A FINAL word is still required on the Church and the soul. " Christ and the Church " known in the grace and power of the Holy Ghost is essential to the setting of the believer in full liberty and perfect peace before God, and for giving him the full knowledge and proper life of a Christian. Before the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the baptizing of believers into one body, nothing higher was experienced than a forgiveness that rested on work yet to be accomplished; but by Christ's coming, suffering, and death that work has been accomplished, and in the sphere of resurrection and glory the believer who finds Christ as his Savior, finds his place in the Spirit here as he finds his place and privileges in Christ where He is, and he finds that he is part of the new work, which God is accomplishing in righteousness for the glory of His obedient Son in calling out a people who shall be united to Him as His body, who has been baptized into One by the Holy Ghost come down as the assembly of God on earth. He is the Head in glory, believers the members on earth; and while they maintain personal piety, as they have individual relationship as children of the Father, they have this new relationship, also of members of Christ, and they having corporate privileges have also their ecclesiastical duties flowing from this which cannot be neglected if they would fully be the epistle of Christ or give a scriptural idea of Christianity to the world (John 17:2121That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21)). if God has given me a place as a member of Christ, and made me part of "His body," there can be no longer any question as to sin or redemption, for all these matters have been fully settled by Christ, that we might be associated with Him in glory where He now is. " Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it," and now being His, He has it as His object to fit her here for presentation to Himself in glory, a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. God is working for the glory of His Son, and Christ is working for the presentation in glory of the Church to Himself, and if this is God's purpose in Christ Jesus concerning us, shall it not be carried out to its consummation?
Did you ever ask yourself the question, Why was Paul in an agony, and why had he "great conflict " for the saints when he observed any indications of " not holding the Head," and why so anxious they should be in possession of all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the full knowledge of the mystery of God? The answer is given by himself; " In which (mystery) are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And I say this that no one may delude you by persuasive speech.... For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily, and ye are filled full in him." His agony for the saints is that they might know the mysteries of God which is Christ in you the hope of glory; " filled full in Him," they needed nothing from outside sources, such as philosophy and superstition. But there were men presenting these helps to faith which rationalism and ritualism supplied, and he knew that nothing short of full knowledge of the mystery according to the divine revelation for the period can preserve believers from the dangers of the day, and He keeps them to Christ the Head of His body, in whom the fullness of the godhead dwells bodily, and they " filled full " or complete in Him, and if they knew this and lived in the faith and consciousness of it they needed nothing outside of Christ. Then philosophy is of no use, they were full already, and had no room for it, even were it what it professed to be, and farther on he shows they had died and risen with Christ, and lived in a sphere to which ordinances did not apply, for ordinances are for men living in the world, but they have "died with Christ from the elements of the world." Holding fast Christ, the Head, they would find from Him all the body got that which made them to increase with the increase of God; not of man!
In Ephesians the side of the mystery that comes first into sight is we in Christ; in Colossians it is Christ in us. " In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and Tin, you." This is the day when the Holy Ghost is giving this knowledge. Our position and privileges are connected with ye in me, and our enjoyment of them and walking in accordance with them are connected with I in you,. The first puts us in association with Christ in heaven, as members of His body: the other sets us down in the Spirit on earth as God's habitation, and in fellowship with Him, for the conduct of the Christian life: and He presses upon us the absolute necessity of being in possession of the revelation of the mystery that by means of the full knowledge of the Christ whom it sets before us, and our oneness with Him, we may be consciously holding fast the Head, and finding the perfection of healthy Christian life which it affords. When this is known and realized in the power of the Spirit how perfect the deliverance of soul we experience! Could a question arise when the soul is enjoying all that is in Christ, the glorified Head of His body, the Church? " He is the Head of his body, the Church, who is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that he might be first in all things." He who has been declared to be the Son of God (Cor. i. 18), the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, the Creator, upholder and final cause of creation; " All things were created by him, and for him, and he is before all things, and to him all things subsist." He is " before all things " in the old creation: and He is also before all things in the new creation; " the Beginning, the First-born from the dead," and " he is head of his body, the Church," as such that in all things He might be first. Paul seems to coin a word for first here: " He himself first," (proteuron). If God has given Him this place as the risen and glorified Man, and the Spirit in His word holds Him before us in this place of dignity and rank, it must be pleasing to God, and in the mind of the Spirit, when we give Him this first place in our souls as Head of His body, the Church, not as a mere floating theory in the mind, not meant to be carried out, but in full knowledge of the truth in the Word, and in the hearty experience of our souls who delight to know Him in this place of sovereign grace according to the Spirit's latest revelation concerning Him: and there is nothing can give us such elevation of mind, joy of heart, and spiritual repose and confidence as our union to God's Son in heavenly glory by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. This lets us into the secret of the Apostle's " great conflict" for the saints, that they might have the full knowledge of " the mystery of God," for unless the Christ or the mystery is known in connection with His Church and His place of preeminence as Head of His body, the Church, as the glorified man be apprehended in the Spirit, He is not known at all according to the Christian revelation for " Christ and the Church " is the very fullness, core and center of it; nor is the believer in fellowship with the Spirit's objects, who is not heeding the behests of His Church-calling (Eph. 4:11I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, (Ephesians 4:1)) by neglecting to walk in accordance with the requirements of ecclesiastical godliness. There are great difficulties. No doubt of it: hence the Spirit says:-" Using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit." Act on this as a basis if you would know the emancipation of soul from the thraldom of human views and systems. If one would not think of pleading difficulties as a reason for not observing the personal and social morality of the end of Eph. 41I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, (Ephesians 4:1)-not to lie, steal, slander; why plead difficulties as a reason for not observing the ecclesiastical godliness of carrying out the truth of the one body with Christ, its center in glory, and the Spirit, its bond on earth? That soul must be undelivered who ignores the fact that there is " one body and one Spirit," for he cannot know union with Christ above by grace, and a sense of it in the unity of the Spirit, who is not carrying it out in practice. The maintenance of the truth of the one body is essential to spiritual deliverance and Christian morality. I mean to say that the knowledge and state of soul in the consciousness in the Spirit of living oneness between the soul and Christ as members of His body are needful to our full deliverance, for then we live in resurrection and in conscious union with the risen and glorified One, who has a body down here that He is nourishing and cherishing as Himself, and an assembly that He is about to present to Himself all pure, spotless, and glorious like Himself, and which is to be His companion in glory when He reigns over" the world to come." Having this divine consciousness of spiritual oneness with Christ, and being part of His body here, and delighting personally so to act towards Him and His members as to evince my sense of the greatness of being a member of Christ and having a place with others in the body of which He is the Head, and the Spirit the living Bond, and of my privilege with all who call on the Lord out of a pure heart to give, let it be but the feeblest expression of this new, divine work by walking and worshipping with all whose hearts are touched in the unity of the Spirit, and to have communion of the blood and body of Christ, and show the unity in our joint partaking of the one loaf. When divine knowledge pours into the soul about the glorified Man, the Head of His Body, the Church, and the Holy Ghost gives living freshness and consciousness of our place in Christ, the holding the Head is not a mere doctrine, but a precious spiritual reality in which the free, happy spirit exalts and delights in knowing in enjoyed consciousness in common with all those whose eyes have been opened to see the glorious One " Head of his body, the assembly" at the right hand of God. This is the sphere of love as well as of glory, for to find Christ and have Him now as the Spirit reveals Him to faith, gives us a taste of love that surpasses knowledge, and we find ourselves at the center of a unity in glory whose dimensions are limitless; we know, also, that in Him we are in contact with all the fullness of God; and that God now dwells in the saints in the power that worketh in us and shall have " glory in the Church in Christ Jesus unto all generation of the age of ages. Amen."
" THE SON OF GOD, WHO LOVED ME, AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME."
(Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20).)-When we come to glory, it will not be the golden city, nor what we are, but Christ Himself, that will be the absorbing object of our hearts. Even when down here in humiliation, do we not see that directly He appeared on the scene, no one could stand; He the alone One to open His mouth, to be listened to, and as they failed to see Him as the One, the All, so they failed to get blessing.