"...according
to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was
committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:11).
"...in whom ye
also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of
your salvation, - in whom, having also believed, ye were
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an
earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's
own possession, unto the praise of his glory" (Eph.
1:13-14).
"...with all
prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the
Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and
supplication for all the saints, and on my behalf, that
utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to
make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel"
(Eph. 6:18-19).
"Then the cloud
covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Jehovah
filled the tabernacle" (Ex. 40:34).
"...then the
house was filled with a cloud, even the house of Jehovah,
so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason
of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah filled the house
of God" (2 Chron. 5:13-14).
"Now when
Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down
from heaven... and the glory of Jehovah filled the house.
And the priests could not enter into the house of
Jehovah, because the glory of Jehovah filled Jehovah's
house. And all the children of Israel looked on, when the
fire came down, and the glory of Jehovah was upon the
house" (2 Chron. 7:1-3).
"But this spake
he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to
receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus
was not yet glorified" (John 7:39).
"The God of
Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our
fathers, hath glorified his Servant Jesus; whom ye
delivered up, and denied before the face of Pilate"
(Acts 3:13).
Let us make one or two
preliminary observations as we now follow on our previous
meditation with a specific point in view. We want to
remember at this time that the book of the Acts sees
three things - firstly, the Church born; secondly, a new
dispensation inaugurated; thirdly, the gospel sent on its
way to the ends of the earth. If we have those three
things in mind, we shall be able rightly to grasp the
significance of this wonderful phrase - "the gospel
of the glory."
The
Need to Understand the Meaning of Pentecost
Now in the light of our
definition of the word "glory" we must approach
and explain Pentecost, and in explaining Pentecost we are
only explaining the Divine thought as to the dispensation
in which we are living - that is, the dispensation from
Pentecost or the ascension of our Lord to His return.
Pentecost gives character to this dispensation. It is
therefore necessary for us to know what Pentecost means.
Many people have thought of it only as the advent of the
Holy Spirit and empowerment for witness and service. That
is rather the effect of Pentecost than the meaning. Many
have gone one step further back and said that Pentecost
is the expression of Christ glorified: He has been
received up into glory, He is glorified at God's right
hand, and because Jesus is glorified the Holy Spirit is
sent forth and we have the results recorded in this book
of the Acts. That is quite true, but we have to go
further back still before we have a right apprehension of
Pentecost, and therefore a sufficient ground for the
existence of the Church, the distinctive character of
this dispensation, and the preaching of the gospel of the
glory of God. Why should the Church exist? why should
this dispensation be different from all others? and why
should the gospel be preached in all the world for a
witness? These are not small matters: I suppose it would
be rather difficult to get outside of them. We have to
answer our enquiry in those three connections, and so,
seeing that Pentecost was the inauguration of all three,
we must explain Pentecost for ourselves and for present
practical purposes for our very being now, and our very
vocation now - and not merely as a subject of interesting
Bible study.
We say that Jesus was
glorified and therefore the Holy Spirit was sent. That,
of course, is what is implicit in John 7:39: Jesus was
not yet glorified, therefore the Holy Spirit was not yet
given. But again, what is glorification from God's
standpoint? Well, it has to do with this whole question
of Divine righteousness; the very nature of God is
involved. In the Church, in the dispensation and in the
proclamation of the gospel, the very nature of God is
involved. In other words, the righteousness of God is the
supreme issue.
Glory
Related to God's Satisfaction
Firstly, God's nature
itself must be satisfied or there is no good news, no
gospel. There is nothing of a joyful character to
proclaim until God's own nature is fully satisfied.
But not only that: God
must be satisfied along the line of His creation. We said
in our previous meditation that one of those many things
involved in this whole question of glory is the very
existence of the creation, and of man as its crown. The
governing thought of God in creating was for His glory,
that is, that His glory might be expressed and manifested
- that what He is in Himself might be displayed in
everything that He touches, everything that emanates from
Him; that He should not be just a self-contained and
confined God living in the satisfaction and gratification
of His own self-sufficiency. If He is love, if He is more
than simply power, He must give. He must be the great
Giver; He must be not only Jehovah Self-Sufficient, but
Jehovah El-Shaddai, the great Pourer-Forth. He must be
One out from Whom there go powers resulting in works and
in definite expressions of Himself. That is creation in
motive, in idea; God finding a sphere full of morally
responsible people whose great desire is to satisfy Him
in this matter - that He should show forth Himself in
what He is in His own nature. Creation is governed by
that, and God must be satisfied in that before there is
anything that is the gospel of the glory of God - and of
the happy God, "the blessed God," as the phrase
is here: God satisfied. 'Satisfied' is a word that you
can put at the beginning of all the Beatitudes.
"Satisfied are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matt.
5:6); blessed, satisfied or happy. It is the gospel of
the glory of the satisfied God. It is a great thing to go
out with that born in your heart by the Holy Spirit -
that God is satisfied, and satisfied with you and with
me. Is that possible? That is precisely what you arrive
at; you have no gospel to preach until you have arrived
there. That is where we shall arrive, I hope, before
long; that is the object in view at the moment.
Now, you see, the
glorifying of the Lord Jesus is God's answer relative to
the requirements of His own nature - absolute, utter,
final righteousness. And it is equally His answer with
reference to the conception and object of the creation.
God is satisfied, and man is represented in the new
creation - "We behold... Jesus... crowned with glory
and honour" (Heb. 2:9). I must remind you of the use
of the name "Jesus" here. This is where the use
of that name by itself is right. It is habitually thus
used by certain schools, as you know, thereby divesting
Him of His Deity and Lordship; they always call Him
simply 'Jesus'. That is wrong. But He is here called
"Jesus" in a right way, because in that name He
is representative of man, and "God has glorified his
Servant Jesus" as representative of all who believe:
Jesus glorified because God is satisfied.
God
Satisfied in Christ Jesus
But how was God
satisfied? How was it possible for God to say, "My
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt.
3:17)? - God fully, completely, utterly pleased. Well,
here is the simple course of the gospel. What happened at
Jordan was that the Lord Jesus, stepping across the line
from a private life into the public life of taking up the
real ministry and work for which He came in the
redemptive sense, figuratively recognised that the Cross
was basic to it all, and everything would spring from
that. So "then cometh Jesus... to the Jordan unto
John, to be baptized of him. But John would have hindered
him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and
comest thou to me? But Jesus answering said unto him,
Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness" (Matt. 3:13-15). "To fulfil (to
make full) all righteousness." How? On two sides, in
two connections; the death side in Jordan, the life side
beyond Jordan.
God's
Satisfaction Extends to all Who Are in Christ
Everything that cannot
be glorified must be buried: it has to be put out of
God's sight once and for all; that is an established law.
That is, everything that is not righteous, not in harmony
with the very nature of God, must be buried. But it can
only be buried after it has been judged and, being
judged, has been proved worthy of death. Therefore,
judgment having come unto all men to condemnation, and
death having passed unto all men, for that all sinned
(Rom. 5:18,12), the Lord Jesus in His own person in a
typical way at the Jordan took the place of that entire
sinful race. In a representative way, the judgment was
borne by Him and was concluded - the judgment of what we
are. As we said in our previous meditation, this was not
the judgment merely of things we do or do not do which
men so often regard as righteousness, but the judgment of
what we are. "Him who knew no sin he made sin on our
behalf" (in our stead, in our place): "that
we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2
Cor. 5:21). Now, you may wonder why I am saying this to
you who doubtless are the Lord's true children. Well, I
tell you this - probably you know it in your own
experience, but you will be constantly meeting it in the
experience of others and your power to help them will
depend entirely upon whether you are settled and fully
assured in this matter - you will meet all the way
through your life people who are the Lord's real children
who are constantly assailed by uncertainty about their
salvation, who are constantly found with their eyes
turned in upon their own spiritual condition and
absolutely paralysed by a question, a question which goes
right to the root of salvation with them. That is
terrible. Some of us have found it to be the one thing
which has caused us more trouble in other people than
perhaps anything else with which we have had to do. It is
this matter of Satanic assault upon the faith of the
children of God, very often encamping upon some physical
or nervous trouble, or in other ways assailing to break
down absolute assurance; and immediately the enemy has a
foothold there he has destroyed testimony, paralysed
service and put the glory out.
Always the glory goes
out. Wherever you find that sort of thing, you find no
glory. It is a terrible thing for the glory to go out - a
terrible thing that, over a life which is redeemed and
has accepted its redemption and known the Lord, there
should be written Ichabod, 'the glory is departed.'
Remember that is a thing which the Apostle Paul
particularly found himself continually striving to
circumvent. Why do we have such frequent references in
the New Testament to Israel's breakdown in the
wilderness? Come to that awful reiterated statement in
the Hebrew letter - "I sware... they shall not enter
into my rest" (Heb. 3:11, etc.): and then the
appeal, "Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden
not your hearts." This is not a 'gospel message' to
the unsaved. Many sermons are preached to the unsaved on
that - 'now is the day of salvation, today harden not
your hearts'; but those words were taken out of the Old
Testament into the New and used to believers, and again
and again Israel's example in the wilderness is presented
to believers as a warning, as a basis of appeal. Why?
Were they not translated typically out of the kingdom of
darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God's love? In
type had they not come by the way of mighty, precious
Blood? Were they not the Lord's? Yes, they were, but for
them the peril was that the glory should depart.
Wherein lay that peril?
It lay here, that their hearts were not set upon God's
satisfaction but upon their own. This was the focal point
of everything in the wilderness. They were constantly, in
spirit if not in word, bargaining with God and saying in
effect, 'If You will satisfy our desire and give us what
we want, we will go on with You; if not, we will not go
on.' So it was, when from time to time the Lord gave them
their request, they were very happy, ready to go on a
little further. Then He had to do something more. In the
end God said, 'Enough of this; I brought you out for My
satisfaction, for My pleasure, for My glory.' So, because
they were bargaining with God, because it was always a
matter of their satisfaction rather than His, the glory
departed and shame stands written over that generation.
Hence the Jordan has to be faced, and Jordan says once
for all - fully, finally, overwhelmingly - 'It is the
Lord; henceforth unto Him.' "We thus judge, that one
died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all,
that they that live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto him" (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
God's
Satisfaction to be Appropriated by Faith
Until that
issue is settled, there is no glory, no possibility of
glory. Glory demands that we recognise that in Christ not
only were our unrighteous selves buried, but there was
buried also any possibility of ourselves ever being
righteous. You are willing to take your poor, wretched,
miserable self and have it buried, but you are not always
ready to take the supposed possibility of your ever being
otherwise and bury it! You still walk round that wretched
corpse, hoping it will produce some life! The only thing
to do is to put it where God has put it - bury it! Oh,
miserable Christian, get buried! Accept God's judgment
and have done with it! In yourself you will not be any
better when you have done that; you will still be that
wretched self. But the point is that you must cease to
have your eyes on that, and you must have your eyes on
Another Who has taken your place. Yes, judgment and death
are to be accepted; but are you listening to those evil
voices that constantly suggest that God is judging you, a
believer, for your sinfulness? That is how the
difficulties, the trials, the strange experiences of life
are represented to you - and it is most extraordinary
what sensations and experiences the devil can give
believers to make them think or feel that God has
departed from them. This is the realm in which the battle
of faith has to be fought against our soul sensations and
the things which come to us. You can have the most
wonderful proof one day that the Lord is with you and is
using you and pouring Himself and His word through you,
and at that time you have no doubt about it; and the next
day you can have all the sensations that there is no God
at all in your universe. Which of these two things is the
fact? Was your earlier consciousness only an imagination,
a bit of hysteria, or was it a fact? Is your sensation of
the next day, the reality? Well, listen; these
fluctuating feelings are not to be accepted as a true
criterion. If God is judging your sinfulness, Christ came
in vain. We are not atoning for our sins as believers; if
we are, the atonement was not completed on Calvary, the
work was not finished. Whatever may be the need of
training and discipline and chastening by way of
developing what is of God in us and making actual the
setting aside of what is of ourselves, we are
nevertheless, with all that, not atoning for our sins or
sinfulness. That was done when one Man gathered us all
into Himself and went down under the overwhelming flood
of God's wrath. That is the gospel for believers. It is
the gospel of the glory of the satisfied God. If you find
anybody constantly reverting to their sinfulness,
inevitably they have a bad time and you have to help them
and be patient and sympathetic, understanding that there
may be some background for this: but if you find a
believer who persistently, over a course of months or
years, reverts to that and undoes the atonement, just
point out what they are doing. They have removed Calvary,
they have undone in themselves the work of the Cross,
they have taken the place of the Lamb of God in trying to
atone for their own sinfulness. Are you prepared to do
that? God forbid! Oh, let us really face squarely the
terrific issues that are bound up with this matter of the
accuser of the brethren finding a way in to the spirit of
a child of God.
God's
Satisfaction Expressed at Pentecost
That is
one side - Jordan on its death side. It is only on the
other side, when Jordan has been passed through, that the
heavens are opened and the glory is proclaimed - that is,
God's absolute satisfaction is realized, righteousness is
made full, and there is glory. Now that was indicated of
course in Christ when the heavens were opened. When the
first Adam fell, heaven was closed. In other words,
Paradise was shut; there was no re-entry. When this last
Adam took and bore away typically at Jordan all that the
first Adam let in, Paradise was re-opened, heaven was
re-opened, the glory was in view. That led right on to
the transfiguration. But literally and actually all this
was carried out at the Cross, as we know, and through the
judgment and the Cross - the full atonement which He
made, the "all righteousness" which He made
full - the glory is immediately at hand.
Pentecost,
then - issuing in the presence of the Holy Spirit in
believers, the existence of the Church, the particular
and peculiar nature of this dispensation, and the
proclamation of the gospel to the ends of the earth - is
just the glory of the satisfied God Who has found, in
that inclusive, all-comprehending Man, His own nature
satisfied and His own object in creating man satisfied.
God can say, 'I have secured what I want, what I ever
needed, and having that, I can reproduce from it.'
The
Spirit an Earnest of the Glory in Fullness
Thus the
Holy Spirit comes; and notice what is written - "in
whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our
inheritance" (Eph. 1:13,14). What is the
inheritance? - the glory of God in fullness. We have read
of the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle and the
temple. Have you recognized that is where all Israel's
fullness resided? It was there that Israel's satisfaction
was found; the glory was there, it was from thence that
everything came for Israel's life. In that place where
the glory was, Israel's inheritance dwelt. Now, you know
that little fragment in "Ephesians" where the
Apostle prays that believers may have the eyes of their
hearts enlightened that they might know (amongst other
things) "what (are) the riches of the glory of
his inheritance in the saints" (Eph. 1:18).
In the Greek, "saints" is basically exactly the
same word as the word used in the letter to the Hebrews
for the "Holy of holies" (Heb. 9:3), so that
the scripture just quoted may be said to relate to His
inheritance in the 'Holy of holies'. God has His
inheritance in the 'Holy of holies'; we have our
inheritance in the 'Holy of holies'. The fullness of
God's satisfaction, therefore the fullness of glory, is
found there. The Holy Spirit has come as the Spirit of
promise and as an earnest of our inheritance. What is
that going to be? - the fullness of God in the Most Holy
Place.
Come to
"Hebrews". Where is the 'Holy of holies'? It is
in heaven. The 'Holy of holies' of the tabernacle or of
the temple was only a pattern of things in the heavens;
the real things are in the heavens. So that our
inheritance is in the heavens, where God's glory is full
because God's satisfaction in Christ is absolute. What
was at the heart of the 'Holy of holies'? - the ark of
the testimony. When the ark was brought in the place was
filled with glory. It portrays the Lord Jesus glorified
in the fullness of the glory. And the Spirit comes forth
to us, and we receive Him, as an earnest that we shall be
where the Lord Jesus is and in the same glory with Him -
our inheritance and God's inheritance too, for God will
have His satisfaction when He gets the saints there. You
see, God's inheritance is His Son, His first-born Son,
and He gets that inheritance in His Son when He has Him
in glory. Now then, many sons are to be brought to glory,
and God's inheritance is found in those sons as brought
to glory. Yes, glory is a place, but it is more than a
place, it is God in full expression. Oh, is it possible
that you and I are going to reach the place where God has
unhindered expression of Himself in us? That is the
gospel of the glory, that is this gospel that we are
always talking about. What a marvellous thing it is! "The
gospel of the glory of the satisfied God."
When the
Holy Spirit comes as an earnest of our inheritance, of
full and final satisfaction, what is our first sensation?
It is one of wonderful satisfaction. But are we any
different in ourselves? We shall learn very soon that we
are not, but somehow or other there has come into us the
feeling that this is what we were born for, this is what
we have been after all the time. But is it just a
sensation? Oh no, it is the Spirit bearing witness with
our spirit that we are children of God and joint heirs
with Christ (Rom. 8:17), and the Spirit is the earnest of
the heir's inheritance. He is, in effect, bringing God's
satisfaction out of heaven into our hearts. That is the
one thing in this universe which Satan cannot tolerate.
He was in the glory once and knows something of what the
glory means, but he lost it, and now he cannot bear to
see anybody enjoying it; and if Satan can do anything at
all to destroy the glory in your heart and mine he will
do it. God's satisfaction - oh, God's satisfaction
witnessed to by the Spirit in our hearts! Ought we not to
be more satisfied with the Lord? Well, everything begins
there. The Spirit Who came at Pentecost comes as an
earnest of our inheritance.
The
Church the Corporate Vessel of the Glory
Then, as
the result of Pentecost, the Church immediately became
the corporate vessel of the glory, that is, of God's
satisfaction. If you have anywhere a true expression of
God's thought about the Church you have a people who are
living in the enjoyment of God's satisfaction, a people
who have entered into rest, a people who are very, very
satisfied - satisfied not with themselves but with the
Lord. You will have that, amongst many other things. The
Church is brought into being just to embody and to be the
vessel of this glory of God, which is God's satisfaction
as to His own nature. Therefore, when you come to a
letter which has to do mainly with the Church, you have
this exclamation - "Unto him be the
glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all
generations for ever and ever" (Eph. 3:21). "Glory
in the church." The glory filled the tabernacle,
the glory filled the temple: now it has filled something
which is not a type but the reality. The glory is the
satisfaction of God on the whole matter of righteousness,
and you and I despoil our Church membership in the
spiritual sense immediately we have any doubts about
God's satisfaction. How can you preach about the Church
while you are miserable and uncertain about your own
salvation? You are denying the Church, and virtually
putting yourself out of it in a spiritual sense, while
you are in that condition. The enemy strikes at once at
the Church when he gets any member doubting his or her
salvation, having once known that salvation. It it a
tremendous business. We are up against an awful thing:
therefore this letter on the Church must inevitably head
up to our wrestling with principalities and powers, world
rulers of this darkness. You can talk about evil forces
and go out against them in prayer, but do remember this,
that if you have a question about your salvation the
ground is taken from under your feet in fighting the
enemy: you may say, 'I take up the whole armour of God',
but the enemy is inside the armour and you are helpless.
Talk as much as you like, you are beaten before you start
fighting if you have a question about your salvation or
about God's satisfaction with you in Christ.
The nature of this
dispensation, then, is that it is the dispensation of a
Church which embodies this testimony of Jesus.
Effective
Testimony Measured by Glory Apprehended
Then we
come to the proclamation of the gospel to the ends of the
earth. It is this gospel to which we have been referring.
Everywhere we go we find people up against the sin
question - the problem of getting on to good terms with
God, of removing every ground in them of His displeasure.
You may say that brings us back to the simple preaching
of substitution and so on, but I venture to suggest that
it is a great deal more than that. In our apprehension,
that can leave us with something entirely objective. You
will find in the Word of God - in the Old Testament by
abundant typical proofs and in the New Testament by much
direct teaching - that the effectiveness of our testimony
depends upon the measure of our apprehension of the
glory. That has to be borne out and made clear, but there
it is. There has to be an impact upon the enemy that is
more than a doctrinal impact. The doctrine may be
absolutely sound and true, but Satan is never overpowered
in that way. There has to be an embodiment of the
doctrine, and, if you will allow it, there is a clear
revelation that there are degrees of glory because there
are degrees of entering into the meaning of the death,
the resurrection, the ascension, the glorification of the
Lord Jesus. It is something to be entered into, as
distinct from the mere knowledge of historic facts,
doctrines, truths. The Lord Jesus is in heaven, and we
have to know Him in a heavenly way. We have to go to
heaven to know Him, and we have to go now. A Church that
clings to this earth and becomes an earthly thing is a
powerless Church. It is only a Church which spiritually
occupies its place in the heavenlies that can register
anything upon this earth, and the measure in which you
are emancipated from this earth and this world and are
knowing a life in the heavenlies is the measure of your
impact, your testimony upon this earth. A worldly
Christian is a powerless Christian; a worldly Church is a
Church stripped of power and of glory. The heavenly
position of the Lord Jesus is something to be entered
into and we shall take all our lives to enter into only a
part of that. If you go on with the Lord under the hand
of the Holy Spirit, you will find that you are becoming
more and more in spirit a stranger on earth, and more and
more things which are not here are becoming the things
which are your life. That is not only a statement of
fact, that is a test of your spiritual life. As we go on,
the things which are above ought to become more and more
our very being, without which we cannot live here on this
earth; and in so far as that is true shall we have power
against the enemy and in testimony.
There are
degrees of glory resultant from the degree of
apprehension of Christ, and the degree determines the
power of world-wide testimony. That is only saying in
perhaps a round-about way that in the beginning, in the
book of the Acts, the world-wide testimony did count for
something; there was impact; they could talk about men
who had turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). There
was a tremendous registration. Satan was mightily active,
but he was beaten every time. Why? - the Lord's people
had a great apprehension of the glory of Christ. By the
Holy Spirit that glory had come into the Church and
therefore the Church could minister like that.
Now this
is but an attempt to point out what a gospel we have. Do
you not agree that one of the greatest needs, if not the
greatest, of our time is the recovery of the greatness of
the gospel from its littleness and from its cheapness? -
cheapness which is always offering something for the
pleasure and satisfaction of those concerned in order to
make them happy. That may be very good, but it is
very cheap. Oh, there is something infinitely bigger than
that! It reaches right back, before times eternal, in
those counsels of God: it reaches right on to the ages of
the ages. It is an immense thing - that the universe
shall be filled with the glory of God, and that the
vessel in which that glory is deposited and through which
it is revealed and administered is the Church, "the
holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God." It is to that we are
called. That is no small gospel. It is "the mystery
of the gospel" and yet it is still "the gospel
of your salvation."