Instead of reading the number of portions of the Word of God which have to do with our present meditation, I am going, for the present, to reduce all into two fragments in the letter to the Ephesians.
In Ephesians 1:9, part of a long statement, we have the heart of it:
Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him.
His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ. Then Ephesians 3:11:
According to the purpose of the ages which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Father, take those who have joined us for the first time in this present series of gatherings, and help them to come right in to what we are led to take account of at this time.
We are following up what the Lord said to us in the last series of special gatherings, when we were occupied with Christ as the horizon of all things in the counsels of God. At this time, we are occupied with the horizon of purpose: all things horizoned by divine purpose, the purpose as the extension of the Person.
We are not going to stay with the detail of that, but it will serve as a very brief word of explanation of our term. This word horizon is a New Testament word, although it never occurs in our translations. It is there in the original language.
In our translations it is rendered “ordained,” but that does not convey to us the real meaning. The meaning is horizon. We know that the horizon is the sphere, the realm, within which we live and by which we are governed. It is the ring, the full ring, and the limit of action.
In the New Testament, as we have seen, it is the description and definition of Christ. He is God’s sphere, range, and horizon—nothing beyond Him. He is the limit of all the divine activities, for all things with God are in Christ.
So much, then, for horizon for the moment. We come to the horizon connected with purpose: horizoned by purpose in Christ.
This, again, is a word of interest. The original word is prothesis. Old students understand what a thesis is. It is that which is presented as relating to some particular subject, intended to govern the future use or working of that subject.
You present a thesis for your degree or your doctorate, and that thesis is a contribution which, accepted by the authorities, is going to govern a particular subject in question in the future. They are going to refer to that for their guidance.
This word, prothesis—the little prefix pro simply means “before”—is that which was set before, presented as God’s ground for governing this whole universe in the ages to come. That is the meaning behind the word translated “purpose” in the New Testament, especially in the writings of the Apostle Paul.
God’s thesis, which He has presented before the foundation of the world, is to make His Son the heir and sum of all things. So says Paul here. When that is so—when that is an accomplished universal fact—it is God’s intention to come right into that in fullness and dwell there in pleasure and satisfaction.
So that the end, as we have seen, is indicated in the last words of the prophecies of Ezekiel: “The Lord is there.” Where? Just where His purpose is fully in expression.
There are several aspects of this purpose which are going to occupy us throughout this day, if the Lord so leads and helps.
The Word of God is a revelation of the fact that God elects specific instruments in relation to that eternal purpose—that purpose of the ages. God elects specific instruments. Leave that for a moment; we will come back to it.
The next thing that is clear right through the Word of God, from beginning to end, is that the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is unrelentingly putting forth His energies in relation to that purpose. The Bible, along that line, is one continuous record of the energies of the Spirit of God for something.
He is not just doing it for the sake of doing it, exercising Himself and putting forth power. He has an object in view always. All the way through, from the first mention of the Spirit in Genesis 1 to the last mention of the Spirit in Revelation, the Spirit is moving in energy with this purpose in view.
The third thing that becomes perfectly clear in the Word of God is that the judgment of all things is in the light of this purpose. All things are judged in relation to this purpose. If they are against it, judgment works to their undoing and destruction. If they are for it, judgment works for their glory.
The whole work of judgment is concentrated in and focused upon this matter which is called God’s prothesis, God’s eternal purpose. There are the three things that you must keep before you as we go on.
Firstly, then: the election of specific instruments in relation to purpose.
In the Old Testament, it is very evident that Israel, as a nation, was elect—chosen of God in His own right and sovereignty. There is no other ground and no other explanation. It is always a mystery.
It is quite easy to say, “He made a mistake. He got the wrong people, just got hold of the wrong type altogether.” That argument is a very big one if you like to follow it through in the natural. But He says, “I did not choose you because you were better than others.”
In the essential and exclusive sovereignty of God, He acted in choosing Israel. He chose Israel in the light of the same purpose as is mentioned here in the New Testament, but their relationship to that purpose was peculiar. He chose Israel to be the channel of the Messiah—if you like, the womb of the Messiah—through which the Messiah, the Christ, should come.
Underline that word channel, because that distinguishes Israel in its peculiar election-purpose. That purpose—to be God’s channel through which to arrive at the Christ, through which to bring in the Christ—governed and characterized the election of Israel.
Dear friends, I have got to leave a very great deal with you. We are not here today for preaching; we are here for instruction, for teaching. I would be much happier if this platform were not up here and I were just down there amongst you, with the Word open, on this Bible-study and investigation basis. Please adjust your minds to that, because we are really at work today with the Word of God.
A great deal has got to be left to you to work out afterward. I can only make these statements. If I were to deal with all that is included in a single statement, I should want a day for every one of them.
The purpose governing and characterizing the election of Israel was that they were called and chosen according to purpose. That explains why God did choose such a people and throws light upon the later dispensation in which we are, when we come to the next instrument: the church.
You see the tremendous, transcendent vocation of the church in the eternal counsels—the immense greatness of the calling of the church. Then you look at yourself, and I look at myself.
When we begin to know ourselves in the light of God, we at once say, “Well, that may apply to some people; it cannot apply to me. They want better people than I am for that, people made of different stuff.”
Then you read that we should be unto the glory of His grace, and that is the answer. Called? Chosen? The very choosing has in it everything that is going to make possible and make necessary a superlative display of the grace of God. The choosing is governed by purpose, not by something in itself as an end.
In the next phase, purpose governed the constitution of that people after they had been chosen. They were constituted.
What a history that is, and what a lot there is in that! See Israel from the time they went into Egypt, under all the discipline of four hundred years of bondage, being secretly and hiddenly wrought upon and constituted; then brought out from Egypt into the wilderness, with the constituting still going on.
Everything had to do with that constitution: the tabernacle and all its details, the priesthood and all its details, the sacrifices, the feasts, and all their details. This whole wonderful, comprehensive constitution and constituting of this people was governed by a purpose.
The purpose was to make them the channel through which the Christ would come. Everything to do with God’s handling of that people and their constitution had something of Christ in it. You can see that, of course, in the tabernacle, in the priesthood, and in the sacrifices; but see it in their own experiences.
There is a field there for much meditation. God dealt with them within and without, in the light of the purpose for which He had chosen them: to constitute them a channel through which He would reach His Christ and bring in His Son.
Further, purpose governed their history. You can only explain the history of Israel under the hand of God, through the centuries up to Christ, in the light of something that God was working toward: the discipline, the suffering, the infinite patience of God, the instruction.
Oh, what that history contains! Their relationship to God, and God’s relationship with them, is explained by this one thing: they were intended to be, chosen to be, this channel along which God would move and at last reach His Son and bring in His Son.
In Israel’s case, in the earthly, historical, and temporal sense, they were called according to the Father’s purpose concerning God’s Son. The election of Israel is unmistakable, and the ways of God with them are discernible. The purpose of God in all must be perfectly clear, because it is something that does not end with Israel.
We come into the next great elected, chosen instrument of the divine purpose. We come to that elect company. It is called “the elect” sometimes; we call it, and the New Testament calls it, the church.
The difference between the church and Israel is this: the church is not a thing of time; the church is a thing of eternity. It was chosen in Christ Jesus before times eternal. We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.
Israel is a thing of the earth and of time, to serve a purpose as a channel. But the church is an elect vessel or instrument, not to be the channel of the Christ but the body of the Christ. There is a great deal of difference between a channel and the very body.
This is something superior, something greater than Israel: eternally elected, not as a vehicle, but as the embodiment. The church is said to be called according to His purpose. The calling is according to His purpose.
Dear friends, listen very closely. Get hold of the meaning of a statement like this. We are so familiar with the words:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
Something very lovely—we cherish it, bind it to our hearts, as a promise. But note that it is all governed by the last phrase: “Who are called according to His purpose.”
You were never called by God just to be saved, great as it is to be saved. You were never called by God just to be a Christian. You were never called by God just to be a member of what is called the church. These things may be included, but you were called by God and chosen in Christ from eternity for the purpose which God has as His goal and end ultimately.
“According to His purpose”—that is the explanation of God first coming to us and calling us. His saving us, great as it is, is not an end in itself, but according to His purpose.
The church is also constituted according to purpose. Let us weigh every matter as we go on, step by step. Constituted according to purpose.
In the whole realm of creation, species are constituted according to their particular purpose. It is wonderful how they fit into the purpose for which they were created. They are adapted to that. They spontaneously and organically move and work in relation to the very object and purpose for which they were created.
You would not like to be caused or required to do and act as many other creatures do. You would say, “I could never do it.” You see a horse running many, many miles, keeping on all day long, and you say, “I could not do it.” That horse that stands so many hours on its feet—I could not do it.
No, you are not asked to do it because you are not a horse. A horse’s feet and legs are constituted to do that. If you were called upon to do that, you would soon find that you are not a horse.
So we are different. I, for the life of me, could not be a woman. I do not mean changing my form or anything like that. Well, I feel terribly sorry for women often—I do, terribly sorry. I say, “Oh, I could not be a woman for all that you could give.” But I am not asked to be a woman. I am not constituted that way.
I do not know whether women feel the same about men, but there it is. We are constituted for the purpose for which we are created. If we keep to our own realm, things are not so difficult for us as people in another realm might think they are.
Men can go through things that women are not called upon to go through, and if a woman tries to do so, she will get into trouble. That is where you make this world confused. Women are called to go through things that men are never called to go through; but if each keeps in the proper realm, all will go through rightly. It is a matter of constitution in creation.
Now then, the church, by the Holy Spirit, is being constituted for its eternal purpose. It is being qualified, equipped, endowed, and developed for this great purpose of God.
On the one side, there are things that we know at present we cannot do or answer to; but the Spirit of God is working in us to make possible what naturally is impossible. That is the great difference between the natural and the spiritual man.
We know that there are many things that we cannot understand naturally. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them; but the spiritual man can. The Spirit of God is qualifying us for the understanding of the things of God.
This handling of God with us is a reconstituting, a reconstituting. It is not going to be artificial, like the man in space, having to be kept there by artificial means—something which is not part of his constitution at all. This is going to be our natural element, for which we are constituted: heaven.
All that is so different in heaven from what it is here is involved in this constituting work of God. What is He doing? Why is He doing this? Why this history? It is turning us upside down and inside out from the natural standpoint, but really putting us the right way up from heaven’s standpoint.
The church is being constituted as the vessel of the eternal purpose. All our schooling in the school of the Spirit is governed by the election, by the choosing, by the purpose.
Having said that, and recognizing the vast ground it covers in a few concise statements, there is always the abiding peril and the imminent tragedy of the loss of purpose in the Christian life and in the church.
With Israel, that peril was ever present. It was part of the history. With Israel, that tragedy was always very near at hand, and at last overtook them: the loss of this sense, consciousness, and domination of specific purpose lying behind their history and behind all God’s dealings with them.
We have earlier in this season noticed some of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activities in relation to purpose. We have seen what it means to be in the grip of the Spirit of God in relation to His purpose.
At the beginning of Israel, and at the beginning of the church, there was this dynamic sense of being in existence as God’s people for some special purpose. They were mastered by it; it took possession of them.
Paul uses a very expressive word: “I was apprehended by Christ Jesus.” A policeman comes along, puts his hands on you, takes possession of you, walks you off to the police station, and makes you a prisoner. That is what the law calls being apprehended. That is the very word Paul used: “I was apprehended by Christ Jesus.” He links the word and the statement with purpose—divine purpose.
See how true that was of the church in the beginning. I do not mean that they understood all the meaning of it, or had all the enlightened intelligence and instruction about it, but they had the consciousness of it. It is far better to have the consciousness of the reality than to have all the doctrine without the reality.
There they are in the book of Acts at the beginning: people under the Holy Spirit’s apprehending grip and mastery, with the sense that something is on, that some big thing is in view, that there is a purpose in our being where we are and what we are. It must be like that. It must be like that.
We go on from that point to God reacting in relation to purpose. We have seen what tragedy overtook Israel at the end. Israel was chosen, dealt with by God in the way the Old Testament reveals, to be the channel through which the Messiah, the Christ, should come.
When He did come, that nation killed Him—and killed the very purpose of their existence. When they slew Him, they slew themselves as a vessel and instrument of God’s purpose.
God said, in effect, “All right, you stand aside. I have no place for a thing which is just a thing, whatever I have intended for it, however I may have worked at it and been patient with it. If, after due probation and due time, it does not prove true to My purpose, I never keep it till I change it. I set it aside.”
That is a terrible possibility, is it not? I am talking about purpose. Do not read into this election unto salvation; I am talking about purpose.
You come to the book of Revelation, and I am going too far ahead, but not for this moment. There you have the Lord speaking to the churches, and to one He says, “Repent, or I will remove thy lampstand out of its place.”
“I have no room for good things, even good things, that fail of the essential purpose of their existence. I have no place for anything that does not fulfil the specific object of its creation or its election.”
Even with Israel, we have to see how God reacted in purpose. The prophecies of Ezekiel are peculiarly and especially for that very object. They are the book of the specific reacting activities of God in relation to purpose.
God chooses in the light of one great, all-inclusive purpose. What He chooses becomes the vessel and instrument of His Spirit and His Spirit’s energies.
I want you to note what I am going to say. Note God’s method with Israel, because it throws such a lot of light upon His method with the church. While the sphere may be different—earthly and heavenly—the principles are exactly the same at all times.
First of all, we have noted that the whole body of God’s people was called according to purpose. The whole body, in the first instance, was called and chosen according to purpose.
Be careful how far our ideas of specific testimony, specific ministry, and specific fellowship lead us away from this one great fact: that the whole church is God’s elect vessel and instrument. The whole church is chosen of God according to purpose.
The history of the church is a deplorable departure from that, but I am not dwelling on it. If the whole body loses that distinctiveness of character and purpose, God moves next to raise up ministries within its frontiers, its sphere.
In the Old Testament they are called prophets; in the New Testament, apostles and prophets. Ministries—not essentially persons, but ministries—within the range, the compass, the horizon of the whole people, to call back, to reannounce, to define, clarify, rebuke, exhort, entreat, and warn, all in the light of the lost distinctiveness of purpose in their life and in their way.
He does raise up vessels and instruments within. First, He meant the whole to be that. But when there is departure, He reacts through the voice of the prophets, or these specific ministries.
Again, those ministries are never intended to end with themselves. They are a call to the whole people of God. They are intended to be a revelation of God’s mind to all His people everywhere—all who are truly called by the Lord’s name.
That is their purpose; that is their range. Their voice must go into all the earth. The ministry must reach to all the people of God.
If all the people of God will not make the response that God desires, we follow the Old Testament closely in this: if, as in the case of the prophets, many of God’s own people turn a deaf or spiteful ear, what was God’s next move? Out of the whole people, a remnant.
A people within the whole who do respond—a remnant to be, on one side, a rebuke to all the others and, on the other side, an example to all the others.
Dear friends, after very much thought about this, I probably have no difficulty in finding your agreement when I speak of God’s purpose concerning the whole church and His will for the whole church. That remains, that remains unaltered.
My own conviction is—and I am open to the Lord to give more light, to correct this judgment if it is faulty—that the local representations of the whole church are God’s intended reaction to a general condition. They are as remnants here and there.
Local representations are God’s purpose in expression: on the one side, to be a rebuke to the general declension in the whole church; and on the other, an example of what God really wants for all His people.
Local churches are in existence not to be something in themselves, not just to be receptacles of teaching and doctrine, proceeding on a certain line of procedure and technique, but to be an impact upon the whole church of God worldwide, for rebuke and example.
Some friends here are in the company at Amersham; some are in the company in Richmond; others in Deal, in Canterbury, and so I could go on—far-off Australia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. You are here as representing local companies of the Lord’s people.
The Lord would say to you this very day that you are not there as a company in any one of those places just to be something with a circle round yourselves, having a nice happy time together in an exclusive fellowship, or getting a lot of teaching and doctrine with which you are filling your heads. You are not there for that.
Every one of these assemblies ought to have a worldwide impact, or to be a rebuke to everything that has lost its distinctiveness of purpose. That is a great purpose and a great contradiction: to be an example, so that if there is anyone seeking to know what God really wants, it shall be found there where you are.
God raises up for this purpose. When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. What for?
For nothing less than the full purpose: “Till we all attain unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” You come back to Ephesians. What is that? That He should fill all things, and that the church should be the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
Something like a sea, like an overflowing vessel—the content with which it is filled touching ranges far beyond its own locality. We hardly touch our own locality. Is this putting too much on? I say that this is what the energies of the Spirit would do.
It was true of churches in the New Testament when they were really in line with the Spirit. When they got out of line with the Spirit, they immediately turned in on themselves and got into a terrible lot of Babylonish confusion and contradiction.
While they kept in line with the Spirit, far beyond their own doors people were hearing and talking about them. Out from them, to ever-widening circles and ranges, the testimony went forth in person and in report. This is the kind of rumour that is good. All rumours are not, but this is the kind of rumour that is good.
Now note, and I must come back to emphasize this: God acts sovereignly over this matter of vessels. He acts sovereignly when He is in His way of reaction.
He did, of course, with the whole, as we have seen, in His sovereign choice and election. But that sovereignty of God becomes specific when He is in reaction. For His own reasons, which He may never explain and which you can never explain on any natural grounds, He lays His hand upon an instrument.
It may be personal, an individual, in relation to His purpose and His reaction to recover what has been lost. Then He may sovereignly act over a remnant, a company, here and there.
There is no explanation on any other ground than that God has brought that company, or those companies, sovereignly into existence for a specific purpose—not just for a general thing, but a specific thing: a recovery movement.
Not to be something in itself, again exclusive. God save us from that exclusiveness in mentality or in any other way. But God acts sovereignly.
We are keeping close to Israel—Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a born and trained priest. The training for the priesthood was a very exacting thing. Priesthood had to be very exact and very exacting. It had to be a very intelligent body.
The priest had to handle the sacrificial lamb. A lamb would never be brought for sacrifice to the temple, when things were right, without the best natural judgment having pronounced it clear, free of all blemish or spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
But that was not good enough for the priest. The person who brought it may have looked at it and watched it for a long time, saying, “Well, I can find absolutely no fault in this lamb, so I take it.” But that was not good enough for the priest.
He received it, but set it aside for a certain definite period under the closest scrutiny. That sacrifice must never be offered to God if there is a hair of another colour from the rest. It had to be absolutely perfect under the scrutiny of a trained eye.
The best critics in the world were these trained priests. That was the good before God. They were answerable to God not to offer anything with blemish. Their training in that matter and in many other ways was a very thorough training. Ezekiel was a trained priest.
At the age of thirty—the age when he was to graduate from the school of priesthood into the actual ministry of the priesthood—the Lord called him to be a prophet, to leave his priestly work behind, and to take up another vocation for which he was not trained.
That was the cry of some of these prophets. Jeremiah, you remember, said, “I cannot speak: I am but a child. I am not trained and qualified for the job to which You have called me.”
Ezekiel was called to be a prophet, and the Lord had to give him a lot of assurances when He called him. Read the first chapter. “Son of man, I send thee to a people, not of a strange tongue. If I sent thee to them, they would hear thee. I send thee to the people of Israel; they will not hear thee. But speak, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. I make thy forehead hard against them.”
He needed encouragement for this work. He was not qualified for it. It was a sovereign act of God.
You may say, “Oh, well, God will choose those who are really naturally qualified and trained.” Do not you believe it. He may use some qualifications and some training sovereignly afterward, and they come in very useful; we do not despise them. Otherwise, we should be setting Paul aside.
But when God acts, He does not act on natural grounds like that. This is a sovereign act, and it applies to these ministries. Mark you, it must be God. It must be God choosing.
If you and I get into a position for which God has not called us, it is going to be terrible tragedy and exposure. We shall sooner or later be a laughingstock, and we shall want to get out as quickly as we can by any door. We can only be in this because God has put us in—put us in.
That may apply to individuals; it does in the Word of God, and it does now. But remember, the same principle is passed on to the remnant or to the company. In the first instance, God brings these into being.
Oh, how we have gone astray over this! How Christendom has gone astray—organized Christianity, as we call it—going out to form churches, set up churches, set up testimonies here and there. God have mercy on us! We do not get very far with that.
No, this thing must come out of the sovereignty of God. All those churches in the New Testament were acts of the sovereignty of God. Look at Philippi. God’s stamped act of sovereignty is upon it; there is no doubt about it.
Paul saw in a vision the man of Macedonia. This is the sovereignty of God, cancelling out certain other things and directing his attention thither. He said, “We assuredly gathered that the Lord had called us to preach the Word there.” So he went.
But there he met difficulty and opposition, and at once hell rose up to say, “No, not here.” But the sovereignty of God said, “Yes.” Jails, earthquakes—anything—had to contribute and come under the divine sovereignty. This is a thing which God has done.
Oh, that every one of our assemblies were like that: something that God has done, really. Go back and pray about it. These things have got to be born out of heaven by the Holy Spirit of God. They have to be there and function because, for no other reason, God put them there and wanted their testimony in that place—wanted a lampstand there, wanted the vessel there.
The point, then, is the sovereign act of God reacting toward the whole, because it must be like this. If it was true in Ezekiel’s history and in the New Testament, you notice John the Baptist was born into the priesthood by priestly descent.
Zacharias was a priest. John was a Levite by birth. Did John ever act as a priest? No. You may say, in principle perhaps he did when he pointed to the Lamb, but he was not a functioning priest. He was a prophet—the greatest of the prophets.
What was his function as a prophet, sovereignly in the power of the Holy Spirit from his very birth? Was it not to rebuke the departure of the nation from the purpose of God and, in himself, to show what God wants?
But there is One greater than that. Jesus is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. That is His highest function. Is His function of priesthood here in redemption? Yet even He had to suspend His priesthood while He became a prophet.
Not until the end—in John 17, and from there to the garden, to the judgment hall, and to the cross—did He take up His priestly function. Until then, it had been in suspense while He was functioning as a prophet of God.
That is what they said: “Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word.” To rebuke the nation—and my word, He did that! To show in His own Person what God requires of His people; to suffer and lay down His life for their redemption.
He is God’s inclusive and supreme example of sovereignty in the history of this world. God reacts sovereignly against the loss of distinctiveness of purpose amongst His people: to recall, to rebuke, to express.
There, this morning, we must leave it, and follow on, if the Lord will, from that very point this afternoon. Seek to keep continuity in your minds.
How can we gather this up and focus it? Have you seen? You may not be an individual prophet. You may not be an Ezekiel. You may not be a Paul. You may not be any one of these particularly chosen vessels or elect instruments in the individual sense, but you may be a part of a remnant.
This is very testing. So many people want to be something themselves personally, have their ministry, fulfil some aim in history, and go out preaching. The most difficult thing for them is to be content with being one of a company chosen of God for a specific worldwide purpose, and to be in that with all their heart.
But thank God for all those dear, thankful people of His who do not revolt against such a position, ambitious for their own personal ministry, but are content—not just to be passengers, not just to be a passive, latent part of an assembly, but to be there on the spot, in every gathering and in every function of the company, a contributing factor toward a corporate purpose for God.
What would we do without all those people who are not Ezekiels or Pauls or anything like that, but who are there because they feel, “I am a part of something. I am not that something. That something does not focus in me. But I am a part of something that God wants as expressive of His mind in this place and in that place, and I give myself to that.”
Go back, the old rank and file, as you are so often called. Go back again to your company where you are. Do not worry if God has not sovereignly made you what people call a prophet. But see to it that you are functioning relatedly with others there, to be for God His vessel and instrument.
It may be rebuke, but what really must be exemplified is the showing of what God wants. So help us, God.