Recollections of Ralph Evans' Ministry

Ralph Evans

3. Christ, and What It Is to Be Complete in Him

5. Notes of Readings With Ralph Evans 1 Corinthians 1

The Sorrows and Joys of Our Lord

There cannot be a passage of deeper interest to our souls than John 13. The departure of our Lord out of this world is not exactly the cross; its agonies are not before us there, but His leaving the world to go to the Father. His departure from it necessarily involves His bringing us into a new atmosphere with new aims and objects. In Phil. 2:5-11 we see the moral manner of His entering this world, I do not mean His birth; but here we see Him departing out of this world, having loved His own which were in the world to the end. And He was going to the place where He would love us to the end. When He was here, though there was nothing to point to Him outwardly, the moral grandeur of His Person attracted great crowds around Him.

When we think of where He came from and the utter contrast of everything this world presented to Him, we may well understand what joy it was to the soul of Jesus to depart out of this world unto the Father. He was the man of sorrows here, characterized by it, as He is the man of joy now. There will be one who is emphatically the man of sin. But Jesus was the man of sorrows. And we have entered little into the nature and reality of Christianity if we are not men of sorrow too, and therefore men of power and men of holy joy, having His joy fulfilled in ourselves. He never spoke of His own sorrows, He always felt for the sorrows of others, and He gives us His sympathy now. But here He had no sympathy, He turned to His Father. We shall not get on at all if we are dependent on the sympathies of the saints. We know, too, sometimes in our little measure what it is not to be understood, and that not by the world, but by the saints.

He did three things: He annulled Satan, that is, destroyed the power of Satan; He finished His work here according to the mind and thoughts of God; and He overcame the world. When He burst the bonds of death and rose from the grave and went up to God, it was as the Destroyer of the power of Satan, the Overcomer of the world, and the Glorifier of the Father. There are three steps in Philippians. He emptied Himself as God, then He humbled Himself as man and became obedient, obedient to God, unto death, even the death of the cross. Now we get the answer of God to all this. You remember that “wherefore.” It is as we see in Acts, where the apostle shows in his preaching that God was doing just the opposite to what they had done (Acts 2:23, 24).

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name.”

In the name which He had when He entered this world, the name by which He was known among men, there is a mighty mystery, as there is in everything connected with Him. It means Jehovah the Savior; yet it was the name He had as a man. God has given Him His name in a new way, and beings in heaven and earth and under the earth bow at that name once despised on earth. It is in manhood that God gives it to Him. It says in Acts, “He hath made Him both Lord and Christ”; that is, in manhood. It says in Psa. 110, “The Lord said unto my Lord,” that is, the David’s Lord, “Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool.” “Jehovah said unto my master.” It is a name used of men, and is the name of supreme authority and power with which Christ is invested, which we little enter into, though it affects us in every way in our lives, as in subjection to Him.

It indicates the place in which God has set Him, the glorious answer of God to what He did. He has seated Him at His own right hand, has made Him Lord, set Him over all the works of His hands, and has reconstituted Him Messiah in a heavenly way. It brings out the glory not only of God, but of the Father, that because of what He has done every tongue should confess Him Lord. He has a new name besides, and many other glories. He must have thought of the more than royal honors—it is a poor word—that awaited Him when He was leaving this world.

In John 14 we see the result—the place into which He brings us by leaving this world.

PARKSTONE. (May 22nd, 1881). From Words of Grace for the Household of Faith 1:249-251.

Christ in Humiliation and Glory

"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently”—shall prosper; the cross was the way of prosperity—“He shall be exalted and extolled.” When I hear the saints exalting and extolling Him, I think, What a blessed place they are in, fulfilling God’s thoughts! “His visage was so marred more than any man.” He went down below man, below His creatures. When God delivers there is no looking to the right hand or to the left, either to the Egyptians or the Assyrians (Isa. 52:12). He goes before us, and He watches over our steps behind. There is no haste or flight, as men flee from an enemy. And who can tell to another the untellable blessedness of having waited for Him?

Isa. 53 brings before us the meditation of the remnant. “A root out of a dry ground” is not a very pleasant thing to look at. “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.” Jehovah speaks here. He marks that He was silent—silent as the grave into which He was going—except that He witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate and before the high priest—on the one hand that He was the Christ, and on the other that He was the Son of God. “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” In this the heavenly kingdom and the earthly and all creation have their part. “By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant instruct many” in righteousness, that is, in practical righteousness as well as in divine righteousness—that was His life-work; “for He shall bear their iniquities”—that was His death-work.

“Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” This is a military metaphor: “I will give Him the spoils of victory.”

“His visage was so marred more than any man.” In Psa. 45 we read: “Thou art fairer than the children of men.” The Person is identical. “Grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever.” “And in Thy majesty ride prosperously”; “ My Servant shall prosper.” “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity.” It is a sign of power for a man to avoid evil; but to hate evil is a sign of great power in a soul. “Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” We get God’s thoughts about Christ in these “therefores.” It is a great thing to have the mind of God; but what I should like is to have the affections of God. We are partakers of the divine nature, and can delight in what He delights in. It is well to read and speak of these things, but oh! beloved brethren, to get into the reality of these things in our own chambers is a much greater thing.

“All Thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia.” We are often very cruel, expecting souls to take a great place spiritually when they have never learnt what Christ is, have not smelled the myrrh, and aloes, and cassia—the fragrance of Christ. “Hearken, O daughter, and consider; forget also thine own people and thy Father’s house.” This is the earthly bride, but it applies to the Church. We forget everything; not that God is against nature, but He hates sin. In Phil. 2 He was “in the form of God”—that is, in the place of Godhead—and He became man. The death of the cross is far more than death. A man might die a glorious and honorable death on the field of battle, but the death of the cross was a death of shame. Wherefore God has given Him a name above every name—the name of Jesus, the despised name. But it means “Jehovah the Savior,” and God knows its meaning. I see more than ever, in reading the Word, that the Spirit rests on Jesus. He is God’s great resource all through this book of Isaiah. After each sorrow and trial He is brought in, in various forms of glory.

January 29th, 1882. From Words of Grace for the Household of Faith 1:306-308.

Christ, and What It Is to Be Complete in Him

In Ephesians we have “accepted in the Beloved”; in Colossians, “He hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Along with the position you get an Object, and this Object is first God’s, and afterwards becomes ours. To partake of the inheritance of the saints in light is a hope laid up for us in heaven: “That where I am, there ye may be also.” This is in contradistinction from “the kingdom of His dear Son,” which is the region, the home of light, and may shine down here. We have a revelation of the glory of Christ’s Person in Colossians; in John 1 the Word created all things, and in Heb. 1 He is the Son. In Hebrews He is exalted above thrones and principalities and powers; in Colossians He created them. “He is the Firstborn of every creature,” then He is “before all things.” The apostle shows them, in contrast to what the gnostics said, that there was no other representative of God at all. He is the image of God. There is no place left to bring in the demons. The Holy Spirit shows that there was no existence, no being at all, before Christ. As to the Church, He is the Head of it. Then He says this wonderful Person is the dwelling-place of the fullness of the Godhead. In the nature of it there could not be two Godheads. The Epistle to the Colossians lays great stress on understanding. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge mainly refer to the One we are united to. The Spirit brings out here the glory of His Person. If He ascended up, He ascended up far above all heavens. We have here, first, His essential glory and His position when ascended; secondly, the Godhead has its house and dwelling-place in Him; thirdly, what He is as a Man, the Man of God’s counsels, viz., that God has put Him at the head of everything, and put us in Him. This is all given us in Colossians as a comfort, the knitting together of hearts connected with the revelation of the Man who is the Head of the universe of God.

The Firstborn of every creature coming into creation, He is the Head of it. Heretics have used this to say that He is a creature; but the passage excludes utterly all such false doctrine. In Col. 1 He is before all other beings, for He created them all. The Holy Spirit has the gnostic thoughts directly before Him, “Lest any man spoil you.” It really is, “Lest anyone,” etc. Satan does it through man. In Hebrews He sets forth the glory of the Son, because He is going to supersede every man upon earth by bringing in Christ.

In Col. 1 the attacks of Satan on the new creation are met; then in ch. 2 Christ is brought out, and our union with Him. God is so engrossed with the blessing of His people that all His wisdom is exhausted, so to speak, in this. It is not only that He is Head of creation and Head of the Church, but all the Godhead is there. Godhead dwells in Him who is the Image of the invisible God, and Head and Sustainer of creation. He who dwelt in them was the Christ of glory, and that gave them a title to all His glory. “The mystery” in Colossians is not merely that we are one with Him, we must take in who the Person is. The growth of the soul and its blessedness and power are connected with it, for he says, “That your hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.” He is the Head of the new creation; that takes us instantly out of the whole thing. The position Christ is in is entirely outside of all that. It puts an end to the ten thousand books that are written now. If they do not deal with Christ in this position, there is no need of them. Out of the religion given them even by God, the whole power of God was required to take them. It has been the ruin of the Church that they have. continued practically in the old things.

“How great conflict I have for you.” The word “conflict” is deeply interesting. We see the mighty levers he applies to the soul, all divine, all of God, to lift us into the region where God is. Going back to Judaism was in principle going back to heathenism. It is remarkable you cannot introduce the moral element into mere ritualism, because ritualism is in its nature a provision for the flesh. Persons can be as pious and religious as possible all by rule, without any exercise of heart and conscience, nor is God the Object at all. There is no inner connection of Christ with the soul, though the Spirit of God may be in some who are in it, and they break through it all to Him. The terrible thing is that people are going back to the empty form after atonement is accomplished.

There are three distinct things here: first, what Christ is, the Image of the invisible God, the Head of creation and of new creation, Creator and Sustainer. Our souls must feed on that. When I see God’s object thus, the Holy Spirit bringing out in detail all His glories and positions, it turns my heart to God. Secondly, all the Godhead is in Him. We do not enjoy truth apart from actual communion with God: we do not get much profit by it.

Thirdly, here is God taking His Son, after He had died, and putting Him in that place and piling glory upon glory on Him, putting Him over all He had created, but in a new place. He has reconciled us “in the body of His flesh through death,” but that is before He reached that place. In Eph. 2 it reads, “That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.” There it is connected with the new creation. Colossians is that I do not find the body of the flesh any more. In Ephesians we come out the other side of the cross, as one body in connection with Himself, the ascended and glorified Christ.

Beware lest any man beguile you with enticing words. Those who tried to do it would be Satan’s agents. The way the serpent came in the first creation was with deceiving words. “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” We are to walk in Him in the same kind of absoluteness. If we were asked how we became Christians, we should reply, if taught of God, “We received Christ.” And if asked, Did you receive nothing beside? we should say “No.” People now want to bring in other things to mold and modify your walk.

There are three elements of worldly religion (v. 8): (1) philosophy, (2) tradition of men, (3) elements of the world.

Philosophy takes in all ritualism—the whole scene we are passing through. “Elements of the world” is what is adapted to man as man. Take up these three things in detail, and you will find God is not in any of them. Philosophy is to shut out God, but all that I can want of what is God I find in Christ. What then is the use of talking about other things? All the Godhead is there, and all that God wants to find in me He finds without a moment s pause, because He finds. me filled up in Christ (v. 10, “complete” ). He finds at once all that suits Him. I am in union with Christ. That shuts out the whole world of demons, shuts out everything but Christ. All that God wants as God He finds, and that in regard to me. There is no law, no ritual: we are in another place altogether, in new creation scenes. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and we are “filled up” in Him. That is a divine way of meeting these things.

Moreover there is no principality or power of which Christ is not Head. All the “religion” was made for this thing that is put off now. “Buried” is an explanation of how it was brought about. The eye and heart are directed towards God, and what He had done (v. 12). The principle is that you are not to look into yourselves for your own experience of things, but what has God done? It is not what is called “subjective”; it is all “objective,” through faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead. One feels God’s atmosphere. If I do not feel that God has raised Him from the dead, I am in a bad state. Power lies here. It is God’s work from Himself to Himself. God’s eye is on everything—all the subtlety of the enemy and all a believer can discern in his own heart, all that man can do. Then His Spirit unfolds the glory of Christ, all His glories, human and divine, to bring us into this place.

The handwriting of ordinances that was against us”: He had Himself given these ordinances. A note in the New Translation reads, “Handwriting, obligation to which a man is subject by his signature.” The People had said, “All these things will we do.” He has blotted out too what Satan has done; our own poor folly and ruin on the one hand, and all the demons on the other.

It is very easy to understand why a person wishes to get back to popery:

it is because it is the continuation of Judaism (vv. 16-18).

I do not know any chapter that gives me a better idea of divine power coming out. It is grace and wisdom, “grace upon grace”; the way of the enemy without and of man’s flesh within all met. We are united to Christ, the glorified Man, in the midst of the all-pervading glory.

January 18th, 1884. From Words of Grace for the Household of Faith 2:107-112.

Glory and the Excellent Glory

In 2 Pet. 2 we see what an altogether satanic scene the Lord is leading us through. Satan is going about as a roaring lion here below; and if we look upwards, not where God is, but in the heavenly places, there are wicked spirits in heavenly places—the subtlety of Satan.

Peter brings before us the kingdom; he does not speak of the mystery, as Paul does. In Rom. 16:25, 26, we have the mystery in its practical effects, a mystery which is Christ Head over all things and a body united to Him. Peter speaks of the promises; the Church was not mentioned in the prophets or any Old Testament writing. In ch. 1 what a comprehensive view the Spirit of God takes: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord”! God and Christ are presented to me as an object outside myself. In v. 8 it is subjective: “Neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge,” etc.; that is the state of the soul. We may know much objectively, but here the responsibilities of the divine nature are before us, and because of our state, do we not often rightly and righteously abhor our-selves? I should throw myself on the grace of Christ.

He speaks of the glories of the kingdom; and it offends God if we do not care for them. He has called us by glory—the glory of the kingdom, I believe. “He is not ashamed to be called their God.” The God of glory appeared to Abraham, setting before him an attractive object.

Peter had been told by the Lord that he was to suffer martyrdom; he does not speak about it in a sentimental way, as some of us would, talking of our sufferings and saying, “I am going to be a martyr,” but he calls it his decease—his “exodus.” It was a terrible death at the hands of men, but he is above all that.

“We have not followed cunningly devised fables,” he says, as Paul said, “We do not adulterate the Word of God.” He gave it pure as he received it. He was also an eye-witness, as John says: “That eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.” Paul, too, saw Him in heavenly glory. On the Mount of Transfiguration His face shone as the sun, and His garments were white as the light; that was the heavenly glory of the kingdom—relative glory, but it paled before the voice, “This is My beloved Son.” That was personal, intrinsic. When His face and His garment shone, that was majesty and glory too, but He received from God the Father honor and glory when the voice was brought to Him. If we study Scripture we shall soon see that Christ is the Father’s all; and to us He is all in that new sphere to which we are brought. In the eternal state God will be all in all. We are familiar with the scene in Matt. 3 when Christ, at His baptism, was with the poor people confessing their sins. Here we have shining garments, but there we have fragrant garments. “All Thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made Thee glad.” The fragrance of His garments penetrated the veil of heaven, and brought down the Holy Ghost upon Him as a seal and a declaration of the Father’s love: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

From Words of Grace for the Household of Faith 2:167-168.

Notes of Readings With Ralph Evans 1 Corinthians 1

I suppose the whole Church of God is contemplated in v. 2: “To them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” That would take in the whole Church on earth in that day. Truth is the general position then; it does not now. It cost them everything then; it does not now. There is the difference between the body of Christ and the house of God. The word is added, “To all that call on the name of Jesus Christ,” as well as those sanctified.

It is interesting the different ways in which he records the history of each church, especially when he recalls the past. In Thessalonians we have the most marked contrast to this. In each church he takes up their past history to the present. There is not a bit of intelligence said of them in 1 Thess. 1, but hardly anything else in Corinthians. In the former there is no place for a thought of mere human energy of mind. They were all simply engaged before the Lord in works of love, working—laboring—and waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son from heaven. In Corinthians they were “enriched” he owns it was all of God—“awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In Colossians he remembered something else, “We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.” Then he begins to bring out the personal glory of Christ. So in Ephesians he is bringing out the mystery. In Colossians there is the double headship and His glory. There is nothing of this in Corinthians.

It is interesting to examine the state in which the Spirit of God addressed them. Mr. Darby remarked they were forward in all kinds of gifts, but in no grace. Yet it was a great grace, these gifts of utterance and of knowledge, and all of God; but in Philippians he speaks of their fellowship—quite another thing.

But in each place we have the kind of truth he brings before them, having taken up their present moral condition before God. For instance, in Philippians, “That your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment,” the appreciation of things that are more excellent in view of being without offence in the day of Christ. In 1 Cor. 1 he says, “In everything ye are enriched by Him, in all word of doctrine, and in all knowledge; . . . so that ye come behind in no gift: . . . who shall also confirm you to the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful,” etc. We are all taught the grace of the Lord in taking up all He could among them, reckoning that by this gracious address their hearts might be wakened up, and capable of listening to all this cutting down of flesh.

In Thessalonians, as well as here, the day of Jesus Christ is much in view. In 1 Thess. 3:12 he says, “But you may the Lord make to exceed and abound in love toward one another, and toward all: . . . in order to the confirming of your hearts, unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.” And in ch. 5:23, “Your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So in Philippians all is with regard to the manifestation of Christ. A few years ago it seemed an entirely new truth to me, and it made me ponder, that the thought of our minds should be carried on beyond the rapture to the day of Jesus Christ. All the thoughts of God have their object in the manifestation of the glory of Jesus Christ, not only here but everywhere.

In Isaiah, when he is speaking of the new covenant, He says He did not make the earth chaos, He formed it to be inhabited, and this He speaks of the nations. In John 1 is the gospel, He so loved the world; and the first time He is called the “Savior of the world” is among the Samaritans. In Isa. 45:15 we read, “Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior . . . Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not void [or chaotic], He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.” Again, “There is no God else beside Me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside Me. Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” That is being the Savior of the world as far as the revelation in the Old Testament is concerned—first the Savior of Israel, then the Savior of the world. We find the Spirit of God taking up the very beginning, the very sources of things. He did not make it in vain.

In this epistle we have “Lord Jesus Christ,” His full personal name.