APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Extracts from Two Readings on Ephesians 5 We are to be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love; our practice has its source in God. It is not in any way an improvement of man, but the Spirit of God coming in that the practice may be according to God. The issue of God’s ways will be that He will be all in all; and that has already begun in regard of us, in that we have put on the new man which is after God. We can get nothing higher or greater morally than what is after God. There can be no development, nor progress, nor advance in connection with it. We may advance in it, but the thing itself cannot be higher. It is after God.

^[p. 278] The love was perfect towards us, but at the same time it was perfect in its object, because Christ offered Himself to God. No human mind, even if capable of entering into the fact that Christ gave Himself for us, could have added the statement which follows: “An offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour”. it was perfect in every way.

‘Imitators’ is the real idea. It is to imitate God morally. When God created the world, Adam was not morally “after God”. He was not created in righteousness and holiness. But now in regard of the universe of bliss, God is morally the beginning of it. Adam had been made in the likeness of God in a sense — that is, in intelligence and so on — but it never could have been said that he was after God in righteousness and holiness of truth.

In the kingdom of Christ and of God, all will come out in its true character, and then you get the inheritance. Morally, we are now in the kingdom, but dispensationally it is not yet set forth. The kingdom morally is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, but in the way of display it is yet to come: “Thy kingdom come”; then we shall have the inheritance in fact. If we have the Spirit we have the inheritance, for the Spirit is the earnest of it. It is absolutely impossible for God to take up the possession of things until they are brought under His moral sway, till all is subdued to God; and that will be by judgment. Then there will be the redemption of the purchased possession. It is a great thing to see that the kingdom of God is going to be brought in. If we look at the world around, it is filled with lawlessness, and that leads to every possible development of evil, for if a man break away from God, he could not be guaranteed in any relationship in life.

Apostasy is more than lawlessness; it is the positive rejection of God, after God has revealed Himself Men are prepared to have a world without God.

There have been two worlds; God’s world and man’s world; in each you get a city and a religious system (Jerusalem and Babylon). Man’s world swallows up God’s world. That which has taken the place of being Christian, will ride the beast and prove itself to be essentially Babylonish and idolatrous. Egypt was the world of nature; it was not imperial. It is the world of flesh. The beast is the world-system, which is to be revived, and the harlot then rides the beast.

“Now are ye light in the Lord”. Any part of the earth which is dark proves that it is not in the shining of the sun. It is a great thing to be light, for it proves we are in the shining of the light. There is no meaning in it unless we are morally “in the Lord”; it is true of such. The Lord must be a reality to us, and we have to be in the shining of Christ, otherwise we cannot be light in the Lord. When the Lord comes and takes up the kingdom, then we shall get goodness, righteousness, and truth, but these things are to come out in us morally now. It is to come out in us as fruit, proving what is acceptable to the Lord. When He takes things up, you may be sure He will have what is acceptable to Himself: It will not do for people to assume they are light, if there is no fruit of it. The earth brings forth fruit because it abides in the shining of the sun.

The effect of “the truth” is to make you free — i.e., truth in the inward parts; then you look at things morally. The great things of the world are nothing to me, for if I look at them morally, i.e., in their relation to God, they are completely stripped and naked to me; it is thus we get a true estimate of things. Many things were tolerated in Old Testament times which are made manifest now. The light had not come in; now it has, and things are convicted by it. Deception came out in many of the people of God in Old Testament times. You cannot get truth, which rebukes all these things, except in the light of the revelation of God. There are arguments in the present day, as to ^[p. 280] how far falsehood is permissible under certain circumstances. The question may be argued for ever, but the real point is, what is permissible with the light of God? If people have dull perception of good and evil, it is because they are not in the shining of Christ.

The walk of a Christian is his testimony to the truth. We fail as to being “filled with the Spirit”. We are so largely governed by the natural. The thought in Christianity is that you are to be filled with the Spirit. When one thinks of one’s relations with others, one feels how little what is of the Spirit comes out. It is humbling when one has met a Christian, not to have had anything of a spiritual character in the way of communications one with another. It is a great thing to apprehend that there is in the world what is according to God’s own nature, love and light, and these things come out in the saints in testimony to God.

Christianity is no question of holding doctrine; it is vitality. It is after God, vitally and practically. No person really possesses more than he enters into. It is a total mistake to assume to possess that into which you have not entered.

It seems evident from what we get here (verse 25, etc.) that in the creation of the relationship of husband and wife, God had in His mind the thought of Christ and the assembly. And now that the truth of Christ and the assembly has come to pass, it becomes the standard of conduct between man and wife. But Christ and the assembly was the first thing before God. The first testimony that God gave was to unity: “And they shall be one flesh”, Genesis 2: 24. When things were created, the first relationship established set forth the principle of unity. There were two, and there was union; they became one and that is unity. When God sets forth the moral universe, I think the first principle that will be seen in it will be unity. The Lord’s thought as to the apostles and those who should believe on Him through their word, was that they ^[p. 281] should be in unity. What was to be before the eyes of the world was the great principle of unity. “That they may be one, as we are”. The prayer was all to that end. The spirit and principle of unity will pervade the whole universe of bliss. Every family will be named of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All will be held together by Christ, and so unity will pervade all. It is remarkable that even before sin came in, God should have set forth the principle of unity in Adam and Eve. “I and my Father are one”; they are one in nature. So too, Christ and the church are one, because they are one in nature.

Another principle comes in in connection with unity, and that is subjection. Unity is not incompatible with subjection. You get that coming out in Christ Himself when here. He and His Father were one, and yet it was not incompatible with His place of subjection as man. “As the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything”. The husband is head of the wife; the head represents the intelligence. In the relation of Adam and Eve, her will was to have no place. If she appreciated Adam, he was her intelligence. So, if we appreciate Christ, we carry out things according to Christ, because He is the directing intelligence. The effect of this would be that the church would set Him forth. Eve was taken out of Adam, and if so, she was not wronged in being ruled by Adam; he was to be her intelligence.

The truth in regard of Christ is, that for their sakes He sanctified Himself. He separated Himself from all here, that they might be sanctified through the truth. The church has allied herself to the world in the absence of Christ, He having set Himself apart in heaven.

Faith is not to be faith in dogma, but faith in God. Our ability to appropriate what is in God’s mind for man, depends on our knowledge of God; it is according ^[p. 282] to our measure of the knowledge of Him that we are able to appropriate the blessings. God has given a perfect expression of His mind and thought in regard to man; it is set forth in Christ, but my appropriation of it is proportionate to my knowledge of God. That is the way people begin to possess spiritual things, and hence the work is purely moral.

It is very wonderful that when Christ came into the world, He was conscious there was a treasure in it. Everything was dark enough, but Christ came into the world, and having become a man, He was conscious there was a treasure in it. It was not His mind that it should come into manifestation. This is not the time when the church is to come into prominence; but she is to come out of heaven, to come out having the glory of God.

“That he might sanctify and cleanse it”. Christ would set the church free from every contamination of the world. Cleansing is by the action of the word. As you come under the action of the mind of God, it forms you in the divine nature. You could not get cleansing from the world in any other way. I cannot conceive it possible that a man can be cleansed from the contamination of this world, unless by entering into the world that is before God. If we comprehend the length and breadth and depth and height, it is in that way the cleansing would be brought about. We must be formed in the intelligence of the positive, otherwise we cannot be apart from the influence of this world. It is by Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. The cleansing is the course Christ took in order that He might present the church to Himself all glorious. It is not so much the application, as the end or purpose for which Christ gave Himself. In spite of everything He will present the church to Himself, according to Himself — morally according to God.

I should connect this, not so much with ministry as with the work of the Spirit. Nothing brings about ^[p. 283] washing, save the natural influence of being formed in the divine nature. It is immensely important that we should have it before us as a serious matter, that we are to be growing by the knowledge of God. There is no single thing that comes out in the way of good towards man, that is not bound up with the knowledge of God. Take the simplest thing, the forgiveness of sins, it is bound up with what God is morally — it is bound up with His righteousness. Eternal life involves the love of God; the gift of the Spirit is bound up with His faithfulness; the casting off of the Jew is bound up with His character — it is “the severity of God”; salvation is bound up with the love and kindness of God to man. Whatever thought of blessing there is for man in Christ, the only ability we have to appropriate it, is our knowledge of God. It is that which gives its intensely moral character to Christianity. Even in regard to presentation, the great thought is to be in suitability for the presentation. It may not take place down here, but we need to look to it in order that we should be in suitability now. The Lord will not present part of the church to Himself, but the great point is that those who are here, waiting for the coming of the Lord, ought to be in suitability. No spots or wrinkles are suitable. I suppose wrinkles are marks of decay or old age — there are to be no wrinkles; that is the state we ought to be desiring now. It is no good looking back to the past, we need to have what is coming in view, i.e., the coming of the Lord.

If we know the truth of these things, we ought to set the example. I believe the generality of Christians attach a great deal more importance to their own concerns than they do to the things of Jesus Christ.

I do not quite know why “the Saviour of the body” is brought in. It indicates the completeness of the title of Christ to the believer. He is not only the intelligence, the Head, but He also is the Saviour of ^[p. 284] the body. All are actually dependent on Christ even as to condition. The word ‘body’ must not always be taken too literally; it is also symbolic of the present condition: He will change all into His own glorious condition.