We will say just a further word
on this. You will remember that we have referred to the way in which the
apostles Paul and Barnabas went out from Antioch in the thirteenth chapter of
the Acts, and we had one point only in view. We were seeking to stress the point
that ministry is not official but spiritual, and that Barnabas and Saul were not
taken at Antioch simply because they were official ministers. There is all the
difference between their arriving at Antioch and people there saying, These are
two important missionaries, and setting them up in some official capacity right
away, and then regarding them like that, and their having their place purely on
an official basis - there is a lot of difference between that and what we have
in Acts 13. They came there as fellow-members of Christ, not as officers, and
there in the main they remained as fellow-members of Christ as in the assembly,
and when the time came it was as such that they were dealt with and sent forth,
not on an official basis at all.
We have to be careful as to how
far we apply what is written in Acts 13 as a kind of formula, because there is a
good deal more behind it, no doubt, that is not written. I do not think for a
moment that Paul and Barnabas had never said anything to the elders there about
the consciousness of their call, what the Lord had revealed to them as to their
mission. I should say, though it is not written, that that was well known in the
assembly, and they in all probability kept at least those in responsibility
there, if not the whole assembly, alive to that fact, and sought their continual
prayer as to the Lord's time and their outgoing. So that the assembly were
probably continually asking the Lord about this thing. Then it was at a special
time of prayer and fasting that the Holy Ghost said what He did. The Lord may
have other ways of sending out besides the Acts 13 way, but we have said this
because there are probably a lot of people who, having a real sense of the way
in which the Lord is calling, are keeping silent until the Lord in some
extraordinary way reveals it to the assembly. There is no reason why we should
wait until it comes from another source. Perhaps that is in the way of a
confirmation of the call. Paul and Barnabas did not do anything like that. If
the Lord has laid it on our hearts we should seek prayer fellowship in the
matter, even although we are ready to wait for some confirmation in other hearts
of that leading. Probably that which took place at Antioch was confirmatory; the
thing commenced in their hearts and was confirmed by other witnesses in the
Spirit.
Having said that we can
continue. There is a matter which has been coming up and letting itself be known
that it was there and had got to be mentioned, and the time for mentioning it
had not come. Now one feels that this is the time for our touching upon this
particular matter, phase or aspect of the whole thing that the Lord is saying to
us. There may be a measure of reiteration, but its value will probably be in the
new emphasis.
The Priestly Nature of the
House of God
It comes up in a very real way
in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. There is no doubt that the Word of the
Lord makes it quite clear that the church enters into the purpose for which
Israel was raised up, in a spiritual way; that is, that the church takes up
Israel's place and vocation in this dispensation. Israel was called for a
special purpose. That purpose was very largely, if not entirely, failed of, and
Israel was set aside. Even although there was a time when Israel fulfilled the
purpose, as far as Israel could fulfil that purpose, yet the whole purpose of
God was not fulfilled or realised through Israel; probably it never could be.
But as things worked out, Israel was a failure and was set aside. Into Israel's
place the church was brought to take up, in a spiritual way and in a fuller way
than Israel could ever have fulfilled it, the divine purpose. That purpose was
priesthood.
Israel was called to be a
kingdom of priests unto God, a priestly house. The marks of what is priestly are
seen in Israel's history from its very commencement in the exodus, and right on.
The church is called with that calling. The Word makes that perfectly clear,
that we are called a kingdom of priests unto our God. You have no need to be
referred to the Scriptures in this connection, you are familiar with them. So
that what we have to say of the church is that it is a priestly church, and then
we have to understand what that means.
Now a little reiteration from
our last meditation. We said that in the Mount God revealed Himself to Moses and
the elders of Israel, and as the result of their revelation we have the
tabernacle in the wilderness. And we said that that revelation in the Mount,
issuing in the tabernacle, is in type, in figure, in foreshadowing, the
incarnation - God coming in the flesh, God manifested in the flesh, Immanuel,
God with us, amongst us. But there in the Old Testament it was a matter of
types, figures, symbols; that is, its deepest meaning was secret, hidden, not
perceived. It was a great parable, its reality was veiled, and the central
feature of that whole pattern was a veil. Through that veil the people could not
look. The innermost truth of things, God present, was veiled from them and
hidden from their eyes. That truth ran through everything; that is, there was a
governing veil over everything, within and without. They did not see, they could
not see the inner meaning of any part of things. All they knew was that a
certain system was set up in a certain form, and they were called upon to regard
it as an expression of God's will, and to be blindly obedient to it, and in that
way they found their salvation and their life. As to any knowledge of a deeper
meaning, they had none. That veil obtained right through that dispensation.
That is what came in at the
Mount. You know what Paul says in the second letter to the Corinthians about the
veil, and that even to this day there is a veil over their hearts in reading
Moses. They do not see, they do not understand, and not until it shall turn to
the Lord will the veil be taken away, will they understand.
The great figure gave place to
the great reality. The figure of the incarnation, the tabernacle, coming out
from heaven, God showing Himself in that form, gave place to the Person, the
incarnation. Here we have the reality. But although the reality is present, the
veil is not taken away. There is still a veil, and through the three-and-a-half
years, at least, of God's sojourn in flesh amongst men, they knew Him not, He
was veiled from them. As we have said repeatedly, both as to His person and as
to His teaching and His works, they were still, in the main, in the dark.
Now the one thing which
governed both the type, the figure of the Old Testament, and the reality of the
New Testament in the Gospels, was the priestly element. It was all priestly. The
tabernacle was priestly, everything to do with it was priestly. So in the
incarnation the predominant element is that which is priestly, and it is a great
spiritual education to move through the Gospels with that thought in mind, to
note the priestly features of Christ's work here on the earth, of His life, His
teaching, and His works. We shall see a little of that as we go on.
If you like to narrow it down
to John's Gospel alone, you have Israel's background so fully there all the
time. It seems as though he is striking at Israel all the way along. Read the
third chapter about Nicodemus and Israel in the wilderness. Israel is in the
background. Read the fourth chapter, dealing with the springing well. Israel is
in the background. Chapters five and six, deal with the manna in the wilderness,
the bread from heaven. It is Israel in the background. The impotent man,
thirty-eight years a cripple. That is Israel's thirty-eight years in the
wilderness, a helpless cripple. The blind man, born blind. Oh, how much he had
to say about Israel's blindness! Israel is in the background. But over against
all those things there is that which is the priestly offering.
That is enough to at least
indicate what we mean by the predominant priestly nature of things. Yet, as
present in all the living reality of that in the days of His flesh, there was a
veil, the veil was not taken away. They did not in a living and spiritual way
enter into the meaning and value of it. Christ was veiled in flesh. Two things
synchronize: God's destruction of the veil of the Temple and the removal of the
veil of Christ's flesh, showing that these two things were one in the thought of
God, the type and the reality.
What we have been saying is not
mere interpretation or fancy: it is truth. God smote that veil, and split it
from top to bottom. God acted from heaven to reveal Himself in Christ through
the rending of His flesh. After His resurrection He still has a body of flesh
and bone, but the veil is gone for His own. There is a manifesting forth of God
in Christ, a seeing of what was never seen before. The apostle tells us that we
now enter in through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, rent so that we find
God in Christ, God through Christ.
In the resurrection of Christ
the veil was removed. That means that, although the priestly feature was
predominant, both in the type of the Old Testament and in the reality of the
incarnation, it is only truly, livingly, spiritually entered into in the
resurrection. It requires the resurrection, it requires the risen Lord to make
us in the real meaning and value of priesthood, and to bring us into it.
Features of Priestliness
That is all very simple, but it
leads us to see what the church's real position and nature is. So you find that
in the forty days after His resurrection, in which He was seeking to lead His
disciples into the spiritual meaning of the church for the future, its nature
and its vocation there are many priestly elements brought out.
Let us look at some of them. We
know what priestly elements are, but look for them in the forty days.
a) Mediation
First of all there is
mediation. What is mediation? It presupposes a state of conscious need, on the
one hand, in the matter of pardon, grace, forgiveness, restoration. On the other
hand, the gracious One, the pardoning One, the receiving One, the accessible
One. What was the great word which was running through the forty days? It was
peace. He had made peace by the blood of His cross, and His one word as He moved
amongst them during those days was, "Peace be with you". We have already
thought about His first appearance to Mary Magdalene. If ever there was a heart
needing peace, hers was. We have talked of His appearance to Simon alone, and to
Thomas. Each of these had their sin brought to remembrance. If there is one
thing which the cross meant to them, and probably to all of them who had
forsaken Him in the flesh, it was their weakness, their failure, their
sinfulness. Probably they were going through torture during the three days after
His death, and His appearing to them was for the special purpose of bringing
that peace to their hearts which only One Who could bring the sense of
forgiveness and restoration and acceptance could give. On the one hand there was
a speaking of failure, then, on the other hand, the speaking of grace and
acceptance and mercy and pardon and peace. I am perfectly sure that the forty
days for them were days of heart healing. You have only to try to put yourself
in their place. Put yourself into Peter's place, if you can, having denied the
Lord with oaths and curses, gone out and wept bitterly, and that is the last
scene; the Master is slain and leaves you there. You remember fellowship with
Him and all that He was to you, all His love, all His grace, all His
forbearance, and then think that is how you finished up when He was in
difficulties. That leaves a sore heart. That leaves a state of agony inside.
But, oh, the healing of the forty days, the healing of the heart.
So it must have been for them
all. What kind of healing was it? It was priestly healing, not just saying, Oh
well, we will say no more about it, do not fret and be troubled, let bygones be
bygones. You cannot let bygones be bygones. You have got to have the assurance
from God that that thing is forgiven, and that no longer stands between you and
Him, to interfere in the slightest degree with fellowship, that thing has not
left a shadow where He is concerned, in His memory, in His attitude. You have
got to know that that thing is all blotted out from God's sight, and you have
got to have in your heart the witness of peace from God before you can get over
it and go on. That is the mediatorial work of the forty days.
The Lord Jesus was seeking to
establish that for them. So far as He was concerned, and they were concerned, He
was seeking to establish them upon that thing for their future ministry, so that
their ministry would be like that. Look here, you may have turned your back upon
God, you may have done despite to His holy Name, you may have been as bad as I
was; I denied Him with oaths and curses, but He has forgiven me, He is a
forgiving God, He is a marvellous God, He can bring you right back to full
fellowship. That is the priestly character of the priestly ministry of the
church. It is in this sense a taking of the mediatorial ministry of Christ.
Now we must guard that. It is
not on the official basis of the Church of Rome, with many mediators; there is
but One Mediator. We are speaking of mediation in Christ. A broken failure can
be brought into new fellowship with God, be made to meet on the ground of
absolute fellowship, and that in a Man Who combined in Himself God and Man. The
veil is taken away, and you see this is God and Man, and in Him you have peace.
He brings the peace of God into the Man's side of things. We are joined in that
Manhood with God in His mercy and grace. "He showed to them His hands and His
side". That is the ground of peace. That is the way of peace.
b) Illumination
Another feature of priestliness,
as we well know, is illumination. The priests' lips were to teach knowledge, the
priests' business was to interpret the things of God, to make them plain; just
as Ezra stood up and expounded the Word, read it and gave the meaning thereof.
The priest of the Old Testament had as a vital part of his vocation the giving
of the sense and the explaining of the Word. I suppose the Old Testament priests
could go little further than saying, This is the will of God, God has said this,
and God wants this done, and you must ever bear it in mind, even if you do not
understand why God has said this. We do not have a full knowledge of God's
meaning, but this is His will for us, and we must keep these things in view. So
the priests would teach the knowledge of the will and the way of the Lord.
Now this is so patent, it lies
on the surface. In the days of the resurrection, when the veil is taken away,
the Lord Jesus took up the Old Testament from Moses, the Psalms and the
prophets, all the Scriptures, and the veil was taken away. That it was necessary
for Him to open their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures,
shows that the veil was still there, even for disciples. He brought them into
true spiritual understanding, and in that He was fulfilling the ministry of the
priests.
That became their ministry, as
you see afterwards. Listen to them as they begin to preach. What are they doing?
They, with unveiled face and opened eyes, are bringing out from behind the veil
hanging over the Old Testament the real meaning of God. What a wonderful
discourse was Stephen's on the Old Testament, and what a wonderful discourse was
Peter's on the Old Testament. If there was one man who had the veil over his
face more than another it was Saul of Tarsus. What a blind man he was, what a
darkened man he was concerning Scriptures with which he was so familiar. Then
the veil was taken away, "God has shone into our hearts...", "Whenever
a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." Sometimes you are
astonished, and do not wonder that the Judaisers said he was making it all up,
the Scripture did not mean that. They needed the veil to be taken away. That is
priesthood.
That is the vocation of the
assembly. There should be a living, opened, unveiled ministry of the things of
the Lord, not speaking in parables and in types, but the mystery no longer a
mystery, revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets. So He constituted them
priests in the days after the resurrection, and fitted the church as it was then
for its future work by taking the veil from their eyes.
c) Representation
The third feature in priesthood
is representation. The priest must represent before God, must stand in the
presence of God, bringing the people with him upon his heart, upon his
shoulders. He must have access, and he must bring the people into the place
where he stands with God, and represent them before the Lord. So, on the other
hand, he must represent the Lord before the people, he must be amongst the
people in the behalf of the Lord. There must be the Godward side and the manward
side in priesthood.
Now listen, "Go to my
brethren, and say to them, 'I ascend unto My Father and your Father, to My God
and your God'." Here is One Who brings them with Himself into the presence
of God in His own Person, and Who brings God in His own Person into their
presence. So that man and God meet in Christ, and He represents both. That is
priesthood. He takes them in where He is with God the Father. He brings God the
Father out where they are.
This requires very careful
guarding when you carry it forward to the church, and yet it is true, that this
gives character to the church's nature and vocation. Christ (we use the word,
though we feel it is very dangerous) is incarnated in the church. We use that
word only in Luke's thought, that Christ is continuing His words and deeds in
the church. That which He began to do and teach He continues in the church. He
is here, and Christ imparting Himself in His church makes the church His Body,
and makes the church function in this way, that God comes to man in the church
and man comes to God in the church. In the true, spiritual church there is a
meeting of God and man, man and God, and God is represented there amongst men,
and man is represented there before God. It is a great, a solemn, and a holy
vocation with which the church is called, that it should represent the living
presence of the Lord to men, and that man coming into the church or into the
local assembly should know that God, while He may be in heaven, is also here.
That is the importance of the church to God, that He might have a dwelling place
where man may approach Him, and where He may come to man. He does sometimes come
to men singly and apart, but by far the greater meeting between God and man is
found in a spiritual company. That is the continuous side of this; the other may
be spasmodic and fragmentary, but the church should be the continuous presence
of God and man meeting. That does not put Christ apart.
In the forty days one thing
that was left with these men and these women when He eventually did go up into
heaven was this wonderful reality, We never know when our eyes shall see Him. It
is always dangerous to say He is not here, for just when you think He is not
here He is here. He is here all the time. He is in heaven, and yet He is here.
That was left with them to be a mark of the future, and then they understood.
That is what He meant, "Lo, I am with you all the days, even into the end of
the age."
d) Ministration
Another feature of priestliness
is ministration, the imparting. At Emmaus He sat down to supper that was made a
sacrament, and as He brake, their eyes were opened and they beheld Him, and they
knew Him. That is a ministration. That was not the only meal in which the
disciples shared after the resurrection. All this was intended, as He made
perfectly clear, to let them know that it was not a spirit with which they were
dealing, not a mere apparition. He is a real person, and to prove that He is a
real person He gives them real food and as He gives them real food they know,
strange as it all may seem and mysterious, that He is a real person, feeding
with real food. This ministration of Christ was known in the breaking of bread.
That is a priestly function to
break the bread, to minister. That needs hardly dwelling upon in its
application. Is it not true that that is the church's function? Is it not true
that Christ is to be ministered in the church and by the church so that the
reality of Christ is proved by that spiritual substance which is our very life,
our nourishment, our strength? We can come into the assembly weak, empty, weary,
finished, and there is ministration to us, and we go away as though we had had a
meal, as though we had been at a banquet. It should be so, and it can be so, and
this is what the Lord means, that it should be the place where there is real
ministration of heavenly bread, and Christ is identified, verified, known in the
giving of what He does give in the assembly, which makes us know the miracle of
passing from emptiness to fulness, and weakness to strength, and weariness to
freshness, by coming together.
That is better than attending
church services. Oh, how much there is of going to the meeting, going to church,
going to a service, listening to a sermon, and singing some hymns; and having
done your religious duty you go home for another week. That is very different
from the Lord's thought of the church, and those who belong to the Lord's true
church in spiritual union with Him ought to be in a place where they can no more
go without assembly life than they can go without their daily food. It ought to
be just as impossible for them to continually keep out of the fellowship of the
assembly as it is for them to keep out of their meals for their bodies.
The Lord meet us there, and
have us recognise that our life very largely depends upon our assembling of
ourselves together when it is possible. That is ministration.
e) Life
Another great feature in
priesthood is Life. That has been spoken of so much that it hardly need be added
to now. In the Old Testament the blood was the life, and the life was in the
blood. That is the central feature in all priesthood in the Old Testament. That
is the most holy, the most sacred element. The life is there. That is priestly
ministry concerning the blood, or concerning the Life, and it is very clear that
the forty days were days of Life. Two men went to Emmaus, half dead, nine-tenths
dead, and they go back over those few miles as men who had been raised from the
dead. You see the difference in the going out and the coming back. There was
Life coming in all the time in those forty days. Things are getting more and
more alive as the days go on. It is the risen Lord bringing them all back to
Life and making them feel that they live anew, with new purpose, new hope,
everything new. There ought to be Life in the assembly, in the church. That is
priestly ministry. If people do not get Life amongst us, we are failing in our
real vocation. If they do, let us thank God that to that measure we are being
enabled to fulfil the ministry of the priestly company.
f) Communion
Communion is also a part of the
priestly work. We are not going to stay to say anything about that. We are just
reminding ourselves of what is said in Acts: "Being assembled together with
them...". It was an assembly before He left them, and the real value of
assembly life is that it is communion. We leave that for the present, and just
say a closing word about priesthood, and this is the seventh thing:
g) Firstfruits
Paul tells us that, "Now is
Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that are asleep".
Christ amongst them was the Firstfruits from among the dead. Then the very term
itself implies that there will be other fruits, there must be a complete
harvest. He was the Firstfruits. The Word teaches that the church also is a kind
of firstfruits. It is the firstfruits of the nations. When you get the church in
resurrection you get that which first of all satisfies God's heart and answers
all His desire, but then it points to the fact that others are coming on too.
Let it not be thought that the church is the whole company of the saved. It is
not. There will be a great many more saved when the church is gone, and
afterwards the nations will bring their glory and their wealth into the City.
God is seeking the satisfaction of His own heart, first of all, to make good in
the church all that Christ meant to Him of satisfaction.
Look at the farmer as he goes
out into his field and sees the first ripe grain, and the joy that fills his
heart as he gathers those and takes them home. He is satisfied that he has the
earnest, the promise, the proviso, the assurance, the foretaste of what is
coming. That is what Christ is to God: Christ is to God the assurance, the
promise, the proviso of a church conformed to His image, of a great company like
Him; and then after that still more.
We cannot stay to speak of the
particular meanings of resurrection as in the church, as differing perhaps from
all other resurrection in its content and its value. There is no doubt that God
has a special thing that He is doing in the church. It is concerning this that
Paul, who had been "caught up to the third heaven" and seen things which
it was not lawful to utter, says in effect: "Look here, that is as far as I can
go, but believe me there is a great deal more bound up with this than I am able
to say, vast ranges of meaning and value that I am not allowed to utter, and
which lies behind what I am saying. I have seen things I cannot talk about to
you, but what I do say is to urge you on to something that I know." So when he
says, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection", we must
believe that Paul saw something to know of Christ, and something in the
resurrection of Christ and the power lying behind that which he had ever
mentioned, far more than he had ever spoken; he knew the outworking of that, he
knew what it was unto. He called it "unspeakable things". That is bound
up with resurrection, and that particular kind of thing is bound up with the
church. That is not for the nations afterwards; that is for the church in the
first place. The good of that may come to the nations, but it can only come
through the church, and in that sense we are a kind of firstfruits of
resurrection. Here the High Priest says, "Touch me not", I am not yet
ascended to the Father. He is going to present Himself as the Firstfruits, as
the priest presented the firstfruits of old. He is the Firstfruits, but He is
BUT the Firstfruits. He says, "the others are all coming. I have secured them!"
We are a kind of firstfruits,
we have to be before the Father in the power of His resurrection, and go on
continually to know by His illumining and leading and teaching what His
resurrection Life means unto the satisfaction of God, and the reaching of His
full thought in the church.