CHAPTER 3: 1 - 13
[p. 229] CHAPTER 3: 1 - 13
We get the construction, the architecture, in chapter 2; the third chapter gives us the filling-in. We get first the form or skeleton of the building, but we want to get the filling-in, and that is what I would call this chapter. In chapter 2 Jew and Gentile are built together for an habitation of God by the Spirit, but in chapter 3 we get “filled even to all the fulness of God”.
God bound the apostle in prison for the Gentiles, or he might have gone roving off to the Jews: naturally he would. He would not have been bound to the Gentiles, but he accepts the position providentially: “I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles”. He was made a prisoner by the Jews, but he was detained for the Gentiles.
No one can understand the secret of the house of God except they know the mystery, for the mystery is the filling out of it; the fulness of God was to characterise the house. You may get the framework of the house of God by people being converted, but there must be muscle and sinew: “That ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. The house of God is before men in a public way, but no one not in the house can understand the secret of the house. A clock shows the time of day, but people do not see its works. The filling-in takes place in the saints. The third chapter is the filling out of the last verse of the second chapter. We want more than a skeleton; as in Ezekiel’s vision, flesh and sinew came up upon the dry bones. The filling out is entirely the divine work in the saints. Ministry may enlighten either as to the gospel or as to the mystery, but when the evangelist or teacher has done his work, he must betake himself to prayer. The mischief is that sometimes [p. 230] the servants think they can convert. Conversion is entirely God’s work. I do not doubt those used are gifted men, but they are too anxious to get quickly manifested results.
The filling out is the divinely-formed state, “rooted and grounded in love”, “to know the love of Christ”. The saints are thus completely adequate for the display of God. I have seen a man skin and bone, but that is a poor specimen of a man; if you want the idea of a man you must get the filling-out. The prayer in the first chapter has reference to the gospel. In the third it has reference entirely to their state. The saints were to be here collectively as God’s house, and there was to be a complete display of God in them; every quality of God was to come out in them; this was what the church was to be here. So, when Christ was here, He was the vessel for the completeness of the Godhead, and there is that too, in the church which is sufficient for the full display of God. The last part of the chapter brings out what the church was to be according to the thought of God.
Verse 6 gives the idea of the mystery; Gentiles were to be fellow-heirs with the Jews. The mystery was made known to Paul directly from God; it was made known to him by revelation; that is the point of verse 3.
“Joint heirs”. The force of this expression is Jew and Gentile together. The mystery is, how that could be.
The two loaves in Leviticus 23 were baken with leaven because the flesh was there, the human element; leaven is there, and a sin-offering had to be offered, which was to meet the leaven.
What we get in 1 Corinthians 12 is the fact that by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body; this does not explain how there could be one body composed of Jew and Gentile. The answer to this is the [p. 231] cross, where both Jew and Gentile are removed, and the two are reconciled unto God in one body. It is “one body in Christ”. 1 Corinthians 12 states the fact, but not how it could be. The answer to the latter is, the two are abolished, and Christ is here instead. He forms in Himself of twain one new man. Christ takes the place of Jew and Gentile: it is “in Christ”. The mystery is for earth, not for heaven. The mystery lies in that Jew and Gentile are both gone, and in place of these Christ is there. What a triumph it is! The world could not understand this, but it is true for God and true for the believer.
Paul was the special minister of the mystery; we get the light of it from Paul, but God alone can make it good to us. There are two fatal things in the world — orthodoxy and theology. To be bound by them is to be put into an iron box with fetters, and such an one never moves on!
The “administration of the mystery” is the practical effectuation of it down here.
“Promise” (in verse 6) is something definite; I think very likely it is the Spirit; “in Christ” makes it abstract. It was not wonderful things given to them as men in the flesh down here; but what pertains to them as in Christ. Many things pertain to me as down here — family ties and such like — but they have no reference to me as in Christ. In that sense “in Christ” is a limited expression. All the things of the wilderness are not in Christ, but are in the flesh; everything “in Christ” is eternal. What I am in Christ should be the spring that regulates me and enables me to carry out my duties according to God down here.
His (Christ’s) body is what is taken from Him. If a rib was taken from Adam and builded into a woman, the woman certainly belonged to Adam: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”.
[p. 232] We get two things in verses 8 and 9: Paul was to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ”, and also “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery”. Paul brings out the riches of Christ in a way the others did not. The twelve preached an exalted Christ, and the Spirit as the witness of this, but the apostle Paul gives all that was involved in the gift of the Spirit, and that brings in all the unsearchable riches of Christ; for what is true of Christ objectively, is made good in the saints subjectively by the Spirit.
“Unsearchable” — the riches have that character; they cannot be sounded, they are past finding out. He, the Eternal Son, became man; you cannot get to the bottom of that! Abraham’s portion could be measured (see Genesis 13: 17), but the love of Christ passes knowledge.
Man gets no spiritual blessing, nothing from God, except by the gospel. He gets the gift of the Spirit, and no more is given of God; but if you have the Holy Spirit you have a power in you which can effect anything. The apostle’s work was enlightening — not acting on people’s nerves and sensibilities. If ministry is not in divine power, no one suffers more than the speaker himself, for he must feel himself more or less an impostor.
“To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God”. I do not believe these principalities and powers had had an adequate sense of the resources of God, His manifold wisdom. Apparently God had been baffled; sin had come in, evil had even been in heaven, and God saw fit to give a testimony to principalities and powers of His resources — of what He could do. All the victory was in death: all was silenced and baffled in death. Resurrection is the display of victory, as Goliath’s head was in David’s hand, but death was the victory.
“[p. 233] That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death”. God’s righteousness was vindicated, the flesh condemned, Satan defeated! We have not had a sufficient sense of what has been effected in the death of Christ. These principalities and powers learn more now than they did in the creation. I wonder what they think of the church! “All the sons of God shouted for joy” at the creation, but now they have a witness to the manifold wisdom of God. God was apparently baffled, but He had resources. Both Jew and Gentile had completely failed, and He removes them and brings Christ in, and makes the Jew and Gentile together the vessel for the display of Christ. Depend upon it, the principalities and powers were astounded! They had seen Christ rejected, the Jew handing Him over to the Gentiles, and He is crucified; and now, all gone from under the eye of God, Christ takes the place of both. But Jew and Gentile become together the vessel for the display of it. Although the ruin still remains, there is always recuperative power by reason of the Spirit here. The times of the reformers and even the present century prove this. Angels have to look upon things as they are; they would not be able to discern between the work of God in the saints and the saints themselves.
The church is a very poor testimony now. When we look at the existing state of things, the ruin around us, it seems almost impossible to enter into what the divine thought was in regard to the church. Philadelphia stands in the breach, but “a little strength” is all that is attributed to it — that is, as taking up the place of and answering to the church. If the Lord says “little strength”, it is a great mistake to think of great strength. If your eyes have been opened to the confusion, be thankful for the light He gives, but make no pretence to great strength.