Although the revelation of the assembly was first given to Simon Peter by the Lord on earth, as recorded in Matthew 16, and although Peter writes of the “spiritual house” in his first epistle, it is in the writings of the Apostle Paul that we have the divine instructions for the assembly which God purchased with the blood of His own (Acts 20:28). Peter’s apostleship was for the circumcision, but Paul’s was for the Gentiles (Gal. 2:7–9), and the ministry of the mystery which shows that the believing Jew and the believing Gentile are united in one body, was committed to Paul by the ascended Son of God.
In 1 Corinthians Paul writes of the functioning of the local assembly, and in 1 Timothy of what the church is in its universal character as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:16), but in the Epistle to the Ephesians we learn of the church according to the eternal counsels of God, of what it is for Christ as His body and His bride, and what it is for God as His habitation by the Spirit, and as the vessel in which His grace, His wisdom and His glory are displayed.
What Christ is for the Church
The church owes everything to Christ, for it is through His precious blood that we have been brought nigh to God, and He is our peace who has made Jewish and Gentile believers one, having broken down the middle wall of partition which the law created, and this He accomplished through His death on the cross (Eph. 2:13-14). Our standing is in Christ before God, and we have been formed into “one new man,” in new creation, and we have been brought into right relations with God in the “one body,” which the Spirit of God has formed, and the former enmity that existed between the Jew and Gentile has been annulled in the cross of Christ (verses 15-16). Whatever instruments may have been used for our blessing, Christ Himself is the preacher who has brought to us the Gospel of peace, and it is through Him we have access by the Spirit to the Father (verses 17-18).
In Ephesians 2 we have seen what Christ has done for His church in and through His death upon the cross, but in Ephesians 4 we learn what Christ has done for the church as having ascended “far above all heavens” to fill all things. To each member of His body He has given grace (verse 7), that which enables us to be here for His will and pleasure; He has also given the gifts mentioned in verse 11 “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (verse 12).
All that the church needs is supplied by its risen Head, and this makes it independent of every other source. If the saints are perfected by what Christ gives it is evident that whatever comes from any other source is but an intrusion, and a hindrance to what He has provided. The great clerical system of Christendom with its popes and prelates is a human substitute for what Christ has given. Christ’s ministry can only be provided by Christ, in His wisdom and love for the church for which He gave Himself, and only the gifts that He gives can edify the church, which is His body.
There is however that which the exalted Head provides into which man cannot intrude, so that we “may grow up into Him in all things.” From our Head in heaven, the whole body is “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the working in the measure of every part,” and in this way the body makes increase to “the edifying of itself in love” (verses 15-16). In spite of all the failure in the church, the body of Christ still receives nourishment from its Head, each member contributing, as enabled by Christ, to the self-building up of the body. There are those who specially help in this as joints of supply, those who help on the exercises and nourishing of the saints.
What the Church is for Christ
Christ is brought before us as the Man of God’s counsels in Ephesians 1. Having gone into death to secure God’s purpose, God intervenes and raises Christ out of death, and sets Him down on the highest place “at His own right hand in the heavenly places.” There God has made Christ to be the Head over all things, the place in which He will be seen by the whole universe in the coming day. It is the place of the last Adam, the fulfilment of what is prophesied in Psalm 8, but it far surpasses anything that could have been understood by those who read the eighth Psalm. Here is a Man in the highest place in heaven, greater than any known in the histories of men.
In His place of supremacy Christ is not alone. Even as Adam had Eve to share his place of honour and glory in the lower creation, Christ will have His church to share His place as Head over all things in heaven and on earth. Eve was the glory of the man, and in the church the glory of Christ will be displayed. Moreover the church is Christ’s body, and as such will give expression to all that is in the mind of the Head when He fills all in all in the coming day.
From chapter 5 we learn more of what the church is for Christ. In verse 25 it is written, “Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it.” How very dear the church must have been to the heart of Christ to cause Him to pay such a price to secure it for Himself. When we think of what we are by nature, the wonder is that the affections of Christ could be set upon us; but Christ not only saw us as we were in all our wretchedness and sin, but He also saw what the church would be after He had brought her into suitability to Himself. From the council chamber of eternity He saw the church in the reflection of all the glory and beauty that He would bestow upon her, and His heart was set upon procuring her as the object of His love.
When the merchant found the pearl of great price, he saw in it a beauty that caused him to sell all that he had to buy it; when the man found the treasure hid in a field, his heart was filled with joy, and he sold all that he had and bought the field so that the treasure might be his. Christ has done far more than either, for He not only emptied Himself of the form of God to take upon Him the form of a servant, and relinquished the throne of David, but He gave Himself even up to death, and that the death of the cross. It was because of what the church was to Him that Christ gave Himself.
To bring the church to what she was in the counsels of God Christ has taken His place on high, and is constantly engaged in preparing her for the day when He will present her “to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (verses 26-27). The church must be a suited object for Christ’s affections. If He is holy and without blemish, she must also be, and if He is glorious, she too must be glorious. Every spot and wrinkle that belongs to the old creation will have been removed before the day when the church is taken to heaven for the marriage of the Lamb. In wondrous grace Christ is occupied now, caring for the church, sanctifying and cleansing it “with the washing of water by the word.”
What the Church is for God
Of old, God had a dwelling place in the midst of His people, first in the tabernacle then in the temple. God’s glory was found in the holiest, where He dwelt between the cherubim. When Christ was on earth we see God, in the Son, tabernacling among men, and He spoke of His body as “this temple” (John 2:19), for He was indeed the shrine of the divine glory, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Now that Christ is gone on high, God has sent His Spirit, and the church is “an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).
This divine dwelling place is composed of God’s saints, who are “the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner Stone” (verse 20). Soon this divine building will be seen as “an holy temple in the Lord,” when it displays the glory of God, but till the church is taken to heaven it is the place where God dwells, His Spirit being in it. It is not in buildings of stone, or wood, that God now dwells, but in His people whom His Spirit has formed for His habitation.
The saints who form God’s habitation have been quickened into divine life, and “raised up together, and made (to) sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” and the divine object in making known such grace in us is “That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4–7). It is God’s great love that has caused Him to intervene in sovereign mercy and act thus towards those who were dead in trespasses and sins.
What David did to Mephibosheth, in showing to him the kindness of God, is but a feeble picture of God’s kindness towards us. God has taken us up in order that the universe might know what a God He is, great in His love, rich in His mercy, exceeding rich in His grace, and wonderful in His kindness. Each one in that vast company in which God will display His exceeding kindness was a poor sinner far from God, dead in sins, but God dealt with each in His deep compassion, and in the coming day they will unitedly show what God really is in all the amazing goodness of His heart.
One of the reasons for God creating the universe was that He might use this earth as a platform on which to display His manifold wisdom (Eph. 3:9-10). The wisdom of God has been made known in all His ways, even as the Apostle Paul wrote, “O depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out” (Rom. 11:33), but an entirely new view of God’s “all varied” wisdom has been made known by the church.
This manifold wisdom is being now displayed to the great intelligences of heaven, to the “principalities and powers in heavenly places.” Men, blinded by Satan, are unable to see the wonderful work that God is doing in this world. They can see the professing church with all its pretension, its pride and worldly glory, but they cannot see the glorious work of the new creation in which God’s all varied wisdom is being displayed. Amidst the ruins of the old creation God is forming the vessels of new creation, vessels in which His own glory will be displayed in a coming day. Men could never have thought of such a thing, it is a wisdom far beyond that of mortal man.
When the day of glory comes, the millennial day, and the eternal day, it will be found that God has been preparing the church for the display of His own glory. Regarding this it is written in Ephesians 3:21, “Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” such is the church according to the mind, the will, and the purpose of God. It is a new creation vessel, formed by Him “that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,” and it is the crown of His workmanship to display the glory that tells what He is to every creature in the vast universe throughout eternity.
The Lord Jesus speaks of this glory to His Father in John 17:22-23. It is the glory the Father has given to Him that we share, and through it the Father’s love is displayed. The glory that displays the fruit of the Son’s great work, for every one with Him has been secured by His coming from the Father, and by His death, that glory will show the saints are loved with the same love that rests upon the Son.
R. 15.2.69