"Behold, my
servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul
delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring
forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry, nor lift
up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. A
bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick
will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth.
He will not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set
justice in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his
law" (Isa. 42:1-4). I have found the Lord putting it
into my heart quite strongly to say something about the
service of God; and I think we can gather it under that
first clause - "Behold, my servant." Of course,
here the words are prophetically related to the Lord
Jesus. There is no doubt about that, because they are
actually quoted in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel by
Matthew, verses 17 and 18 - "...that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet,
saying, Behold, my servant whom I have chosen; my beloved
in whom my soul is well pleased"; and there are
other passages in the New Testament which are a
repetition, in part of these very words.
But then, as you go on
from chapter 42 of lsaiah's prophecies, you find the same
word used very frequently in relation to Israel. You have
only to glance through chapters 43, 44 and 45 to find the
constant reiteration - "O Jacob, my servant,"
"Thou art my servant." But you find that Israel
failed in the service, and it was after Israel's failure
that the Lord Jesus as the servant actually came in
according to this prophecy, and He took up that wonderful
Divine purpose and vocation which it had been God's will
for Israel to fulfil - a testimony to the nations. He,
the Lord Jesus, became the great, inclusive, model
servant of the Lord, fulfilled the service, and then
passed it on to the Church. There is a very real and
quite true sense in which Christ and His Body, the
Church, now is the servant of the Lord, so, that it can
be said - or should be able to be said - of Christ in
the Church "Behold, my servant"; that is, as to
Divine principle and purpose. The Church is called in to
take up that service of the Lord Jesus and carry it out,
and it has to do with a purpose of God which is in the
nations. In the familiar words of Acts 15:14 - "to
take out of (the nations) a people for his name."
Now, we shall take the
Church's vocation in representation, the representation
being found in three men. These men are, in principle,
the dispensation in which we are living, according to
God's mind; that is, they are representative of this
particular dispensation which is the dispensation of the
Church.
Do remember that in
this dispensation we have everything in fulness. You may
not think so, but we have everything in fulness. In the
dispensations before, we had but figures, and every
figure or type was in limitation, and failed at a certain
point. Great as they were, even Abraham and Moses and the
rest were but figures, and did not carry the purpose
through to realisation. In this dispensation, we have
them all brought to fulness in the Lord Jesus. If they
were servants in the house of God, we have the
"Son" in this dispensation. Service is brought
to its fullest and its best in the Lord Jesus. Everything
is carried through from the partial, the imperfect and
the failure of past dispensations to completeness in
this, embodied in the Lord Jesus and transferred to the
Church, and that means that service in this dispensation
ought to be on the very highest level. It ought to be
something very much better than the service of past
dispensations.
Now, these
three who represent the dispensation in principle so far
as the Church's vocation is concerned are, as you guess,
Paul and Peter and John, each of them embodying one of
the great principles of service.
Paul:
The Sovereignty of God
(a) In Election unto Service
Paul
immediately comes right into line with Isa. 42:1 -
"Behold, my servant, whom I uphold; my
chosen..."; and what a long way back that word
'chosen' goes! Where Christ is concerned, it goes far,
far back beyond the bounds of time - the Father's
choosing, electing and appointing of His Son, the elect
of God, the chosen of God. Paul comes in as the
embodiment of that principle in the Church. In him the
Church takes up the first principle of service as to
Christ - election. "Go thy way: for he is a chosen
vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles"
(Acts 9:15). He is an elect vessel; and while Paul's
special election had to do with his particular function,
it was only an aspect of the more general principle of
election where the Church is concerned. He makes that
perfectly clear later in his letters to the Romans and to
the Ephesians. "Called according to his
purpose" (Rom. 8:28); "he chose us in him
before the foundation of the world" (Eph.1:4). The
Church is an elect vessel, foreknown, predestinated
before the world was; and not in relation to salvation,
for election - predestination - is not unto salvation.
Salvation only comes in the line of it. It does not apply
primarily to salvation; it applies to purpose -
predestination unto Divine purpose; that is, that God
must realise His purpose and therefore He must have a
vessel for it. He cannot go on without such a vessel and
so He secures it from all eternity. Election is unto
purpose. I repeat, Paul was the embodiment of the
principle that the eternal choice of the Lord Jesus
Christ is transferred to the Church in relation to the
service of God, so that when Paul brings the Church into
full view, he shows that it is unto a heavenly and
eternal vocation. He traces its spiritual history right
back to before time began and carries it right on into
the ages of the ages, and says that the Church, planted
right there in the eternities, stands for a special
vocation, to serve God in a particular purpose dear to
His heart.
The
Apostle breaks that up and applies it to every individual
member of Christ, and says in many more words than this -
'If you have been apprehended by Christ, if you know
yourself to have been called into the fellowship of God's
Son, if you are a member of Christ's Body, you are that
on the ground of election, of eternal choice for a
purpose. There is bound up with your life a great
service, you are a part of a great vocation eternally
predestined by God. You are in "Church"
service, you are an elect vessel.' It is a tremendous
thing to grasp that; it accounts for and explains a very
great deal - far more than we are able here even to
suggest. But let us note that there is a sovereignty
which lies behind our being in our present relationship
to the Lord Jesus. "Ye did not choose me, but I
chose you, and appointed you" (John 15:16). There is
a sovereignty lying behind our being here, and what a lot
we owe to that! If it had been left to us, where should
we be today? What would have happened to us? Thank God
for that sovereignty which, having girded us, follows us
up, and when we deviate and wander, girds us again, and
we find ourselves back again and again and again. There
is a sovereignty girding us. Let us make more of it. It
will bring a rest into our hearts, it will take an
over-amount of anxiety from us, and a wrong sense of
responsibility. Our responsibility begins and ends with
complete abandonment to the Lord, and trust in Him, and
obedience where He shows it to be necessary. The rest is
with Him, and His sovereignty has undertaken to perfect
that which concerns us, and to relieve us of the very
great deal of anxiety and worry and fret and burden which
results from our taking upon ourselves what is God's
responsibility. I think that we have not yet fully
realized how great our God is. The God that we have made
is very much after our own mind. We need that He should
be enlarged in our own apprehension.
It was the
very last thing that ever Saul of Tarsus thought of,
imagined or intended, that he should be a servant of
Jesus Christ; and because it was so foreign to his mind,
to his will, to his intention, he was always afterwards
striking this note - 'I was apprehended of Christ Jesus;
it was the Lord Who did it.' It is one of those sure
planks under his feet, one of those things which gives him
such confidence, such assurance, as he goes on. 'I did
not take this thing up, it was not my choice; the Lord
did this in His sovereignty.' So Paul becomes the very
embodiment of this Church principle, this dispensation
principle - that the Church is chosen in relation to a
purpose of God, and we are here because of that.
But it is
the purpose that governs, it is the service that governs.
We are not here elected to be Christians. If we were, we
could sit down, fold our arms and do nothing, and say:
'We are Christians, not by our own will, but God made us
such, so, all right, we leave it at that.' Remember,
election is unto vocation. It is "My servant"
which is related to "whom I have chosen."
Election is in relation to service.
(b)
In Governing the Fulfilment of Vocation
Then,
again, this sovereignty governs the fulfilment of the
vocation. See this man Paul. He is an elect vessel. He
has to bear the Name, "before the Gentiles, and
kings, and the people of Israel" (Acts 9:15). Note -
he is not going just to preach Christianity; he is going
to bear the Name, to carry that Name out to the Gentiles,
to the nations. He will meet something, for it is in the
nations that the prince of this world has his concern,
and any name but his name will be unwelcome. Carry the
name of Jesus as Lord and King before kings such as they
were in Paul's time, and say to them, 'Jesus Christ is
Lord' - and see what you will meet. If it needs any
stronger emphasis, take the name of Jesus to the people
of Israel. We know what happened when Paul bore the Name
in those three realms, and particularly before the people
of Israel with their prejudice and bigotry and hatred of
the Name. Paul found himself dogged everywhere he went by
that bitter antagonism of the Judaisers, but he finished
his course. He said, "I have finished the
course" (2 Tim. 4:7). In words used by his Master,
he could have said, on exactly the same basis and
principle, "I lay down my life... no one taketh it
away from me" (John 10:17-18). He ought to have died
literally a hundred times, but he did not. He finished
his course, he completed his service, he rounded it off,
and, although he had to place his head upon the
executioner's block and men slew him, it was in reality
his offering of himself. The sovereignty which chose
carried through to the fulfilment. Oh, take all that you
can out of this; it is true. How often we have been
tempted to feel that we should never finish our work,
that we have come to an end prematurely, that
circumstances, difficulties, adversities, sufferings,
afflictions, trials, were going to bring an untimely end
to our ministry, to our spiritual vocation! But here the
word comes that there is a sovereignty which, having
chosen, also governs the fulfilment. And it will be true
of every servant, every member of Christ, who abides in
Him. God saw to it that, having been called, they
fulfilled their ministry. No matter what happened from
the nations or from kings or from the people of Israel,
they fulfilled their ministry. They had a mandate from
heaven and no man could cut it short. It is as true of
the Church as of Paul or of Jesus Christ. It is a Church
matter. It only becomes an individual matter in that
related way; but it is true.
(c)
In Governing Circumstances
So the
sovereignty governs the circumstances. "To them that
love God all things work together for good, even to them
that are called according to his purpose" (Rom.
8:28). There is election, and there is the sovereignty of
God coming in over and through circumstances to make the
circumstances serve the end. The circumstances of a
Philippian jail further the Gospel. Circumstances of
shipwreck fulfil the purpose of God. Everything that Paul
catalogues of adverse circumstances - including
treacherous brethren - of it all he says, "I would
have you know... that the things which happened unto me
have fallen out rather unto the progress of the
gospel" (Phil. 1:12). It speaks of sovereignty
taking hold of circumstances where the purpose is
concerned. This is all a part of the election.
That is
not all that might be said about Paul, but it brings very
strongly into view this principle of this dispensation
where the Church is concerned, that election operates in
relation to purpose.
Peter:
The Formation of the Servant
As to
Peter, what does he represent so far as the service of
God is concerned in this dispensation? I do not think
there is any more fitting word than the word 'formation.'
Peter became a great servant of Jesus Christ. He did
serve this dispensation tremendously. If there was one
man of all the apostolic circle who needed to be made a
servant, needed to be formed, it was Peter. What rough
material he was! How raw he was! Yes, there was
roughness, there was ignorance, instability,
unreliability about him. He was not of the learned, the
sophisticated; there was nothing of that about Peter; but
he became a mighty servant of Jesus Christ, and everybody
had to take note that this ignorant and unlearned man had
become remarkably instructed and qualified and capable;
that this man, who at one time shrank when a little
servant maid associated him with Jesus, had now become
full of courage. This man, who at one time was anything
but like a rock, is now a rock. Oh, how great was the
formation in this servant!
We are
chosen, elect, in Christ, and all the sovereignty of God
lies behind that if only we come into place and into
line. It does not mean that there is nothing to be done
in us. There is a great deal of formation needed. We know
that; probably we are far too obsessed with that side of
things. We are very depressed about our being so unfit,
unqualified if not disqualified. But the same sovereignty
that elected worked out in formation, saw to it that the
ignorant man became an instructed man, the weak man
became a strong man, the man so rough and so raw became
one of God's gentlemen. I detect that fine trait in Peter
as he grows older. "As our beloved brother Paul
also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto
you" (2 Pet. 3:15). That is the man whom Paul
withstood to his face. He might have held a big grudge
against Paul, and always felt the sting of that
withstanding, but no - "our beloved brother
Paul." He is a gentleman, at any rate. He is too big
for spitefulness, revenge and pettiness. God has done a
big thing.
The only
thing to ask now is, are we makeable, adjustable,
formable? God will do it; the same sovereignty will make
us able ministers.
John:
Spirituality Expressed in Love
Finally,
John; and what is John as far as principle is concerned?
He can be summed up in one word - spirituality. He was a
man who had marvellous capacity for seeing through
things, never taking things just as ends in themselves,
beginning and ending with the things. In his Gospel, it
is like that all the way through. John has laid hold of
things. Yes, Nathanael under his tree, the marriage in
Cana of Galilee, the interview with Nicodemus, the woman
of Sychar, the impotent man lying by the pool of Bethesda
- all the way along he is taking hold of these incidents
and looking right through and giving you a spiritual
principle in every one. He is not satisfied simply to
narrate happenings; he is saying that those things
contain spiritual value and meaning. That is the value of
John - his spiritual perception. He is not living on the
surface, he is getting the inner meaning of things, and
passing on those spiritual values to the Church. Much
might be said of John and his spirituality. It is
something that is very necessary in the matter of true
service.
The Church
is not just an earthly institution, a temporal order. The
Church is the embodiment of great, heavenly, spiritual
truths and values. You have to get through all these
externalities and formalities to spiritual principles and
meanings, and when you get there you are touching life.
And that word 'life' is one of John's great words.
If we were
to sum up spirituality in one word, we should say
spirituality is pre-eminently expressed in love. That is
John. We may have the tongues of men and of angels, we
may have the gift of prophecy or any other gift, but if
we have not love we are not spiritual people. Love is
characteristic of truly spiritual people, and that is the
great vocational power. "By love serve one
another" (Gal. 5:13). Love is the key to true
service. We never get far on the basis of legalism. It is
love that builds up. It is love that is the real power of
God amongst men, to convict, and convince.
"Behold
my servant... my chosen." Yes, behind the service to
which we are called is a sovereignty operating, bringing
us into the fellowship of God's Son with a great purpose
in view. (I have not dwelt upon the purpose in its
details; I merely state the fact of a great purpose to
which we are called.) That sovereignty is operating in
making us meet for the Master's use. God is going on with
the work sovereignly. He is forming us; and in that same
glorious election He is seeking to make us spiritual
people, as His Church is a spiritual thing. That means
that it is not simply some framework. It is the
embodiment and the transmitting of spiritual, eternal
values. They are the things that matter. The spiritual is
the real.