When, as we read at the
beginning of the Bible, conditions were such as to make
it possible for God to pass the verdict, "It is very
good", then God was found present in communion and
fellowship with man. We are not told very much about how
He was present: we are told that He walked in the garden
in the cool of the day; that He talked with man, and made
known to him His thoughts. So far as the story goes, we
know little more about it than that. It may well have
been much like the forty days after the resurrection,
when the Lord Jesus came, showed Himself, spoke, and
went, and came again, and went. There may have been a
coming and a going, showing and speaking, making it clear
that the desire and thought of His heart was to be
present, and, in personal presence, to be able to commune
and communicate.
But so soon He had to
withdraw. Conditions changed; they no longer
corresponded to His mind, no longer made it possible for
Him to say, "It is very good". The change made
it necessary for Him to withdraw. In a sense,
morally, He was driven out - expelled. But, again
and again, through history, we are told of God's effort
to recover a condition suitable and well-pleasing to
Himself, so that He might return.
He gave to Moses the
pattern of a heavenly habitation (Ex 25:9) and, when all
things were made according to the pattern, it was as if
God said again, "It is very good" - and He
returned and filled the Tabernacle. But again, it cannot
be abiding. It is a habitation in figure and in type, and
in a measure; but things are not fully and finally
according to His mind in the people themselves. Later, He
gave to David another pattern - the pattern of a Temple,
a representation again of a heavenly habitation (1 Chron
28:11,12,19); and when all things were made according to
that revealed pattern, God came and filled the temple,
again showing that this is what He is ever seeking.
But yet again things changed, and we have the sad story
of the glory departing, removing, going away (Ezek 9:3;
10:18,19; 11:23), and that habitation remaining just a
'thing' - an empty shell, a cold, unreal formality.
The Old Testament closes
on the note of failure in this great purpose of God;
failure, and yet promise. "Who is left among you
that saw this house in its former glory? and how do
ye see it now? is it not in your eyes as nothing? Yet...
The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the
former..." (Haggai 2:3,4,9) And then that
great statement: "Yet once... and I will shake...
the earth... and the desire of all nations shall
come..." (verses 6,7). He is the
desire of all nations. You will remember that those
words are taken up by the writer of the letter to the
Hebrews (12:26), and applied to the shaking of everything
here on this earth that is but a representation - a type,
a figure, a symbol - in order that the spiritual reality
may take its place.
Three
Expressions of God's Thought
There are, in the Bible,
three major expressions of this Divine thought for a
dwelling-place among men. There are other minor
ones, but three major ones stand out above the others.
Firstly, Israel. We have
not understood Israel until we have recognized that that
people was chosen among the peoples of this earth for
this one, sole, and only object - that God should find in
a people a habitation suitable for Himself. He strove, He
laboured, He longed, He suffered; He showed His infinite
patience and mercy and long-suffering with that people,
because His heart was bound up with the
realization of this eternal thought and object,
that of having a habitation here in a people. I repeat:
we do not understand the dismissal of Israel from the
Divine program, until we have recognized their utter and
final failure to fulfil that vocation.
But God has not
abandoned His purpose. We turn the page from the Old
Testament to the New, and we find the next consummate
movement of God in relation to this purpose. The
second great expression - perhaps we may call it the
inclusive expression - of His thought is in the
Incarnation itself: "Immanuel, God with us".
Again, we have not understood the Incarnation, until we
have related it to this eternal thought - God finding in
man a habitation, making man the place of His dwelling.
In the person of His Son, He has found His Sanctuary, His
Temple, His Tabernacle. "The Word became flesh, and
tabernacled among us (and we beheld His
glory...)" (John 1:14).
The third major
expression is in the advent of the Holy Spirit and the
birth of the Church. We have not understood the deeper
significance of these great events - the Holy Spirit
coming to take up residence in the newly-born Church -
until we have related that to this one thing, God is
here. The Church is that place of His dwelling
and He has come to His Temple. We can see how gloriously
that was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. Verily
'the messenger of the covenant has come to His temple.'
(Malachi 3:1); verily God was present on that day, and
did not depart. He has come to stay. It is God Incarnate
who says: "I am with you all the days, even
unto the consummation of the age" (Matt 28:20). He
has come to stay in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
Now, it is quite clear
that that was the Divine thought for the Church in
general. But then we find that what was to be true of the
Church universal, was God's intention for the local
churches. The one thing that was to characterize local
companies of God's people - I repeat, companies
of God's people - was that God should be found
there. That was the ultimate criterion, and that is, as
you see, our third message. Let us remind ourselves that
'criterion' just means the principle which determines the
standard of judgment; that is, the ground on which any
matter is decided; the standard of measure by which
things are determined.
The
Criterion
The one criterion
ultimately of the House of God, universal or local, is
ultimately just this: that God is there, and may be found
there. That is the dominant thing about it. It is
not the methods and the manner, the performance and the
rites, the formalities and the ceremonies, and all the
other external 'things'. It is that, either in them or
through them, or without them, apart from them, God is
there - you meet God; you cannot go in there without
meeting God. That is the ultimate criterion as to
whether the House of God is present as a reality, or
not. It is not a place, but a people, in the
midst of whom God, in the Person of His Son, Jesus
Christ, by His Spirit, is present and known to be
present. For is it possible for such a One as He to be
present without His presence being known? (Yes,
perhaps it can be if there is something wrong with us,
but it ought not to be so. It ought to be that, where God
is, we know it, because we meet Him). The criterion
is just this: Do you meet God? If
not, it cannot bear that name, because it does not
fulfil that function; we may as well dismiss the thing,
cease to try to keep it going, if it is not like
that.
The
Ground for God's Presence
This brings us to the
question of the ground on which God is present.
Let me say here, in parenthesis, that God may be present
in greater or lesser degrees. What we read of the
churches in the New Testament makes it clear that that is
so. It is not at all difficult to discern that God was
more fully present in one place than in another - that
there was a greater measure of the Lord and His glory in
this place than in that; for instance, in Philippi as
against Corinth. But surely, the thing that ought to
concern us is - not that the Lord should be there, so to
speak, 'anyhow', but that He should be able to be there
without reserve or restraint, giving Himself wholly. It
is something that ought to concern us, as individuals,
that the Lord should be able to be with us individually,
without reserve - just free to commit Himself. And surely
the concern of every company of the Lord's
people, in every place, should be - not this or that, or
some other thing relating to material existence, but -
the maximum of the presence of the Lord.
I venture to say that if
that were the governing and dominating concern, it would
be the key to, and the solution of, many problems.
All the difficulties would clear up if we were to say to
ourselves - 'Now, the thing that matters more than
anything else is that the Lord should have an absolutely
clear way to fill this place with His glory. Whatever
stands in the way of that must get out of the way.' This
must be a mighty motive in our lives. Our eyes must first
be opened to see this eternal thought of God; then we
must become so wedded to it, it must become so much a
passion with us, that anything that may threaten it,
obstruct it, limit it, cannot be tolerated. That is the
challenge of this message.
But in order that it
should be like this, God must have conditions which, on
the one hand, will not involve Him in man's disorder -
for God will not allow Himself to be involved in man's
disorder, He will not commit Himself to that - and which,
on the other hand, will be completely suitable to
Himself. May this not explain much of the reserve of the
Lord, that we, Christian people everywhere, are finding
so difficult either to understand or to
endure? All the cries and the appeals, the
pleadings and the praying, day and night, for a
visitation of God: and God seems so reserved and so slow.
May it be that God cannot commit Himself to man's order
of things, without becoming involved in something that
will dishonour Him? I put it in the form of a question;
but it is clearly shown in the Bible that, as a
principle, this is so. The cry of the prophets to the
people was to put things into such an order or state that
God could come. It is something to be taken account of,
that in all our praying there may, after all, be
something for us to do, in preparing the way of
the Lord, casting up a highway for our God, in gathering
out the stones which would injure His feet should He
come. There may be something!
Satan's
Interference
Now, Satan, as we saw
previously, in the continuous controversy over this one
thing, and in his efforts to prevent God from having an
abiding place, has sought, from the beginning, to put man
in the way of God. Man was created for the very purpose
of providing God with a habitation, for it was ever His
intention that He should dwell with man. Therefore
Satan's great stroke and effort has been to turn the very
man of God's creating against the purpose of God. to turn
man into a positive hindrance, a means of frustrating
God. That is the long and terrible story of God being
hindered by man, and by the conditions created by man.
Jesus saw that: He saw quite clearly that the nature and
effect of Satan's interference with man was so to change
man that God could not come and dwell in him. At
the end of the second chapter of the gospel by John,
which ought never to be divided from the third chapter,
we find this comment about the Lord Jesus, that He would
not commit Himself to man, because He knew what was in
man (2:24,25). What a terrible thing, that man, who
was intended to be God's very temple, should now be in
such a state, that God cannot and will not commit Himself
to him!
I said that chapter two
of John ought never to be separated from chapter three;
for, a few verses later (in what in the arrangement is
chapter three) we come on this: "You must be born
again". What is the point? This throws a new flash
of light on new birth: it says that God must have a new
kind of man to indwell. And you notice that it was
said to an outstanding representative of the Jewish
nation: for Nicodemus was a full length portrait of
Israel - the people who had claimed to be (what they were
intended to be) God's very habitation; who had
appropriated God, who had sought to lock God up to
themselves, to make Him their exclusive God. It is here
in Jerusalem that Jesus, knowing what was in man, would
not commit Himself to them; and then, speaking to a
representative of such a nation, as to the nation itself,
He said: "You must be born from above".
Why this? In order that
God, the Holy Spirit, should come right in and take up
residence; and that is chapter four. You see, it is all a
wonderful sequence. It all centers in this one eternal
thought - this thought unlocks the whole Bible,
everywhere - the thought of God to be indwelling,
in man, in the midst of man. That is why we find
the matter of the new birth coming in at the point where
Jesus would not commit Himself, because He knew all men,
and knew what was in man.
Ezekiel's
Visions
So, the question
immediately arises: To what will God commit
Himself? Let us look at the prophecies of Ezekiel for a
few minutes. Do you recall the last words of those
prophecies? "The name of the city from that
day shall be, Jehovah-Shammah - The Lord is
there." With that the book closes. The end is
reached; the thought and purpose of God is attained:
"The Lord is there"!
Now, leaving aside the
controversy over Ezekiel's Temple and House, as to
whether there is to be a literal rebuilding of the temple
on this earth in Jerusalem, when all this Moslem world
has been swept aside, and the mosque of Omar has been
obliterated from the Holy City - there is much to be done
yet, but it is not impossible with God! - whether it is
to be like that, or whether all that is realized in the
Church spiritually, we leave such controversial
matter aside, for it is irrelevant to our present
purpose. The book of Ezekiel in any case stands for today
with much positive application and teaching. Its Divine
principles, which are eternal, belonging to no particular
age or place, are very clear. As regards the whole
end of things - where it is to be, what it is to be
- well, the end is summed up in this - The Lord is
there!
The whole of these
prophecies is a progressive movement towards that end.
They begin with the prophet saying that he saw
"visions of God"; and then the visions that
follow are progressive towards that consummate end: they
are the stages and the phases of that progress, showing
the principles or the ground upon which that end will be
reached - The Lord is there!
The
Man On The Throne
The first vision, which
in a sense is inclusive of all the rest, is a vision of
the Throne: the Throne above the firmament, and upon the
Throne above, the likeness of a man. What does it
signify? The first, the fundamental, the all-inclusive
reality, by which this end of God shall be reached, is
the absolute enthronement, exaltation and authority of
that Man (with a capital M), the Son of Man, on the
Throne, above the firmament. It was there that
Stephen saw Him; it was from there that He stooped to
encounter Saul of Tarsus. The Man on the Throne:
Christ glorified, Christ exalted, Christ in possession of
all authority in Heaven and in earth. If God is
going to reach the end - "The Lord is there" -
that has to become a practical reality in all matters and
in all details. This is a fundamental, governing
principle: that the Lord will be 'there' in the measure
in which it is true that Jesus Christ is exalted, that
Jesus Christ has His place as the Exalted One, that He is
on the Throne, and that the authority is recognized as
being in His hands.
There are many ways in
which that can be put. In the Church at the beginning,
and in the churches, it meant this, that they never had
meetings, committees, councils, for deliberating on what
they were going to do: they had prayer meetings, and
submitted everything to the Holy Spirit, and took all
their instructions from Heaven. It proved to be a very
effective thing, did it not?! God was there! That
was the effect; that was reality: the Lord was
with them - the Lord was there! The place where they were
gathered was shaken by His presence. And it was all on
the ground of their testimony that this Jesus had been
set at the right hand of the Majesty in the
Heavens. But that that was not just an objective
fact, or even teaching, or truth: it was a practical
reality in all the details of every day life. Jesus was
referred to, and Jesus was deferred to, in all things -
His authority was applied authority, not
theoretical.
The
Altar
We move on, and we find
a man whose appearance is as the appearance of brass,
with a measuring line and rod in his hand (Ezek
40:3). And then we come to the great Temple area,
the great square of the Temple precincts; and we find
that if we draw diagonal lines from the uttermost corners
of that great square, at the point where those lines meet
and cross, right of the center of that area, is a great
Brazen Altar: central and universal, governing all things
within and without. A Man of brass - an Altar of
brass. Now brass symbolizes righteous judgment:
righteousness unto judgment, judgment unto righteousness.
At the very heart and center and core of everything is
the Cross: the Cross, where everything is brought to
judgment and judged according to God's standard of
righteousness, of holiness.
That is the ground on
which He will be present. We are so familiar with the
teaching of the Cross, but we can only rightly appraise
and understand the meaning of the Cross of the Lord
Jesus, when we see that it relates essentially to this
one matter - God's presence. Everything must come to
judgment according to God's standard: what cannot pass
must be consumed upon the Altar, and what is of God can
be established in Heaven. This is the great
discriminating work of the Cross: on that, God will be
present. Yes, 'Jehovah-Shammah' comes right back to this:
how far has everything been brought to that great
judgment of Calvary, and determined as to its
acceptance by God?
How searching this is,
for all things - in us, in you, in me, in our
fellowships, in our assemblies, in our churches,
everywhere! Can this pass the judgment of the
Cross? What does the Cross say to this and that? How does
this stand in the light of Calvary? The answer will
determine just how much God is going to commit
Himself. That is most important; we cannot get away
from that. This Man of brass will see to it: He will
measure all things according to the Altar - God's
thoughts of righteousness.
The
House
And then we move with
that Man to the House. If you know the vision of
the House, and all that is said about it here, you will
be familiar with its dominant feature. The dominant
feature of this vision of the House is 'measurement':
this Man of brass with His rod, His measuring reed, is
moving everywhere within and without measuring,
measuring, around and about, so meticulously. What
is he doing with this House? He is defining it
according to Christ; He is measuring according to Christ;
for Christ is going to be the measure of
everything. "God... hath appointed a day, in
which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man
Whom He hath ordained" (Acts 17:31) - it is the Man
of brass, to bring everything in the world to judgment
according to Himself. If that is true of the world, and
judgment is coming to the world, it must begin at the
House of God.
Now, to resolve that
into one statement, it just means this. If it is to
be 'Jehovah-Shammah' - if it is to be "The Lord is
there", it will be according to the measure of
Christ - just how much there is of Christ there.
Neither more nor less will God commit Himself. It is not
this or that, or many things, that men think constitute a
place for God; it is only one thing - how much of Christ
is there? Let that go right into our hearts: how much of
Christ is there in you and in me? Does this not explain
the infinite pains that God takes, and His preparedness
to sacrifice so much, in order to increase our measure of
Christ? It is the explanation of so much. Why will
He take a very busy and useful servant of His away
from His work and shut him up? - why? We say 'loss', we
say 'tragedy', we say the Church suffers; but God knows.
It matters more to Him that there should be an increase
of Christ there for eternal purposes, than perhaps the
doing of a lot of busy things for Him.
There must be
an explanation of the strange providences of God. May
this not be it? I put it again in the form of a
question. The Lord is prepared to take any pains to
increase the measure of His Son; to make any sacrifice -
not just for its own sake, but in relation to the thing
to which He has given His heart: that of finding a state
suitable for His own presence. And you and I are prepared
to say immediately that, where there is most of Christ,
there you meet the Lord indeed - "the Lord is
there"; the two things go together - though it
often means the ruination of ourselves to make
place for Him.
So the House is
measured, not just as a whole, but at every point, at
every corner. As we know from the letter to the
Ephesians, it is just the measure of Christ.
The
River
Finally, in the visions
we come to the river. When He is on His Throne and has
His place, and when the Altar is in its place, judging
and governing everything according to God's
righteousness; and when the House is measured according
to Christ - well, what do you expect? Out from that House
will emerge and break a river, fullness, to make
'everything live whithersoever the river cometh' (Ezek
47:9). That happened on the Day of Pentecost. The
Lord has got His House; Christ is on the Throne; the
Cross has done its work, and the river proceeds
spontaneously.
I raise one question in
conclusion. It is no critcism, it is no judgment of mine;
it is really an exercise. Christians have been praying
and pleading for years for revival, revival, revival -
that is the word. Well, it happens when God has His
conditions. May its delay be explained by the fact that
He has not got His conditions? This is not merely an
objective question, a subject of interest; it has a very
immediate application. What you and I desire is
that out of us should flow rivers of living water. Oh,
that there might issue from us this stream that makes
everything live, so that when we pray with people, when
we speak to them, life comes into them; they feel
refreshed and renewed: when we move about the world, the
effect is that people are helped to live anew. Life
comes.
That is true also of our
churches, our assemblies, our companies. There can
be life flowing out, reaching far out. If God has
His conditions, there is no limit to the possibilities of
a little company ordered of God, no limit to its range.
The influence of that little company, hidden in some
little corner, may go to the ends of the earth, may be
ministering Christ far, far beyond its own borders.
If God has His conditions, it just happens: you do not
have to organize great campaigns to do it - it
happens! Note: the river comes out of a measured
sanctuary; it comes down by way of the Altar; it is from
the House according to Christ, which House has been
judged by Calvary as to how it stands before God, that
the Spirit comes, the Spirit of life.
Let us now sum up. The
deciding factors as to the presence of God, more or less
- God grant that it may be more and ever more - the
deciding factors are: the absolute authority of Christ in
everything; the centrality and universality of the Cross;
the measure of Christ in believers, individually and
collectively. These are God's conditions for that which
answers to His own heart and satisfies Him, so that He
can be present without restraint or fear -
'Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is there'!