THE SANCTUARY AND THE CONFLICT
[p. 203] THE SANCTUARY AND THE CONFLICT
Ephesians 2: 1 - 7; Ephesians 6: 10 - 20
What is the idea connected with the sanctuary?
The thought connected with it is the going within.
Why do you start from Ephesians 2?
If I were asked whether Ephesians 2 was the sanctuary, I should say, No; but if you do not understand Ephesians 2 it is evident to me that you cannot understand the sanctuary.
Would you open that out a little?
The important point here is that the Scripture shows that you have a place, and are set in that place; and the practical working is that you go within. You cannot come without to conflict except you have gone within.
By ‘place’, do you mean the heavenly places?
Yes.
Is this the truth of union?
Union is that you are joined to Christ where He is, and that is in virtue of new creation. You get here that He hath quickened us together with Christ, and that we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
You think there is something of that known in the soul before you can enter in.
You have to take account of yourself distinct from what you are in responsibility here: that is, in the effect and result of God’s work.
You get the counsels of God in chapter 1.
And His activities in Christ.
And the development in power in chapter 2.
Everything is revealed in chapter 1 as in Christ; it is made good in the saints in chapter 2. You get there God’s work in us which corresponds to His will as seen in chapter 1.
Is it individual here?
[p. 204] No; He has raised up Jew and Gentile together, and made them sit together; that is the point.
What is “raised us up together” in verse 6? Is it Jew and Gentile, or us and Christ?
I think it is Jew and Gentile together.
What is meant by “Hath quickened us together with the Christ”?
That brings in the thought of association with Christ; you are in His life. If you are quickened with Christ evidently you are in association with Him in life; you live after His order. The idea in the passage is the moral result, not the point of time in which it was effected.
You are in the whole scene of divine love where He lives.
And that is effected by the operation of the Spirit of God in the soul.
I think so. The heart of the believer has been brought under the influence of divine love and formed in divine affections; the heart is the vessel of divine affections. You can thus understand what it is to live together with Him outside of flesh and all that is common to the natural man.
Is it objective truth grasped by faith?
Quickened describes a positive work of God in the saints. He has quickened us.
And the power by which we are quickened has been displayed in the raising of Christ from the dead.
The raising of Christ brings in the thought of power, but that is to set us in the full result of God’s purpose, in the enjoyment of the inheritance.
Could you separate between the power that quickens and the power that sets us there?
Does it not come from our being quickened that we are raised and seated?
What comes out in chapter 2 represents I think the work of God in us, that enables us to enjoy His purpose rather than the power that puts us in it in result.
[p. 205] Is there any distinction between the power of God, and the work of God?
Yes; I do not think it is quite the idea of the work of God that comes out in chapter 1 with regard to Christ; but the power that raised Christ from the dead is to us-ward, to set us actually in heavenly places. The bearing and power of the resurrection of Christ is towards all saints, and when the moment comes, it wants but another vibration of that power to put all of us in the enjoyment of the inheritance.
Just say a word about the inheritance?
The inheritance is that which Christ takes as Man. God is going to gather up all things in one, in Christ. We have an inheritance in Him and have received the Spirit as the earnest, and the apostle prays at the end of the chapter, that we may know “What is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”.
Is that why it is spoken of as hope, because it has not actually come yet?
Quite so.
Is there anything in Ephesians corresponding to the Jordan?
Mr. Darby used to connect Jordan rather with Colossians. In Ephesians, I think that everything is worked out from the top, from the height of purpose; it is not- so much a question of how we come at it. It is God working to give effect to the purpose of His will.
Is life experimental?
Life must be experimental else it is not life. It is possible to look at divine things in two ways. You may go to Romans and see the steps by which we are brought experimentally into the reality of divine purpose, leaving Adam for Christ; or you may look at the whole thing from God’s side, and see how He has given effect to the counsel of His will. God has set Himself to accomplish His will, and with that there is the question of the spiritual condition of the subjects of His counsel.
[p. 206] That is how the Ephesians are addressed.
Yes.
Could this be said of all saints?
That is one of those points which it is difficult to answer. The best answer is, that the truth is addressed to the Ephesians; it is said of them. It needs care and caution as to what you put before saints. A great virtue in the administration of food is to minister food that people are able to bear.
The epistle to the Romans and the Ephesians have each a little the character of a treatise; the one is the height of counsel, and the other is the gospel.
What has been said has a very important bearing upon the point. You could not suppose the Spirit of God to have written the Ephesian letter to the Galatians, nor the Galatian letter to the Ephesians.
Oh yes, quite so, but what I wanted to guard was that it is true for all saints.
Divine purpose must really be to all saints.
Is there not a difference between that which is in the purpose of God for all, and that which is wrought in them?
I think so; you greatly mar many things in Christianity by failing to look at them morally, and instead bringing into them the thought of time. You must understand not simply that you are brought into life, but that you have a place. It is a very important point that in John 14 the subject of the chapter is prefaced with the place.
It is an immense thing to know that.
What is the place?
You have there a distinctly given place in the Father’s house. The sanctuary is a moral idea, and in order to enter into it you need to have the sense of a place as of divine gift.
The term ‘moral idea’ expresses very little to some minds.
But you must get into moral ideas; you cannot see things in a defined material shape.
[p. 207] If we have a place, whose place is it?
God’s place.
Why God’s place?
That is the idea here in Ephesians; God will have you in His own land.
Is that according to His counsels?
Yes, just as He will have Israel in Canaan, so He will have the Church in heaven.
Is that the meaning of being quickened together with Christ?
No, quickened together with Christ does not in itself take you off the earth.
What is filled unto all the fulness of God?
That is the state which is effectuated in the saints that they may be the living exposition here of the mind of God.
Then this must be prior to the idea of place.
You just get here the place revealed, and then the state answering to, and consistent with it, and next you get the conflict in chapter 6.
In chapter 2 you have the place; in chapter 3 the practical state, the object being that now you might be filled unto all the fulness of God. In chapter 6 you come forth to stand against the influences of evil in the armour of God.
I doubt if you enter into the idea of the sanctuary if you do not understand that you have a place. Nine persons out of ten in Christendom connect the thought of worship with themselves as men here on earth. Many Christians today are not much in advance of pious Jews in that way. They are pious and have confidence in the goodness of God; they have a measure of light from God, but their service and worship is that of a people on earth; that is in principle, Jewish. The first thing to learn, is that you are brought to God, and “brought to God” is properly connected with your having another place.
Would you make any distinction between the assembly and the sanctuary?
[p. 208] Yes; you may be in the one and not in the other.
Where is this place you speak of?
It is heavenly places; it is the place of sonship. Though we are brought into the light of sonship here, yet sonship does not belong to this place.
Do I understand that when you come into the light of sonship your mind connects it with another place?
Yes, it has all to do with another place.
Would you say a word upon the points here; quickened with Christ; raised up together, and seated together in Christ Jesus?
The first is this; that you are set in attachment to Christ. You are quickened with Him and He is the great centre and object of attachment. The second is, that you become conscious that, in the light of God, all distinction is abolished as between Jew and Gentile; they together form the company of worshipping priests. And the third is that the soul has come into the full sense of the love of God, and not only into the light of His love but into the purpose of His love.
Could the sanctuary be realised anywhere but in the assembly?
I think not, because you have to come to this, that distinctions in the flesh are gone.
What do you mean by the assembly?
The assembly is properly the gathering together of the saints, their coming together.
What is sitting down together?
You are at home in the presence of God’s love. David sat before the Lord; he was overpowered by the sense of divine goodness, and with us, we sit down in the presence of God’s blessed love.
Is that only realised in the meeting?
You must take in the thought of Jew and Gentile being together; that conveys to us the idea of something corporate, and hence realised in the assembly.
Are we brought to God in Romans?
Yes, morally, but not to God’s habitation.
[p. 209] Is it the high priest that enters the sanctuary?
You come to the family of priests in Jew and Gentile being raised up together.
Does that take you off the earth?
No, what takes you off the earth is, being made to sit in heavenly places.
Do we enter the sanctuary once for all?
Is it not true that the Lord can only lead us in?
That is the point. Being quickened together with Christ; you cannot leave Him out and you cannot go in without Him; you are never apart from Him.
What is the new and living way?
That is the idea of Christ having rent the veil so that the heart of God is now fully revealed to us; we have to enter in that way. You go in in the full light of what Christ has brought to you in death.
Worship in the Spirit now would be corporate rather than individual?
Jew and Gentile together form the priestly company, and when you come to risen with Christ you are of the priestly company.
We should not forget that the assembly is the home of divine affections. Where do we get the comfort of divine love, but amongst the saints?
The Lord makes you to sit down in heavenly places and love is that which properly belongs to the place itself. The connection between the sanctuary and heavenly places, is extremely intimate.
If the sanctuary is heavenly ground, it must in a large measure represent the heavenly places.
I think so; but all this is in a sense anticipative; we shall know fully when the Lord comes.
What is the difference between being in the assembly, and being in the sanctuary?
The saints come together in assembly, but I have a strong impression that the service of the sanctuary depends entirely upon the spiritual state. In the meeting many may get the benefit of the sanctuary [p. 210] who do not enter into it spiritually. Supposing a meeting to be all you could wish, and everything that transpires suitable, it does not follow that everybody there is spiritually up to what takes place.
Do you connect the breaking of bread with the assembly and not with the sanctuary?
Yes, everything as to the sanctuary depends on the Head, who is Christ, and when we get to heaven we shall find Him the Head and centre there: we shall not have much to say there, except in concert with Him, and that principle holds good today in regard of the sanctuary.
In the sanctuary it is that He will have His own way entirely?
Exactly.
“I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it”. What is that?
He did that in all His ministry and He says, “I will declare it”. That is fulfilled with John 20.
Will that go on in heaven?
It has been declared.
And we get the ministry of what has been declared.
Is not that His place and service in the sanctuary?
At the outset it was. It contemplates Him coming in resurrection; then He declared the Father’s name and took His place in the midst of the assembly.
Why does it say, “will declare” in John 17?
Because He is referring to resurrection.
What did the Lord refer to when He said “Glorify thy Son that thy Son also may glorify thee”?
I think that referred to His being set in resurrection, in the last Adam place; authority given to Him over all flesh to give eternal life to as many as were given to Him.
Is that the idea of effectuating God’s purpose?
Yes. Christ is Head of every man; He has that place to give effect to the counsels of the Father.
Do you not think that in the assembly the soul learns the love of the Father?
That may be, but the Father’s name is declared.
Though we have not got it?
It is there for us.
May we not say it will go on throughout eternity?
The declaration of the Father’s name is the basis of our relationship, and we are already set in the relationship. The Lord says, Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God, and your God.
But you are led on in the apprehension and enjoyment of it.
It is the apprehension and enjoyment of the place in which you are set. The declaration of the Father’s name gave the disciples a standing ground, and gives us one: and we come into association with Christ, and then it is that in the midst of the church He sings praise unto God. If He had not declared the Father’s name we could not have been in association with Him. In the sanctuary you are in the full light of the love of the Father.
That is the moral idea, you are there in the sense of grace, and of the Father’s affections.
The declaration of the Father’s name is as complete as it can be?
Exactly.
So there would be no thought of ministry to us.
That is the idea of it.
That is more the assembly?
Yes.
How is capacity for the enjoyment of it developed?
That brings in the work of the Holy Spirit; the renewing of the Holy Spirit; which has to take place individually. In being quickened together with Christ, you have not got beyond the thought of the individual; but the effect of it is that it brings you to the next point, namely, Jew and Gentile raised up together and you are made to sit together.
Does, “raised up together” give us the assembly and “seated together”, the sanctuary?
The former brings you into the priestly class.
Why is the clause, “By grace are ye saved”, introduced here between, “quickened with Christ” and “raised and seated with Him”?
I had thought that you get fully into the consciousness of salvation by the consciousness of being quickened with Christ. When you realise what is for God you get the consciousness of what is for you; and not only the faith of it, but the consciousness of it.
In the sanctuary there is nothing but Christ, there is no sense of past history.
No.
Could you say a word about the armour?
I think the whole of Ephesians is in a way anticipative. Chapter 2 is anticipative of what will take place when the Lord comes. In chapter 3 we have the apostle’s prayer; and that represents the Church as the vessel of the glory of God; that is the force of the prayer. The glory of God is in the Church, as in the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. There is the presentation of God livingly in the Church and not only in the Scripture.
By anticipation you do not mean to say that it is not a present realisation by faith?
No; we do not need to wait for the coming of the Lord.
That is very helpful in connection with the epistle.
There is power enough to take you into these things now.
If the apostle’s prayer was made good in the Church it would be the glory of God in the church?
Exactly. Christ would be presented perfectly in the Church and not only in the Scripture; and more than that, you are able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled to all the fulness of God.
[p. 213] All that the apostle prays about is in order to that.
That they may be filled with intelligence and love, knowing the love of Christ. That is, that the Church should be the living transcript and expression of Christ. The conflict is also anticipative in a sense. The saints anticipate the aspect in which the Lord comes. The parts of the armour are characteristic of the Lord when He comes again. We find in Isaiah that when the Lord saw there was no help to be found in man, He put on the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation. (Isaiah 59: 17.)
Is it anticipative of the time when Satan is cast out?
It is rather of the time when the Lord comes here. We, in anticipation, can stand against all the power and raging of the enemy.
It is spiritual and invisible power we have to meet?
Yes; and the principles which characterise Christ characterise us; the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
What is the force of “standing” here?
Stand your ground; you are to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. You are not alarmed, you can face the evil. The Spirit of the Lord raises up a standard against the enemy. The saints are to be in the reality of truth, righteousness, and salvation; the Lord so true to them and the power of the Spirit so known that they can stand. The Lord when He comes smites with the sword out of His mouth.
Is this conflict individual?
I think it must be more or less collective.
Where is the battlefield?
Wherever you find evil. The sea of wickedness is in heavenly places, but we have to encounter things here, and you cannot enter the conflict unless you have taken up the whole of the armour.
Is it a soul who is in the power of Ephesian truth that comes out into conflict?
[p. 214] I think so: you must go in to come out.
You have to be a worshipper before you are a warrior.
Yes, these things have to be realities, truth and righteousness, and salvation; not the doctrine of it, then you have a judgment of things according to God.
All is on the other side of Jordan?
Yes, beyond Gilgal, you have gone right up, you are strong in the Lord. It is a wonderful thing to think that whatever superstition and infidelity may be here, there is a power in which the saint can stand against them. You can stand against even the fiery darts of the wicked one. These things are meant to divert the saints from the truth. What the devil is doing now is, to seek to neutralise the truth and to set aside the kingdom of God. Infidelity sets aside the truth, and superstition neutralises it.
And persecution crushes it.
The devil is against the kingdom of God. The great combination in the future is against the Lord; and all the influences today are to neutralise the kingdom of God.
More the Jannes and Jambres line of things.
Yes, I think so. The great point you stand for is the kingdom of God, “Seek ye the kingdom of God and his righteousness”. That is the point of the testimony and you make your stand for it.
When the Lord was here it was not simply that He ministered to man, but He claimed His rights, He rode into Jerusalem according to the prophecy to do so, but was refused; and the Church is set here in the power of the Lord to stand in the testimony of the kingdom.
We have to maintain the rights of the absent King.
Exactly, and you maintain it by testimony.
I do not think we preach the kingdom enough.
I do not think we have preached it enough, it has slipped out rather.
You would bring in also that the Church really belongs to heaven.
[p. 215] Yes; if the Church realises union with Christ it comes forth to stand for Him here.
Is the sword defensive or aggressive?
It may become aggressive. Christ smites with the sword of His mouth, and our sword is the word of God.
Could you give us a word about having put off the old man, and having put on the new?
That is simply consistency with what you get at the end of chapter 3, I quite admit one’s inability to bring out clearly the great principles of the epistle. There is much detail in it, but the first thing is to seize the principles. It will help you if you get the thought that what is presented is, the Church standing here in the anticipation of what will come out in it when the Lord comes in glory. The Church is standing here all ready for presentation.
Have we the kingdom in us?
It is all well to have the kingdom of God in you; but you have to get inside to God in order that you may come out from Him. You come into the scene of the enemy’s power to attack evil and deliver captives.
Preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom is presenting the attitude of God towards man in grace. You must preach grace, not rights and authority and so on.
So you think we ought to be aggressive?
I do, it is not absolutely impossible to be wholly defensive.
I think so too, if you do not go out you will die out. Mr. Darby used to say, that if brethren were apathetic about the gospel they would wither.
He said too, that God could not be hindered in a world of sin.
I do not believe brethren are apathetic about the gospel.
I think we make too much of gift.
There is the desire in the saints for the knowledge of Christ; and that is a great thing.