Ascension to the right hand of the majesty in the heavens has carried our Lord another way for us who are united to a rejected Christ above, where higher glories awaited Him, connected with, and necessary to, the hidden purposes and counsels of God from everlasting, and before ever the world was; and to these we again turn, as introduced in an earlier part of these meditations. The Holy Ghost is the testifier of the exalted Son of man, in whom every thought and purpose of the Father has found its suited center, and will as surely reach its vast and boundless accomplishment. In truth, a revelation of who and what God is has come out from God, as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been declared worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing, and is gone into heaven, angels and principalities and powers being made subject unto Him. This revelation of the Father and the Son is the grand subject of the Holy Ghost’s testimony, embracing as it does “the mystery of God’s will, which He hath purposed in Himself,” and “the mystery of Christ,” according to this revelation of “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”
The opening out of these mysteries in the Father and the Son, and by the mission of the Holy Ghost, had another object; namely, “to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence, by the faith of Him,” and hence the prayer of Ephesians 3:1414For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Ephesians 3:14).
The time was come for these mysteries, which had been hid in God, to be revealed as centered in Christ, because He had been exalted into the seat of glory, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence; and further, to make all men see “what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things.” All this and more was embraced in the mission of the Holy Ghost; for, as the Spirit of truth, Jesus said, “He shall guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will show you things to come.” None but He could be the competent witness of the glory into which Christ had entered; but He came forth therefrom as God’s witness, and the evidence to us from above. “He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of mine, and show it unto you,” were the words of our Lord, adding this, “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, he shall take of mine, and show it unto you.” What a portion is ours, through the grace of Christ, and by the Father’s love! The Holy Ghost is not only the Paraclete to the saints (as He was the convicter to the world) by His presence here upon the earth, but manifested as such by His actings through the apostles, in their various epistles of comfort and encouragement to the Church of the living God. For example, “Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Nor can we omit to notice again in proof the value and character of the salutation from this boundless love of God, “Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ,” as our blessed and unchanging position.
Of all the epistles by the apostles, perhaps that to the Ephesians is where the Holy Ghost is most seen glorifying Christ as Christ, and Christ as the head of his body, the Church, and according to the mystery, for “to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace,” and “that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.” For now in Christ Jesus, the Son of God passed through the heavens, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” By this mission of the Holy Ghost, and from the Son of man in glory, we learn how this unity, and other glories connected therewith, were effected in chapter 1 by God taking out, from the two antagonistic races of Jews and Gentiles below, an elect company as believers in Christ where Christ now is (of whom He says), “that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ.” And then as to the elect Gentiles, “in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.” The differences, and distance, and the enmity which existed under the sun between Jews and Gentiles is gone; for Christ has abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. “For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us”; “so that now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off” (Gentiles in the flesh), “are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” He came and preached peace to you which were far off and to them that were nigh (Jews); for through Him “we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”
It will be observed by the scriptures quoted, that this union between these two elect companies, out of Jews and Gentiles, and their oneness in Christ, “was made by the gift and sealing of that holy Spirit of promise, which was also the earnest of the inheritance,” collectively as the heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; and corporately, with Christ, as head over all things, to the Church, which is His body. This sealing of the Spirit, and this earnest of the Spirit may be individual to faith and in a saint’s experience likewise; but we are occupied in this scripture with the mystery of “the two made one” in the mighty power of God, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and which displays itself to us ward who believe. These new formations for the glory of the Father, and the glory of the Son, and for the glory of the Holy Ghost, are those into which we are brought, and into this unity—likewise, as created anew in and through Christ Jesus. Historically, and as regards the formation of the Church, by the presence and actings of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, and as respects the ways and means appointed by God, the apostles preached to the house of Israel at Jerusalem: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”
Thus began the heavenly testimony, and thus was manifested the elect company out of Israel, who should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. When the time was come for God to take out from the Gentiles a people for Himself, and He would send Peter to Cæsarea, to open “the door of faith” to Cornelius and his house, we all know how he insisted upon the existence of the middle wall of partition, and the enmity in the flesh, as an insuperable objection (saying, “Not so, Lord”) till the opened heaven and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet, and the voice that said, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat,” silenced him. Yea, “the Spirit,” true to His mission of glorifying Christ, and taking of His things, and showing them unto us, said likewise to Peter, “Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them.” It was eight years after the elect, out of the untoward generation, had received the gift of the Holy Ghost at Jerusalem, that Peter was sent to the uncircumcision at Caesarea, and as he delivered his message to Cornelius, the centurion, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the Word, in this way plainly marking out the “first trusters in Christ;” and as plainly who those were on whom, “after they had heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation,” the Holy Ghost fell. “In whom also, after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is also the earnest of our inheritance, till the redemption,” and so forth. Two elect companies, out of these two antagonistic races of Jews and Gentiles, were thus made manifest; and the sheet from God out of heaven, and the Spirit’s directions on earth, were Peter’s warrant for accompanying the three men from Joppa. But the instruction by the sheet, or by the Spirit, at that time to Peter did not reveal the further mystery of how these two companies could be made one “by Christ making in himself of twain, one new man.” Such an irregular action by Peter, astonished the circumcision which believed, and when the apostles and brethren which were in Judæa heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God they contended with Peter, and compelled him to fall back for his authority on the sovereignty of God and “the mystery of His will” for what had been done. “And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us” (the pre-trusters in Christ) “at the beginning.... Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift, as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard this, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, then hath God granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life.”
By the sheet from heaven and the leading of the Spirit, Peter was put in precedence of James and the other apostles and brethren, who clung to Jerusalem as God’s center of blessing, and to Israel as His elect people; but Peter, to whom had been given previously by Jesus the keys of the kingdom of heaven, had opened the door to the Gentiles, and “loosed them” from their disqualifications upon the earth by faith.
Remarkable as Peter’s mission and ministry were, yet was he to be exceeded by Paul, to whom was revealed the secret by which these two elect companies could be made one in a risen and glorified Christ, no longer known as after the flesh, as we have already noticed in Ephesians 1:22Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:2). How very blessed it is to see all these antagonisms and enmities slain by the cross, and this middle wall of partition broken down, and the law of commandments contained in ordinances abolished, in order that in the dispensation of the fullness of times God might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. Oneness, and union, and unity; in life, and righteousness, and eternal glory, in the Son of God’s love, were comprehended in “the good pleasure of His will, which God had purposed in Himself, from before the foundation of the world.” We may remind each other in passing, that even all His paths drop fatness; and thus in His ways and acts among the children of men, He made at the beginning “a planted garden in Eden, with its great mystery of Christ and the Church,” before sin, and death, and Satan had found an entrance, or brought about that fall of falls, the fall of Adam. Again, oneness and union, though not unity, were set forth in the worship of Israel, whether in the tabernacle or the temple, and especially by “the golden table with its twelve loaves of shewbread,” and by their blessing, which was summed up in the great high priest, with his garments of glory and beauty, and that divine but mysterious Urim and Thummim, where lay the connecting—link with the light and glory of Jehovah, in the holiest of all.
On the other hand, what can a ruined world, and a groaning creation, and the fall of man show us, with the usurper, the god of this world as its governing power, busied with the hearts and minds of the generations of mankind that pass in and out of it, by life and death —what can all this show us and perpetuate? What but the violation of oneness, and union, and unity, in life, and righteousness, and glory too; so that the deluge could not cleanse or clear the world that was from its corruption, and the world that is must finally be burned up, and no place found for it any more. What could the living—God do for His glory but what He has done and is doing, in order to bring out of confusion and violence into oneness and union, and out of confederations and hatred into unity and love? This revelation of Himself, and the counsels and purposes which were hidden in God, are the great answer, and are the grand subject of the Holy Ghost’s mission; and in testimony moreover to a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, in which God will surround Himself with all that corresponds with what He is through the ages of ages.
The indissoluble oneness, and union, and unity of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and of that mystery of mysteries, the Godhead and manhood united forever in Christ, pervade this glorious and eternal future; and this very Christ is ours by grace, and we are one with Him. By calling and adoption we have now a oneness and unity in heavenly places in Christ, that flows from Christ, as the appointed center, and formed by the Holy Ghost, as children of the Father, “of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named.” (Ephesians 3) Besides this, there will be another oneness and union in earthly places, that flows from Christ, as the Messiah of Israel, when His redeemed people shall be willing in the day of His power. As the King of kings and Lord of lords, He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet; and when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, “that God may be all in all.”
Actually, and in this present time, there is a oneness, and union, and unity in the heavenly places that is formed with Christ, who has made both one; and He sits there as head of His body, the Church, by the wisdom and greatness of God’s power, and which is to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. By counsel and power God has quickened us together with Christ (as the two elect companies of Jews and Gentiles), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. This oneness, and union, and unity which exist in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and which was revealed to us first in the mission of the Son, by the mystery of the Word made flesh (so that as Jesus said to Philip, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father... and believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?”), has been opened out afresh in the person of the Son, exalted at the right hand of God in glory. Moreover, and according to these new formations, we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. J. E. B.