THE LORD’S WORKMANSHIP

J. D. Gray

Acts 1: 6–9, 12–16 to “of David”

I want to speak to you about the Lord’s work and what He left when He went. I trust I will get help as I proceed. It was a great occasion, the departure of Christ from the earth. Men actually beheld Him going. The earth could not hold Christ any longer. Heaven must receive Him; heaven was waiting to receive Him. He was taken up. I think there is an indication in this section of the Lord’s feelings about leaving. No doubt He had feelings in relation to where He was going, anticipating those scenes above, but I think the Lord would feel it as He was taken up. It is not that Christ was unwilling to go, I do not mean that, but I think it brings out the depth of the feelings of the Lord Jesus as He left His own. What a moment for Him!

He had sought to set them up in view of this moment from before His death, as in John 13 and onwards. There it speaks about where He was going, and they ask questions as to the way and the Father, and the Lord graciously answers them. He had taught them there at that time that the Spirit would come. He knew their hearts were filled with grief. He entered sympathetically into the feelings of these men. He could say, speaking of them, “But ye are they who have persevered with me in my temptations” (Luke 22: 28); they were with Him sympathetically.

Thomas in John 11, when the Lord goes into Judaea, in view of the resurrection of Lazarus, says so feelingly, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11: 16). That was real; it was not like the boasting of Peter, inadvisedly, when he thought he

could follow the Lord; it was a sincere matter from the heart that Thomas expressed, and the Lord would take account of that. Peter could say in John 6, when the Lord said, “Will ye also go away?”, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal” (John 6: 67, 68).

You see, they were attached to Him. They knew no other from whom they had drawn comfort. The Lord carried all that in His spirit as He encouraged them. He knowing what was before Him in the cross, they largely unintelligent as to the way He was going. In Mark 10

they are amazed at the way the Lord was going, going to Jerusalem; why would He go there?

He was going to die. He knew all the way; they did not know all the way. In Mark 14 all left Him and fled. One young man in that chapter tried to pursue where Jesus was going, a linen cloth cast about his naked body. He was not able for it; all forsook Him and fled. Such were these men; they loved the Lord Jesus. He was making them something, “I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1: 17); they were under the touch of Christ from day to day as He came in and went out amongst them, the Lord of glory in human circumstances, and, as I said, He sought to encourage them in what was possibly the evening before His crucifixion.

John 13 to 17 would, I think, be the evening before His crucifixion.

How much He went into, to strengthen their hearts that He was coming again; “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you” (John 14: 18), but there was going to be an absence, dear brethren, and in that absence the Holy Spirit was going to come. The Lord taught them that the Holy Spirit would be a Comforter, and in fact He uses the word, “another Comforter”; that brings out that they had found comfort in Christ, that He was a Comforter to them, and so the matter arises again when He is departing, but there is a difference; they had been

with Him in resurrection. A remarkable matter, the going of Christ. When they go back to Jerusalem they are alone. They are alone in this world, this little company, about one hundred and twenty according to this scripture; they were alone. As far as they could see they were bereft of protection, bereft of the care of Christ, and the Spirit had not come; but they are a remarkable company, most remarkable. Personality shines out in them, personality formed by Christ alone, Christ Himself. There are no other persons who have had experiences like these men. They become true to what He had called them. Several of them are surnamed in the gospels by the Lord. Peter is one, his name means ‘stone’. No longer faltering Peter. The Lord had spoken with him privately after His resurrection, gone over the matters of his denial, and set him up in the dignity that belonged to him as in the divine mind.

Then, too, James and John, sons of thunder. I do not think, dear brethren, it is right to connect the sons of thunder with the incident in Luke 9 where they ask as to commanding that fire come down from heaven to consume the Samaritans. I do not think that is what the Lord meant; I do not think that relates to them at all as the sons of thunder. I think the son of thunder in John comes out in his epistles, where he draws a straight line for us through all the difficulties of an anti-Christian world to show us how the work of God comes through in the believer so that he is clear of everything. The witness is there that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son, and the believer keeps himself from idols. I think you will find in his epistles the characteristics of John the evangelist as a son of thunder. Then there is Bartholomew, that is Nathanael, “an Israelite, in whom there is no guile”. As he came under the hand of Christ, the Lord brought out that

feature in that man. There would be others. You get in John 14 several of them; Philip speaks enquiringly; Judas, not the Iscariote, (that is Jude the brother of James) asks a question too in regard to the distinction between them and the world. How the Lord graciously answers them!

The company here that is seen in this section in Acts 1 is left alone. Christ is in heaven. The Lord Jesus is in holy counsel with the Father and with the Spirit. These men, and the dispensation which is being inaugurated, are the subject of the counsels of God in heaven while they are left below on the earth. The period of ten days was designed to manifest the glory of the handiwork of Christ. There is no other handiwork like it. The Spirit of God comes and takes it on; the assembly is formed and that goes forward. What a consideration for us, the Lord Jesus in manhood here! The Father was in Him, “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (John 14: 11); how deep that is, the personification of the Father in Christ;

“how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5: 19), and “in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1: 19); Jesus in manhood— God was there. There was something distinctive in how the Lord Jesus did things, the manner of the doing. How He did things belonged to the Deity. There is something inscrutable in relation to Christ’s doing, and it proves itself that it is equal to the strain.

These men were equal to holding things in the area that was charged to them during the ten days. The proving time of the forty days was a holy experience for these men. Luke 24 brings out their side of things, how they were frightened even after the resurrection, how they did not fully understand. The Lord appears to them and they are frightened; they wonder if they beheld a spirit.

How tender He was as appreciating that they did not yet have the Spirit; they were still in flesh and blood conditions and they had been bereft of Him as a Comforter. How the Lord gathered them, going after one and another, the two on the way to Emmaus. Peter, as we said, and others, Mary—how He gathered each one in relation to Himself, and it says in Luke 24,

“Then he opened their understanding to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24: 45), and the things concerning Himself. What a ministration to them, dear brethren! Before, where they had not understood things, now through His own help, His own opening of their understanding, the action of a divine Person, they are equal to understand things, understanding the truth, understanding the Scriptures. Such is the handiwork of Christ wrought into the souls of these men. All their history with Him prior to the crucifixion would be cumulative in relation to that moment when He opened their understanding; something had been wrought in them by Himself and the Lord appreciated how they had continued with Him. So He says in John 17, speaking to ‘the Father, “They were thine, and thou gavest them me … the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them”

(John 17: 6–8)—that was before His resurrection, before the crucifixion; there was something there substantially that the Lord could take account of.

The other great matter that they had experienced with Christ in the forty days was the inbreathing a remarkable matter. When the Lord appeared to them in John 20 He says,

“Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20: 22)—He breathed into them. He would breathe into each one of them. They are made to live in the life of a risen Christ. What a remarkable matter the inbreathing is. It is not the coming of the Spirit from heaven; these men had an experience which is particular to them as the

handiwork of Christ. Oh how choice to consider the detail of the Lord’s working with them.

Not only did He wash their feet in view of having part with Him, but He breathed into them; 1 Corinthians 15 brings out “the last Adam a quickening spirit”. They knew what it was to be quickened. I am trying to bring out the characteristics of this company in the early Acts as deriving what they had from Christ and, if I may say so, Christ alone, because before the advent of the Spirit they partook of the character of the heavenly Man. After the inbreathing they are trustworthy. He says, “whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”, John 20: 23—they are trustworthy; He could depend upon them. There is no more thought of who is the greatest. In Mark 10, even in view of Christ going up to Jerusalem to suffer, they are wondering who is to be the greatest. The Lord brings out the one who ministers is servant of all; Christian society is different from the society of men. Now there is no disparity amongst them as returning to Jerusalem to the upper room. They are wholly in accord with the Man that has gone up, that is the characteristic of the handiwork of Christ. In the words of the hymn, all thought of self was over for these persons.

Mary of Magdala would be among them; she had found Christ. In fact the message she gets from the Lord results in the gathering together of the brethren. What a thing to have a message from the Lord that gathers the saints together. “Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, John 20: 17; the bringing of that message to the brethren gathers them together. They had a new relationship with Christ, an understanding that Christ’s Father was their Father, Christ’s God was their God. Such are the experiences of these eleven men, and the women and others that were gathered together. The

features of the Man who had gone up are seen with them. It says, “These gave themselves all, with one accord to continual prayer, with several women”. That is a feature of Christ. Before He had chosen them initially He had spent, according to Luke 6, the whole night in prayer.

Now He had left them, and He had left them with a word, “But ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses”. They had to wait—“But do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high”, Luke 24: 49. They waited—they did not wait wearyingly. It is very instructive what comes out in this company of persons. It is the handiwork of the Master. Prayer is one thing that comes out, praying to God continually, the ability to sustain prayer through their experiences with Christ—I think particularly so in the forty days—and then, too, their intelligence in the Scriptures.

I did not read the rest of the passage, but I want to speak on it with the Lord’s help. First, this feature that comes to light of intelligence in Scripture. They go on the written word; Peter says, “It was necessary that the scripture should have been fulfilled”. The Lord had opened their understanding to understand the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself. How the Psalms yielded instruction to these persons in chapters 1 and 2 of the book of the Acts, bringing out how they understood their application to the Lord, and not only to the Lord but to what had to be done. There was no instruction left for them to make up the number to twelve, which they proceed to do. Peter says that Judas was numbered amongst them and

“received a part in this service”, Acts 1: 17, and then he says, “It is necessary therefore, that of the men who have assembled with us all the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day in which he was

taken up from us, one of these should be a witness with us of his resurrection”, Acts 1: 21, 22. Where did the intelligence come from to make up the twelve? I think, dear brethren, they had an apprehension of the standard of divine administration. It was not man’s standard; it was not in mind with divine Persons that what was broken should go through, but that the whole should become intact, not eleven but twelve, and they had the intuition in themselves to proceed with the matter. They understood from the Scriptures in regard to Judas, “Let his homestead become desolate, and let there be no dweller in it; and, Let another take his overseership”. See how they relied on Scripture, Psalm 69 and Psalm 109.

I think it is noteworthy for us to take account of Scripture. We have been reading in Revelation, and on enquiry into Philadelphia one of the matters which we perceived was the reliance on the Scripture by saints in that time, which is our own time, the written word, and you see how it had been inculcated into these men by the Lord Jesus. How often Christ quoted Scripture; you get it throughout the gospels, drawing on Scripture, so although they were bereft of divine Persons in their immediacy on the earth, they had the Scriptures. Thank God for the Scriptures! You know, dear brethren, the canon of Scripture—I refer to the New Testament—came from the hundred and twenty, with the exception of Paul. But I am interested in how the twelve worked out the standards of administration. Their names are in the foundation of the city, the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. We may not know much about some of their activities in the Acts, but God knows. They all contributed to the foundation of the city, the foundations of the wall of the city. They built up something that was to go through.

So John in his first epistle speaks about “That which was from the beginning” (1 John l: l), and he speaks too about their fellowship being “with the Father, and with his Son” (1 John 1: 3). They had a distinctive fellowship. There was something distinctive about this company that we did not enter into, but there is what we have entered into through them, and John speaks in that epistle about writing these things “that ye also may have fellowship with us ...”

and “that your joy may be full”. All they had come into they had come into through what was formed by Christ Himself and left on the earth, awaiting the Spirit.

And so the intelligence that comes to light in them—they do not select the one who was required. Spirituality works in these men; they do not select the one, they select men that are accredited from the day the Lord Jesus came in and went out amongst them, and they selected two, and then in their intelligence they leave it to the Lord to select the one. There is something in that, something that they learned from Christ, something of His own work, something of His own self, something of His own character. They did not want to be apart from Him. Their link with the Lord was by prayer, “And they prayed, and said, Thou Lord, knower of the hearts of all, shew which one of these two thou hast chosen, to receive the lot of this service and apostleship and the lot fell on Matthias” (Acts 1: 24–26). Matthias had had to wait. In the divine ways, dear brethren, the Lord did not select Matthias when He chose the twelve; he had to wait. How Christ felt it with a view to the Scripture being fulfilled, as we read in verse 16, “It was necessary that the scripture should have been fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before, by the mouth of David”—Matthias had to wait, the Lord selected Judas. Oh, what a solemn matter for Christ to do such a thing to work out the fulfilling

of Scripture, to work out something that enters into the feelings of every soul—the betrayal of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man Matthias had to wait until after the resurrection to receive the lot that was his in the apostleship. His name will be in the foundation of the city, equally with the others, used of God in the apostleship into which he came.

Oh to grasp the divine standard of service, the divine standard of administration! It comes through these men, it came into local assemblies when the Spirit came. It is not man’s administration. Someone remarked in the reading that the ten-power kingdom of man is building up in the western world—it is not a perfect administration; it derives from the powers of darkness, what comes out of the abyss; but these men understood that which is going through to the holy city, twelve, bringing out the perfection of divine administration.

When that matter is completed, dear brethren, the Spirit is free to come. What a thing that is.

Ephesians 4 says, “one body and one Spirit”. This scripture brings out that truth. At the end of Acts 1 there is in character one body, but to be quickened it requires the Spirit. At the beginning of chapter 2 they were all together in one place. There was one accord, one body in character—it was there, it was the handiwork of Christ, there was nothing like it—and one Spirit, the Spirit comes. The touch that had to be accomplished between the Lord going and the Spirit coming had been undertaken in the re-establishment of the twelve—I think that is of note; once that was accomplished there was nothing else to wait for. It coincided with the day of Pentecost now accomplishing, and the Spirit comes as parted tongues as of fire. The result is that they spoke as the Spirit gave them to speak forth. What a speaking!

You know, there is no speaking like the speaking of the Spirit. Antichrist cannot imitate that speaking. Revelation 13 brings out that the antichrist appears as a lamb with two horns, but note this, its voice was as a dragon. He cannot imitate Christ’s voice. It is a preservative to us, it is a protection to us to understand the voice of the Shepherd. The Spirit of God will help you in that; He will also help you in your own speaking, as these men were helped. What an expression of the anointing! They were not asked to go and preach until the Spirit came. The house had to be established on earth before the preaching took place. They had to have somewhere to bring the new converts, but the Spirit gave them to speak forth. So we see the bringing together of the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit, the anticipation in heaven of those persons on earth, that company, administering for the heart of Christ and the heart of God on their own with an intelligence that is most remarkable, and, once that is secured, the Spirit’s whole delight is in coming and sitting upon each one of them, in which company there was no discord. What a tribute to the work of Christ that He left what was equal to the ten-day test on its own without an element of discord and in which the flesh was inactive through prayer. Their link with the Man above, and with God, was by prayer, and they used it to the full and administered in a private way to establish that which the Spirit of God could come upon, quickening; so the assembly was formed. The Christian dispensation commences, one body and one Spirit.

When the Spirit comes, Christianity begins. Christ had established it, but the Christian dispensation commences when the Spirit comes. That is how I understand it, and it ends when Christ raptures the saints and the Spirit goes. It is characterized by the presence of the Holy Spirit of

God here, taking over in one sense from Christ. What a work the Lord Jesus Christ had left in this scene! What an accomplishment: Three-and-a-half years of ministry, forty days after His rising—Oh, the compression of the work of God by Christ into those days! No other was equal to it but the Lord Jesus. Well, may our hearts be encouraged, for His name’s sake.

Address in Edinburgh
14 October 1989