"And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above." Ezek. 1:26.
"And behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lieth toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst of them clothed in linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side. And they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar." Ezek. 9:2.
"And he brought me thither; and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate." Ezek. 40:3.
"And I heard one speaking unto me out of the house; and a man stood by me. And he said unto me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever. And the house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places" Ezek. 43:6-7.
"Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear." Acts 2:33.
"But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Acts 7:55-56.
"I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up even to the third heaven." 2 Cor. 12:2.
In our previous
meditation we began to see something of what the book
which goes by the title of "The Acts" brought
in - that is, a new day, a new age, with an entirely new
character: a day which, because of the advent of the Holy
Spirit and His absolute Sovereignty in the realm of
Divine things, is an age-day which is fundamentally and
essentially spiritual in its nature and character. We
began to see something of the content of that; and our
occupation is with the deeper and fuller meaning of
Pentecost.
The
Spirit in the Books of Ezekiel and The Acts
Turning back to the
prophecies of Ezekiel, no one who has read them needs to
be told what a very large place the Spirit of the Lord
has in them. A glance at your concordance will at once
show you how large that place is. You see that the Spirit
is constantly mentioned all the way through - the
activities of the Spirit in sovereignty in all kinds of
connections with Divine thoughts; and by that alone there
surely is a basic link with the book of The Acts, for the
same connection is registered by a glance at that book
with the one word in mind, the Spirit; it is all the
Spirit in the manifold activities of the exalted Lord,
His continuation of doing and speaking. So we can say
that there is a very close relationship between these two
portions of the Scripture as part and counterpart; and it
is in connection with some of the features of that that
we are to be occupied now.
In our previous
meditation we dwelt upon one point amongst others -
seeing how the book of The Acts takes up comprehensively
the Old Testament and gives it a new spiritual
reproduction, interpretation, application, and in some
ways reverses the order of the Old Testament. Here we
have a grand example of that in the case of what is in
the prophecies of Ezekiel. Amongst those things which we
saw previously was this - the Spirit of God brooding upon
the face of the deep, hovering over the chaos, and then
active as the Divine Agent of reclamation, redemption,
resurrection, to bring in a new creation. The object of
it all in the natural was seen to be man; it reached its
climax in the man that was in God's thought. Carried over
to the New Testament, we saw that when the Spirit of God
came into action in this sovereign way, redemptively,
re-creationally, it was all with a Man in view, the Man
who is said to be the life-giving Spirit, the last Adam.
"First... that which is natural; then that which is
spiritual." "The first man Adam became a living
soul. The last Adam a life-giving spirit" (1 Cor.
15:45,46). The Man is in view.
The
Moral and Spiritual Government of the Man in the Glory
Now let us recall the
above passages with which we began. In Ezekiel, each of
those which we read brought a man into view. There is no
difficulty in interpreting the first of them. "Above
the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness
of a throne... and upon the likeness of the throne was a
likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above."
Then we went over into the Acts. "Being... by (marg.
at) the right hand of God exalted..." "I see...
the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." A
Man is in view. The correspondence between these passages
is evident and in both cases the meaning is the same. You
go back to the opening chapters of Ezekiel from which the
above words are taken and you find all the Divine
intentions and thoughts are being projected, the counsels
and purposes of God are in view - the wheels and the
living ones and the spirit in the wheels: Divine
counsels, the purposes of God in motion - and they are
all under the government of this One Who is upon the
Throne. All these Divine movements in relation to Divine
intentions concerning a people for God are all under the
government of that One upon the Throne; and they go
straightforward, they turn not as they go; they are not
deviating, they are not hindered; they go and they go
straightforward because there is One Who is in the place
of absolute sovereignty, and nothing, however it may seem
otherwise, can really divert His purposes. So in this
book of The Acts; whatever happens which seems to be a
diversion or a subverting or a hindrance or a
contradiction, and however much it seems to be out of the
straight way, is found in the end to be compelled, by a
governing hand, really to reach God's end and fulfil it,
and not hinder it. He is going straight forward. It is
because of the Man in the glory. Yes, He is God's Son,
very God, but that is not the line of our thought at the
moment. It is the Man - "I see the Son of
man..." As the Man He is the full embodiment of the
perfection of God's thoughts concerning man that is
ultimately to be, man that is eventually to occupy God's
realm, and as Son of man He is installed, enthroned,
established as the perfect model of how things are to be;
and God is taking the straight course in the power of the
Spirit to that end - to have things according to the Man
in the glory. And that Man in the glory is not just
officially, but morally and spiritually, governing
everything to that end. If He were acting officially, of
course, none of these contrary things would be allowed,
no one would be able to raise a hand; but He is acting
spiritually, and morally in His authority. I mean by that
that you and I are not brought to God's end simply by
those sovereign acts of the Lord in heaven which save us
from all kinds of difficulties. Something has to be done
in us, and therefore it must be spiritual and moral
government that operates to conform us to the image of
God's Son; so that, although there may seem to be
hindrances and obstructions and difficulties - and there
are - nevertheless, His spiritual government is producing
spiritual ends in us which mean approximation to His own
likeness. So it is by the Spirit that He governs, and not
just as official, sovereign Lord. It is most important to
recognize that it is a spiritual government, for it means
that everything is spiritual. Ascendancy and triumph and
arrival are going to be spiritual, not just natural - we
shall not simply be brought there apart from anything
that is accomplished in us. We are moving towards God's
end by spiritual government within our lives, not merely
by a sovereign hand upon us. I think that is quite clear,
but it is necessary to say it as we go on.
Now, the point of this
first presentation of the Man, both in Ezekiel and in
Acts, is that the governing reality is One Who already
embodies God's thoughts in perfection, and all government
is in relation to Him. He, as God's perfect realisation,
sits in the place of absolute authority and holds
everything into the ends which God has purposed. There
has to be, by the Holy Spirit, something of that
accomplished in us if we are going to reach this Divine
end.
"A
Man in Christ"
I have taken up a
fragment of autobiography from Paul because it is going
to serve us greatly by way of illustration. "I know a
man in Christ." Now, we believe that Paul was an
elect vessel; in a very special way he was chosen of God
for a special purpose; and when we look to see what that
special purpose is - that is, what singles him out and
distinguishes him even from the other Apostles - we are
compelled to come down to one thing, that to Paul was
committed a revelation of the one new man in Christ:
"the church which is His body": the collective,
the corporate, man. Then we see also that not only was
that revelation and that ministry or stewardship
committed to Paul in a specific way, but that it was
passed right through his very history. It was something
that was caused to go through him, right through his very
being, and his whole life was brought by the Spirit of
God on to the basis of that revelation and dealt with
accordingly; so that Paul, in a unique way, became a
representation for the age on earth of this thought of
God - a man, the one new man, a man in Christ. He calls
himself that - a man in Christ. That helps us to come
back to Ezekiel and take these other three particular
references to the Man.
The
Man with the Inkhorn
We have seen the
standard, the model, the representation, the inclusive
One. We have seen that that is set to govern all the
activities of God in a spiritual way. Now, break that up.
The next presentation of a man is that of a man clothed
in linen with an inkhorn by his side; and what is he
doing? The One in the glory - for so we may speak:
although it does not say this actually, this is the
conclusion - the One in the glory is taking account of
the state of things here, and especially amongst the
Lord's people, those who bear His Name; and the state of
things is said to be very, very much other than according
to that Man. There is very little that indicates the Man
in the glory here; that is, there is very little of the
Lord's thought in any fulness that can be discerned. But
the man with the inkhorn, clothed in linen - and we must
not stop with all the details - is taking a note of
everybody; he is singling out, he is listening, he is
looking at faces, he is watching, he is looking inside of
hearts, and whenever he finds a man who sighs and who
groans because of the state of things, he puts a mark on
him; such a one is a marked man before heaven. The man
with the inkhorn is a Man from heaven, a Man here with
the Divine thoughts, and where He finds a real heart
exercise, a heart sorrow and burden, a sighing and a
groaning because God has not got what He ought to have -
all things according to Christ - He marks that as
something of account.
"I know a man in
Christ." Listen! "I... fill up on my part that
which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh
for his body's sake, which is the church" (Col.
1:24). That is in the spirit of what we are saying - a
man with a great burden of concern and travail because
God's thoughts are not found expressed amongst God's
people, that is, Christ is not being reproduced in the
spirit of His heavenly Manhood. This man in Christ on
another occasion said, "My little children, of whom
I am again in travail until Christ be formed in
you..." (Gal. 4:19). This is a man sighing and
groaning because there is such a coming short of that
Divine thought in the people of God. Such an attitude
results from a work of the Spirit of God, and the
implication is this, that Pentecost in its outworking -
or the presence of the Holy Spirit here - will mean that
those in whom the Spirit operates and has His way will
never be able to rest short of God's full thought for
themselves or for others. They will be deeply exercised
and burdened and will be drawn into the travail of
Christ, to fill up that which is lacking of His
sufferings for His Body's sake which is the Church. This
man in Christ is a marked man, he is marked from heaven
as one whose whole heart is taken up with this great
concern that what is there should be found here: that
what is true of Christ, the Man in the glory, should be
more fully expressed here in this new man, the Church,
the Body. That is an operation of the Holy Spirit; and if
you tell me that the Holy Spirit is having His way, and
yet there is complacency with things that are not
according to Christ, I say that is a contradiction; it
cannot be. If you are perfectly satisfied with things as
they are in yourself or in other believers, and have no
real concern that there should be a full conformity to
the image of Christ and that the whole Body should be
brought to the measure of the stature of a man in Christ,
the Spirit of God is not doing His work in you. Pentecost
in its deeper meaning will produce that. The very fact
that so soon after His advent the Church moved out as by
Divine urge to seek the members of the Body and then to
bring them into full conformity is proof positive that
the Spirit of God is seeking to perfect a Body, a
manhood, according to that Man Who has been revealed as
in the glory. The man with the inkhorn signifies that -
that the Spirit of God produces a heavenly concern and
takes note of where that concern is.
The
Man with the Measuring Reed
The next chapter,
chapter 40, brings in the man with the measuring reed,
and his appearance is as that of brass. He is in type but
the expression of Christ, God's full measure, coming here
to show where things come short, and to indicate where
this is lacking and that is needed, and what the Lord
wants as to His exact measure of Christ. It is what Peter
called Judgment beginning at the house of God (1 Pet.
4:17), for brass typifies judgment. Paul also was very
exercised about measurements. You know what he says about
them; measurements as to the House, the Church, the Body;
the length and breadth and height and depth; the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ. All that he
wrote and said on the numerous matters of the life of the
Lord's people we must interpret in the light of this,
that it is a matter of the degree in which there is a
coming short of Christ. The Lord is very greatly
concerned about spiritual measure, although His people
are not so concerned; and this man is really Christ, the
Man in fulness, coming down to be like a measuring rod
beside His Church, and to say, This is where you are not
true, and you must adjust; this is where you have
excesses, and they must go; this is where you have
deficiencies, and they must be made good. It is the
Spirit of God at work all the time to see to it that in
all details we are according to Christ, the Spirit of God
working in relation to that perfect measure that is in
heaven, the measure for this Body, for this collective
man, in all its parts.
And then
how detailed is this man with the measuring reed! He
takes the prophet in and out and round about and up and
down and through, and is measuring all the time. He
measures the gate, the porch, the threshold, the court,
every chamber; everything is measured. He says, in
effect, that God has His thought for every part, the
details matter to Him, and the Spirit has come to check
us up on all matters of detail which relate to God's
purpose in calling us in Christ. A man in Christ who is
governed by the Spirit of Christ will not be lax and
careless about anything, even the smallest things. But,
while this may sound difficult, a high standard that
could bring us into a good deal of burden, bondage and
legalism, let us remember that the Spirit of God has come
to accomplish this very thing - not only to judge but to
do what is needful. That is the other side of Paul's
great ministry; not only the pointing out of what comes
short or what is in excess, but to say, The Spirit can
make it all good - He is here to do that. That is why in
Paul's letters to Corinth (particularly the first), where
so much had to be indicated as disorderly, as not
according to Christ, the Holy Spirit has such a large
place. Yes, He is here, not just as the judge, but as the
helper of our infirmities, to correct the wrong, to bring
about conformity to Christ.
The
Place of His Glory
Then in
Chapter 43 there is the man speaking out from the place
of the glory, saying "Son of man, this is the place
of my throne where I will dwell in the midst of the
children of Israel for ever." Paul, the man in
Christ, uses words which explain that when he says,
"Unto him... be the glory in the church and in
Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever" (Eph.
2:21), and, coupled with that, "a habitation of God
through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22). You can see the
Divine thought. What is the place of glory where God will
dwell? It is no place on this earth as geographically
located or materially constructed. It is a spiritual
sanctuary, a habitation of God through the Spirit. It is
something which has been spiritually constructed,
constituted and perfected, and His dwelling and His
habitation will be there, and it will be the place of His
glory unto all ages for ever and ever. What is it? In
other words it is the realisation in a people of that
conformity to the image of His Son. God, by His Spirit,
is working to make us a glorious Church, not having spot
or wrinkle or any such thing, for His own habitation.
"And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God, ...and I heard a great voice out
of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is
with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be
his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be
their God" (Rev. 21:2-3); "...the holy city
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the
glory of God" (Rev. 21:10- 11). This is none other
than the corporate man in Christ perfected and glorified.
That is a vision of Christ and what Christ means in the
thought and intention of God. It is a revelation of that
for which the Spirit has come, and an explanation of what
the Holy Spirit is doing to get rid of all in us which
cannot be glorified. Having brought life and incorruption
to light by the Gospel, He is working unto that day when
this corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal
shall put on immortality, and death shall be swallowed up
in victory, when the Church is a glorious Church where
God Himself is found without restraint and in which He is
worshipped in His universe. The Man in the glory, being
at God's right hand exalted, established, settled, is the
assured realisation of God's end. He cannot be there
without His members. He cannot go on there alone. All the
meaning of the presence there of Christ, the Son of man,
would be stripped from Him if His Church never came
there, made like unto Him; there would be no meaning in
it at all. He is, after all, but the Firstborn among many
brethren; He is bringing many sons to glory. The Spirit
of sonship has come, not to try and do something, not
with a hope that it may be; He has come in all the
sovereignty of that One there, and it is going to be.
Settle your faith in this. However many questions you may
have as to yourself, however often you may despair in
yourself and be on the point of giving everything up -
and who that knows his own heart does not know the
frequent temptation to do this? - yet there is no need
for despair. There is another view, there is something
else going on. The Spirit has come, He is within. He sees
One at the right hand of God, and in spite of our despair
about ourselves, in spite of the discouragement and
impossibility that we find in ourselves, the Spirit of
God is holding us to the Man in the glory, and going on
with His work; and it is not until we abandon faith in
the omnipotence of the Spirit of God that hope departs
and despair settles down. While we will believe that the
Spirit of Christ has come in all that omnipotence of the
exalted Son of man, and is in us to do the work, hope
springs eternal, there need be no despair. He is working
in sovereignty.
I do
believe that this book of The Acts, as it opens, says so
loudly and clearly this one thing - that out from heaven
the Spirit of Almighty God has come in sovereignty to see
things through. Let Herod do what he likes, let the kings
and the nations have their confederacies, let all
conditions work adversely, let Satan and all his forces
operate, the Church goes on and these very things are
drawn right into the train of Christ's triumph and made
to serve the Divine ends. The things which befall work
out for the furtherance of the Gospel, and the very
things which look like disasters and calamities prove, at
long last, to be complementary things under the
sovereignty of the risen Lord. The Spirit of God is in
charge. Oh, that our faith may settle there and deliver
us from our despair! There is a Man in the glory; the
Spirit of God has come and has entered into us with just
one object - to make all things abound toward the
reproducing of that Man in us, in measure individually,
and in the collective measure of the individuals in one
glorified Body, Christ corporate. What possibilities!
What a prospect! May the Lord give us a new vision of His
beloved Son and a new heart confidence and assurance that
He Who hath begun a good work in us will perfect it until
the day of Jesus Christ.