We take up the prophecies of Isaiah again, and turn to that part which begins about Isaiah 52:13.
Recalling that we are compassing the question raised in Isaiah 53:1: “Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Inasmuch as this is prophecy in the sense of prediction, we have to recognize that it is a looking back as well as a looking forward. So far as the prophet was concerned, it was prediction; but the standpoint, even then, from which he prophesied, was backward. It was looking back upon the world’s reactions to the cross of the Lord Jesus.
He is taking the sum of all that happened at Calvary, of the report that went forth as to those happenings, and then the reactions to that report: “Who hath believed it?” In the light of the seeming tragedy of the cross, this question, “To whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” finds its answer in this whole section.
Now, we have noted this afternoon that, with Isaiah 54, we find ourselves in God’s movement toward recovery and rebuilding. The cross has cleared the way and provided the ground for this new prospect.
A new note is struck at this point with Isaiah 54. You will notice how it begins. From that point onward there are a number of bright, hopeful notes struck, leading on to such as the beginning of Isaiah 60:
Arise, shine; for thy light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
Here, then, because the foundations have been laid and the ground provided by the cross, the way is open and the ground is clear. The Lord is facing this whole matter of recovery, restoration, and rebuilding of His people. There is a new prospect, a new hope, a new message of encouragement.
But even so, if you read these later chapters of Isaiah, or pause over them hurriedly, there are lights and shadows in this new prospect.
The sun shines: “Thy light is come; the glory of the Lord is risen.” It is like the sun rising on an early summer day. Then, if you are sensitive to these things, you know the feeling when a heavy cloud passes over the face of the sun. It may be only temporary, but for that time you look to see what has happened. You wonder whether the whole prospect is going to change, whether the bright time is passing, whether that is the end.
It is just like that in these later chapters of Isaiah. Here is the risen glory of the Lord, a bright prospect; then you light on things here and there, like Isaiah 58:
Cry aloud, spare not,
lift up thy voice like a trumpet,
and declare unto my people their transgression.
From place to place, there are these clouds—dark clouds that seem to pile over the face of the sun, the risen presence of this new prospect. They bring to the heart a feeling of uncertainty: Is this radiant morning going to pass away too soon?
We have an experience about it all. We are not absolutely assured that all is going to work out according to the seeming promise, or that we are going to follow through on this new prospect.
From the Lord’s side, there is no question. The Lord has for Himself His ground, and the Lord has shown Himself to be One who means to be positive. He is not of two minds. There is no shadow cast by His turning, by His changing. Everything that comes from the Lord shows Him to be One who is really after a new day and a new situation.
I say, the Lord is positive from His side, but it would seem that He is having to go carefully. He wants to be positive. He wants to go right out and have no reserve. In fact, there seems to be something still holding this arm of the Lord. He just cannot go right on as He indicates He would do.
The old ground has suffered a mighty purging in the cross. Yes, all that stubble has been dealt with; all that tangle and network of thorny growth has been dealt with by the cross. He has come in and got His foundation there. But still there seems to be a question.
You cannot read through these chapters without feeling that we are not through this business yet. We are not right out on the other side yet. We are not sure how it is going to work out yet.
The Lord is pretty sure; the Lord is encouraging. The Lord is saying that, as for Him, He is not holding back on His own side, but there is something that He is encountering.
Let me put it like this: the ground has been cleared, and the foundation has been laid. But now it is a question of what is going to be built on that foundation. That is just where the uncertainty comes in. It is not the foundation—that is settled in the cross—but the superstructure. It is what is going to be imposed upon that foundation. What are you going to build on that foundation?
That is the question. That is where the uncertainty comes in. The Lord is not sure what His people are going to put upon His foundation.
Well, you see, this is a New Testament matter. So far as that old Hebrew system is concerned, the answer to that question as to the new building on that new ground is found, of course, in what we call the post-exilic prophets—the prophets after the exile: Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi. The answer is there as to what the people would put on the foundation, and the new building of what sort it was.
But, as I said this afternoon, you might say, “Well, that is Old Testament. That is long ago and remote from us.” But you remember that I told you that in the New Testament there is the counterpart of this in our own very dispensation.
The letter to the Romans stands right in there with Isaiah 53, where the cross encounters all the old rubbish and evil and tangle, deals with it entirely in judgment, and clears the ground for a new prospect. That new prospect is brought into view in Romans 8. With Romans 8, God has got His foundation.
But what is the counterpart of this following part of Isaiah? It is the First Letter to the Corinthians.
It is so patent as you look at it. You know that the apostle, coming to Corinth, said:
When I came to you, I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
The foundation has been laid. In 1 Corinthians 3:10, “As a wise master builder, I laid a foundation.” The foundation is Christ crucified. See? The foundation is laid.
The cross in Romans has secured the ground for the foundation. It is laid; it is there. So to speak, in Corinth it is there: Christ crucified, the foundation.
As you read on into this letter, you almost stand still. You hear Paul saying, “I have laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon.” It is possible to build on this wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, precious stones. Every man’s work shall be tried by fire.
If any man’s work suffer loss, he shall be saved; yet so as through fire. He will have lost everything.
The big question here is: What have you got to put on the foundation? What are you going to superimpose upon that ground of the cross? Are you going to bring back things that are absolutely contradictory to the cross? If so, you see what happens.
Now, this First Letter to the Corinthians is not the letter of the foundation; Romans is that. It is the letter of the building.
That is seen in what I have just said: “I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I laid a foundation.” The foundation is laid. But now let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon.
It is impressive, and I am sorry that the translators have not helped us in this. It is impressive to notice that the original word which means building has been translated as edify or edification, which is entirely misleading according to our mentality.
If you use that word “edifying” today, I have so often said, you think it means getting information into your head—head knowledge. It does not mean that at all. The word translated “edifying” is the original word for building. See?
I would suggest that you follow through the eight times in this First Letter to the Corinthians where that word is used. It is most searching; it is most enlightening. It touches on so many things.
This whole matter of spiritual gifts is summed up in that one word: Do they build up? If they do not, they are no good in the purpose of God. You can rule them out; they have missed their point. You see, even divine gifts can miss the point. They can be sidetracked.
We shall have to touch on that again. But many things like that—the governing thing, the governing point, the governing word on all sorts of matters, in eight different connections—is this word: building, building, building.
It is the spiritually constructive side of things that is in this First Letter to the Corinthians. Yes, the foundation is laid: Christ crucified. Now the building.
When you come to the building, a real battle starts. The question is: What are you going to put on that foundation?
Let me put it another way: What is God going to allow you to put on His foundation? You have right through this letter a long series of “No. No.” Things to which God says, “No. No, not that on My foundation, please. I have no place for that on My foundation.”
“If you put that on My foundation, I will let this fire test it. You may spend your whole life on that, and then it all goes up in smoke. It is not suitable to My foundation. It is not according to the cross of the Lord Jesus.”
I would take up a long time to go through this letter and see all the things to which God says no. We might just touch on two or three, perhaps, which are indicative of much more. You can read the letter, and you can read it with this in mind: Would God allow anything like that to be put on His foundation?
Then the answer: Very well, if not, let us have the cross consume that right away. Let the cross deal with that immediately. We do not want that to be held over to an application of the meaning of the cross when it is too late, and we just scramble into heaven without anything that we can take with us of a life’s work. That is the issue.
You do not want the cross to come late, or too late, to save our life-work—to save the fruit of all our energy.
Well, you begin in 1 Corinthians 3:
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.
I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal.
For whereas there is among you jealousy and strife…
Oh, let us wait. Even if it is to our own judgment and condemnation, better the cross comes right in now.
Does that remind you of Genesis? God says no to that on His foundation. “None of that, please, on My foundation. The cross, which is My foundation, says no to that.” There are among you jealousies and strife.
You must think this through and face this honestly. It may seem very elementary, my dear friends, but here we are. We are not facing the world, the unconverted, here. We are right here in the church—believers amongst believers. We are dealing with that which is found amongst those for whom God’s foundation has been laid, who are called saints—that is, who are regarded by God as His own people.
Strife: God says no to that on His foundation. You have that? You know what is going to happen sooner or later. It is going to be exposed as wood, hay, and stubble, going up in smoke. That is the value of it.
“Are ye not carnal, and walk after the manner of men?” Oh, you are not allowed to walk after the manner of men on God’s foundation—just not allowed. God says no to the manner of men on His foundation.
“Oh, when one saith, I am of…” You need to put the names in—names right up to date, names right in your own circle, in your own assembly, names in your own Christian world, or historic religious names. Put in what you like: one says, “I am of…” and another, “I am of…”
Human partialities, human preferences, human likes, and human dislikes produce division. God says, “No, not on My foundation. That is not My church; that is not My building. I never build with that, and you may not.”
You may have one little setup, a wonderful setup of your own making, with material like that. The stuff of that kind is going up in smoke. In the end, you will have nothing, however much you had in the meantime.
Shall we go on? You see what I mean. You pursue the whole letter like that. Partialities. What a lot there is about the wisdom of the world here in this early section—the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of man, man’s mind about things.
God says, “None of that on My foundation. None of it. There is no place for your mind at all on God’s foundation. There is only place for the mind of the Spirit.”
If we have not got the mind of the Spirit, we have no right to be doing anything on God’s foundation. Forgive me for being so exacting, so definite. But, after all, are not these the troubles—the very things—that are blighting Christianity today? They are.
Do not let us think of Christianity objectively. It comes very near. These are things in me too, dear friends, which are doing the mischief. Perhaps even amongst us, we are bringing onto God’s foundation a mentality that is not the mentality of the Spirit. That is what this amounts to: a mentality.
What things knoweth a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him?
Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God.
These are two different mentalities, you see: natural mind, spiritual mind. God says, “None of the natural mind or mentality at all on My foundation.”
Paul here calls this the world coming in and constructing something upon God’s foundation. The world coming in—and God says, “There is no place whatever for the world in any form on My foundation.”
If you look at it closely, you find that it searches out so much: how the world thinks, the world’s standards of judgment and values, how the world does things. You see, what was happening here was that these Corinthians were trying to make an impression—trying to make an impression by natural means.
The cross of Isaiah 53 is not a very impressive thing of that nature, is it? There is nothing there that popularizes the gospel. I say, as I said yesterday, it is more offensive than anything else.
Are you trying to make the work of God successful by an appeal to the natural man? I have no brief for ugliness. I believe that God is a God of beauty. I am not for crudeness. But if we think that we are going to make God’s work successful and acceptable by appeal to the soul of men—artistically, technically, or in any other way—we are on wrong lines.
Let me put it the other way: the appeal, the impression, the grip, the overcoming, has got to be essentially and only spiritual—of an inward kind—not what appeals at all to the natural senses of people.
The arm of the Lord will not be revealed to the natural man in any way. The arm of the Lord will not be revealed to the world for its good. The arm of the Lord will not be revealed to any mentality of nature—only against it. That is what it is here: “To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”
You move on into this letter and find the cross touches so many other things. It touches our emotions, our passions. There is a lot about that, is there not? The natural emotions and natural passions—not only the mentality, but our feelings and emotions. The Lord says, “None of that on My foundation. None whatever.”
Oh, there is so much that the cross here says no to as to building. I invite you to look at it more closely. It is not my purpose to give an exposition of the Letter to the Corinthians. I want to get to the heart of things: What is it that God says may be put on His foundation?
There is a positive side in this letter. It would be very pathetic, would it not, if it were all negative—if all the way through to the end it was, “No, no, no, no, no.” Never! Take account of that, because, notice, I have said before today: you can never come into God’s yes until you have accepted God’s no.
But there is a God’s yes—a very mighty yes—in this letter. What is it? What is it? Let us recognize it. We think we know it. Well, perhaps we know the letter, but do we know the words? I suggest that we know practically nothing of the thing itself.
First Corinthians 13.
The apostle, when he reaches this point, writes off everything that is not spiritually constructive. Though, mark you, it may have been something that God did, it has been taken hold of and used for man’s gratification, man’s pleasure, man’s satisfaction, man’s glory—spiritual gifts, tongues, and all those things.
They have brought the mind, emotion, and mentality of the natural man down upon those very divine things, robbed them of their value to build up, and made them merely display things—glorying in spiritual gifts.
The apostle writes that all of that was never given for that. Even though given of God, they may amount to nothing when it comes to building. That is the word he uses, you know:
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
Exit spiritual gifts which have failed to fulfil their purpose: building the house of God. Do not cling to anything that does not serve that purpose. Hold this.
But notice, he is reaching after the positive through the negative all the time:
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge;
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
That is Scripture—quite Scriptural. That is what the Lord Jesus said: if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, “Be thou removed, and cast into the midst of the sea,” and it shall be done.
They are perfectly scriptural, and you can be perfectly scriptural, and you can have faith like that, and it can mean nothing if it fails to build up the house of God. If it does not result in this spiritual structure, it becomes negative.
Exit all knowledge, mysteries, secret lore, and faith that moves mountains. Out you go if you do not build up. That is the value here.
But have not love, I am nothing.
With all that, I am nothing.
And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and if I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
I may be a philanthropist; I may be charitable in my giving, even sacrificial in my giving. Even if I am a martyr, that I give my body to be burned, that can all be done without any constructive value in the building of the house of God. If that is so, it is nothing. “And have not love, it profiteth me nothing.”
Now, that is the showing out, of course, of things—wonderful things in themselves—but which have failed to serve the purpose for which they were given. That purpose is spiritual building.
Now, the apostle asks: What may you put on this foundation? Let us bring in that to which God says yes. He says no to that, no to that, no to that—but there is a yes. That is love. Love.
Love suffereth long, and is kind;
love envieth not;
love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up;
doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked,
taketh not account of evil;
rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth.
That is a wholesale rebuke to the Corinthians. They went to court against their own brethren in Christ because their rights were injured or taken from them, and so they dragged them before the magistrate right away. “Love suffereth long, and is kind.”
You may put that on the foundation. That kind of thing is constructive, is it not? Yes. “Love envieth not.”
I do not know how you feel, dear friends, when we really quietly like this work our way into and through every phrase. You want to stop and say, “Say no more. That finds me out too much.” And we must go on. But, after all, it is what God is calling for.
“Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.”
Turn to 1 Corinthians 8 and you will read this: “Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up.” There is a great deal of difference between puffing up—inflating, filling with air, when there is nothing after all in it—and building up.
Love is not puffed up. There is nothing false, artificial, inflated, make-believe, or pretended about love. It is not puffed up. It is the balloon idea, is it not? Oh, how large you can blow it up! But you have only to put the tiniest point of a needle into it, and where is it? Gone.
Paul says, “It is no good putting that on God’s foundation.” Love is not like that at all. Love is not puffed up.
“Doth not behave itself unseemly.” Unseemly behaviour. We could spend a lot of time on that, could we? Is it seemly? Is it seemly? Does it become a Christian? Does it become the Lord Jesus? Does it become that holy house of God? Does it become the cross of the Lord Jesus?
Is it seemly? Love is seemly. It does not behave itself unseemly.
“Love seeketh not its own.” It does not want to have its own way. It does not work to its own ends. It does not draw to itself. “Seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil, rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth.”
“Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.”
You may think that I am not saying very much tonight, but I am saying a great deal. I like to read that chapter in a translation which I think is a classic, if you will allow it.
I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
but if I have not love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.I may prophesy, fathom all mysteries and secret lore;
I may have such absolute faith that I can move mountains from their place;
but if I have not love, I count for nothing.I may distribute all I possess in charity;
I may give up my body to be burned;
but if I have not love, I make nothing out of it.Love is very patient, very kind.
Love knows no jealousy.
Love makes no parade, gives itself no airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful.
Love is never glad when others go wrong.
Love is gladdened by goodness.
Always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient.
Love never disappears.
You may put that on the foundation. That is all that God says yes to.
“To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Today, tonight, just that, dear friends.
Forgive me if I seem not to have given you a great fullness of new light, but I just feel so strongly that we have got to face this matter of what the cross sets aside and what the cross brings in—what may be put on God’s foundation and what may not be put on it.
It concerns every one of us, does it not, quite seriously, as to what there will be at the end? Really, that is what matters: what there will be at the end, not what there is now—gaudy and displayable and showy and popular, receiving men’s approval and applause. No, but what there will be at the end.
God is moving here, as you see, to build up, to build up, to build up. Having shown what He will not use in His building, He says, “This is what I will use. This is the stuff, the material, of the building—the church. This is really what does build up: love building.”
Oh, may the Lord use this word to our hearts, to smite our hearts as it needs to smite, to enlighten our hearts as to what real values are. Oh no, all these things are not the real values.
Not even spiritual gifts are the real values unless, mark you, the effect of them is real spiritual increase amongst the believers. That is the test. That is the test.
It is not the things themselves, not their presence, not that the Lord gives them. Whatever those gifts may be—and there are many of them—the test of every gift is: Does it really build the church? Does it really build the house? Is it really resulting in a larger measure of Christ?
Is it? Or these things may be an abstraction from Christ. You see, what this letter says so clearly is this: spiritual gifts are no guarantee of spiritual maturity.
Here you have the most immature of the churches. “I fed you with milk; ye are babes; ye are still babes.” The most immature of the churches, yet characterized by all these gifts.
Not that the gifts are wrong, but they have been sidetracked, or they have been brought under arrest. They have not served the purpose for which they were given—that is, bringing through the full measure of Christ.
A full measure of Christ: that is the object. And love does it. Love brings to the full measure of Christ.
Oh, may we have that love—this kind of love. This is not natural, now. This love springs out of the cross. It is the love that comes right out of the work of the cross.
We cannot get it by striving after it. But it will rise and grow as the cross does its work in us. It just will be found—more and more love—according to the work of the cross in our hearts and in our natures.
The Lord increase our love.