Him, and yet marked by what is seen in the gates of the heavenly city. Each gate of one pearl means that every local assembly represents what the mind of God is in relation to the assembly and that what is held in the place is what is due to God in the light of the whole; we are governed by the same divine principles, the truth as we have received it. It has been the subject of combat in the course of the testimony, but it has come through, dear brethren, and we want to keep the charge that has been given to us in maintaining in every local assembly what answers to the assembly, maintaining what is due to God in relation to it. We have the priesthood of Christ to support us, to see us through; the living line of the testimony will go through, and then the bells would show that there is a testimony. Nearly every departure from the truth amongst the saints in the last one hundred and fifty years has been followed by people going in for gospel activity so-called, because assembly ground was lost. But the great thing that God has, and His prime interest at the present time, is the assembly, and you can only have the gospel rightly when you have the assembly rightly. So it is very important to hold that ground, and to be in the good of what the Lord is saying currently to the assemblies; then you find that something of bridal character, so pleasing to Christ, comes to light, the Spirit and the bride, the bride being in perfect keeping with the speaking of the Holy Spirit, and saying the same thing, ‘Come’.
So it says, “Let him that hears say, Come”; I think that is the bells. There is a testimony to our fellow believers, whom we have in our hearts, dear brethren, whom we love. We have them in our hearts and affections and we long to see them come into what we are enjoying, a revival in our day, that God has granted His people food, that He has given them a blessing.
We want others to come into it so that “him that hears” would no doubt refer to other believers. Let them say, Come; let them say what we are saying through grace, and “he that will” would be the way that the glad tidings would go out; you have something that you can bring people into; you have a realm of salvation where persons are safe, where God has His own thoughts, the assembly being the pillar and base of the truth. God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2: 4). You want to see that there is something that you can bring them into, what is here in the light of the assembly, and is available even in days such as this because, as we have already said, God does not revert to second thoughts because of the departure; He stands by His original thoughts.
I thought that in Ephesians we would be greatly stimulated to see the light of this. We are exhorted by the Lord’s prisoner, who was in outward circumstances of great limitation and weakness, as indicated in Paul’s chain (2 Timothy 1: 16). I trust that we are not ashamed of Paul’s chain. Onesiphorus went all through Rome to find Paul and he was not ashamed of Paul’s chain. We would long for other believers that they might find Paul today, what Paul represents, the Lord’s elect vessel. I am referring to the distinct Pauline line of truth that has come through to us so distinctively in the revival and the way that it is available today. We long to see our fellow believers being prepared to take on the position of reproach that is connected with the man in prison, Paul’s chain. Paul says the word of God is not bound (2 Timothy 2: 9); the choicest thoughts of God came out from that prison. The whole counsel of God, as it came out at Ephesus in his ministry, entered into what Paul wrote in the epistle to the Ephesians, and he is exhorting us to walk worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called.
The point is spiritual dignity, to walk worthy, according to Psalm 133, in the dignity of the anointing, in the dignity of the heavenly calling, recognising the spiritual formation in each one functioning as joints of supply in order that there may be the development of what is for God in one another in the bringing in of what is spiritual, and getting through to what is spiritual in one another, so that we get the increase of the body to its self-building up in love (Ephesians 4: 16). So Paul says, “with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering”
This is the mind that was in Christ Jesus, involving that our hearts and minds have been affected by the descending path of Jesus. We are learning from Him who is meek and lowly in heart and are finding rest for our souls. There is no rest if we are fighting amongst ourselves, devouring one another, but there is rest for our souls in this going down mind, and we will find that it will make way for this unity, “the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”. The unity of the Spirit can never be broken; the uniting bond of peace can be broken.
So we have to see to our relations one with another, that the golden clasps and the loops of blue are getting hold of one another, as it says, “that the tabernacle may be one”, Exodus 27: 6. That is the concern of the apostle here; he says, “There is one body and one Spirit”, not, there was one body and one Spirit, but there is one Spirit and one body.
Now as to John 17, we have often been reminded that John is God’s reserve in the last days and we have, we might say, the High Priest presented to us in the holiest. The Lord Jesus in speaking to the Father in verse 11 says, “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one as we”. Think of the oneness between the Father and the Son—“I and the Father are one”, John 10: 30. The Holy Spirit is involved, dear brethren. He is the bond between the Father and the Son, and He is the bond between Christ Jesus and His own, as Mr. Raven taught us. I am not just speaking about unity here, I am speaking of oneness because there is more than unity between divine Persons; there is oneness. Unity is connected with our side, but when we speak of divine Persons they are infinitely one; ‘all are God, all one God, God all three’, as Mr. Darby said (N.S. Vol. 32, p.16).
So we have the Lord’s words here, “Sanctify them by the truth—thy word is truth”, and the Lord is serving in view of presenting the assembly to Himself without spot or wrinkle, or any of such things. Sanctification by the truth involves that we are set apart from all that is in the world and brought into holy relations one with another. If there is worldliness how can we expect to be in this oneness?—but the assembly is an order of things that has nothing to do with the world, she is an unworldly witness here of heavenly things; her origin is heaven, her destiny is heaven; she is just passing through here, and the thing for us is to be marked by this oneness, “that the world may believe that thou hast sent me”. We must own our part in the public breakdown in christendom, but there is something that the Lord has, and which John contemplates, of Bethany character. There is a testimony; the Jews said, “Behold how he loved him!”, John 11: 36. The world saw a testimony at Bethany. Well, the Lord has something of Bethany character in the present time, and He desires that it might exist in our relations with divine Persons, with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that we might be marked by this oneness, and by these affections, taking character from the way that Christ was in the affections of the Father and the Father in the affections of Christ, all involving the blessed Holy Spirit.
These things are to be true in His own, that we by the Spirit might be in the flow of divine affections. I desire to be more in it myself, to know more of this current flow of divine affections operating and taking in the assembly, a vessel that is so near the Trinity, the vessel that is so near to God in revelation, and which is soon to come out of heaven having the glory of God. Dear brethren, what oneness there is in the heavenly city, the climax of God’s own work in the present time coming
out, not marked by breakdown but by what is altogether glorious, and by oneness, it has one street. So we would desire, dear brethren, that we might be characterised by the dignity that belongs to it. The departure from the truth that has taken place resulted in dignity being set aside and things being brought down to the level of the world, but what God has for Himself is marked by spiritual dignity. May we be preserved in the light of our heavenly calling, and walk worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called, in the oneness seen in the relations between the Father and the Son, the Spirit of His Son being sent out into our hearts whereby we cry, Abba, Father. So the Lord says, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one”, that is the glory of sonship. Oh that we might be one, even as Christ is one with the Father; the many brethren are the many sons being brought to glory, and the many brethren are all of one. May the Lord help us in the light of these thoughts, dear brethren, to be here for His own pleasure and to be effectual here in His testimony, for His name’s sake.
Address at Buckie
17 July 1976