There are many friends who have not been with us through the earlier gatherings. Let me say the very briefest possible word by way of retrospect.
We have been led at this time to be occupied with the Revelation of Jesus Christ. We feel that the Lord has led us in this way with more than the object of just studying something, but as related to the movements toward the consummation of this age, which we feel are so evidently taking place.
Therefore, in the final scenes, the Lord is culminating and consummating His testimony on this earth. It is very necessary for His Church to be very clear as to its position.
That position is essentially and inseparably a matter of understanding exactly what the Christian life and the Christian Church are, and the testimony which is entrusted to them.
So we have spent nearly three days with the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, particularly noting how that book brings us to this culmination and consummation of everything in the age.
The Lord takes very careful pains to give a full and clearly defined presentation of His Son. The significance of the very first chapter of that book is that Christ overshadows everything. Christ encompasses everything. Christ stands over everything as the standard of God.
Then all that follows—firstly, in the dealing with the Church; then with the nations; then with the kingdom of Satan; and then in bringing in the eternal kingdom—is governed by what Christ is, by that matchless presentation of Himself.
I go over that again in order that we may see where we are, the setting of what we are seeing today.
It has been there that the main part of our time has been found. But this morning, we went back over to the Apostle Paul in this connection and began to consider the content of his words in the second of his Corinthian letters, 2 Corinthians 4:5-6:
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord.
Seeing it is God, Who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” Who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This morning, we spent our time with the beginning—what Paul saw in the face of Jesus Christ. We did note, right at the outset, that what he saw, or in seeing the face of Jesus Christ, simply means that the Spirit of God gave him an inward illumination or revelation of Christ.
What he saw in the face of Jesus Christ brought about a tremendous revolution, both in his being and in his whole outlook. The first thing that he saw in the face of Jesus Christ, or in the revelation of Jesus Christ, was God’s purpose. We spent our morning time on Christ as the purpose of God.
This afternoon, we are going to be occupied with the second thing that Paul saw in the face of Jesus Christ: he saw Christ as God’s pattern.
I am going to be quite simple in the way I speak and in what I say this afternoon, because there are many young Christians here. What I say, and the way in which I say it, I trust will help them particularly; but I trust it will be, if necessary, a corrective for us all.
It is exceedingly difficult to convey the impression that must have come upon Paul when he saw the Lord Jesus—that time of which he speaks when he said:
It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.
The tremendous effect that it had on that man—I wish it were possible to convey to you something of that. Because it is not in the terms, the language, or even in the teaching. It is in the impact that we shall have the value. You may hear all that I have to say and miss that impact; it will be of very little value.
I want you, therefore, to try to enter into this in spirit. See, when Paul saw Jesus Christ by revelation of the Holy Spirit, his whole system collapsed. It completely collapsed.
His whole mentality, his way of thinking, was shut—turned upside down, inside out. He had to go right away into the desert and spend two or three years there to think this thing out, to reconstruct everything in the light of this.
It was indeed a revolution in that man. Although we are Christians, and although we have all the teaching of Paul and the other apostles, we have all the Christian tradition of the centuries.
I do feel, dear friends, that there is need of something like that with us: that we can have a system, a Christian system, just as thorough, just as complete, just as strong, with all its ramifications and paraphernalia, as the Jews had, without the tremendous impact of it all.
We can have it all. Christianity has become very largely only another Judaism in that sense—another system. I know it means much to you. I take nothing from all the blessed reality Christ is to you. But still, I hold to this: there is a great need of a revolution, even in the Church and in Christianity at this time, and the same kind of revolution caused by the same kind of revelation as came to the Apostle Paul.
I trust that you will at least begin to see something of this as I go on, on simple lines, this afternoon.
We have got to see, as Paul saw, Jesus as God’s pattern—Jesus as God’s model.
What Paul has shown us in his writings is that he came to see that before ever this world was created, before any of this cosmic system was set up, God had in view the constituting of a universe on the basis of sonship—His Son.
He was before all things. He was God’s appointed heir concerning all things. And all things were to be made with the embodiment of the spiritual and eternal features of Christ.
When God reaches His end, we come out with the work completed. Finally, the thing that will obtain will be that in everything perceptible, everything in the creation, there will be revealed something of Jesus Christ.
Oh, what a wonderful universe that would be! We meet a little bit of Jesus Christ anywhere, in anyone, today—what a blessed thing it is. But think of that being universal, and nothing else to it.
That is what was in God’s eye and mind right back there in eternity past. And so God set in motion all the creative processes and, by reason of necessity, all the redemptive processes, all the elective processes, all the sovereign and providential processes of history, to work out this pattern—to perfect this design.
All things according to Christ, as Paul’s great phrase is: according to Christ. That controls everything.
Paul came to see that. That vision, that perception and apprehension of revelation, was the governing motive, power, and object of everything for him.
For to me to live is Christ.
Now then, we can break that up into very simple questions and answers. What is a Christian? What is a Christian?
How interesting it would be if you were handed a half-sheet of notepaper, all of you, and had to put down your ideas. What is a Christian? What is Paul’s answer? How would you answer, please?
A person who believes certain things? Loves the Lord Jesus? A person who has come to make Jesus their Saviour, who has given himself or herself to Christ? How would you put it?
But what is Paul’s answer? And that is the true one: a Christian is a bit of Christ. A bit of Christ. Every true Christian is a bit of Christ.
Bear that out more fully as we go along. From God’s standpoint now—and He has laid the foundation for that—the only thing that concerns Him, His interest in you and me as Christians, as believers, is that bit of Christ which we represent. That is all He is concerned with: the bit of Christ that we are.
He is concerned, first of all, to have us as a bit of Christ; and then He is concerned to enlarge it, to make us something more of Christ, and to bring it to as full a measure of Christ as He can.
God’s focus is upon the bit of Christ that has been made a part of us, that has been deposited in us by new birth. By new birth, God has deposited something of Christ in us.
It may be a very much smaller thing than all its surroundings—and we are the surroundings. We are, to begin with. But it is of transcendent, greater, intrinsic value than all the rest. To God, it is the value. He is prepared to do anything in relation to that.
So every true Christian, from God’s standpoint, is just a bit of His Son. God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Now, I cannot gather up all the Scriptures that prove that and show how that is, but that is the simple beginning. What are you when you become a Christian? What are you as a Christian? What is it that makes you a Christian? What is the Christian and the Christian life? What is it?
Well now, strip it of everything that has been gathered around it. Men say, “This is what makes a Christian. This and that and the other thing comprise a Christian.” Strip it of all that has become the accretion of Christianity, and come right down to this: a Christian is a bit of Christ.
Go about this world with that mentality. Realise that I am—not when I am in the meeting only, not when I am with other Christians only, but wherever I am—a bit of Christ.
In that measure, where I am, Christ is. People have got to know it: not that I am a professing Christian, a religious person, a person who belongs to Christianity, but that I, in very reality, have a bit of Christ Himself. I am there in this world.
For me to live is Christ.
Go on. What is a church? What is a church? Now then, what is Paul’s idea, Paul’s mentality, about churches?
Do you really think that Paul set out on a campaign to set up churches, to bring churches into being, to build churches? Do you think that his vision and his mission, in his mind, were to see churches set up all over the world?
Think about that again. This is where we have got to rethink things.
You use the word “church” or “churches”; you only mean companies of Christians. You only mean groups living together, gathering together in certain places—corporate life.
I believe most profoundly that the Apostle Paul would repudiate the whole idea or suggestion that he himself was chosen by God to go about this world setting up churches.
You ask him what his business was in this matter—why, after having got the individual parts of Christ, he gathered them together and constituted them local companies, fellowships, churches if you like. You ask him why, and he would simply answer you, in the simplest terms, I believe, and yet with very strong feeling and conviction: that there should be a larger expression of Christ in that place.
By as many bits of Christ brought together as possible, the measure of Christ should be as strong in that place as possible. In other words, just that Christ could be all the more there.
He was governed by this whole purpose of God: that Christ should fill all things. He saw that two are better than one, and three are better than two in this matter. The more bits of Christ brought together—forgive me putting it like that; I must put it in simplest language—the stronger the impact of Christ in any place.
No, dear friends, it is not God’s idea to set up churches, or Christian fellowship centres, or that sort of thing—institutions and what not. That is not His idea at all. Let us clear the whole mind on this matter.
If any company of Christians fails in this respect—to be there a corporate and an adequate expression of the Lord Jesus, the presence of Christ commensurate with their numbers and their being there—they have failed of the purpose of their existence in that place. There is no justification.
I believe that that is exactly why the Lord said to Ephesus, as the representative church in which all were included:
I will remove thy candlestick out of its place.
There were so many commendable things. There were things—works, labour, yes, toil, things. But evidently, Jesus was lost sight of in the things.
The thing which, and which alone, justifies and gives meaning to any local company of the Lord’s people is that—not the people, not their procedure, not their form, but Christ—is made known and Christ is found.
Anybody who is seeking Christ will find Him there; and whether they are seeking Him or not, they will meet Him if they go there. It is Christ.
So Paul would say, “Ephesus, Laodicea, Thyatira, Sardis, Corinth—anywhere—I am not out to set up a Christian church there. I am out to bring Christ there, to have Christ there.”
The bringing together of these—now I use the word again—bits of Christ is only to increase the measure of Christ.
If you want evidence from the other side that this is so, remember that the great enemy knows the implications of Christ. He knows the implications of the presence of Christ, especially the presence of Christ corporately expressed.
If there is one thing that the enemy has set himself to do, it is to destroy the fellowship of Christ, to scatter the believers, to divide them, to break up this unity of Christ. Because he knows that, on the one side, it weakens Christ; on the other side, it strengthens his kingdom.
Well, there is no argument there at all. There is no answer for that. That is a fact beyond any question at all: this matter, the relatedness of Christians, is the most contended thing in this universe.
What are churches? A meeting together in which Christ is to live and be expressed. Nothing other in the mind of God. Christ is God’s pattern.
Then what about those two great things that belong to the Church and the churches: baptism and the Lord’s Table?
Well, ask everywhere, “What kind of a church are you, and what do you do?” “Well, we believe in baptism.” There are forms given to the name at different times. “We believe in and practise baptism.” Here, you believe in and practise baptism of infants, you call it. You there believe in and practise baptism of adults. You believe a little water will do; you believe that a lot of water is necessary.
However, baptism is a part of our order and system because we believe that it is a New Testament part of the Christian Church and order, and all that.
You see, you can never, never reach any conclusion of the whole matter by arguing about the right and wrong of this method or this time. Do not you try.
The only way in which to settle this whole matter is to stand right back and say, “What, according to the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, does this thing really indicate?”
Paul will give us undoubted light on this matter. He will tell us—there is an accumulation of statements by him on this. Why baptism? You want to know? Yes, it is right, but it is not an ordinance. It is not a ceremony. It is not a rite. It is not a bit of ritual.
Baptism is just the way in which Christians say, “One whole thing has gone, and Christ has taken its place.”
It is something that testifies to the fact that now all the ground is Christ. We have died to all other ground. Everything else has died and been buried, and now, on this ground of resurrection, it is only Christ.
If baptism does not mean that, it has no New Testament meaning. You see, it is related to this one thing. It is not something to be just perpetuated and carried out because it is something that they did at the beginning.
It is something which has got to be brought right up to date with every new believer: that they have definitely died and been buried to all that is not Christ. The position taken is that now they live, and they live only for Christ. It is Christ.
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I that live, but Christ.
That is utter, is it not? Oh, it is not the thing; it is the meaning.
What about the Lord’s Table? Here again, we believe in the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Table—whatever phrase applies in the different places.
We have it some once a quarter, some once a month, and some once a week. That is our order and our procedure, and that is what we believe is the way. Is that all?
So we must have the Lord’s Table, we must have the Lord’s Supper because, well, they did it in New Testament times and it is quite clearly the Lord’s will that it should be had. That is where the whole thing breaks down. It is not a something.
What is the Lord’s Table? What are the loaf and the cup?
It is the Church’s and the believers’ continuous declaration that Christ is their life. They have no life but Christ. It is all Christ. That is not going to a communion service.
You see the emptiness and hollowness—so much that is well meant. Oh, the power and presence of Christ, that is the thing that matters: not the ordinance, not the maintenance of the order, but the living Christ.
Christ is our life. Not only individually and personally—He is my life and my only life, bread and wine—but He is the life of the Church. He is corporate life.
I earlier used that word, “bits of Christ”—an awkward word. Pieces of Christ, fragments of Christ. For when you take the loaf and break it, and you all—twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, two hundred—have a piece of the loaf, is that a piece in itself? No, it is the loaf in representation.
Seeing that we, who are many, are one loaf—one body, one Father.
The Lord’s Table is a declaration of that life which finds us, joins us, and holds us together. So that divisions in the Church nullify the very meaning of the Lord’s Table.
The many unbelievers rule out the very significance of the loaf and the cup, or are a denial of it. You cannot really come to the Lord’s Table in contradiction, because it is Christ, and Christ is not divided.
Is Christ divided?
The Lord’s Table is, then, the representation of Christ as the abiding life of the Church. Until He comes, until He comes—that testimony to Christ, just Christ.
Oh, when you come to the Lord’s Table, do remember that. What are you doing? Not just going through something that is a part of the church form and order, of Christian procedure. Oh, no.
I am here declaring one thing in two ways. Firstly, that Christ is my very subsistence. I have no life. I have no constitution. I have no maintenance. I have no continuance apart from Christ. He is my existence.
I declare that for myself. But here is a very searching thing: I declare that my fellowship with other believers in Christ is also my life; that Christ is my life collectively, by fellowship, by oneness, by the unity of the Spirit.
If I break that, if I break that or allow that to be broken, if I fail to try and repair any breach between me and another child of God, I am simply saying the Lord’s Table is a mere form. It has no real meaning, and I am strangling my own spiritual life.
I am doing injury to my own spiritual life, because my life is not only an individual life; it is a collective or corporate life.
We depend for our life upon one another, brethren. Satan will rob us of our life by interfering with our relationships. Be under no mistake about it. That can be very easily proved.
Go on. What is ministry? What is ministry?
It does not only apply to those who minister. Any who minister can listen with all your ears, but those who are ministered to as well. What is ministry?
Is it to make people know what the Bible contains as its subject matter from Genesis to Revelation? Well, that is important—very good. In some senses, it may be necessary as a foundation.
Is it to get up addresses, do the research and study, and get it off onto a company of Christians? Oh, I could go on like that. It is not pleasant. But is that ministry?
Any ministry and all ministry that does not make possible and provide for an immediate increase of the Lord Jesus is not the ministry of the Holy Spirit, is not the ministry of Christ.
All ministry must have as its immediate object the increase and the building up of Christ in His people. That is the test: not that it is interesting, informative, or anything else.
But here, Christ is being ministered. I am being brought right into touch with Christ. Christ is being brought into touch with me. Not a lot of words. No. I am having to face up to the Lord Jesus in some way today.
The issue of this word is Christ—the living Christ. That is ministry. You can take all that I am saying back to Paul. Take it all back, and take it back into the second letter to the Corinthians alone. You will find that is it.
Then, for the present, because of the time, this final question: what is evangelism? What is evangelism? Evangelisation is the business of the Church. What is evangelism?
Try not to misunderstand me when I say that the end God has in view is not just to get people saved. He wants them saved; He sent His Son that they should be saved.
We cannot be too much concerned for their salvation. But that is not the end upon which the eye of God is resting. Evangelism, the salvation of men’s souls, with God is a related matter.
It is to people the kingdom of heaven with Christ—Christ people, more and more in whom He may have His dwelling, to be an outshining of Himself.
When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, that I might proclaim Him among the nations.
Evangelism is not to get so many people converted. Evangelism is, through their being saved, to increase the measure of Christ in this universe. That is a sufficient and a much greater motive, I think, than being able to count heads and say, “We have had so many conversions.”
Oh, no. Let us say rather, “Christ is getting more and more ground in this way.” A different mentality.
I am not quite certain that the Lord is not very much restrained and straightened because of this wrong idea. Put it the other way: I believe that if really the whole concern in evangelism was not to be able to count heads and say, “So many converts, and so many have signed the cards,” and so on, but to say, “Christ is gaining ground,” I believe that if that were more the object and the motive, God would come into it more.
Because I do believe, dear friends—and forgive me putting it as my belief; it does not matter at all what I believe—but tested by the Word of God, that where Christ is the one, the only, the full object in view, God’s interest is the greater. God commits Himself.
So it must be in all this. The individual saint ought to be here as Christ is here; then the Father will be with you. All the local companies ought to be here in this neighbourhood as Christ, as Christ. God will commit Himself for that.
So in everything else—everything else that we have mentioned—Christ, only Christ: Christ the beginning, Christ the end, Christ all, and in all.