We have here a change of subject, or of the aspect of subjects of the former chapters. Let us first remark a few things on the previous chapters.
Turning to chapter 1, you will find a subject distinct from the other chapters, and so with each following chapter.
In chapter 1 The mind is instructed by the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation as to the eternal counsels of God concerning the Church, and how He has blest it in Christ with all spiritual blessings; then there is the revelation of His purpose in Christ, and the prayer for spiritual understanding to enter into the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
In chap. 2 we have quite another line of truth. It is not here the eternal counsels of God about His people, but the question is answered as to how the people are cleared from the sin and death in which they are practically found; and the union between Christ and the people is found to be in His life from the grave, so that we are partakers of the positive blessing of life—not here re-echoing a doctrine true, as in Rom. 6:1111Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:11), but the blessing is life. And this is most important; for unless I know the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards me through Christ Jesus—unless I can see myself cleared from every charge of sin, and say of myself, “I am pure as He is pure, spotless as Christ, accepted as He is accepted— “I shall not be able to enter into the counsels of God, as brought out in the 1St chapter. The 7th verse is the summing up of this His kindness to us in clearing us from sin, displayed for the present and eternal admiration of our hearts.
In chapter 3 there is the revelation or the mystery concerning Christ and the Church, which forms a parenthesis. The leading thought in the 10th verse is not the unfolding of counsels, as the first chapter, nor how our hearts are cleared and learn the riches of His grace in His kindness towards us, as in the 2nd chapter; but the mystery is for the admiration of angels, and principalities, and powers, that they may learn in us now the manifold wisdom of God; and the prayer addresses itself to the heart, and not to the understanding.
In chapter 4 we see the Church in a different aspect. It is the Church down here in the full display of the Holy Ghost, as a witness to the glory of an ascended Christ at God’s right hand. Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, thus declares that bonds in the body well accord with this position of freedom in spirit, of being a witness to the power of an earth-rejected and heaven-owned Christ. Verses 1-3 contain practical exhortations, which we will look at presently. Verse 7, we come to individual position. Verses 8-13 show the basis of these practical exhortations to believers, as part of the Church of God, even the work of Christ connected with His person as Son of God. 14-16 are warnings which follow this truth about the foundation of the Church. You see how deep the instruction is in these verses. “He that ascended is the same also that descended.” We begin here at the Incarnation, for it is of Christ as man that he thus speaks; and yet this Son of Man, who descended into death, even the death of the cross, and has gone up into glory, we know in verse 13 as the Son of God. He having descended as man into death, has laid the basis of the Church. It could not have existed before that He, who descended, ascended up on high, and received the Holy Ghost, to send Him down to earth to form a body here, as a witness that He, the Head, is in glory. In verse 4 we are seen as members of a body, of which the Head is in glory. We are not united into one body by the blood of Christ. This would not be true. The blood of Christ will not make Israel hereafter part of this body. Faith does not make me a member of the body. It is the Spirit which vitally unites believers to the Head in glory. It is because He sends the Spirit from the Father’s throne that we are formed into the body. When He leaves that position, and comes to reign over the earth, and sends the Spirit to Israel, there will not be the same relationship. The Jews will not know what it is to be children as we do. In one sense the Queen’s subjects are her children, but they are not united to her family. You will find the Word of God is very definite in speaking of the body. It is quite a distinct thing from the house. The union of members to a body is a vital union, and there could be no separation without maiming the body.
The name of God mentioned here is not the same as the name into which we have been baptized—the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Here it is the Spirit, the Lord, and one God and Father, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. What a vast system is the believer connected with! I am sure one cannot realize himself as part of that body of whom Christ in glory is the Head, or of being connected with Christ as Lord, and as having the God and Father of all in one, without walking in lowliness, and meekness, and forbearance. There is no lowliness and meekness found elsewhere, though there may be the semblance. But can I say of myself, “part of the body, the head of which is Christ at God’s right hand, and upon which principalities and powers look down as the present witness for the ascended Christ,” and not be meek and lowly? Can I realize this without being longsuffering? Put in the one scale your trials, and in the other the glories of Christ, and see which weighs the heavier. I have often been ashamed to speak to the Lord of my sufferings. I have asked Christians in times of affliction if they could say to the Lord, “Oh Lord, how heavy are my afflictions when I compare them with Thine! How deep are my sorrows! How great are my sufferings! What a miserable being I am, Lord! I have nothing but Thy love-no one but Thy God and Father and Spirit, who has made me a member of Thy body. I have nothing else save all I have in Thee.” “Oh no,” they say, “I should not like to take that strain at all.” Well, then, if our hearts are filled with Christ, and thinking of all we possess in Him, the shoulder will not be easily fretted when the cross lies heavy upon it.
In verse 3 there is the effort, not to preserve the unity of the Spirit, for that cannot be destroyed, but to keep it in the bond of peace. The Corinthians were still one with Christ, united to Him when they were divided among themselves, and saying, “I am of Paul,” or, “I am of Apollos,” but they evidently were not keeping it in the bond of peace. If I am walking in the Spirit, I must realize that I am one with all saints. I may try to do this by looking down into the actual condition of the Church; but then I see everything so confused and disordered, that I should soon be for casting the Church out of my lap. But if I look up and see Christ, the head of His body, I can be calm and look at Him who knows all that are His, and who is not going to cast any of His people out of His lap, but is soon coming to call us to meet Him in the air.
In verse 7 we are on individual ground as to Christ’s blessing of the members of His body. Now we have not to look to one another; we have each something given us from the Lord. Christians want now to find out beforehand whether they are evangelists or pastors—to be owned as evangelists or pastors before they have been tried: but the answer to them is, “Do what you can, and the Lord will make it plain what you can do for Him.” We want to be more like the poor woman who anointed the Lord with ointment, of whom He said, “She hath done what she could.” Now, have you done what you could for Christ today in the little circle He placed you in? Will you do tomorrow what you can for Him in another circle of things, perhaps quite different; and the third day He will place you in another circle and are you going to do in each what you can? Thus circle; did with Stephen. He set him to serve tables, and he did it to the Lord. Soon from this He opened the way for him to do something else, and Stephen was found doing miracles and preaching the word with the power of the Holy Ghost. Again, He led him into other circumstances, and then it was no longer serving tables, or preaching, but martyrdom for Christ.
I was thinking the other day, suppose I had been born in the time of Roman Catholicism, I should have known nothing of a glorified Christ in heaven, working in the Church, giving His saints to see their heavenly calling, arousing many to know that He is coming, that the Church is to be caught up to meet Him. I should most probably have spent my days in a monastery, with very little intelligence. But what a proof have we in these days that Christ is still in power as a glorified man in heaven, by His working down here by His Spirit! This truth the Apostle now uses as a safeguard against danger. When it is held in the soul in power, there is no room for being deceived by error. Take it, for instance, to bear upon the Corinthians, could they have had divisions, or have given way to lusts, if they had been realizing that they were members of a body in which God was displaying by His Spirit, His thoughts about the Son of His love? There is an immense difference between seeing things in the light of His presence, and seeing them out of it. I might think, for instance, that the thought of circumcision looked well to secure salvation outside the presence of Christ, but could the Galatians have held to circumcision if they had sought to be an entirely clear witness of the perfections of the glorified Son of Man? Outside His presence I might think it well to do something by which I should make sure to be saved, but when in the light I should say, why, then, if this or that will make me safe, Christ is not the Saviour. So with the Hebrews. The apostle makes the Christ of God, glorified in heaven, to be the answer to everything that could weaken the confidence of the believer. And if an apostle were to come, how does Paul show the way by which we know him to be false? Just by saying, I, Paul, and those I have sent, are followers of Christ, such as could say, Be ye followers of me, as I am of Christ. Can these false apostles, if you ask them, “Do you walk so, that in following you, I should follow Christ,” say “Yes?”
It is just having a glorified Christ, the witness of His present glory, the witness that He is on the throne of God, the witness that you are a member of that body of which He is the Head, fresh in your soul, which will enable you to walk worthy of your high vocation with all lowliness, meekness, and longsuffering.
Praying for all saints; for if Christ’s; heart is occupied with them, surely mine must be so too. If this is not the habitual thing with you, you are not realizing what your calling is—called into union with a body, which is the present proof that He is still the Son of Man, glorified in heaven.
The Second Coming And Reign Of Our Lord Jesus Christ: The Translation Of The Saints. Chapter 2.
If Paul unfolds the “unsearchable riches of Christ” in the epistle to the Ephesians, he reveals the translation or rapture of the saints of God from this scene to the glory, in 1St Thessalonians.
We will look at it in detail, for it is a lovely presentation of the hope of the Christian, with the character of Christian life, and the effect of this hope on his pathway and service, his personal walk and ways. It has a characteristic freshness and brightness that no other epistle possesses. This is ever so when the person of Christ occupies the hearts and affections of His people. With this before the heart, and His return, that which bounds the horizon of each day, the soul is enabled to pass through a scene like this, and to rise above its sorrows and endure its trials, while sustained by His tender grace and love.
They were three fruitful Sabbath-days which Paul had spent in Thessalonica. He had gone into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews from their own Scriptures, “Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ” (Acts 17:33Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. (Acts 17:3)). The unbelieving Jews then raised a tumult, and accused him of doing “contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there (was) another King, one Jesus.” Then Paul and Silas were driven away. But O what a blessed season were those three Sabbath-days! How they were marked by the imprinting of Christ on those beloved saints! The whole world was hearing the gospel of Christ through a handful of people at Thessalonica (1 Thess. 1:88For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. (1 Thessalonians 1:8)). Not by the preaching of the word merely, but by the light lit up of God in their hearts, and shining out in their conduct and ways.
Trials and afflictions were only occasions for the light to shine more clearly. And so Paul could say, when Timothy brought him tidings of their faith and love, and the freshness of their desires to see him, “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father” (1 Thess. 1:2, 32We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; 3Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; (1 Thessalonians 1:2‑3)).
Here we find the threefold cord of Christian character in its freshness— “faith “and” love “and” hope.” Let us put it to our own hearts, who know Christ as a Saviour, and know that we are a saved people going on to be with Him forever: Does this little verse portray our character? It is precious to our souls to do aught for Christ. Every saint who reads this knows that, and there is no saint but has done somewhat for Him, and some things, perhaps, that no eye saw but His. Indeed, I believe those things which the heart has the deepest joy in doing, are those that none has seen but Himself. When a heart can say, “I am satisfied that Christ knows that,” that heart is right with Him.
It is precious to work for Christ; we can all do that. But I ask your heart and my own, and I ask it with fear and trembling even to myself, lest it should not be thoroughly true: Is each word spoken—each action done, as a “work of faith” —living faith in Christ, in fellowship with His mind? It may be a simple everyday act of common life, such as that of a servant, of a master or a mistress, of a parent or a child. All can be a work of faith, in connection with Christ, as His will. If so, the words you speak have the savor of it, and you are enjoying the truth you may utter in living association with Him.
There are works which the law required, and justly, too; but were they what is here—a “labor of love”? Surely not. The more a man loves another, the harder he will work for the other; for love makes a man work the harder, not merely as a duty, though duty is rightly so, and something we have to perform. But when we labor in communion with Christ, whatever, we have to do is a “labor of love,” but done in “patience of hope in our Lord Jesus.” Mark, it is not that the heart has to go through its daily duties, and that it does them in faith in Christ, and from love to His name; but He is coming back again and expectation is kept alive in looking for His return. What is the meaning of the “patience of hope”? Suppose a wife was looking in her mind across the seas, picturing the speck on the ocean, the vessel which was freighted with the loved one of her heart, bearing him home from a distant land-she waits in “hope;” but her hope must have another characteristic-she must have “patience” also. She knows her loved one must exercise this patience in his hope as well as she, and her patience is in communion with his mind.
But what about the children who need her care? What about the household duties? Will they be neglected, because he may be home tomorrow? Surely not. They will be done, if possible, better still than before. Her labor is a labor of love. She does what he likes to have done, and outdoes her doing if she can, in her labor of love! But in patience of hope she waits for him, her heart engaged with the returning one as the hope of her heart.
People think it would paralyze our work for the Lord, if His coming was thus to be before our souls in the suspense of expectancy. On the contrary, it gives zest and energy to the work and labor as nothing else can, while the patience of hope keeps the soul steady and the heart engaged with Christ.
But there is more. To have the heart’s affections engaged is most blessed; but we are passing through a scene where sin abounds, and the conscience needs a test, and he adds “In the sight of God and our Father.” All must be done under His eye. This is an immense thing, and you will find that God’s two character—what He is said to be “love” and “light,” deal with “heart” and “conscience” in us. The light comes in and deals with the conscience, and the love attracts the heart. The heart and the conscience in us answer to love and light in God.
So you have it in this verse. The heart goes out after Him who is coming, and in patience it waits for Him, long or short as the time may be. But the conscience is kept right, doing what we have to do “in the sight of God and our Father.”
To this Thessalonica Paul had come, and for three Sabbath-days he had preached. Some had been worshipping idols: all of a sudden they took their idols and destroyed them. They turned to God from them “to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”
Thus Christian character and Christian hope shine out in power and practice, with the full assurance of faith, in the elect of God. I need hardly say that there is such a truth as God’s electing love. You who are His saints know this for yourselves. Cannot you say, now that you are inside the house, Once I was afraid to think of that electing love as true; now I can go back in thought to that distant eternity, before the world was, and say, What a wondrous thing it is that such a worm as I was in the heart of God before the foundation of the world! And you see that Paul knew their election, just because the gospel “to every creature under heaven” was believed by them, and that it brought its “full assurance of faith,” with its “joy in the Holy Ghost.” The gospel ever brings this when your heart says, I believe that what God speaks is true! He says that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Then, I say, I am cleansed from all sin. He says, “The worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins.” Then I have no more conscience of sins. He says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” Then, I say, I have everlasting life. And so I might go on. It is thinking God’s thoughts and giving up our own, which sets the soul at rest.
Paul did not know anything of the eternal counsels of God; but when he sees those saints bright and happy, and occupied with Christ, he says, “Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God!” I do not need to see the book of life; but there is a person enjoying the full assurance of faith. He rests on the work of Christ—what He has offered to God, and not on his own experience; thus he is free in conscience, and at rest.
Mark the way he puts their waiting attitude, and for whom they looked. It was for the “Son” from heaven, If you let your heart rest on this expression for a moment, you will find that it draws out the affections more than if he had said to wait for “Christ” from heaven. It carries a different thought to the heart. He had told them of the Son of the Father coming for His own, and there he left them, and they were passing through much tribulation and persecution, and the world could make nothing of this new thing that had appeared.
No wonder that they did not know what to call Christianity at the first. Several times it is called “the way.” (See Acts 9:22And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. (Acts 9:2), marg.; 19:9 and 23; 22:4; 24:22.) If Stephen was stoned by the murderous multitude, what does he? Turn round in resentment? Nay, but kneel down and pray for his murderers. If they had no box of alabaster to break for their Lord, they could give their bodies to be broken for Him, and thus the ointment and savor of Christ was known! If with scourged backs Paul and Silas have their feet fast in the stocks, in the inner prison at Philippi, what will they do? Break their hearts No; fill the prison with songs of praise at midnight! Shut a man up from his work, to whom it was dearer than his life, and whose great heart was reaching out to Spain; like a caged eagle he sits in his prison at Rome, and after four years’ imprisonment he tells us how he has learned that Christ can do without him, and that he can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth him. We might ask, What can you do now? He might answer, “Christ never served the Church better through me than now, and I can sit still here perfectly happy, because it is His will; and I can do His will in sitting still here, just as well as I could do His will, if His will for me were to preach in Spain!”
It was not Judaism, it was not heathenism, but it was heavenly Christianity, and the world called it “the way”! And these Thessalonians were in the mightiness and freshness of its power. Beloved friends, does not Christ’s heart look for such a thing amongst His people now? Surely He does, and more than ever, because He has awaked us to our proper Christian place and hope in these days.