The first thing to take into account is the
desire and the design of the Father for His family. Surely everything begins
there with the family, and when we ask ourselves what the desire and the design
of our Father is for His spiritual family, there is but one answer. And that
answer is given to us in a statement which itself includes a family title: "Foreordained
to be conformed to the image of His son". Conformity to the image of the
Firstborn is the desire and the design of the Father for the whole family.
The family is to take its character from the
Firstborn. There is to be a family likeness, and, so far as this family is
concerned, the family likeness is to be according to the firstborn. That is,
that what is true of Christ has to become true of the whole family. The
characteristics and traits of the Lord Jesus have to be reproduced in every
subsequent child and member of the family. That being the desire and the design
of the Father made known to all His children, if they are to be obedient
children, children of God in very truth, then they will lay to heart His desire
and realise that their main business is the satisfaction of the Father's heart
in the development of those features of the firstborn. The New Testament is
occupied with that; indeed all the Scriptures are occupied with that. The Old
Testament is concerned in a typical way with the reproducing of the features of
Christ. The New Testament is most clearly one great collective,
accumulative appeal and urge for the realisation of Christ-likeness.
It seems that when the Lord Jesus chose His
twelve disciples there was, at the back of the choice and back of the purpose of
having a company of men always with Him - the intention of showing and
expressing what the character of the firstborn is so far as relationship to
other members of the family is concerned. To put that in another way: if we
study the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in relation to His own when He was
here on the earth, we have a good example of what family characteristics are in
the thought of the Father. For instance, take the imperfections, the
shortcomings, the weaknesses of the twelve and see what the attitude of the Lord
Jesus was toward them. The Holy Spirit takes no pains to cover up those faults
and those flaws. There is no attempt made whatever to present those men
as an ideal group. Their picture is painted true to life and all the difficult
lines are there - the bad and the good - and nothing unpleasant is hidden from
view. None of the lines are taken out of their faces. They are all clearly seen.
The Lord Jesus was not dealing with an easy company, but a company which might
often have provoked despair. But one thing was characteristic of Him in relation
to a difficult handful, and that was His faith for them.
What faith the Lord Jesus had for those men! It
was not that He had faith in them, neither was it that He had faith for them
because of what He saw in them; but He had infinite faith in the Father for
them. His attitude was: "Well, nothing is impossible with God. Here are these
men; they are difficult and they could easily be My despair; they never seem to
understand what I say! They always seem to get the wrong interpretation, they
always seem to miss the point. When I say a thing they get it from an altogether
wrong angle; they are utterly materialistic in their outlook, in their
expectation and in their desires. They never see far beyond this world and
their own personal interests. They seem totally incapable of getting a spiritual
conception. And yet the Father can do wonders with a handful of men like
that; nothing is impossible."
How often His words to them indicated their
slowness and their dullness in the realm of His spiritual mind. "O foolish
men, how long shall I be with you?" "Do you not yet understand?"
and right at the end: "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things?"
And yet He never gave them up, never abandoned them as hopeless, but exhibited
infinite faith for them.
That represents something about the Firstborn
which must of necessity become a family characteristic. We shall never get very
far as a family unless that is reproduced in us, unless we have infinite and
implicit faith in the Father concerning one another. Some of us are exceedingly
difficult to get on with, exceedingly difficult to understand and perhaps
exceedingly difficult to love in the natural way. There is a challenge in that.
The easiest thing in the world would be to draw unto ourselves and away from
such. The most difficult thing perhaps will be to go on in perfect
confidence and faith that a big change will take place and that there will be
tremendous differences made if only we wait long enough. The Lord Jesus had that
faith in the Father for these men and that has got to become a characteristic of
the family. Yes! faith for the most hopeless. How little patience we have!
Nature comes in here so often, and nature takes
the measurement at once according to nature and fixes the value and says: "Well,
they will never be anything much more than that". And so they are consigned to
the category of those of a certain measurement and a certain capacity, and
nothing more is expected or hoped for; and they are despised more or less. We
just go on and leave them to get on as best as they can. They know that they
have been weighed up and that we do not have very much room for them. Do you
think that that is going to be a way of development, increase and helpful
expansion? Never! What we have done has been to put the measure of what they are
by nature, upon what they are by grace, and fix them in that measure. We have,
in other words, not allowed for the possibilities of grace in the most
impossible person.
We must seek the Lord for that grace which
believes that the most impossible one can be made very possible through grace. A
parenthetical word may be helpful here. We are not speaking about office, and
appointment, and responsibility for work, and that sort of thing. If we
have got to put trust in people so far as official responsibility is concerned,
we shall have to use wisdom in their measurement and how far they can be
trusted. But we are not speaking about that side of things. We are speaking
about the ordinary relationships, the fellowship of the family and the increase
and development of Christ in one another by mutual relationships. For it is in
these relationships that the increase of Christ is to be brought about. There
are possibilities for the development of the spiritual life along the line of
fellowship which do not exist in the realm of isolation. The existence of
isolated members means limitation in the extreme. Relationship and fellowship,
is God's way of increase. And so we have got to note the law by which that
increase comes about, and this is one of them: faith for one another,
even though we may not have faith in another.
It is a very important thing, and what those
disciples owed to that faith for them on the part of the Lord Jesus, perhaps we
shall never know. They, with ourselves, will at some time in eternity simply
have to say to the Lord Jesus: "I am here and what I am, and if ever I have
been used at all by the Lord for His glory and satisfaction is because You did
not take me at my own measure". We owe a great deal to the Lord's faith for us,
and that is why He does not give us up. We must have the same spirit in our
relationships with one another.
Running alongside of that we see His devotion
to those disciples. There is one matchless declaration in which that devotion is
summed up: "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto
the end." He gave Himself to them. He spent Himself for them. He did not
walk in reservations: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends." It is a family feature, the Firstborn is doing
this for the rest of the family, and that which is true of the Firstborn is to
be developed in the family.
That covers a good deal of ground which we are
not staying to deal with in detail. We simply say it in a broad, inclusive and
comprehensive way, and illustrate it by those simple points, that what is true
of the Firstborn is the Father's design and desire to make true of all the
family. The family shall take its character from the Firstborn and be conformed
to His image.
Recognising that, there are some things which
are basic fundamentally to that, without which that is all impossible and by
which alone we can do this.
The first and primary thing is the absolute
necessity for knowing one another after the Spirit. "The love of Christ
constrains us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;
and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto Him"; "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh." That means that
as far as we can see, we have not made what we are by nature the final basis of
our relationships, of our expectations, of our judgements, of our appraisals, of
our valuations. It does not mean that we are oblivious of one another's human
nature. It does not mean that what we are in the flesh never strikes us; that we
are to be totally insensible to the defects of one another's nature. No! we
shall always be sensitive. It is probably true that the more spiritual we are,
the more sensitive we become to what we are by nature and to what others are by
nature. Perhaps we shall suffer all the more because of the defects and
imperfections, the strengths and the weaknesses of one another naturally.
Men of the world have but a very, very minute
degree of the difficulty that Christians have of getting on with one
another. They seem to be able to ignore and ride over one another's difficult
parts and make-up. It seems that Christians are much more alive to that sort of
thing than others, and are touched by it more keenly. Of course, we can explain
that along two lines. If we become spiritually sensitive the flesh is sensed
very much more quickly; what is not spiritual registers itself upon spiritual
sensitiveness. There is also the fact that we have an adversary to reckon with
who is always seeking to make a lot of the imperfections and brings them up and
hits us with them. He is at work in this matter of seeking to upset the
relationships of the Lord's people. He never tires of that. Not knowing one
another after the flesh does not mean that all that realm will cease to exist
for us, but it does mean that we shall look beyond that realm and we shall
steadily seek grace and the help of the Holy Spirit to cultivate and develop a
determination to look through what we are by nature to what there is of the Lord
Jesus and of the Holy Spirit in one another, and keep our eyes upon that.
The Lord holds us responsible for doing a thing
like that. We know that if we begin to talk about and dwell upon the
imperfections of the Lord's children and criticise, the Lord smites us inwardly
and says: "That is My child". He does not mean that is not true of them by
nature, but He says: "There is something else there that is very precious to Me;
be careful you do not damage that". That is knowing after the Spirit.
We do not see how it is possible for us to have
faith for one another and to be truly devoted to one another in
the sense in which the Lord was devoted to His disciples unless we look past
nature in one another to that which is of the Lord. It is there that we fasten
all our hope and expectation, and it is there that we have to find our
fellowship. Our relationship is now not in the flesh, it is in the Spirit, and
we must seek continually to fight against a relationship which is purely in the
natural and maintain a relationship in the spiritual, inwardly. It is basic.
Love, forbearance, patience... all these things
demand that there should be something more than nature upon which we are
working. With all the forbearance that we can exercise, and all the love that we
can show, there is no hope for anyone if there is not something more than this
there. And it is upon that "something more" that our eyes have to be fixed, and
it is there that we have to place the main value. "Your mother and your
brethren are without asking for you"! "These are my mother and my
brethren, that hear the word of God and do it." There is another kind of
relationship from that of the flesh. True relationship is that beyond; with
those who are seeking to walk with the Lord. And that is where our only hope is.
There is, of course, the other side and we must
not forget this. There is a responsibility resting upon us for walking in the
Spirit. It is all very well, of course, to say we must look always for the
something extra, the something other in one another. But we must not make too
great a demand upon other people for doing that. We must not lay too much store
by a thing like that and say: "Well, they have got to know me after the spirit
and not after the flesh". And thus put a big tax upon them to do it. That is
rather making light of our imperfections and saying: "Oh well, I am made like
that, and you will just have to take me as I am made; I am by nature an
impulsive Peter you know, and the Lord loved impulsive Peter; and you will have
to love me, though I am impulsive." Yes, but Peter was a changed man when the
Holy Ghost got hold of him, and to talk about our human weaknesses and our
natural imperfections and make light of them is rather in the direction of
saying that we do not know very much about the mastery of the Holy Spirit in our
lives.
We may be naturally quick tempered. Well, there
have been many good men who were naturally quick tempered, and the Lord
loved them, and they were children of God. It is easy to talk like that, but
grace does count for something, and the Holy Spirit does represent something,
and we must not make too much demand upon one another. There is a responsibility
for walking in the Spirit and as we walk in the Spirit we shall find fellowship
far more possible and far more profitable. If you walk in the Spirit and I walk
not in the Spirit, or very much more in nature than you do, you may exercise a
very great deal of this high spiritual character in bearing with me and
forbearing; but fellowship will not be as profitable as it might be, and our
glorifying of the Lord might not be as great as it might be if I were also
walking as positively in the Spirit as you. A very great deal does depend upon
our walking in the Spirit so that we can know one another after the Spirit. Oh!
that we could provide one another with a large measure of what is the Spirit, so
that there may be a knowing which is profitable. On the one hand allowance for
one another, and on the other hand seeking positively to help one another over
our respective imperfections.
That is family life. In the family which is a
family indeed, all the members know one another and their attitude would be:
"Well, that is So-and-so; we know him, we know her, and we therefore make
allowances because we know them". But do we try, as we are able, to help them to
be other than they are? That is bringing it down to an ordinary, natural level
of things. But lift that into the spiritual, and it has this parallel: we must
know one another and in our hearts make allowances because we know that is just
So-and-so; but then, not because we know them just leave them to it, but seek in
love to help in that direction. That must be quite mutual: helping to develop in
one another the grace of the Lord Jesus. There is such a thing, after all, as
praying for one another is there not? And it counts for much to pray for one
another, even when we cannot do it in a more direct way with one another.
We are of noble birth. We are a royal family.
Every member of this family, every child of God, everyone related to such a
Prince as the Lord Jesus, should seek to exhibit that spiritual dignity that
upholds the honour of the family and never allows anyone to have a reason to
think or say that to be a Christian is to be something less than the best, the
noblest, the finest. The world has often had reason to think very lightly and
very little of many Christians, that they are less than the best. You and I,
remembering our royal degree, should seek spiritual dignity to maintain the
honour of the Name which we bear, that before others Christ's Name might be a
great Name and a glorious Name as it rests upon us.
That, of course, calls for much and should lead
us continually to seek the Lord diligently and earnestly that we might be marked
by strength before men - holy strength, divine strength - and every other
quality which is an expression of such a One as the Lord Jesus is. The Lord make
us worthy to bear His Name in the family.