But what are the special privileges of this select body? What blessing is contained in the being a Pearl, which is not also in being a Treasure? To be redeemed with such a price is sufficient that we should be a treasure to God. Christ’s most precious blood makes us that; and in this view, all the saints that ever were, being redeemed by the same precious blood makes them also a Treasure to God. There need be no intrinsic value in us; the immense price paid gives a relative value to us; the immense price paid gives a relative value, and makes us a treasure. For God gave the most precious thing He had in order to have us. But the mere fact of redemption does not per se make us holy and without blame before Him in love. Something else was needed for this. And I think two things are before us— that God would have us so that He might delight in us, and, that only in this way could there be obtained (if, I may say so) the full value of Christ’s blood, which it is the righteousness of God to give Him. “He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.” To buy a world was but a small thing, and not worth the price. Even to have the treasure in all its relative preciousness to God, is not a full return for the immense price, not a full return to Him who gave all that He had. His blood demanded something more even as regards them than their salvation and glory hereafter. We have the full return in the Church of God—as far as can be regarding man. As regards God we cannot say save in the words of scripture, that God was fully glorified in Him—in the Church we see more than salvation. Salvation, new birth, and glory, are blessings common to all believers. But the Church is united to Christ as Head; His body, the fullness (complement) of Him who filleth all in all. Now the body must be partaker of the same nature as the Head. Well, we are quickened together with Christ, and all believers now, whether Jews or Gentiles, are made one in Christ” for to make in himself of twain one new man,” (Eph. 2:15)—that is, the church as the body and Christ as the head, make one new man before God. What can be more expressive of unity than this? So God delights in us as the body of Christ. But God can only delight in that which resembles Himself. He delights perfectly in Christ, who is the express image of His person. Now, having brought us so near to Himself—the very nearest of all his creatures-He must, in order to have pleasure in us, make us like Himself as regards our moral qualities. Accordingly, we are not only before Him in Christ, which proves His infinite love to us, but “He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph. 1:4)—that is, God will have us like Christ, conformed to His image, morally now as well as in body hereafter. Love brings us before Him, and He would delight in us. We could not be admitted there if He could find no pleasure in us. He is holy in his character, unblameable in His ways, love itself in His nature. God gives to us of His nature that we may be like Him morally. And we are there in Christ, and therefore the object of His perfect love. We are such now in this world, and although the old nature is in us, yet by the energy of the Holy Spirit indwelling in us we are able to overcome and keep under the works of the flesh, and to manifest day by day His life.
How prone we are to make excuses for our failure because the flesh is in us. But the Holy Spirit is stronger than the flesh, and He is in us so that we may not do the things we would. If we fail, let us confess to God and not seek for excuse. He has amply provided for every temptation.
Now, to be holy and without blame is the perfection of moral beauty in God’s sight. Christ was all that through His life; and we are to walk in His steps. It was manifested in Him in that He never did His own will but always the will of His Father. None could convict Him of sin. The Spirit dwells in us for the purpose of producing this beauty. The same Holy Ghost that was given without measure to Him is given to us. All His life here was in the power of the Spirit. The same Spirit that dwelt in the Lord Jesus—when He was down here, how that He is ascended as Head, dwells in His members. But there is more than mere individual beauty—there is the beauty of the whole as cemented together in one body—and it is this which makes the church a pearl, and, as the Lord says, a pearl of great price. We can conceive very ugly stones so builded together as to form a beautiful building, or on the other hand beautifully molded stones forming a mean-looking hut. Here is the building of God, each stone is fashioned with utmost care-divine intelligence, and skill and the temple rises before His eye in all the beauty He can impart. For we are in Christ. He is the head, the church is HIS body. The body will be—must—be a fitting complement of the head, else it would be derogatory to His beauty and glory. Wondrous as the thought is, the exigency of our position as His body necessitates that we should be morally fitted for the place. A fitness most surely clues to His grace and the energy of His Spirit, we being ourselves all unfit and unworthy. But it is due to Him that not a flaw, neither spot nor stain, should be found in His body.
This then is the wondrous fact before God. A company of sinners who were once dead in trespasses and in sins, are quickened by the Spirit of God; not only pardoned, justified, and having life from God, but knit together so as to form one body, to be His habitation through the Spirit. This is the highest and greatest effect of grace. The blood of Christ can produce no greater blessing for man while on earth. God, by His spirit, dwells in the Church as truly as ever the cloud of His presence was in Solomon’s temple. That the Spirit dwells in each believer is most true and precious, and is a much more needed thing for our own peace and walk before Him. Indeed it is the spring and power of each one, being holy and without blame. But it is not the same thing as the Spirit dwelling in the church. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,” (1 Cor. 6:19). Here we have the former truth. The latter is as clearly given (Eph. 2:19-22), “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; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
Believers lose their national, natural standing. It is flesh which boasts of this. We are welded together by the presence of the Holy Ghost, so that the whole forms one habitation of God through the Spirit. Take the two truths together—each believer a temple of the Holy Ghost, and the company united together in one body, like stones in a building, for God’s habitation and we have what the Lord Jesus here calls the pearl of great price, and the Spirit in the epistle, the church of God. This is revealed to us as the greatest result of redemption upon earth. When the church is in glory, the indwelling of the Spirit will not be more real than it is now. Most surely it will be more manifest. Then the purpose of God will be fully, perfectly accomplished. Not a moral quality in the Godhead but will he perfectly reflected in the glorified church. Every communicable beauty will shine in it. Then, and then only, will be seen by all admiring universe the fullest riches of His grace and glory in the holiness, the unblamableness, and the beauty of the glorified church. The pearl will, can only be displayed in its luster then. And there will then be only one pearl—nothing in the heavens like it. It is God’s greatest work, to the praise of His glory.
(To be continued D. V.)