Reading:
Ps. 24:3; Rev. 14:1-5; Ps. 122:2-4.
“Who shall ascend...?”
“Whither the tribes go up... for an ordinance (a
testimony, R.V.M.) for Israel”.
We
continue for a little while in considering this matter of
spiritual ascendency. It might help you if you could draw
a mental diagram as of a wheel, and wheels within a
wheel. The hub is that which represents Zion. The centre
of the hub is the Lord Jesus exalted and glorified. The
circle immediately next is that which represents the
hundred and forty-four thousand, a representative company
in closest proximity spiritually to Him. The next wheel
within the wheel is the church as a whole, and the rim is
the outermost bounds of the universe. From the hub there
radiate numerous spokes. They pass from the centre, first
into and then through that inner company, then on to the
larger company of the Lord’s people in general, who
are intended to come into the good of what is there at
the centre, and then on beyond the church to the nations
who will walk in the light thereof. These many spokes
represent the features of Christ in exalted glory, the
practical outworkings and implications and significance
of Him in that place and state. Now that mental picture
may help a little. We now deal with some of the spokes,
but we have to come back for a little while to the heart
of the matter.
Comprehensively,
it is just the question of Christ and His people in a
position of absolute spiritual ascendency. Unto that,
very much is required in their discipline and experience.
But out from that disciplined ascendency of spirit
tremendous values issue in widening circles. The Word of
God makes it perfectly clear that that is the order of
things. The book of the Revelation alone gives you that
diagram. You start with the Lord Jesus in His glory and
majesty and authority, His exaltation and His right to
govern. You move to that company actually referred to, a
representative company, one hundred and forty-four
thousand; just a typical or symbolic number. The meaning
is a company who have been brought, in the first place,
to ascendency on mount Zion for governmental purposes, as
the very number — twelve times twelve —
indicates, signifying not only government, but government
in great fullness. Then you find that you bring in the
whole church, the Jerusalem in addition to the Zion, and,
beyond, the nations that walk in the light thereof. There
is your diagram in the one book alone, but the whole
Bible works on those lines.
Now we
come back to this matter of spiritual ascendency. We
closed our earlier meditation by saying that spiritual
ascendency takes its rise from ascension union with
Christ. That, figuratively, is all gathered into the
fragment in the psalm: “Whither the tribes go
up... for a testimony for Israel”. You know that
is derived from Exodus and Deuteronomy. Twice in the book
of Exodus this matter of periodic going up to the place
where the Lord had put His Name is referred to. Then
again in the book of Deuteronomy it is reiterated: “Three
times in a year shall all thy males appear before the
Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose”
(Deut. 16:16). That is the basis of this going up and
appearing before the Lord. We shall come back to that
presently. We are getting the setting.
A New Order Introduced With the
Ascension of Christ
What
is the principle? The principle is just going up. It is
ascension. These psalms are called “The Psalms or
Songs of Ascent”. “Whither the tribes go
up”, and they go up “for a testimony for
Israel”. Let us get right to this thing in actual
spiritual expression. I think the Lord’s people are
still slow to recognize the immense significance of the
ascension of the Lord Jesus. If it does not remain just a
date in our religious calendar, in general it is not much
more than something upon which we look back in
remembrance with a certain amount of wonder, that the
Lord Jesus did ascend up into heaven and that He is
there. More or less we appreciate the fact, just the fact
of the event. I say more or less, because some have seen
more in it than others. But few of us have yet been
really forcefully impressed with the significance of the
ascension of the Lord Jesus — with the fact that
upon His ascension the whole character of the ages
changed, and that from that time an entirely new order of
things was introduced, everything of God from that time
for this dispensation being from heaven and of a heavenly
order. That is only one thing about the ascension, but it
is an immense thing. It is a grievous fact that the
church as a whole has missed the point of the ascension.
For had it grasped the meaning it could never seek, as it
has done, to construct anything of a more or less
permanent character as attached to this earth, in system
and form.
There
were, of course, the great historic crises in the history
of the church in which that very thing was developed. It
came in with such fullness through Constantine, when he
linked the church with the State and made it a thing of
this world. That is what the devil has always tried to do
— to make the church something upon this earth, to
be taken account of here, to have its standing here; its
names, its titles, its recognitions, yes, its everything,
as something here to impress this world with itself in a
temporal way. And the appalling spectacle of the church
today, speaking generally, is that it is without
authority in this world; it has no voice. What voice has
spoken in these terribly critical times through which we
have been passing, when everything in itself proclaims
that God has a controversy with the nations, and not
least with this nation because of its greater
responsibility? There is no doubt about it, the reign of
vanity is accentuated a thousandfold in our day, and yet
not a voice is raised for God. The church is silent. The
church has not the voice, it has not the message, it has
not the spiritual position required. Why? Because it has
become so interwoven with the life of this world and so
much a thing of this earth, that its heavenly authority
has gone. It is another case of the glory having
departed. It is not our desire to dwell upon such things
now. That is only by way of coming to this matter of
spiritual ascendency and enforcing the statement that the
church has lost the meaning of the ascension of the Lord
Jesus. For if that ascension has one meaning for the
dispensation, it is this, that the church’s
authority rests entirely upon its heavenly union with the
Lord Jesus, its spiritual “other-worldly”
position.
The Ascension of Christ — His
Enthronement
Another
thing about the ascension which is even greater is this,
that in the New Testament the ascension was always looked
back upon by the apostles and the church as the
enthronement of the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the
Majesty in the heavens. It is never just something in
itself, a going up, a changing of location, something
called “the ascension”. It is His enthronement.
“Being therefore by the right hand of God
exalted... he hath poured forth this” (Acts 2:33). That
is the ascension, and it is terrific when it begins to
register upon this world the import of the fact that
Jesus is Lord, and so it proved to be at that time.
The Church in Ascension
Union With Christ
In the
New Testament quite as much is said about the
church’s heavenly position as about Christ’s.
The two things run together. The one is the counterpart
of the other. He “sat down at the right hand of
the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3); and “God...
made us to sit with him in the heavenlies” (Eph.
2:6). Those two things are there and they are kept
together. It is a spiritual position, with all the values
of it put to the good and the use of a church that will
really take that position. That is the full meaning of
spiritual ascendency. It is really coming to the place
where in Christ the church has been established.
Then,
of course, the fight begins, and the fight, as we have
said before, all relates to that: not to keep the church
from getting there, but to keep the church from knowing
that its place is there, and, if possible, to bring the
church down from there; because, you see, the church
began its history there. It was not a climb from the
beginning to get there: the church WAS there. In
the thought of God that is its place continually. But the
history is that the enemy has concentrated upon bringing
the church spiritually out of its place. There is a
little fragment that the psalmist uses which, while it
does not exactly literally fit in here, is a very good
statement, speaking, as it does, about the righteous man,
and the conspirators who are talking together of how they
can bring him down from his high spiritual place. “They
only consult to thrust him down from his dignity”
(Psalm 62:4). The conspirators of hell are always at
work to see how they can bring the Lord’s people
down from this excellency of the high place in Christ
exalted. So it is ascension union with the Lord Jesus
which is the real meaning of spiritual ascendency,
authority and power.
Some in Israel a Testimony for
Israel
Now we
can come to the next phrase: “Whither the tribes
go up... for a testimony for Israel”. In the
type there was periodical ascension; they went up from
time to time. They could not have known the meaning of
it, but they did go up every so often, fulfilling a
spiritual principle that the Lord’s thought for His
people is that their fullness of life is found on high;
and it was so for them in their way. We have said already
that it was the high peak of Israel’s national life
when they went from time to time to Jerusalem, to Zion.
They were carrying out this spiritual principle, that
ascendency is a divine law of fullness of life.
“Whither
the tribes go up”. And why did they go up? For
what did they go up? “For a testimony for
Israel”. What does that mean? Remember, it is
not all Israel that has gone up literally. “Three
times in a year shall all thy males appear before the
Lord thy God”. A company representative of
Israel went up, and in that representative company there
was the testimony for Israel. What was that testimony? It
expressed that which the whole house of Israel came into
by means of that representative company, the blessings
and benefits that all the Lord’s people derived from
the fact that there were those who went up on their
behalf.
Let me
pause there. Although the point is not applicable to
Israel because, I expect, all of them would have gone up
if they could have done so. Yet when you come to the
spiritual outworking of this you find, tragically enough,
that all the Lord’s people are not willing to go up.
It works out in this way after all, that only a certain
proportion of them will really take this heavenly
position and live this heavenly life. There are so many
who want to live a Christian life down here on a merely
earthly level, bringing everything in a wrong sense down
to earth and relating it to things here. You understand I
mean spiritually, not literally. I am not talking about
abstract things in the way that we do when we speak of
“living with your head in the clouds”. We have
said enough to show that this living in the heavenlies is
a tremendously and grimly practical matter of everyday
life. There is nothing more practical, more real. I
venture to say that the realists of this earth are the
people who are the most spiritual. They are up against
the greatest realities, THE realities. They are a
representative company through whom there will be derived
by many others the benefits and blessings of their paying
the price, taking the journey, putting up with all the
difficulties, going right on to the Lord’s fullest
intention.
What
is the testimony? Just use your imagination for a moment
in the case of Israel and their representative company.
When they went up, what happened? Well, they went up on
three distinctive occasions. The first was at the Feast
of Unleavened Bread, which marked Israel’s
deliverance from Egypt. The second was at the Feast of
Firstfruits, which marked the growth of the life of the
Lord’s people. The third was the Feast of
Ingathering, the consummation of the life of the
Lord’s people. When they went up to these feasts,
what was their testimony when they came back?
A Testimony to the Greatness of
Redemption
Firstly,
they would say, “We have had a glorious time up
there in connection with our redemption. We come back
just full of it, full of the greatness, the grandeur, the
wonder, the ever-freshness of our redemption. We bring
back to you something fresh in spirit as to what a great
thing the Lord did when He saved us, when He delivered us
from Egypt.” They would go over it; and while down
there, in the customary places of their dwelling, it had
become for everybody just some bit of their history, this
going up for this particular thing once a year brought
into continual, perennial freshness the greatness of
their salvation. They saw the great king in “the
city of the great king”, and they saw the great
house of God; and they saw, in relation to the great king
and the great house, how great a salvation theirs was.
Until you have really seen the King, you have never
grasped the greatness of your salvation. I mean that the
more we see of the Lord Jesus, the more we wonder at the
greatness of our salvation. “If he shall be
manifested”, cries the apostle, “we
shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he
is” (1 John 3:2). Again another apostle says, “We...
beholding... the glory of the Lord, are transformed into
the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). Oh,
IF we only saw the greatness of Christ, what a new
apprehension and appreciation of our salvation we should
have! And this, in the ordering of the Lord, was to be a
perpetual memorial, something to be renewed all along the
line; not a living back there so many hundreds of years
ago — or so many decades of years ago when we were
saved. It is more wonderful today than ever it was! That
is the testimony for Israel. Our testimony ought to be,
“We have seen the Lord anew, we have seen the King
anew, we have seen the house of God anew: we have seen
this magnificent thing, this masterpiece of God, the
church, which is His Body.” What a thing it is to
see the church with spiritual eyes, to see God’s
conception of it! The more we see, the more we wonder at
our high calling. It is no small thing to have been
chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, to be
conformed to His image, and to be a part of that
magnificent spiritual edifice which is to dominate the
world to come and to be the administrative centre of God
through His Christ unto the ages of the ages. They went
up and saw the king, and they saw the house, and they
went back saying, “It is more wonderful than
ever!” and so all Israel came into the good of their
refreshed vision.
I know
it is a costly way, but it is a tremendous thing for any
of us to have left the lower levels of Christian life,
those remote places, and come up to the mount, and to
have been shown the Lord in greater fullness. None of us
has seen Him yet in very great measure, but it is a great
thing to see a little more of Him, and of the meaning of
Christ personal and Christ corporate. Therein lies the
power of a testimony to the Lord’s people —
“We have seen!”
I have
often asked myself the secret of Paul’s endurance
and persistence and triumph. The only answer I can find
is that he had seen the Lord. You can never undo that.
They
went up and were for a testimony for Israel. Oh yes, the
hundred and forty-four thousand are with THE LAMB. Ever
and always it is the way of suffering and of sacrifice
that leads to that place, but it is good to have for the
Lord’s people that which they need to lift them from
their low levels of spiritual life. In the end it is
worth it — to know the greatness of their redemption
through seeing the greatness of the King and of the house
of God.
A Testimony to the Lord’s
Persistent Working
And
then the Feast of Firstfruits: “The feast of
harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours” (Exodus
23:16). The Lord has done something in us. It may not
be all done yet, but He has done something. It has been
scorching work, fiery work, but He has got us so far. And
this is the point: His having done that much is the
guarantee that He is going to finish the work. That is
the significance of the firstfruits. “He who hath
begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of
Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). The Lord has exercised
power in bringing us thus far. He is at work upon us and
in us; there is a history of His faithfulness. Oh yes,
however much we feel needs yet to be done, however far we
have yet to go, nevertheless we have a testimony; the
Lord has done something; and wherever that is the case,
He means to finish it. If ever the Lord has taken a life
in hand, He purposes to see that life right through, if
that life will let Him. We shall never break down because
the Lord is not persistent, because He, as though He were
one of us, suddenly slacks off and turns to other
interests. No, He is going to pursue this thing. Thank
God for that! The fact that He has done something is the
earnest that He wills and intends to finish it.
There
is a testimony for Israel in what the Lord has done and
is doing, both in and for His people. What I mean is
this. It is a great thing to be able to say, “Not
only was I converted so many years ago, and came to a
knowledge of the Lord, but I have a history since then
with the Lord, and it is a very real and living one. I
know how imperfect I am, how far short I come, what a lot
more there is to be done, but I do know the Lord; right
up to date I know the Lord.” They went up to Zion;
and whatever they had been feeling about it all through
those months while they had been in their own homes, they
went back and said, “The Lord started a work in us
long ago and He is going on with it; there are evidences
that He means to get us right through to glory; there are
tokens that He is doing something.” The people were
heartened and lifted up out of their discouragement and
despondency as these went back with their testimony. The
Lord needs a people like that today. In the midst of
everything that has settled down to a cold system and
form of teaching and practice, everything that has become
merely a set thing, He needs just such a people. Oh, the
Lord does need a company, “a hundred and forty-four
thousand”, who represent the goings of God, who are
really in the good of a present work of God, in whom
something more of His life is manifested. They, in
themselves, may be of no account whatever: you may look
at them and say they are a poor lot. But there is
something there; you meet the Lord in them; you sense
life. Those people are alive, there is something there
that is active in the life of God. The Lord needs a
representative people like that today. Is it not true in
this Christian world that is so short of life, so
systematized and fixed and static, that there is a need
of the flow, the release, the impact of life? I say
again, there is a price attached to that, to serve in
that capacity. But the Lord needs that company, and may
He not be seeking out that company even in His approach
to US?
The
occasion of the Feast of Firstfruits is better known to
us as Pentecost. Pentecost seems to have been an
inclusive festival and occasion. It looked backwards and
brought up the greatness of redemption. It spoke of the
mighty emancipation of a people for God from the world
through the blood of the Lamb. It looked forward and set
forth the consummation in the full and glorious
ingathering. It led immediately to firstfruits through
ripening fire of persecution (e.g. Stephen, and others)
and in itself it immediately signified ascension,
ascendency — the Lamb on mount Zion — “My
king upon my holy hill” (Ps. 2:6).
A Testimony to the Glorious
Consummation
That
brings us to the third occasion on which the tribes went
up to Jerusalem — the Feast of lngathering,
otherwise called the Feast of Tabernacles. It was then
that the whole of the chief fruits of the ground —
the corn, the wine and the oil — were gathered in.
That feast was the consummation of all else — a
testimony to the Lord’s coming for His own in final
fullness, a glorious crown to the whole process that
commenced with the deliverance of a people from the
bondage of Egypt. It was the consummate expression of the
ascendency of the Lamb and of a people with Him.
I
believe that really is the heart of the value of the
Lord’s coming as something held by the church. That
coming has been resolved into a bit of the church’s
doctrine, and, strangely enough, as a subject it has
split the churches into fragments. Instead of being a
means of elevating the church and bringing it into a
place of power and authority, the teaching of the coming
of the Lord has had the opposite effect. You will agree
with me that to believe with all your might in the second
coming of the Lord does not necessarily carry with it
tremendous spiritual power in your life. You can swallow
all that has been written on the subject by eminent
servants of God, and it may make no difference to your
spiritual life. But it ought to. And how should it work?
Well, it is not that you have an objective conception and
are lifting up your eyes in imagination to that day when
the Lord comes. That does not always carry you through
the difficult patches. But the Holy Spirit, Who always
has that day in view as the counterpart of the ascension
and exaltation of the Lord Jesus, Himself bears witness
in us, and imparts to us the values of that exaltation
whenever we do really, in spirit, contemplate His coming
again. Is it not true that if you really in the Spirit
sing a hymn about the coming of the Lord, you begin in
spirit to rise already? You cannot spiritually dwell upon
the coming of the Lord without a tremendous sense of
ascendency. It lifts you up. It is a spiritual thing, not
some historical thing in the calendar of the church, and
the Spirit bears witness. On a certain line, we have
everything to put us off being occupied with the teaching
of the Lord’s coming. In my childhood I was told
that the Lord would be here before my life had gone much
farther on, and that certain people were never going to
see death. But they are all dead! That has been going on
for centuries. Long before I was born people were saying
that kind of thing, and you might well say, “I have
done with this, it does not hold water”. Yet we are
going to sing those hymns again, in spite of all these
theories and all these things which seem to be so false
and untrue, and which seem to justify the men who said,
even in Peter’s day, “Where is the promise
of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning” (2 Pet. 3:4). In spite of it all, we
are going to sing, and as we sing our spirits will rise.
Why? Not because we are putting on blinkers, shutting our
eyes, imagining things, wishfully thinking. No; but
because the Spirit of God is in us and He bears witness
to a great fact, when we in heart, in spirit, turn in
that direction. The church is going up where the Lord has
gone up. Ascension is going to be consummated by a great
ingathering.
The
testimony for Israel is not this or that theory about the
second coming of Christ, but a living testimony in the
life of the Lord’s people; which is borne out in
this way, that those concerned are really already in the
good of it, they are living ascension lives; they know
already something, if only a little, of what it means to
be raised together with Him. “Whither the tribes
go up for a testimony for Israel”. Those
Israelites went up, and then they went back with their
testimony glowing in their faces, and the rest got the
good of it. And there is a big “rest” today
waiting for the good that can come to them through a
company of the Lord’s people who really do know what
ascension life with Him is.
Ascension
life is reached progressively, not at one bound. They did
not leap from their distant cities and towns on to the
peak of Zion. It was a journey and a climb, and it could
only be done one step at a time. If they had tried to
take more than one step at a time, they would very soon
have been discouraged. It is just a going on with the
Lord against discouragement, adversity, trial, suffering,
against the enemy that lies in wait. Yes, all that, but
it is a going on, and almost imperceptibly coming more
and more to the place where you are not so easily
discouraged and overcome as you once were, where the
enemy has not quite the same ground as he once had for
pulling you down and undoing you. It is a going up. It
may seem slow, but none the less it is a going up. There
will be a consummation, and we shall arrive at last in
glory.