Lord, to be with Thee in Thine own abode,
The place prepared where Thou wilt have us dwell;
Brought home unto Thy Father and Thy God,
Where harpers harping shall Thy triumphs tell.
Sons of His love! heirs of His festal joy!
What bliss! how full, how pure, without alloy!
To gaze around in that effulgent light,
With not a mist from earth to intervene,
Thy majesty, Thy beauty, full in sight,
Thy glory flooding all the boundless scene.
Thy love in its perfection, known at last,
‘Twill solve the long enigma of the past.
To read in full the story of the Cross—
Known dimly—but with growing wonder now;
To measure, by God’s glory, what it cost,
Beneath His curse, Thy holy head to bow.
Thy royal garments (in that hour laid by),
Proving the depths of Thy descent—to DIE!
To hear Thee leading, in our midst, high praise
To Him whom Thou hast glorified on earth,
Whose will, the rule of all Thy pilgrim days,
Made Thee a sorrowing stranger from Thy birth.
Proof—Thou, the slain one—highest heavens above,
Of sovereign mercy and victorious love.
To know how thou hast made an end of sin,
Swept every hostile element away;
To see eternal righteousness brought in,
And watch the universe Thy mind obey.
No longer to perceive and know in part,
But feel with Thee—behold Thee whom Thou art.
To worship Him who sitteth on the throne,
Whose bride are we, the purchased of thy blood;
Thine incorruptibility our own,
The dearest purpose of Thy heart made good.
And through eternity’s exhaustless days,
Our Lord, our Saviour! to sound forth Thy praise!
“The Vocation Wherewith Ye Are Called.” Eph. 2, And 4:1-16.
Have read these portions of Scripture with a desire to speak specially on the opening verses of chapter 4. What you find there is the calling of a Christian, not as an individual merely, but as a member of the body of Christ, in his corporate place and responsibility. There are two things in Scripture—the, individual calling of the Christian, and his corporate responsibility. In Hebrews you have the one, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling;” and in Ephesians the other, “ Walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye are called.” What I desire to do first, is to trace a little the line of truth which leads us up to this chapter and its exhortations, that we may see what the calling is, of hich we are exhorted to walk worthy. How can we walk worthy of a calling until we know what it is?
The Epistle’s to the Ephesians and Romans begin at exactly opposite ends of the truth of God. In the opening of Romans you find man totally ruined, in a state of corruption; and we learn how he is to be brought out of that state and presented to God in Christ. Romans begins at man’s end, but Ephesians begins at God’s end, and shows what God is to man, dead in sins. In Romans he is alive in sins; in Ephesians dead in sins. In Romans it is how a living sinner is to be taken out of his old place, and brought out into a totally new place. In Ephesians he shows how the cross of Christ had cleared everything. away. God’s love is like a river with a dam in it. God’s love was pent up, so to say. Then Christ came, and on His Cross removed the barrier, and let out the love. That is what the cross was from God’s side. Sin was the barrier, and God’s Son comes and breaks down the barrier, and God’s love can flow out.
The first place you find Christ mentioned doctrinally in this Scripture is where He is dead (chapter 1:19-20), “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.” God had been testing man for four thousand years to see if he was a recoverable sinner. But every trial proved he was the more hopelessly irrecoverable. Then Christ enters the place of judgment and sin-bearing-bears it; and God raises Him from the dead. When God made the world, it was not said of creation that it was the “exceeding greatness of his power.” It was merely the fiat of God as Creator. “He spake, and it was done.” Here it is the energy of the force of God’s might put forth to raise Christ from the dead. Christ is looked upon as man here. He is God too, but as man God raised Him. Now why is this? Because Christ went down under judgment, and bore the wrath of God on account of sin. Because Christ was clearing the whole scene from God’s side, that the unhindered heart of God may come out in all its living fullness, and take a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, and carry him up to the highest place in Christ in the glory. God’s love is thus set free; Christ rises from the dead, having accomplished redemption.
You will find that people often make a mistake about redemption. They find out they are saved, and they attach redemption and salvation to the moment when they believed. But the thing that your eyes have opened upon, perhaps, yesterday, was accomplished more than 1800 years ago. When there was no such person as you existing, God entered into judgment with His Son, who made propitiation for sin, He has dealt first with Christ for sin, before He has dealt with your conscience for it. Redemption is this—it is where God begins with us by putting us on a new landing.
Supposing I am addressing a sinner. What do you require in order to stand before God? You want to be cleansed from the sins you have committed; but, also, you want to be taken out of the very place and nature in which you committed the sins, and put into another. God has dealt with the whole thing. He has taken me out of the place of a child of Adam, and made me a child of God. He came and stripped the bad tree of its fruit; but He has dealt with the tree also in His Son. Redemption has been accomplished. It is in Christ. Take your true place as a sinner and you’ll get it. The moment you take a ruined place God can meet you.
After Christ had borne the judgment of the cross, and risen out of the grave, He preaches peace. (John 20) He first went down into judgment and left it behind. He has come out on the platform of resurrection, and I have come out with Him. The whole thing that stood against you. has been cleared away, and you can look up into God’s face without a cloud between. There is an evil nature within me to contend with, but it is “not I.” The same power precisely that wrought in Christ is put forth to quicken us. Christ not merely died on the cross for sin, but God has raised Him from the dead, and carried Him right up into the glory. Then the Holy Ghost is sent down, and we are quickened together with Him—raised up together, i.e., Jew and Gentile, and seated in Him in heavenly places. Then you get Christian consciousness. What is that? John 14:20, tells you, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” How do you know you are in Christ and Christ in you? Because Christ said you would when He would send the Holy Ghost!
A Christian may either look upon himself as united to Christ, and seated in the heavenly places, and “possessing all things;” or in the wilderness, “as having nothing” but the Holy Ghost. If you look at yourself, you are not in heavenly places at all.
We think it a great thing to be blessed through Christ, but it is a great deal more to be blessed with Him. (Chapter 2:7.) “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” God is going to show out to the universe that He is very rich. He is going to show out how He is rich to poor outcasts such as we are, and to the thief, the woman of the city who was a sinner. He will place them in the same glory with His Son.
There is no thought of justification in the Ephesians. It is a new creation here; and God has nothing to justify. We are “created in Christ Jesus.” In ch. 2:11, 12, He calls to mind what they were. “Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” In v. 13, we “are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” and in v. 14, “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition.” Why is peace solid? Because Christ made it. Now we get the body of Christ formed on the breaking down of the wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles. The essence of Judaism was to keep up the wall of partition. The essence of Christianity is that it is broken down. God broke it down (v. 16), “And that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby;” the one who put it there broke it down. Now we come to both having “access by one Spirit unto the Father.” In v. 18 we get the Trinity, “Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”
Now mark the steps by which He has been leading us from “dead in sins,” to “access to the Father.” Can you go any higher? No. Then he says, “I am going to drop you down into your responsibility.” He first establishes our standing. Don’t try to enjoy the standing and evade the responsibility. You can’t do it. You may try to evade it, and get a bad conscience, but you can’t separate the two things.
Christian responsibility is founded on relationship. You are in the relationship, now walk worthy of it. You can’t be a naughty child until you are a child; but it is a shame when we are so. The relationship must exist or I can’t know it. Then I must know it to walk in it. How can you walk as a child of God until you are one? You may call God your Father in a general way, and not be a child. Thousands are going to ruin with a lie in their right hand thus.
Then again doubting and uncertainty for a child of God are not Christianity. It is in your heart, and when you are hearkening to a doubt you are hearkening to the old man. Very well then, I refuse a doubt because it is of the old man. The more complete my ruin, the more full His mercy. The prodigal can take no place but what the Father gives him. If you want your own place, be shut out! God can’t give you a better one than He has given you.
“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” These are the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, let me press; ch. 3: 5, proves it. “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”
This mystery of Christ and the Church (Eph. 3:9,) was “hid in God.” Satan thought he had achieved a wonderful victory in driving Christ’s body out of the earth. Not a bit of a victory. He sends down the Holy Ghost to constitute and maintain Christ’s body here, and Satan has no victory.
The Church stands in complete redemption, as Christ’s body. The apostles and prophets were doctrinally the foundation of the Church, but Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is personally the foundation. The building groweth unto an holy temple. But as to her present condition we read, “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” If that be the Church, where is it now? There is not a sign of it. You may see it, like everything else committed to man, totally spoiled. Wood, hay, and stubble come in, and spoils it all, but Christ will make it all good in Himself by and bye. If the Church is not to His glory, He will come by and bye to be glorified in His saints.
Adam was not God’s counseled man at all. The second Adam is. Christ is God’s purposed man, and all His purposes come out in Him.
I pass over chapter 3, which is a parenthesis, with one remark, that not only is the Church a habitation of God, but you will find that v. 6 speaks of it as “one body.” The Spirit of God comes and dwells in every believer here on earth, constituting them “one body,” and united to Christ. The difference between the house or habitation of God and the body is this—I live in the house, but the house is not “me.” Now on these two thoughts Paul founds his exhortation in chapter 4. What is the calling of which I am to walk worthy? Is it individual merely? No, that is in Hebrews and other scripture. Here, it is that the Church is Christ’s body and the habitation of God, and I am to walk worthy of this. The word “calling” is the same as “vocation.” Lowliness and meekness will ever be the characteristic of those who are walking in God’s presence. You can’t bring self to heaven, and you ought to allow nothing in your walk that you can’t take to heaven with you. Many a Christian tries to carry a burden on their backs which they can’t take into the Father’s house. Better leave it behind you now. “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond (this is the word) of peace.” There are hundreds of bodies formed by man. God has constituted one body by the Holy Ghost here on earth; and my responsibility is to endeavor to keep that unity. But if you look around, you see Christ’s members all scattered. What am I to do if I can’t set the Church to rights? Begin at home—set myself to rights, and walk with Christ. People have endeavored to attach Christ to unity; it is the popular thing. Man makes unions, and attaches Christ’s name to them, and consequently endorses all manner of self-will and wickedness; but if you want the “unity of the Spirit” you must attach it, as Scripture does, to Christ, and then it should have every blessed quality of Christ-holiness, and grace, and truth. You have not to make it. It is made. You have to keep it. It is constituted by the Holy Ghost on earth. Are you endeavoring to keep it, in “one body,” with those who are in the path before you?
You know that verse in 2 Cor. 13, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.” Few know what it means, though it is used as a formulary. At Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost came down and constituted the Church, all three went together. Everybody knew then the grace of Christ; the love of God; and walked in the fellowship of the Spirit of God. Now, every converted person knows the grace of Christ; but all don’t know and enjoy the love of God: many like to have Christ between them and God. You will find them fewer who know it than those who know the grace of Christ. Then, again, how very few indeed are walking in the fellowship of the Spirit of God. It is in this fellowship I am bound to walk. It is a plain pathway; one as clear as a sunbeam amidst the hundreds of sects of the professing Church, if I have a single eye! One that contemplates in its breadth the whole Church of God, even if they will not walk with me there.
Now we get (v. 8, &c.) diversity of gifts, which Christ gives as an ascended Lord to the Church. Now, let me ask you (v. 9, 10) what sort of a Christ you have? I have a Christ who was down in the lower parts of the earth. A Christ who has filled from the lowest parts of the earth up to the highest heavens—as a Man. There is not a spot that He has not filled. He is my life. He has not merely put away my sins, but is become my life.
This endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit keeps me in company with the Lord, by one Spirit, in one body. If I have to separate from others who will not walk in this path, I am “endeavoring” to do so even towards those, who will not walk with me. I am observing the unity of the Spirit towards them, though without them.
If we turn to Jeremiah’s day, we find him as God’s man in the ruin of everything, when Jerusalem was going to be given up to the Gentiles. His pathway there has an analogy to ours. If you want to find the divine clue in the labyrinth around you, it is as plain as a sunbeam to every single eye. Are you down here for God the scene around you? If so, God will be for you. He is always faithful to every faithful soul. Depend upon Him for it. God was for Daniel when Daniel was for God. He never forsakes the true soul.
Jeremiah stands in the close of his nation’s history—for forty years his ministry had continued, and that ministry scarcely left a trace behind it in the dark day of Israel’s apostasy. He began in the bright day of revival in Josiah’s Passover, and he went a downward course-down into Egypt—until at last he pronounces the final words, “My name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah.” (44:26). Christ’s path was a downward one to the cross. Are you prepared for a downward course Jeremiah had a heart for the work and a heart for the Lord. He weeps for them when they will not hear the word (13:17). That was a heart that could work for the Lord and not for an object clown here. If you are working for an object here, you’ll break your heart. If you are working for Christ and His glory, you will never be disappointed. Oh! I want to press upon you to be for God down here—to be God’s men and women in this scene; standing for God, so that He may find you in that posture, that we shall not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
See ch. 15:16-21. Jeremiah sits alone, for the Word of God had separated him. He finds God’s word, and eats it-digests it, and he sits alone. Then the answer of God comes to him: You must “separate the precious from the vile.” If you do, “you shall be as my mouth.” “Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.” That is what people don’t like. They would have the union of Christians, but that will not do for God. It must be in the unity of the Spirit, or it will not be gathering with Christ, but scattering. “I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall”—a citadel of strength for the heart that walks with God.
Now, if you turn to 2 Timothy you will find the same principle. You find that the beautiful thing that Paul had labored for was all gone to decay, and yet he could take up the second epistle of Timothy and show them a pathway through it all. “All they which are in Asia be turned away from me.” They have given up that beautiful thing which I taught them, and in the very place where I taught it to them—at Ephesus. And it is a patent fact that the doctrine of the Church of God, as he taught it, was all practically lost when Paul left this scene.
Then the midnight cry came, and it found the whole church asleep—wise and foolish. Christ never gives more than one cry—at midnight. It is never repeated. And now we are in that peculiar place, when the midnight cry has gone forth. The wise virgins were very calm and quiet, trimming their lamps. The foolish virgins were all in confusion. Is there anything in your hearts and ways that you would not like Christ to find if He came within half an hour? That is the test. We are in that remarkable place after the cry has gone forth, in the confusion which followed that midnight cry.
Can you conceive anything more blessed than the grace of Christ, in restoring to us what has been buried in the dust of centuries—giving it all back again, when we had given it up. Giving back to us the doctrine of the church of God, when it had lain dormant for 1800 years.
Now Paul comes to what the believer is to do, (2 Tim. 2:19, &c.,) “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his.” It had not changed, though man had. Then we learn about the seal. One side of the seal marks my privilege, and the other my responsibility. In the professing church He sees every soul that belongs to Him however scattered. Now turn the other side of the seal. “Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” Whatever is false and untrue I must leave. Iniquity means what is not true—what is false—what is not the truth of God. Is it merely negative? No. You are separating yourself to the fellowship of the Spirit of God—to be for God and with God, in the unity of the Spirit. I must walk alone if there is no one else to walk with me. At first the church ought to have purged out all the vile; but instead of separating the vile from the precious, we have now to purge ourselves from the vessels to dishonor; to separate the precious from the vile.
He is likening Christendom to “a great house”—He does not call Christendom. “the great house,” it is an analogy. It is always the “House of God,” in its responsible place, because the Holy Ghost has not left it, even though wood, hay, and stubble have come in. I am to depart from what is false—anything dishonoring to Christ. I don’t deny that the person is a vessel; but it is a question of the glory of Christ, and being faithful to my brother. Am I to walk in his darkness, or try to lead him into the light? If I do this, I shall be prepared-furnished unto every good work (ch. 2: 21). “Prepared” by being separated from the falseness and confusion around. “Furnished” by the Word of God (ch. 3:17).
Verse 22. “Flee also youthful lusts.” Here I get personal holiness. Then, “Follow righteousness, &c., with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” Here I get my company. You never can get the thing put to rights again. Then you must set yourself to rights, and walk with those who are seeking to walk aright, and I am responsible to God to do so.
Is there anything more simple? You will find this path if you have a single eye; not the most simple Christian who need not be full of light. If you have a single eye you will soon know God’s will. If you are doubting what the will of the Lord is, it shows that your eye is not single.
The Lord press His truth on your hearts, and give them to answer with alacrity to those blessed privileges of Christ’s body, so that you may walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, and with lowliness and meekness endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.