God has foreseen all these last days, and, after describing (2 Tim. 3:2-4) the terrible things that would characterize them. He says there is a resource. And what is that? "From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." That is. God has given His Word, the Scriptures, as the security when there would be a form of godliness, but denying the power, if there was faith in Christ Jesus. But notice that whoever hinders the direct authority of the Word of God upon the heart of a believer is meddling with God's rights. If I were to send a message by a servant, and someone were to go and meddle with that message, it would not be meddling with the servant but with me.
I must have that which was "from the beginning" nothing else will do; I must have it from the beginning. Why? Because it came from God: "that which was from the beginning," is what God taught. I have gotten what is from the beginning, and I must know from whom I learn it. The apostle had said, that "after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock." I am told that there would be a time of failure, and if I do not possess that which was from the beginning, I know very well it is worth nothing. I have, in the Word of God, that which is from the beginning distinctly. Consider the last thing said to the Church of God in the seven churches. Is it a call to hear the church? On the contrary, it is to "hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." I am called upon to listen to what the Holy Ghost says to them.
“Upon this rock I will build My church." I have thus what is certain, and who is doing this work? Christ. "Upon this rock I will build My church." Christ is in heaven, the head, and the Holy Ghost came down forming this Church. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," thus connecting them with Christ, who is "head over all things to the church." I find, then, not only salvation, but Christ raised from the dead and set above all principality and power as head over all things to "the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." That is not yet fully accomplished, because all the stones are not built in, but I have this testimony of the purpose of God having exalted Christ, and by the Holy Ghost uniting us to Christ. He baptizes all who believe into one body, and thus is formed the Body of Christ, a thing never revealed or spoken of before Christ had been glorified. For the existence of the Church, Christ must be rejected and also accepted as the Son of man, in glory, at the right hand of God, and the Holy Ghost come down to unite souls to Him. It could not exist before. You must have the Head before you have the body. Then I have not only the individual here, but all Christians united by the Holy Ghost as members of "His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"; this figure, no doubt alluding to Eve, is what we are now in connection with Christ.
“Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." I have the power of death on one side. On the other side I have Christ building, after He had broken the bands of death, after He had met all the righteous judgment of God. After all was done He builds up one stone after another. Satan's power is already destroyed, even for the individual. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." It does not say that you will overcome him, but he will flee from you.
Peter alludes to this in the second chapter of his first epistle. "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively [living] stones, are built up a spiritual house." There is not a word about the building of that; there is no person mentioned as doing it. What I find there is this: the Word of God declares that He will carry it on, a work of grace. Peter says that it is going on, and Paul says that it is growing "unto a holy temple in the Lord." But in l Corinthians 3 we find a very different thing: "As a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another man buildeth thereon." Now I have man's building, and I have man's responsibility—that alters the whole thing. If he builds with God, that is good work; if he builds with wood, hay, and stubble, that is another thing. Has no wood, hay, and stubble been built in? The mistake made is, to confuse Christ's building with that of the wood, hay, and stubble. There are three different cases in 1 Cor. 3. There is a good Christian, who is a good builder, then a bad builder, though a good Christian, and finally a corrupt builder who is destroyed. Here I find another thing entirely. God has set up man as responsible, and what God set up perfectly, breaks down under the responsibility of man. But whatever has been ruined in the first man has been gloriously established in the Second, and a thousand times more gloriously than what was lost. Still everything is reestablished in Christ, and so with the Church. Christ will have a Bride. He will be "glorified in His saints." and "admired in all them that believe." But God does put it in man's responsibility, and man has always failed. God then calls me to hear what the Spirit says unto the churches—taken on their responsibility. Christ is seen walking among the golden candlesticks, not as Head of the Body, but He walks among the profession of the churches, judging their state. I am told to listen to what He says, and He gives me God's divine authority to direct me what to do in such a state of things.
F.G. Patterson