THE Apostle tells us (1 Cor. 8:66But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. (1 Corinthians 8:6)) "There is one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by Him." Again (Phil. 2:1111And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11)) " That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father." Not only were all things made by Him, and for Him, and by Him all things subsist; but He is head over all things, all power is given to Him in heaven and in earth. He is " heir of all things." " Thou hast put all things under His feet." He is constituted both Lord and Christ. If then He be Lord, all power in heaven and earth being given to Him, it follows that He now holds all here in title and as His own, however rebellious the inhabitants of this world may be. The question as to His title, and the extent of His power, none can gainsay; the Old Testament Scriptures abound with it. They foretell how His kingdom shall be established for evermore; and in the New, His title is still more distinctly stated. He is Lord and Christ; and when He comes forth to take unto Himself His great power and reign, He has a name written, " King of kings, and Lord of lords." No one knows Him now who does not know Him as Lord. The first utterance of divine teaching is to call Him Lord. No one could be saved by Him who did not know Him thus. " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart, etc., thou shalt be saved." His right and His power no believer can gainsay. Taking it, then, for granted that no one attempts to deny the full title and universal scope of the Lordship of Jesus, the only question for us to determine is-first, how far He is now exercising this His power, or acting as Lord in one domain of His power-even the earth; and secondly, how and in what His present acting differs from that which He will display in the millennium.
In order to be able to understand Christ's present position, we must distinctly keep in mind His rejection from the earth. If He is rejected from the earth, and if He is waiting, then this sphere of His power, must necessarily be deprived of His rule. The citizens would not have this man to reign over them, and He, called to sit on the right hand of the Majesty on high, has accepted that seat, consequent on the full rejection at the stoning of Stephen. Now, if He has accepted a seat at the right hand, waiting until His enemies are made-His footstool, He cannot be exercising His power, or acting in a scene or among them by whom He is rejected; though He does, as we shall see, act in power in that (the assembly) which has been called into existence in consequence of His rejection, even where two or three are gathered in His name.
But it must distinctly be seen that He, as rejected, refuses by sitting down above to act at all in power on the earth as such, though it be a rightful domain of His power. He is, therefore, not seeking to re-establish it, but is on the contrary "waiting." So that His power with reference thereto, except in the assembly, is completely in abeyance; and the earth is deprived of His rule. He, for the time being, has retired from it, and remains waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. If then He be rejected from the earth, and is "waiting," it follows that He could not now exercise any power with reference to the earth, save in the assembly, His body, without setting aside His rejection, and also resigning His seat (the position of waiting) given Him on high. Whenever that seat is resigned, it must be in view of the resumption of His power, and indicates that He no longer waits, and that the time is come (though this will not be without preparation) for Him to take to Himself His great power and reign. When He leaves the Father's throne and comes in the clouds of heaven, all kindreds of earth shall wail because of Him. He will then be no longer waiting as now, but He will be ruling The distinction between His position of waiting and that of rule should be accurately preserved; for though He is not ruling on the earth now, He is the believer's Lord; and the believer is under the most complete subjection to Him. What then is the nature and scope of His rule? But if He is now waiting, He cannot administrate respecting the things of the earth without setting aside His accepted position; and if, notwithstanding, I am entirely subject to Him as Lord, I must investigate where and how I am under His rule and authority.
The answer to this is that His Lordship over me not only as to title, but as to actual exercise of authority is in virtue of my belonging to that sphere in witch He does exercise His sway, that which though on the earth is not of the earth and to which He is Head over all things-even His body, the Church. As pa-) of that body I am given to Him out of the world and set by Him and with Him in heavenly places. I am joined to the Lord, and He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. I am through God's grace called out of the world and given to Christ, so that I am entirely the Lord's. I glorify God in my body and in my spirit, which are His. The body is the Lord's; all of me belongs to Him. I defraud Him of that which is His, and which as the fruits of His redemption have been given to Him, if I in any way whatever regard anything as mine. I am His. He has complete title and right over me altogether. He has bought me with a price. If in anything I refuse the right of Christ as Lord over me I therein disallow His rights and the extent of His redemption, and under-rate the gain too that I derive from being under Him-cared and ordered for by Him, my Lord. Did He not redeem me? Did He not bear me back as I am from the mountains of sin and death where I lay in misery? Has He not paid the full price, so that the Father may, in the warrant of His own righteousness, receive the prodigal into the full circle of His joy and heart? If He has redeemed me, if He has paid the full price, I must be the Lord's; and if the Lord's, it is plain, that if I make any reserve of myself, or if I in any way dispose of myself but as He approves -I therein in a double way evince a want Of simple integrity. I admit that He is the Lord and that He has redeemed me, and yet I make reserve, which denies the right both of title and redemption, and at the same time allies me in spirit with the world which rejected Him the true Lord. I am dishonest-as to both one and the other, for if I truly owned His redemption, or who He is, I should feel it as a necessary consequence that the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, because He is the Lord. In nothing am I at liberty to act independently of the Lord, not in the most ordinary concerns of life; whether in deed or in word I am to do all in the name of the-Lord Jesus. In the case of marriage the strongest word of warning used by the Apostle is that "the unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;" for ordinarily it is the reverse in married life, and all the purport of the Apostle's writing was to this end, that they might attend on the Lord without distraction. The Lord's claim he marks still more significantly, when admitting that a woman released from her husband by his death may marry again; he adds, " but only in the Lord." His claim and right is to be paramount. Wives are to be in subjection to their husbands as it is fit in the Lord. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord.
Fathers are to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants are to obey their masters even as to the Lord, knowing that of the Lord they shall receive the reward of the inheritance, "for ye serve the Lord Christ." Masters are to give that which is just and equal, because they have a Lord in heaven. We are to be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. We are practically to own that for this end Christ both died and revived, that He might lord, or be Lord, over the living and the dead.
Now in all the instances that I have adduced it is evident that while Christ holds a full and unqualified claim over the saints now, and requires of them in truth to submit thereto; yet I do not find that He extends His rule beyond the individual, that of course including all relationships and relation to Himself. He claims and rules the individual, but not things of earth (circumstances) with reference to the individual. The assembly is the sphere in which He rules, and I on earth walk, owning His full claim on me with reference to that sphere. As rejected from the earth, I do not find Him acting administratively with regard to things of it; though the individual subject to Him disposes of all his earthly things in true allegiance to Him, and owns Him in the use and disposal of them, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. He too I know to be above Satan and his angels; therefore I am exhorted to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and to put on the panoply of God in order to combat successfully the wicked spirits in heavenly places. The Lord is set down far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. He has destroyed him that hath the power of death. The prince of this world is judged. Satan is vanquished. He had often been controlled before; but in Christ's death he was vanquished, and he has therefore no power in the presence of Christ. He is allowed to continue, but he knows he is vanquished. We are not looking for him to be defeated, we are now looking for him to be bruised under our feet; and hence, whenever the power of Satan assails us, our resource and strength is in the Lord. It is not merely in God, who always did control Satan according to His will; but I have to do now with the ascended Lord-He who has taken from him the armor in which he trusteth, even the power of death, and who now holds the keys of death and of Hades in His hand. Wherever Christ is by His Spirit, there can be no effectual working of the power of Satan; nay, there it is always disallowed, and authoritatively resisted. If a messenger of Satan buffets the Apostle, it is the Lord he besought three times that it might depart from him. If a woman possessed with a spirit of divination follows him, saying even what was right and true in itself, in the name of Jesus Christ he commands the spirit to come out of her.
But not only does the Lord now assert and maintain His power over every spiritual foe, but He can arrest and determine every bodily affliction which befalls any of His people. He is head over all things to the church which is His body. And He often does. I believe the miracles which were done by the Apostles in the Acts were directly from the Lord. No doubt many of them were called for on account of the state of transition in which the saints then were, but that is not the point. It may at one time have been more, according to His purpose to manifest this His power in a miraculous way than at another; but the main fact remains that the Lord, even since His rejection from the earth, and renunciation of all administration therein, in virtue of His waiting position, still can and does-use His power with reference to the bodies of saints. He has the keys of Hades and of death. We know that He chastens in the church after this manner. " For this cause (says the Apostle) many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.". The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and for this end such were to be prayed over and anointed with oil, in the name of the Lord. Thus it is evident that the Lord has full control over the bodies of the saints, according as He wills, though in the government here on earth they may suffer, because in the scene of it. In a famine, for instance, or an epidemic and the like, while the Lord could preserve His people, yet if they are classing themselves with men as men are in it, I should not expect Him to do so; nay, more, if- they are engaging with things here, in the spirit in which men are, I do not expect that in justice they should be more shielded, or come off better than man ordinarily. The Lord bears all our expenses in the "inn" (see Luke 10:3535And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. (Luke 10:35)). "Take care of him" (He says to the host), and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee." But I do not see that He saddles Himself with our expenses when we leave the place of strangership. When, instead of using the world as an hostelry, we resume our place in it, I believe that though He ever bears us on His heart, He is then more toward us, a.; in John 21 He was toward the disciples who had returned to their nets and were fishing. He is as one standing on the shore, apart from us, thinking of and caring for us Where He is; but not co-operating with or assisting us where we are. He would have us know that we are simply in His hand as out of the world, and in the Father's hand as in it, and therefore if anything be ministered to me in the " inn" besides what He has deposited with the host, He repays for that when He returns. I believe if I were walking simply with Christ, and for Christ here, that I should find my path daily more like His when here, and while I should know the preciousness of His love and interest in me, I should also know though in desolation -and-dearth, the most invigorating consciousness of my Father's love also. Love may supply gifts, but gifts are not love, and love exists where there are none, and yet the expression of love to the heart is the highest and best gift, and without which all other must be barren.
The Father cares for me ordinarily in the world, and while being kept by Him in His own name, embraces all the living blessedness of being in relationship to Him, yet it also comprises the care and provision which He has for us, and in which He is abounding, so that He counts the very hairs of our head and far surpasses us in our utmost thought. But the Holy Ghost, who is the promise of the Father to the Son, is working down here according to His will directly for Christ. At one time it may be, as we have seen, in a miraculous manner, arresting the course of nature; in another, in some less striking but equally distinct way, but always acting through appointed channels in any and every way which is necessary for the service of Christ.
Now while carefully noting and comprehending the power of the Holy Ghost as acting here in Christ's absence, and for Him, we cannot fail to observe the difference between the acting of the Spirit in His absence and the acting of the Lord if personally present in the exercise of His due power. If He were present it would not be this or that thing that would yield to His presence, and which when done is to us now a miracle, because it is an instantaneous suspension of the course of nature, a display of Almighty power. This constitutes a miracle.
But when He is here, everything small and great will bow before Him as universally as the waters cover the sea. And yet again in the church, when two or three are met together in Christ's name, the power and the effect of the Lord's presence are known, and where there is faith and Divine recognition of it; as palpable and as blessedly ruling as by His personal presence it would be. The Spirit is ever maintaining the lordship of Christ, for it-is true, and known of God, and only refused and unaccepted by them who do not know God; hence no man speaking by the Holy Ghost calleth Christ accursed and no man can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost, and He is in the saints the sustainer and comforter and uniter with Christ, sent down here consequent on His rejection, to keep our hearts alive in Him, and receiving from Him. He necessarily maintains the full unqualified rule of Christ, leading our hearts to know very practically that there are different administrations but one Lord. Nay, more than this, that there is no happy or assured service when one is not simply conscious of being under the rule of Christ. Anything else would place us in feeling and conduct with the "citizens" who would not have this man to reign over them; and, therefore, as for Christ here, it would be miserable as well as incongruous if His servants were not permitted to have a full sense of His rule and authority in, and with respect to them.
Furthermore, no one will gainsay that the great failure in our meetings and in our services arises from our not cultivating sufficiently, as those verily believing it, that we are distinctly and fully by the Holy Ghost under His rule and authority as His people. But more than this, that the Lord's relation to us is that of HEAD, and from Him flows all power to us to act conformably to His will in our capacity as members down here. The fact that the church is not of the world, but chosen out of the world, of which Judaism is now a part, confines, so to speak, our blessed Lord's present rule to the church- His body, and in relation thereto, because He is no longer in the world in any sense, though we in one sense are in it, yet we are given to Him out of it, and by Him sent into it where the Holy Ghost is with us uniting us to our Head in heaven; and therefore there must be a difference in everything, as to the scope and manner of His rule now and when He ushers in and maintains His reign on earth.
I have above endeavored to define the limits and range of His rule now during His rejection, showing that it is absolute: First, as touching the bodies of His saints. Secondly, with regard to every order of spiritual power and evil, because He is above it all Himself. Thirdly, He deals with His saints personally in chastening with reference to their walk in the Church. Fourthly, He has full care and regard to every service needed by them for which He is chargeable, though He does not pay for it until He returns. Fifthly, the Holy Ghost is acting here in all power for Christ's service, so that the course of nature may be arrested; and yet these very miracles prove that the Lord is not ruling, for then the course of things would be in accordance to His government..Sixthly, His rule in the Church is full and unlimited, but this very fact determines that it is not so in the world, because the Church and the world are in complete antagonism, and the Church's very existence is in one sense consequent on His rejection by the world.
Let us now examine for a little What will be the nature and extent of the Lord's rule on the earth when He comes to reign, and how His saints will be affected by it. When He comes, He will be to His saints as He was on the Mount of Transfiguration; they will sensibly and consciously feel and know the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; they will be eye-witnesses of His majesty; the Hosannas will be full and many in acknowledgment of Him, the rightful King. First, when He comes to be glorified- in His saints and admired in all them that believe, His people shall be willing in the day of His power. He will smite through kings in the day of His wrath. He will destroy the antichrist by the spirit of His mouth and the brightness of His coining. He comes to put down all rule and all authority. Satan will be bound, and the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. The earth shall yield her
increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. Take the blessings of the Lord's presence on earth seriatim, and we shall see at once the great and momentous contrast between His rule in the millennial day and that of the present day.
As to ourselves the first action and evidence of the Lord's power is to place us in bodies like unto Himself. Then, and not till then, can any saints have resurrection bodies. Our citizenship now is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory,. according to the working of the power' -(mark 0 which He has to subdue all things unto Himself. None of the saints of the former dispensation partake of resurrection, until we do, for "they without us cannot be made perfect;" and it is in virtue of the power
by which He will bring all things into subjection to Himself, that He transforms the bodies of His saints. That is the first act of His power; the first movement (so to speak) from the throne where He is now -waiting.
But with Israel; the millennial saints, it is the Deliverer coming from Sion which is the introduction of blessing to them. " My people shall be willing in the day of my power." " Then shall they say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." They shall no more teach every man his neighbor, saying, Know the Lord, but all shall know Me from the least even unto the greatest. And so all Israel shall be saved; for there shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, who shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. In that day it is said (Isa. 60:1919The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. (Isaiah 60:19)), " The sun shall no more be thy light by day... but the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." Such will be the controlling effective expression of the Lord's presence on the 'earth; and such is not seen now or expected by any one taught of God until the Lord reigns.. " Thy people (we read) shall be all righteous. They shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord." (Jer. 3:1717At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. (Jeremiah 3:17), etc.) " In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers... Thou shalt call me My father, and shalt not turn away from me," etc. Such is 'the great and peculiar blessing to Israel from the Lord's rule on earth.
Then, as to its effect on the nations, we learn from Rev. 20 that Satan will be bound. In no other place in Scripture is it thus distinctly declared that the god of this world shall be bound and cast into prison, that he should deceive the nations no more. The nations consequently will be the more susceptible of the power that will then be manifested on the earth, and the light that shall emanate from. the Lord will be a light for the Gentiles (Luke 2:3232A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. (Luke 2:32)). "And the Gentiles shall come to Thy light" (Isa. 60:33And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. (Isaiah 60:3)). "All kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is the governor among the nations" (Psa. 20:22Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; (Psalm 20:2)). "All nations shall call Him blessed" (Ps. 72:17). " When the word of the Lord goes forth from Jerusalem, He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (Mic. 4:33And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Micah 4:3)). "AC maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth" (Psa. 46:99He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. (Psalm 46:9)). "And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." How wondrously and minutely do these Scriptures set forth the effect of the Lord's rule on earth among the nations! What a contrast to the present time! "Then (He says) I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come. and see my glory."
Again, as to the effect on the animal creation, we read that the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat. " They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain " (Isa. 65:2525The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 65:25)). And to a similar passage in Isa. 11:99They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9), is added, " For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the seas." And again in Hos. 2:1818And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. (Hosea 2:18), In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will break the sword and the bow and the battle-axe out of the earth, and I will make them to lie down safely." From this remarkable and universal change in the temper and habits, we are further admonished of the wide-spreading and general effects of our Lord's rule on the earth.
Finally, we have but to notice the effect on the earth itself. " Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God."... " The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered with corn. They shout for joy; they also sing " (Psa. 65:9,139Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. (Psalm 65:9)
13The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing. (Psalm 65:13)). " The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works;" " The earth is full of thy riches "' (Psa. 104:13,3413He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. (Psalm 104:13)
34My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. (Psalm 104:34)). "The fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely" (Isa. 4:22In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. (Isaiah 4:2)). " The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose " (Isa. 35:11The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. (Isaiah 35:1)). " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign, which shall not be cut off" (Isa. 55. 13).
How wondrously beautiful everything will be! The trees of the field clapping their hands for joy because the rightful Lord reigns; " therefore it the multitude of the isles be glad thereof; let the field be joyful, and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice." Surely we can hardly contemplate the marvelous and blessed effects which the presence of our Lord shall have on everything within His dominion. May we so understand the nature and the scope of it that we may not confound that universal character of it which belongs to the millennial days with the limited and peculiar line to which He is now confining it through the Holy Ghost; but understanding distinctly the manner and range of it, may we accord ourselves in mind and character to His blessed will. Amen.
*** The reader is referred, by the editor, to the preface of the French New Testament (Vevay) for some profitable instruction upon the difference of the words LORD and lord as applied to Jesus Christ, who is both Jehovah and has been made lord of all.
A translation of the preface may appear in a future part of this work.