Thus is scripture bound up with the truth of the rejected and crucified Messiah as also His session at the right hand of God until He receives His glorious inheritance. To this the Holy Ghost gives testimony, together with the present blessed truth, that the Christ for the throne in Zion, when He shall reign, will have His co-heirs to reign with Him. On the descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 the apostle Peter, in charging the nation with their sin in crucifying Jesus of Nazareth, introduces David as a prophet, speaking of this same one when he declared that God would “raise up Christ to sit on his throne.” Moreover, after testifying to the power of the name of the exalted Jesus, to give strength and healing to the poor impotent man, he declares God's readiness, on the people's repentance, to blot out their sins, and that it was through ignorance they and their rulers had killed the Prince of life. Nevertheless, “Repent ye... and be converted... that he may send Jesus Christ ... Whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since time began.”
Thus, Christ's present place in heaven is declared, and the restitution of all things shown to be dependent on His personal return; but this testimony to their guilt and the call to repentance only drew forth their further active hatred in locking up and further threatening the faithful witnesses. On their release, however, we find they returned “to their own company,” and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. This drew forth a most remarkable prayer from the newly formed assembly, in which the Spirit of God now dwelt as those who had received the rejected but now exalted Christ. To it the mind of God was given so as to apply to the circumstances the prophecy of Psa. 2 “Why did the heathen rage and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.” With this they associated divine counsel now fulfilled, yet prayed that with all boldness the word of God might be spoken and that signs and wonders might be done by the Name of God's holy Servant, Jesus. This Name, in which alone is salvation, was henceforward to be the testimony of the servants of the Lord who, as believers in the redemptive work of Christ, were to know themselves as saved and accepted in the Beloved, and for that Name were they ready to suffer shame. No less remarkable was the answer to their prayers, for “with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.” Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. The religious leaders of the people, nevertheless, manifest their indignation and hatred even to death, in the stoning of Stephen, who, as the first martyr, followed his blessed Lord, suffering for righteousness and His Name's sake. In his defense before the sanhedrin Stephen convicts their fathers of disobedience, persecution and murder in their treatment of God's ancient witnesses, and now themselves of their crowning sin in the betrayal and murder of the Just One, so proving their inveterate resistance of the Holy Ghost.
After the death of Stephen the disciples were scattered abroad and went everywhere preaching the word, so that in the riches of sovereign grace none need despair. The risen and exalted Christ is preached in Jerusalem and Samaria, and finally to the ends of the earth, proclaimed not as “the King,” but as the Savior, for salvation, life and peace. Those who believe the present testimony of God, whether Jew or Gentile, are brought into blessed living association with Him as God's heirs and Christ's joint heirs. For the unfolding of this we must look to the Epistles, whilst in the earlier chapters of the Acts we have more particularly what relates to Christ as the Messiah. The conversion in sovereign grace of Saul the Pharisee, blasphemer, and persecutor, reveals to him the Christ in heavenly glory, saying, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” To him it was given, not only to believe, but to bear witness to his own nation and before kings of the predetermined raising up, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus according to prophecy, and to make known the now revealed mystery of the church, in its nature and character as bound up with a heavenly but earth-rejected Christ.
The apostle Peter it was to whom the Lord gave “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” to unlock and throw open the door to the Jews (in Acts 2) and to the Gentiles (in Acts 10). Learning that God is no respecter of persons, and the nation having sealed their guilt in the rejection of their Messiah, he declares to Cornelius that the risen Jesus is the appointed “Judge of living and dead, to whom all the prophets testify that through his name, whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins.” Peter's testimony is believed, and the Gentiles receive the Holy Ghost and are baptized, to the astonishment of those of the circumcision, but in chapter 13 grace extends more fully, closing the door to Jewish kingly hopes. Now Barnabas and Saul are separated to the Holy Ghost for the work to which He now calls them and are sent forth by Him from the assembly at Antioch to regions beyond. Sailing from Seleucia to Cyprus and preaching the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, they ultimately arrive at Antioch in Pisidia. Here Paul briefly goes over their history, from Abraham to Christ, Whom he declares to have come, and they had fulfilled the voices of the prophets in condemning Him, desiring Pilate that He should be slain. But God raised Him from the dead (seen alive many days of chosen witnesses), now no more to return to corruption (like their king David), of whom it was written, “I will give you the sure mercies of David.” Meanwhile free and full forgiveness, and justification from all things hitherto unknown, was proclaimed—first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles, when as similarly under Peter's word the Jews were filled with envy and spake against those. things, contradicting and blaspheming. Not only had they rejected their Messiah, but now the word of God in the offer of His “salvation,” judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life which the believing Gentiles received, “and were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.”
Thus in character with Cornelius and his household, the tide of grace rolled on despite all opposition, so that the new form of blessing, with its equal freeness in sovereign goodness, brought out a fresh difficulty among the recipients. When the apostles returned to Antioch in Syria from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God they rehearsed to the assembly “all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.” It is not long, however, before there appeared certain from Judea who taught the brethren that “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved.” Paul and Barnabas withstood such a denial of the sovereign grace of God, so it was decided that they should go to Jerusalem, and there confer with the apostles and elders. After much disputing, Peter relates his experience and how God had made choice of him, that the Gentiles by his mouth should hear the word of the gospel and be saved, and that they had received the Holy Ghost. Paul and Barnabas also declare what wonders and miracles God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.
The apostle James then brings forth the scripture touching upon it, deciding the exact state, bearing upon the present action of grace, and the future of Israel relative to the throne and kingdom, saying, “Hearken unto me. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His Name. And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written, After this, I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up,” etc.
Clearly the throne and tabernacle of David thrown down marks this period of sovereign grace to the Gentiles, and the presence and action of the Holy Ghost in His taking out, and associating with Christ hidden in the heavens, a people unknown by the world as no longer of it. To this fact the New Testament writings bear testimony no less showing that relationships now formed are in character with the place Christ is in, before the time when all things below and above will be headed up in Him. The apostle John declares that the heavenly family are unknown by the world, because of the Father's love bestowed upon them. Yea, the Son of God tells His Father of having manifested His Name to those given to Him out of the world. He does not now ask for the world, yet will, as in Psa. 2. Then in view of His throne in Zion He will ask and have the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. But in John 17 the Lord prays that His own in the world may be kept from its evil, until taken on high to be with Him, where evil can never be. So also the apostle Paul speaks of the heavenly relationship when unfolding the gospel of God in his Epistle to the Romans, adding, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” And, seeking the recovery and establishment of the Galatians, he writes to them how that the believing Gentiles were sons and heirs, through Christ the true Seed, in Whom all promised inheritance is established. Again, 2 Cor. 1, “Whatever are promises of God, in him is the Yea, and in him the Amen, for glory to God by us.” Thus the inheritance is bound up with Christ and His co-heirs, who, awaiting the hour of His coming Kingdom and glory, are meanwhile co-heirs in suffering here that we may be glorified together, and reign with Him. The New Testament shows us not as yet the fulfillment of the prophecy of Psa. 2 concerning the King in Zion, and His righteous exercise of His wrath when He establishes His kingdom, but that the Holy Ghost, now that the King has been refused, is gathering out from the world, whether Jew or Gentile, the co-heirs for that day: in other words, the church in that aspect of blessed oneness with Christ. When this has been completed, the co-heirs will be received to Himself at His coming for them when we shall meet the Lord in the air.
The coming of the Lord for His own will consummate the church period as to this work of the Holy Spirit for the appointed Heir; though leaving behind for judgment what had no place when He at Pentecost first formed the church, which now, alas! has become outwardly “a great house,” a mass of profession of the Name of Christ, without reality, a form without power. In the Revelation we see the church in Ephesus which was, and should have continued, a light-bearer to reflect its absent Lord threatened with the removal of its candlestick for having left its first love; and so we descend from stage to stage, until in Laodicea, with its boast of riches and greatness, contented to be without Christ and His righteousness—Himself the foundation of all blessing, life and glory, we are told, “I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Nevertheless, in each of the seven churches, blessing is promised to the overcomer. Even in Thyatira, where unholy alliance with, and the wickedness of, Jezebel are existent, there is a remnant acknowledged and called to hold fast till the Lord come. There a significant promise, bearing upon the present position of the co-heirs as co-sufferers with their absent Lord, is given to the overcomer and to him that keeps His works unto the end. It is not a sitting down in the place of their Lord's rejection; or, as the nominal church, assuming to rule the world, amassing wealth and honors, or, in union with it, accepting its patronage and glory, and so seeking to reign before the time, yet without the apostles (1 Cor. 4:88Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. (1 Corinthians 4:8)). To those having ears to hear what the Spirit saith to the churches (not what the church teaches!) it is, “He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star” (Rev. 3:26-28). Thus the Second Psalm is quoted showing its future for the King in Zion and His co-heirs, when the latter are promised, as their cheer meanwhile in suffering, to share His rule. Nor this only, but they are promised, before the Kingdom is set up, the special gift of “the morning star,” Christ Himself, their heavenly hope and portion, Who will, ere the day breaks, and the sun shines upon this dark scene, descend from heaven to receive his coheirs of suffering to be with, and like, Himself, forever. Yea, in another aspect, to have His heavenly bride, the joy and satisfaction of His heart forever. Also shall she sit with Him in His throne.
Such is the purpose of divine love as the fruit of the travail of Christ's soul when cast out by man, and having nothing here but rejection and the cross, both from His own nation and the world that knew Him not. We know Him as raised from the dead according to Paul's gospel—and “received in glory,” the divine answer to all that was meted out to the Blessed One by wretched, sinful man.
(To be continued)