There is a passage in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians which we have not perhaps sufficiently weighed, and the meaning of which we have not consequently correctly apprehended. I read, “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery;.... 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; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: whereof I am made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation (οἰκονομἰα) of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by means of (Sia) the church the manifold wisdom of God.” It is to the expression “the unsearchable riches of Christ” I wish to draw attention. I think it is generally taken as some vague, general way of expressing the preciousness and value of His work and person, and to show that this is past price to our souls. Now, while it is surely so, to everyone who loves the Lord, this is not the thought of the passage.
There were a great many things spoken of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament, as we are aware, and if I might give them a name it would be “the searchable riches of Christ.” There we may find the promises which had Him for their object and fulfillment. We find His miraculous birth, as born of a virgin (Isa. 7:1414Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)); His life of suffering and rejection by His people (Isa. 1, am); His atoning death (Isa. 53, Psa. 22); His burial with the rich (Isa. 53); His resurrection (Psa. 16); His ascension to the right hand of God (Psa. 110); His receiving gifts for men, or “in the man” (Psa. 68:1818Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. (Psalm 68:18)); His coming in the clouds of heaven (Dan. 7:13,1413I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. 14And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13‑14)); the judgments that He executes (Isa. 59:16-20; 63:1-616And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. 17For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke. 18According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence. 19So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. 20And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 59:16‑20)
1Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. 2Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? 3I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. 4For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. 5And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. 6And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth. (Isaiah 63:1‑6), &c.) There we find His glorious reign (Psa. 72; Isa. 32, &c.); the principles of His kingdom (Psa. 101) All these and many more might be searched out, and traced through the Old Testament Scriptures.
But there were the “unsearchable riches” as well. Those which were “bid in God.” His eternal purposes which were before the foundation of the world. The Lord had come in amongst His people, the “yea” and the “amen” of all the promises of God. The people to whom these promises were made reject these promises in the person of the Son in whom they were fulfilled. Rejected by them He accomplishes the work of redemption on the cross-dies, and rises again, and ascends on high to the Father’s throne. From the glory of God He sends down the Holy Ghost, charged with pardon for His people Israel. God would send Him back again, says Peter (Acts 3), and the “times of refreshing” spoken of by the prophets would come. But the only response to this fresh offer of His gracious heart was a more determined refusal on the part of His people than ever. Stephen stands—his face shining like that of an angel—telling the poor Jews of their awful resistance of the Spirit of God; and, stoned as a blasphemer, bears on high to his rejected Master (as it were) the message from His citizens. “We will not have this man to reign over us,” and all is over.
Saul of Tarsus— “one born out of due time,” as he names himself—was then called, and to him were the “unsearchable riches of Christ” committed—to him who was “less than the least of all saints” was the grace given.
Those “unsearchable riches” embrace in their thought the mystery of Christ and the Church, and her rapture (as of all saints) to glory. They unfold themselves in the unnamed interval during which the Lord Jesus is sitting on the throne of God as man, rejected by His people and the world-an interval of which no account is taken in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The prophets then looked from hilltop to hilltop, as it were, and in their glowing strains (given to comfort the faithful to whom they spake, and to deal with and denounce the ruin around them) they pass over unnoticed the great valley lying between the mountain tops which caught their prophetic eye. They connected the coming of Messiah in his humiliation with its glorious results for His people Israel and the world at large, in His kingdom and glory, by and by. They spake of the “sufferings of Christ” and “the glories that should follow,” and stepped in prophetic language from one hilltop where His blessed feet stood in the day of humiliation, to the other hilltop where He would stand in the day of His power; but the valley which lay between, with its untold mines of wealth, was still unexplored and “unsearchable” to the ken of man. It lay unnoticed and unrevealed between. A man sits on the throne of heaven—the Son of the Father. From that scene He receives of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, and sends Him from heaven first, to say that Israel’s sin had not alienated His heart of hearts, but that touching offer had no response from them but bitter scorn and rejection. Then, and not till then, that which lay in the secret of His heart from before the world was is made known. The valley is explored, its mines of wealth discovered, and we are led along its paths as strangers and pilgrims on the earth, but fellow-citizens with the saints in heaven, and, more still, brought into betrothal (as the Church of God) with this rejected Christ in heaven-members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. While He sleeps—this “last Adam”—God takes from His side a helpmeet for his glory—an Eve for the paradise of God.
This is the work of the Holy Ghost sent down at Pentecost. I do not here enter into the important fact of the difference between the Holy Ghost acting in power, and in all the good that God had done from the beginning on earth and in the hearts of men, as in the Old Testament, and His coming down to dwell on earth—the other “Comforter” who was to abide or dwell “ forever” with the Church. Nor do I seek to unfold the fact that when Christ comes again to dwell and reign in power, that the Holy Ghost’s dwelling on earth will be a thing of the past, while doubtless in living power He will work divinely—yea, be “poured upon all flesh.” Suffice it to say, that He acted of old, that now (since Pentecost) He dwells, and that, when Jesus comes again, the Holy Ghost will act again, while Jesus Himself will dwell amongst men.
During this interval, while He is hidden on high, another thing comes in. United to this glorified Head in heaven is His body, the Church. He loved it. He gave Himself for it. Nothing less than “Himself” could express that love. He followed His deceived and guilty Bride, whom the Father had purposed for Him before the foundation of the world.
He followed her into the depth of degradation into which she had fallen. Unlike the first Adam, He is not deceived as was Eve—nor, like him, in weakness following his Eve in her sin, and then charging her with his transgression before God. No; He follows her in the mighty strength of His love into the place of her shame, and takes her sins upon Himself; charges Himself with them before God; holds them up in the light of God’s holiness and in the burning rays of His righteous wrath against sin; bears the wrath, and clears her from every stain.
How blessed to know this for our own souls, each one individually before God—to find the mighty debt discharged before we knew of its enormity—before it was contracted! Our sins are thus consumed to ashes, and removed forever by the hand of Him against whom they were committed. Well may we say then, “See what God hath wrought!” and wrought, too, for His own glory—yea, gained a glory surpassing all other glories—from the cross which put them away.
Then this heavenly Bridegroom ascended on high, and is seated on the Father’s throne, in the glory that is “above the brightness of the sun.” There He displays His person before the eyes and heart of the betrothed one (2 Cor. 11:33But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:3)), and “sanctifies” her affections to Himself, by shining down His image into her heart, having cleansed her by the washing of water through the word. The word speaks to her conscience, as He Himself appeals to her heart; and the traces of the scene through which she passes are thus morally and practically washed away; and then finally He presents her to Himself, glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but “holy and without blemish” (“blame”) according to the eternal thoughts of God before the foundation of the world. (See Eph. 5:25-3225Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:25‑32), and the end of v. 27, with the end of v. 4, chap. 1)
Like Eliezer of old, the Holy Ghost has been sent on this wondrous errand by the Father of the true Isaac, to seek a bride for His Son. He has come to lead the affianced Church across the desert of the world to the home of Jesus on high. From the hilltop of Mount Moriah, where the son was under the knife of the father, as a sacrifice for sin, lies the betrothed one’s pathway through the desert wastes of the world. And in the “even-tide” of her journey, in company with the Holy Ghost, Jesus will come forth, and that wondrous meeting will take place with Him who has won her affections while unseen, and of whom it could be said to her on the pilgrimage, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:88Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: (1 Peter 1:8)).
Jesus, then, is on high as Man—the mighty work accomplished which sets us before God in the light, without a stain. The Holy Ghost is here, and dwelling in His members on earth, constitutes them His body-His bride. From the hilltop of Olives, where, as His tread grew lighter, till. He passed into the heavens (Acts 2), to the same hilltop where His feet will stand again in the last days (Zech. 14), lies the long valley of His rejection by His people the Jews, and by the world, but in which His “unsearchable riches,” never scanned by the prophetic eye, are found. That period is characterized by the absence of the Lord Jesus in heaven, rejected by the world, and the presence of the Holy Ghost personally on earth. It began on the day of Pentecost, and will end with the moment when Jesus will move into the air to take to Himself His bride, and to conduct her to the home on high He had prepared for her when He entered heaven by His own blood as a Man.
Meantime, while God prepares this Eve, “of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,” He has left His “father and mother,” His relations with Israel after the flesh; He is joined to His wife (Eph. 5:3131For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. (Ephesians 5:31)); or, as Gen. 2:2424Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24) still more beautifully expresses it, “shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.” How different from this are our poor human thoughts! How well we can understand the weaker cleaving to the stronger, unable to stand of herself alone. But here it is the divine thought from Him of whom are all things—and all things are of God—it is the strong one, Jesus, cleaving to His weaker bride, and thus perfecting His thoughts of grace.
I would now seek to draw your hearts and affections to the closing stage of the long valley—even to the moment when Jesus will come forth and translate His saints to the “place” He has prepared for them—to that house made fit to receive His bride. How short the time may be, till that blessed moment when she will come up out of the wilderness “leaning upon her beloved,” we know not.