THE WAY IN WHICH GOD ACTS TOWARDS US
[p. 366] THE WAY IN WHICH GOD ACTS TOWARDS US
I think it is a wonderful thing for us to prove the way in which God is pleased now to act towards us. In all our minds, until we are set right by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we think God requires us to be something. No one here would think of looking anywhere for salvation but in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything there depends entirely on what has been wrought by the Lord Jesus — it is the foundation of the faith of the soul for eternity. There faith rests entirely for eternity, as on the solid rock that cannot be moved — on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is when we come to the christian pathway that we make mistakes. The moment Israel really were brought into the truth of redemption, then began the wilderness pathway where they were tested. The great point of the testing was, were their hearts really towards God?
I need not say they broke down. The object of the pathway is testing; it is there where we often have an idea of a kind of requirement. While it is here that responsibility attaches to us, the great matter of responsibility is, that I have not the slightest confidence in myself. There are “ifs” — “if we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit”. But if there are “ifs” with regard to our responsible life down here, it is not if you do anything — it is not that you and I can walk through the wilderness in any strength of our own. The contrast is brought out in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 21: 33, the parable referred to their responsibility. “There was a householder who planted a vineyard ... and let it out to husbandmen ... But when the time of fruit drew near, he sent his bondmen to the husbandmen to receive his fruits”. He sent his servants to demand the fruit — there was responsibility. That was the way in which God [p. 367] regarded the system of judaism, but there is nothing such as that in christianity — the fruit must come from God, but you do not get that in the parable of the husbandmen, they did not yield the fruits. When the final point came, it was found that their hearts were really enmity against God. They slew His servants, and when the Son came they said “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and possess his inheritance”. There is the end of responsibility and it only brings out that in the heart of man there is enmity against God and that came out in the slaying of His own dear Son.
You might say, “But that is what the Jews did, you do not mean to say that I would do it?” No, I do not believe you would, but if you have learned your own heart, you would know that your flesh would. If you were to walk according to flesh, I do not know where you would get to. It was their walk through the wilderness that gives us to learn that. When Israel came to the brazen serpent, after forty years of the wilderness experience, the flesh in them was just as bad as at the beginning. That showed what the flesh was, and the great thing for us is to have no confidence in the flesh. Where you really learn it best is in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The parable I referred to first is followed by another where you do not get anything about man’s responsibility, but God acting according to His own pleasure — Matthew 22, “A king who made a wedding feast for his son”. The great point was the pleasure God had in His Son, and that is the other side of the matter. God did not say to man, ‘There is My beloved Son and you ought to love Him’, He says ‘There is My beloved Son and I love Him’. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. The moment you get to that you are entirely off the ground of responsibility. God will invite guests to come and see the love He has got for His Son, and if the question of fitness comes in, God provides the fitness — everybody can come. When [p. 368] we get to heaven, what it will be to see the delight God has in His Son! That is what we are invited to — they invited whoever they found.
Now God deals entirely on that ground. We may say responsibility comes in this way — if one of those comes in he must come in suited to Him who made the feast. If he comes in, he is bound to come in suitably clad. But, beloved friends, all is provided — that is what we get in Romans. God does not come demanding righteousness, He brings it. His attitude is not that of demanding, that is all over. If God demands a thing under the most favourable circumstances, He gets nothing. Take Luke 13, the barren fig-tree, “Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none”. Israel had been under the culture of the Lord for three years, and He comes seeking fruit and finds none, and therefore that question of responsibility is entirely over. “Cut it down; why does it also render the ground useless”. The fig-tree is wild and has the curse of the Lord Jesus. It is all Israel, and Israel represents man in the flesh.
Now we have altogether another thing and all is of His grace, the blessed God comes in and provides what man has not got, that is righteousness. Man is set in life and righteously set there. Now that is God’s grace, grace works towards us — how blessed! The question of proving all ends in this, that man is unable to meet God in any way, and if it be to provide righteousness, God provides it. So that not only can I see in the cross of Christ how He establishes grace, but, beloved friends, more than that, righteousness was established. Romans 5: 18 reads, “so then as it was by one offence towards all men to condemnation, so by one righteousness towards all men for justification of life:” one great act of righteousness in contradistinction to one great act of sin. It forms the basis upon which all the grace of God flows out towards us. That righteousness subsists in heaven, in the Person of Him who established it. It [p. 369] is most blessed to see how the grace of God flows out to us on the ground of God’s subsisting righteousness.
Now here we find another thing (verse 2); these Corinthian saints are looked at as the assembly of God down here. That is a common thing the believers now are granted this privilege to be the assembly of God. We might say that we do not know where to find it, but it is a great thing to see that God did establish down here that which He could call His assembly, that when the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and cast out of this world there was a company called His assembly in which was the testimony of Christ.
A great deal has been said of late to us about the word ‘Come’. Now that word will finally be Christ, He who is now hidden in the heavens will come out again. There will be nothing in the coming age that will not bear the stamp of Christ. The whole kingdom will be one word — “Christ”. If I look at that, the fulness of the gospel is to preach the unsearchable riches of the Christ. That was the great thing that the apostle Paul was entrusted with. God could say, ‘I have a Son, an only-begotten Son, I love Him — the whole delight of My heart is in Him, I have made Him heir of everything. Now I love to tell you of that One’ — that is the gospel. I know He tells us about His work, He must tell us about that, He tells us what He has done, but the great burden of the gospel is His Son, it is the gospel of God concerning His Son, and would He not tell everybody what is in His Son? God would speak to man about His Son and that is the great prime thing of the gospel.
Another thing God committed to Paul was the church; the church had the testimony of the Christ confirmed in it (verses 6 and 7) awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the moment when the heavens will be opened to unveil all the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that formed the mystery of the gospel. Think of it, beloved friends, when all that is veiled will come out in display, and the church is the [p. 370] testimony of that Christ who is to come out then.
Now I have spoken of the failure of the church, and we can see from scripture how the church has failed. You must see how largely the coming of the Lord Jesus was enjoyed amongst the saints in the early days, but the church has forgotten what is in the heavens and has ceased to be the witness down here of the riches that are in Christ which she had had the knowledge of, but thank God we have been aroused a little, “awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” — there is no time stated. Supposing there had been in scripture a day set when the Lord Jesus should come, what would be the effect on souls? They would say, ‘The Lord is not coming yet, we need not trouble ourselves about that’. But there is no excuse for the church going on with the world. The thing to me is, not ‘when’ the Lord is coming. His coming is not a matter of time. Dear friends, morally that is of no consequence. The nearness is this — not of time but of affection, that the coming of the Lord is near to our hearts, that we love His appearing, not that we can calculate His appearing, but love it and thus the Lord’s coming is near. Now it is so with us here, that all those unsearchable riches of the Christ are hidden in the heavens, and the church is made the testimony of it.
Now verse 4, “the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus”. I want you to see the way in which we are set in complete privilege, not in demand at all, and all the privilege in our Lord Jesus Christ — not a question of “through” Him but “in” Him. And again, “of him are ye in Christ Jesus”. Now what is the effect of all that on our hearts? I take the case of a poor man in a cottage and a rich man in his mansion. All the wants of the poor man are supplied by him, whatever necessity arises, he causes it to be met. But the poor man lives in his cottage and the rich man in his mansion. There is a great difference, however the grace may come, but if I have all the grace “in Christ”, it shows I must be near [p. 371] Him. You must know that it is not merely that you have to send a prayer up to the throne of grace, so as to bring a favour down, but, beloved friends, by the Holy Spirit of God you know that God has made the saints down here the testimony of Christ.
Then in verse 5, “that in everything ye have been enriched in him” — it is all “in him”. The church is a company of saints that is enriched “in him, in all word of doctrine, and all knowledge”, that is the great privilege of the assembly of God. The great thing for us is to understand what our privilege is and that the Spirit of God is here that we may enter into all the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that the coming day may be near to us, not as a matter of time, but that we love His appearing.
Another thing that is connected with the church is that we should be held together in unity. I refer to what the Lord said in John 17, “that they may be all one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”, the unity of divine love, the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Father. Now if we are kept in the sense of that, we are taken so clean off the ground of responsibility and brought so on to the ground of privilege, that everything might be according to what is in Christ Jesus — we should be brought into that. Now that is what the Lord prays for all who are now on the ground of responsibility.
What a wonderful thing unity is, unity of saints is the great testimony that we are free from man and free from the world. Oh! how wonderful the privilege we are brought into, how dim all this was to those Corinthians, how little they entered into it, so the apostle brings in the cross. If I look at the cross what do I see? That all I am and was, God hung it up to shame on the cross of Christ, so that I know that I cannot boast in anything of mine but only in my shame — “their glory in their shame”. God has hung it all up to shame that there should be no glorying in man or anything of the [p. 372] flesh at all. But does He leave me there? Oh! no, He makes Christ everything to me, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption”. God’s grace has worked in our hearts, and what a wonderful thing He introduces us into — all that is of divine wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption: righteousness, there I get the robe that fits me for everything; sanctification, separation from all that is unholy — the more one’s heart is true to Christ, the more we are drawn from the world; and finally redemption, which brings us into the scene where the Lord Jesus is everything.
Well, I have sought to bring before you the question of privilege, in order that we might be brought to know the way in which God works and may all our souls know it better for His name’s sake.