ETERNAL LIFE AND THE BODY OF CHRIST
[p. 188] ETERNAL LIFE AND THE BODY OF CHRIST
I think it is very important to see that we are not capable to enter into what eternal life is, and the truth of the “body” until we get on to ground other than that on which we are in connection with the kingdom and the new covenant. Again, you could not appreciate the truth of the body rightly if you did not enter into the truth of eternal life. You must be in the life of Christ, that of course is to come out in us in the way of character, if there is to be the setting forth of Christ in the saints, it must be consequent upon their being in the life of Christ.
Do you get the two things here?
Yes, life really underlies this epistle.
What is the difference between eternal life and the body?
Eternal life is what we are called to; the body is the vessel in which the mind of Christ is set forth.
Would you not put it the other way round?
No, I think not. It is of all importance to see that if God reveals Himself He does so according to the height of His purpose.
He begins from the top.
But at the same time things are presented to us in such a way that we may in our apprehension be led on step by step. If I had a good memory I might quickly pick up Scripture, but divine things are not learned morally in a moment. When a person is first converted, the point for him is not the learning of things in terms, but the being led on by ministry to the apprehension of the great end which God has in view at the outset. He begins from His own height and brings us to it gradually. Ministry presents the steps by which we come to it.
God’s height is His purpose.
Yes, and that is what made me say we come on to other ground. Eternal life and the body are connected with the purpose of God. We have them anticipatively because they have not yet been displayed.
Has reconciliation to be known first?
I think so. It is the point where you apprehend that all things are of God. That is found in 2 Corinthians 5.
Who do you say has these things anticipatively?
Christians.
Is reconciliation on the same ground as eternal life?
Reconciliation is of great importance as a point of apprehension. You get this in the prodigal. At some point of his experience reconciliation was entered into; but where we get perhaps the idea of eternal life was when he was seated at the father’s table. That is, all was on a completely new platform.
Is that connected with the fatted calf?
They fed on it. The fatted calf was held in reserve for great occasions, and in the eye of the father it was a very great occasion.
From the time he got into the house his history was marked by entering into the joy of the father.
Reconciliation was in order to that.
Yes, and so here, reconciliation is that, “He might present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight”.
You could not enjoy the blessings of the Father’s house unless you were suitable.
No, nor could you touch eternal life. For the Christian there is a sphere of holy affections entirely outside of the scene of death; that is what eternal life means to me.
Christ was always there, and we are brought into it now.
Christ has passed through death to bring us into it now.
[p. 190] Would you limit it to His being here on earth; He was always in the enjoyment of the Father’s love?
But He had not always taken the place of man; life becomes practicable for us because of His incarnation. There is no meaning in His being eternal life, save in connection with purposes of love to man.
It is in connection with the incarnation in Scripture.
Yes. Eternal life was what God had in His purpose in regard of man; and in view of this, Christ became Man; so that through death He might bring us into God’s purpose.
Does not that show that all the statements in John are anticipative?
Yes, as concerning us.
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life”. As to the presentation, eternal life, it was there; “That which we have seen and heard”.
It was there objectively in the Son of God; we know it subjectively in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Quite so. Christ was the way, the truth, and the life, now the Spirit is the truth.
And the Spirit is life.
How do you understand “the Spirit is truth”?
I think that everything for us lies in the Spirit, and the believer in having the Spirit has everything in principle, though he may not know everything that he has.
When it is said that it was presented in anticipation, that is in anticipation of the death and resurrection of Christ?
Yes. In one way you may connect the result with the coming of the Lord; we shall be in complete likeness to Him.
Do we learn eternal life in Paul’s ministry?
I think we ought to learn it there.
Why do you think so?
He was apostle according to the hope of eternal life.
John speaks most of it, but he does not speak of himself [p. 191] in relation to it like Paul. It reaches us really through Paul, who shows to us the steps which lead us into it.
Is it in Romans 5 at all?
I should take it up there. “As sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life”. That is the kingdom is established by God in order that through righteousness we might reach eternal life.
Because that was the purpose of God.
Yes, you come to what God purposed from the outset. John begins at once from the top with “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. He begins with the Son of God and the purposes of God in the Son.
We do not get in John the steps by which we come at it?
Paul would lead you on to it, “He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life”. I do not think it is a question of time there, but the end in view is eternal life; you have your fruit unto holiness and the end eternal life.
Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, is that future?
The statement is moral, not a question of time at all; it is the purpose of God in the reign of grace. It is that which God had in view in the establishment of the reign of grace. God has more pleasure in our entering into His purpose than even we have.
What father does not love to see his family happy? It must be a very great delight to God to see His saints entering into His purpose.
The truth of the cross is the way to the enjoyment of His love.
Exactly, to bring us into the reality of eternal life as to our sense of things.
Does John describe that?
John does not present things so much in the way of [p. 192] ministry, as he describes everything in its essence; he shows you what it is. You get more light on eternal life in John than you do anywhere.
“This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. Is that present?
Yes, the Holy Spirit has come down to that end. In connection with this subject 1 John 5 is a very important chapter. It is the witness that God has given of His Son; the holy love of God has been expressed, and the Spirit given to bring us into that sphere in which the Son is as Man.
You could not have the thought of eternal life apart from the sphere.
It is absolutely impossible.
What is the fulness in Colossians? “In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell”.
It is akin to chapter 2, “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”. It referred I suppose to what was presented here in Christ.
It was in the Son of the Father’s love.
Yes, it is the completeness of the Godhead in a Man.
Is it not that all that can be set forth of God was set forth in Him?
That is the idea. The Lord did not come here to present Himself. He was the vessel in which the fulness of the Godhead was presented to man.
So with the Church now, it is that which is adequate for the presentation of what is in God.
Yes, chapter 2 refers to what is now, and it adds, “ye are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power”, etc. Chapter 1 refers to the past, for it speaks of having made peace by the blood of His cross, and this by Him in whom the fulness dwelt. No one could have spoken in the same way until Christ became Man. In the incarnation there was a very great change, for by it we have the fulness of the Godhead in a Man.
[p. 193] And all this has come out in order that we may go in?
Exactly. The point in eternal life is that you are in. It presents to us where we are according to divine purpose; the sphere in which we are.
Only you preserve Christ’s Person as to the Godhead. The Godhead is the point.
Yes.
All of God has been set forth in Christ who is adequate for it.
All was set forth.
I thought it was not a question of the revelation there? “In him should all fulness dwell”.
I should be inclined to think that the idea in the fulness is revelation. It is of all moment to us that there has been and is the perfect presentation of God in a Man. You get the truth of this coming out in the Lord upon earth, as for instance, in connection with His baptism in the voice from heaven and the descent of the Spirit. There you get the fulness of the Godhead; and still more, it comes out in the Lord’s ministry; He says, the Father which dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works, and He carried out everything in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The beginning of everything is the “Son of his love who is the image of the invisible God”. Eternal life is a present thing.
What about John 10?
I think that is all in anticipation. The good shepherd gave His life for the sheep: that was a mark of the Shepherd, because the Lord would not admit the hand of man in His death.
The Lord led out the sheep, but that was not effected really until after His death. He left the fold in death really; the only way He could leave it. He leaves the Jews when they took up stones to stone Him, but He actually went out of the fold through death.
We can speak of eternal life as a gift, can we not?
[p. 194] You have received whatever you may have, everything is given. The point is in the end and meaning of the gift.
Why do you connect eternal life with the truth of the body?
For this reason; that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, and we must come into the life of Christ before we can see Christ set forth in the body. Being in the life of Christ brings you to what is corporate, though in itself it is individual. The Spirit is the well of water and that is individual, but the moment you come to the reality and the sphere of life, you find yourself, according to God’s purpose, in association with others. “This life is in his Son”.
John 10 gives us a corporate thought, does it not?
The flock gives you that idea.
What is the connection between eternal life and Romans 6: 11? “Alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord”.
That is more a moral thought. It is a question of gift at the close of chapter 6. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord;” but the early part of chapter 6 does not go so far as that, you reckon yourselves alive unto God, and that is moral.
It is more Christian life down here.
Yes.
Is eternal life the life of the assembly?
It is the life in which the saints are. What instructs me as to it, is the witness in the first epistle of John, chapter 5. He says, “These things write I unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, who believe on the name of the Son of God”. But this is after He had brought in the witness, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself”.
Would you say a word about the second witness, the water?
[p. 195] I think you must connect the water with the blood. I look upon the water and the blood as the first witness of the holy love of God in the coming of the Son, and the Spirit comes down in confirmation of it.
Why do you make a point of the holy love of God?
Because holiness is a point insisted upon with God, and holiness on our part lies in the apprehension of the holy love of God. It is the holy love of God that makes anything of the knowledge of God impossible to the natural man. The natural man may have some idea of righteousness, but the thought of holiness is beyond him. The very best man of the world does not entertain the idea of holy love. When you speak of the love of God you are perfectly entitled to say, the holy love of God; the water and the blood were witness to it.
What about the idea of cleansing in connection with the water?
That is the application of the death of Christ in the sense of cleansing.
Is it as risen with Christ that we have eternal life and enter into it?
It is outside the wilderness.
Is the idea of the water the moral application to our souls of the death of Christ?
I think so. It is that which is used of God in the way of practical cleansing from the world.
The water gets its full value in the death of Christ. You could not get the water in its value apart from death.
Has the water in John any reference to the word?
I think so, both the water and the blood have application to us. The one is for expiation, and the other, cleansing. But in 1 John 5 they are said to be witnesses, but of what? They are presented as witnesses, in conjunction with the Spirit, but what do they witness? It is to the holy love of God.
[p. 196] Does the water meet what we are, and the blood what we have done?
I think it does. But I see them to be the witness of what Christ came here to express. He came forth from the source of holy love to express it to man, and the Spirit comes consequent upon His being glorified to shed abroad the love of God in the heart. All is expressed in the blessed Son of God, apart from the first man entirely.
Is the idea that God’s love removes everything that hinders?
Yes.
And the Spirit comes to make that good.
Quite so. “There are three that bear witness, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; these three agree in one”.
Is three in one, testimony?
Yes, they witness to the love of God in relation to man; it was to be expressed to man in order that he might be subdued by it.
In the gospel it is God’s side.
Could you say a word about the Spirit?
Paul interprets the witness of the Spirit, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”, etc. When Christ ascended up on high He sent down the Spirit, the promise of the Father, and it was in order to make our hearts conscious of the love of God. This is the witness of the Spirit; you have the heart of the believer assured of the love of God by the Spirit. The effect is, that you are consciously in the sense of holy love. The Son has revealed to us the Father; you know the Son and are conscious of being in the Son by the Spirit. You have thus come into the scene of holy affections in the power of the Holy Spirit, and if you are come there you are outside of the death scene, because you are introduced by the Spirit into the scene of holy love.
You are outside of all distinction in the flesh.
[p. 197] What comes out in connection with it is, that Christ is entirely apart from the flesh. The water and the blood are witness to that.
Being in that you would know something of eternal life.
I think you have got to this, that there is a scene of holy love outside of the scene of death with which we are so familiar. I know as well as most people, that holiness is foreign to the ideas of the natural man. As man he does not entertain the idea; righteousness is different, because it comes in often as between man and man.
If you told that to a natural man he would very likely say, what do you mean by holiness?
I could only reply in so far as I know God. Righteousness and holiness are not the same thing, righteousness judges sin, deals with it, whereas, as regards holiness, sin is perfectly repugnant to God.
Holiness repels, righteousness judges everything with authority.
In what way does the Lord speak of the “holy angels”?
They are holy in nature; unfallen. Righteousness comes in with us because we have known sin.
“To the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness”. What is that?
Righteousness in a sense leads to holiness; “Having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness”. It works in that way, that where there is the exercise of righteousness in the way of self-judgment, fruit is produced unto holiness.
Do you get the climax of it in 1 John 5: 20? “We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life”.
That is the climax. You are in Him that is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
[p. 198] Do I understand that you connected the thought of eternal life with the body, because the body is taken up for the display of the life of Christ, or the enjoyment of it?
The body is for the expression of the mind of Christ. It could not possibly be but that the members of His body should be in His life: they could not be in accord with His mind if they were not in His life. That brings us to the mystery. It is very wonderful that the body of Christ is here, “Christ in you the hope of glory”.
Is that collective?
Yes, it is Christ in the Gentiles really; it is not individual. It is the Christ expressed in the Gentiles. His mind expressed, at all events, the hope of glory.
It will be made good in the individual. The apostle says, “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus”.
Is it connected in any way with Romans 15: 9?
I think the prophecy there in verse 12 refers to a time to come on the earth, but we anticipate that and many other things now. Christ is personally exalted and it is impossible that He can be dislodged from the earth; we sometimes think, almost allow, that Satan and man have the victory; but God has gained the victory, though it is not displayed yet; it is set forth in mystery. The kingdom exists, but it is in mystery; so, too, as regards Christ, He was rejected down here, but died to accomplish the will of God, and now He is here in His body.
That is why the Spirit of God in 1 Corinthians 12, says “So also is Christ”.
Exactly, and he adds, “Ye are Christ’s body”.
The local assembly was the body of Christ.
It had that place; it was characteristically Christ’s body.
The Lord leaves the earth for a moment to let men see what they can do without Him.
Is not the word “remnant” used in two senses?
[p. 199] Some by it mean Jews, and some men Christians who have returned to the truth now.
I think the use or abuse of it is to make a kind of select class among Christians, and that is extremely dangerous.
Are we exempt from that danger?
I do not know. I appreciate fellowship, but I look upon myself as an isolated person. If I were asked the question, ‘Are you in association with anybody?’ I should say, ‘No’. I am very pleased to be in the company of those who are going on in the truth, but I refuse to recognise any connection with anybody here save in the truth. I am only speaking of the real danger of getting into the idea of a select company and thus losing the thought of the Church.
That is indeed very true.
That is setting up to be the remnant.
Exactly; I believe Mr. Darby had no sympathy whatever with that.
I myself remember him saying once, ‘I am going on with the Lord Himself I am happy with Him and I am happy with my brethren if they will go with me’.
We ought to have courage to take the same ground; the effect would be, that you would draw others with you.
And you would bring them into fellowship.
Yes, to it morally.
Mr. Darby was at a gathering at Torquay in 1863, and the question was raised about the remnant and the testimony, and Mr. Darby said, ‘Well, brethren may be a testimony for God if they keep their Head, but if they do not they will be a testimony, not for God, but to their own folly and weakness’.
I think they have been a testimony to their own folly and weakness. What a contrast today, to what was here at the first, in the first power of the Holy Spirit. But you cannot read the epistles without seeing how little God’s thought and mind were entered into by the saints even in early days.
[p. 200] How little the Corinthians and the Churches in Galatians entered into the purpose and thought of God, and in that sense it is not so very much different from the present time.
I feel that a great many have come into fellowship from one cause and another, from one-man ministry and the like, attracted to us as being gathered perhaps in a more scriptural way; but there are but few exercised and prepared to surrender everything to enter into God’s counsel. They are hardly prepared to suffer loss in order to get eternal gain, to be led on by the Spirit of God and ministry into the whole counsel of God. I do not believe that you can go on in divine things if you are not prepared to suffer loss here.
Where does Philadelphia come in, what is it?
It sets forth the mind of Christ as to something pleasing in His eye. You get the idea of something agreeable to Him: and a great point is, that there is there the recognition of the whole Church.
How does that come in?
In this way, the Lord says, “I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee”. That must be the whole Church.
It is Philadelphia in contrast to the whole state of things.
It is. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of temptation”. That again refers to the entire Church. What an immense thing it is, if there is an individual here seeking to stand in the truth, it is gain for the whole Church.
It is very important. We must pass over to God’s side and I do not think we do that without being prepared to surrender things here. That is my difficulty; we do not surrender things here to get over to God’s side of things. That is where reconciliation brings us.
In connection with reconciliation, if you accept it you must surrender your status in the world.
Where does that come in?
“If any man be in Christ he is a new creature”.
And you get a much better status somewhere else.
Is Philadelphia looked at historically?
No, it is a special phase of the Church, but collateral with other phases, Philadelphia and Laodicea have grown out from Protestantism. There is no moment in the history of the professing Church when Christ has not had His mind in regard of things down here. It is not simply that He had His mind about things eighteen hundred years ago, but that He has His mind at the present moment, and that is why the addresses to the seven Churches are so important.
Philadelphia really got back to first love.
You cannot get the Church back to its first estate.
What is the hope of the glad tidings?
Heaven is, I think, the hope in Colossians, “Christ in you” is down here. God sets forth in mystery that which is to be displayed in glory. The features of the heavenly city are to come out morally in the saints now.
The object being to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, what is displayed in the assembly?
The divine idea is, the perfect setting forth in the assembly of the mind of Christ; the body, animated by the mind of Christ, is a testimony to angels.
That is very helpful, a body animated by the mind. What do you know about my mind except through my body? I see your mind expressed through your body; that is what Christ is in the body. We have the expression of His mind upon earth. It comes out in a special way in the saints gathered together; but you have to take in the general idea first. You must look at things in the principle of them; you cannot cut and carve moral thoughts up into small bits.
They are too large to be manipulated in that way.
We are all very small.
That brings out the grace of God which presents [p. 202] to us things in the way in which they are presented, because we can take in but very little at a time; you have to take it in in detail.
As to the moral order of things you begin with the kingdom and then the new covenant leading on to reconciliation; eternal life and in connection with this, the body. In that way we are established in the truth.
What is the force of “if” in the beginning of verse 23?
The apostle puts the saints upon the ground of responsibility in that way.