Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father Who is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which He was received up, after that He had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom He had chosen.
I want you to note the words, “concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.”
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
And have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.
Being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh.
Ye are a letter from Christ.
But if all prophesy, and there come in one unbelieving or unlearned, he is reproved by all, he is judged by all;
the secrets of his heart are made manifest; and so he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is among you indeed.
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a Son of man.
The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks are seven churches.
And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have seen, and behold, a candlestick all of gold, with its bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps, which are upon the top thereof;
and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
And I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord?
Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these are? And I said, No, my lord.
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it.
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
For who hath despised the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel; these are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made, even its base, and its shaft; its cups, its knops, and its flowers, shall be of one piece with it.
And there shall be six branches going out of the sides thereof; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side thereof, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side thereof.
Their knops and their branches shall be of one piece with it; the whole of it one beaten work of pure gold.
And thou shalt make the lamps thereof, seven; and they shall light the lamps thereof, to give light over against it.
And the snuffers thereof, and the snuffdishes thereof, shall be of pure gold.
Of a talent of pure gold shall it be made, with all these vessels.
And see that thou make them after their pattern, which hath been showed thee in the mount.
And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.
In the tent of meeting, without the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord: it shall be a statute for ever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.
Now, this evening, I come to the last point that I want to make in answer to the question, “Why are you at Halford House?” We have actually covered six points, and this is the seventh.
Those of you who were with us some ten or eleven years ago will remember that we never covered this point then. It was perhaps the point that we did not see. There are two points that we have added to the five that we studied at that time.
When I come back, the Lord willing, we will take up a number of other matters, all in connection with the answer to this question: “Why are you at Halford House?” But I am very glad that we come to this point this evening.
My seventh point is this:
The church, which is His body, is the manifested presence of Christ.
I will repeat that: the church, which is His body, is the manifested presence of Christ.
Having said all that we have said thus far—and we have said quite a lot—we need once more to ask ourselves one simple question: Why is the supreme figure used of the church in the New Testament the figure of the body?
You will find that this figure of the body is used more than any other symbol or figure of the church.
We have said quite a lot in these past weeks, touching upon various things which are, shall we say, more earthly in their outworking and practical in their content. If we were to leave it there, I believe we would have lost perhaps the most vital point of all in this matter of the recovery of the church.
Now, what is a body? What is a body? It is a good question.
It is nothing, surely, if it is not the means by which the personality of a person is expressed. What else is a body for?
A body is the place where your personality is located. Your body is not your personality, but it is the place where your personality is located. Yet it is more than simply located there. Generally speaking, your personality is located in a body as the means by which it expresses itself.
Your personality is expressed, if you are released in some way, apart from Christian things, in the way you dress, in the way you behave, in your character, in your reactions, in your gestures, in your gesticulation. All these things express the kind of person that you are. They give you away.
That is why some people, especially British people, are inhibited. It is like the death of giving themselves away, so they would prefer to keep themselves entirely in. But, in fact, that itself gives them away, and we discover the kind of people that are inside the body.
The body is the means by which the mind of a person, the heart of a person—well, the person—is manifested. My heart is manifested and expressed through my body. If I have feelings, they come out through the mouth; they come out in the eyes, which are often called the windows of the soul.
Or perhaps your will comes out. You can see it, as you get older, in the lines on your face. You cannot help it. No cosmetics in the world, no foundation cream in the world, will get rid of those lines which betray the will of a person.
In the end, these things come out in our bodies, because we express our will through our bodies, in the posture that we take and in the facial expressions that we use.
Again, the mind is expressed through the body, because in the end everything a man thinks finally determines the way he behaves.
Therefore, the body is supremely a means of expression—a means, if you like, of the manifesting of the inward person. The invisible part of you is expressed and manifested through your body.
Now the church is the body of Christ. The church is His manifested presence. His mind, His heart, and His will are to be expressed and manifested through His body.
Certainly, I think we can say—and all of us would agree here—that this is gloriously true of the church in the future.
I think everyone agrees that one day the church is going to be the bride, the wife of the Lamb, the city in which there is no actual temple, but in which the Lamb is there and the glory of God shines out in radiance.
As I have often described it, it is rather like an electric light bulb. You can only see the shape of the bulb when the light is off. But if it is transparent and clear, when the light is on you lose all shape of the bulb in the glory of the light that radiates from it.
That is what the city of God will be like. It is very interesting: we are told that it is made of gold like transparent glass. You have never seen gold like that. From one end of the city to the other, there is not one single thing that could cast a shadow. It is transparent throughout. It is, of course, symbolic transparency.
It is the glory of God that lightens it, and the nations walk in the light thereof.
For instance, in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, we read:
When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed.
I think that is wonderful, really: “marvelled at.” People will just marvel one day. Who are the people who marvel? That is a point, but we will not go into it now. Those of you who have been on the course know that we have dealt with it a little.
One day the glory of the Lord, the character of the Lord, the beauty of the Lord, the power of the Lord, the infinite grace and mercy of the Lord, is going to be marvelled at in you and me. People are going to look at us and say, “Goodness! Is that what came out of that lost material? Is that what God could do with that unworthy, ugly substance?”
Certainly the angels will marvel as they look on. I do not know what the nations are that walk in the light of it, but they are going to marvel at what they see in the church of God.
You have it again in symbolic form in Revelation 21:11:
Having the glory of God: her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal.
Then, in Revelation 21:22-24:
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof.
And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.
And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof.
Is that not amazing? I think we can all absolutely agree that one day the church—the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bride, the wife of the Lamb, the holy city, New Jerusalem—is going to be His manifested presence.
All His excellencies, all His glory, all His power, all His beauty, all His resources, will be manifested, revealed, shown, and made known through the church.
But surely—and this is the point—that is as certainly true now as it is of the church in the future.
Although the full glory of it all remains for the future, the principle holds good. We are not going to become the body of the Lord; we are the body of the Lord now. The principle of His manifesting His presence through His body here on earth—the church in its practical expression in time and history—holds good.
For instance, look at the little words in 1 Corinthians 12:27:
Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.
Not, “You will be the body of Christ,” but, “You are the body of Christ,” right here and now. The whole point of a body is that it manifests the life that is within it. It manifests the character, the mind, the heart, and the will of the person who is resident in that body.
That is why in Acts 1:1 we read, “The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.”
The one who wrote Acts, as is generally accepted, was Luke—Dr. Luke—and he is referring to his first work, which we now know as the Gospel according to Luke. Often in the early church, the Gospel according to Luke and the Book of Acts were together.
You see, they were two parts of one work. The Gospel according to Luke was what Jesus began both to do and to teach. Acts was what Jesus continued to do and to teach.
The Gospel according to Luke was what the Lord Jesus began both to do and to teach personally, as the Head of the new man. But Acts is what He continued both to do and to teach in and through His body.
Do not overlook that little word, “began.” Jesus began both to do and to teach. The whole implication is that the Lord Jesus is going on, going on, doing and teaching.
But how? By His Holy Spirit. Where? In and through the church.
We are now, on this earth, the members of Christ. Turn to 1 Corinthians 6:15:
Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ?
This word “members” just means, as you know from the word “dismember,” parts of a body. You are members of Christ. You are part of Christ. You are like His arms, His legs, His feet, His hands. You are His members. You belong to Him in that intimate way.
Again, all the members together constitute a body. Romans 12:5 tells us:
So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
Or we can put it another way: we are His complement, His fulness. This would almost seem blasphemous if Scripture did not say it.
In Ephesians 1:22-23, we are told that the church is His body, “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” He fills everything in everyone, and thus the body becomes His fulness—His complement.
My body, in a sense, every single member of my body, every single function and organ, is governed, as it were, by my head. My head fills every single part of my body—everything in everyone. Without my head, they could not work. My head gives them harmony and cohesion.
Thus my whole body becomes the fulness, the complement, of my head. In other words, my head expresses itself through my body.
If I want to say, “Come,” my hand does not just say, “Come.” They cannot see the glint in your eye when you merely say, “Come.” No—my body, my arm, my hand, has become the complement of my head.
If I were to say, “You see the text over on the wall,” and then merely say, “You will see the picture on the left-hand wall,” you might ask, “Which picture?” But if I say, “You see the picture here on the left-hand wall,” immediately you know. My hand, my finger, has become the complement of my head. It is the means by which my head expresses its mind, its will, and its feelings.
Now, in precisely this way, Christ would, through us, move and think and will.
This is the whole point of the church. It is not that we might just have meetings, that we might just have Bible studies, that we might just sort of knock up against one another now and again, as if that did any good in itself.
That is not the point of the church. The real point of the church is that Christ may be able to think through us, act through us, move through us, love through us, and will through us. That is the point of the church. Do not think it is anything else or other.
The rest may be valuable and may have its part, but this is the supreme glory of union with Christ. Furthermore, it is these things that the Lord looks for as the goal—the high calling with which you and I have been called.
We are not just going to drift around heaven, playing harps and singing little songs. The Lord has a glorious vocation for the church, a glorious calling for the church, and we do not even really know what it is.
Except that it is in the most intimate, glorious, and eternal union with Himself, in such a way that He is going to think through us, act through us, rule through us, will through us, and love through us.
If there had been no fall, if there had been no sin, all this would have taken place. God, in His grace—His infinite grace—has brought us back into His eternal purpose and given us back His original goal and objective.
Unfortunately, the parenthesis of sin, of time and sin, has obscured what the Lord originally intended to do once He had brought us into that union. We do not know all that lies ahead.
You have two ways of looking at marriage: either it is the end or it is the beginning. Only two ways of looking at it—the end or the beginning.
Is the marriage of the wife of the Lamb with the Lamb the end, or is it the beginning? Is it the end of everything, or is it the beginning of everything?
Well, I think it is both. It is the end of one long, glorious story in the history of His dealings with us, which has led us finally to the actual marriage.
We have not even reached the marriage yet, by the way. We are engaged. Only the Jewish and Eastern engagement was a much more definite thing than our engagement. It really did almost mean that you were wedded, though not in complete consummation.
That is just where you and I are. We are spoken for. But there is coming a day when we are actually going to be married.
At the end of this long story of the Lord’s ways with us, is that the end? Are we going to know anything about what lies beyond? We do not know what He is going to do with us or what He is going to use us for. What is going to be in the future? We have thousands and thousands of questions, piled one upon another.
It would all be speculation, because the Lord has drawn a veil over the whole thing—just to stop more schools of interpretation and theology. Yet He has given us enough to see the panorama, enough to lift us out of a rut, out of becoming parochial and tied down to the littleness and pettiness of life down here.
When you begin to look at it like that, it is tremendous. What is the challenge?
The church was never meant to be a mere preaching place, a mere congregation, a mere round of meetings, a conference centre with glorious ministry, a mere evangelistic agency existing to get people saved, or an exclusive club of the elite with greater knowledge and deeper spiritual measures than others who have separated themselves from the world and gathered themselves together.
That is not the church. Nor is the church a matter of mere pattern, mere technique, mere New Testament order, mere functions or ministries—glorious and tremendous as they may be—or gifts, spiritual and useful as they may be.
No. The church is the very presence of Christ manifested.
Now, my dear friends, I am not talking against gifts, ministries, or functions, because we have said a lot about them in these previous weeks. I am not talking against preaching, gatherings, or Scripture. Scripture says, “Not forsaking our own assembling together.” I understand all that.
But do you mean to tell me that that is all the church is? A routine of meetings? A place where a message is preached? A place where prayer is offered? Is that all the church is? A place where hymns are sung, where people now and again get saved, and where others are dragged through various trials and difficulties?
Is that all that the church is? Is that what it consists of? My goodness, I have the greatest sympathy with the man in the street, the man of the world, who says, “Is that all? Is that all your gospel?”
I have the greatest sympathy with so many of our generation who turn completely away from Christianity as they see it. I understand it, because it seems so little and petty, so small, with nothing to say to us.
This matter of the church has much, much more to say in the matter of evangelism, in the matters of service and transformation, and in so much else than any of us have hitherto realised.
What is the church? The church is nothing less than the manifested presence of Christ.
What do I mean? Let me put it this way: it is the place where men and women find God, and where God finds men and women.
I am not talking about a building. I am not talking about an institution. I am not talking about an organisation. You understand? I am talking about His body.
Just as the temple and the tabernacle of old symbolised this gloriously: “If you want an audience, come. I will meet you here. This is My dwelling place. This is My habitation. This is My home. If you wish to make an offering, come within My courts, and I will meet you.”
There God could meet with men, and men could be sure that they had found God. There, as it were, man could touch God and God could touch man.
What is the church? The church is where the world can see and hear and touch and handle God.
In other words, what I am saying is this: the church is the continuation of what the Lord Jesus began to do. That is what we mean by the testimony of Jesus.
In His day, it was a personal temple. “I am that temple.” The world could find God, and God could find the world. Publicans, sinners, harlots, thieves, tax gatherers—they all found God in that human body. And God found them in that human body.
It did not matter who it was: the religious, the decent Nicodemus, or others, whoever it was. In Christ, they found God, and God found them.
Let me put it another way. They could see God. They could see the colour of His eyes. They could see the tears on His face. They could see His smile. They could see Him. They could hear Him. They could touch Him, and they often touched Him. They were touching God.
You remember the story of the little woman. I always love it because I cannot help visualising it. That little tiny lady—I often wonder how she got through to the front. She must have had a very determined spirit.
She pressed through that great press. Peter said, “This great multitude throng Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?” That is the word we would use today: she was crushed.
But that little tiny woman with an issue of blood—she must have been weak, I would have thought, one weak little woman—somehow that scraggy, bony arm went under someone else’s arm and touched the hem of His garment. In an instant, she was healed.
Now, my point in telling the story is not merely that she was healed, glorious though that is. Everyone was touching Him. The Lord said, “Who touched Me?” Peter said, “The whole multitude throngs Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?”
But He said, “Someone did touch Me, for I perceived that power had gone forth from Me.” Do you understand? They were touching God. They did not know it, but they were touching God.
That is why John, mysteriously, writes in his first letter, in its first chapter and first verses:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life—
and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us—
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also.
In other words, John was telling us that God could be seen and heard.
Now, do you know what the Lord Jesus said about that temple of His body? He said:
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
He spoke of the temple of His body. That is precisely what happened. Now He not only has His own personal body, but there is a spiritual body through which He continues to do and teach.
What is the church? The great evangelistic mission of the church is not only to preach. It is to reveal God in its very being.
This, I dare say, is where we have lost out. We have considered it to be merely a matter of preaching, and we have lost the other truth: that along with the preaching must be the presence of the church.
I do not just mean the presence of people. I mean the presence of the body of Christ.
Christ never said in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I will visit them.” He never said, “There I will rest with them.” He never said, “There I will use them.” He never said, “There I will rule over them.”
He said:
Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
You cannot get away from it. There I am in the midst of them: the manifested presence of Christ.
They are to be the means by which He expresses Himself. I want you to note the little preposition “in.” Literally, it is “into”—gathered into My name. It is a picture of the body again, gathered into the name.
My members are gathered into the name of Lance Lambert. They are all in my body, joined to my head, and I have the name Lance Lambert. So they are gathered together into my name, and I am in the midst of them.
Have you got it? I am in the midst of my members. I am not on the other side of the room. I am here in the midst of my members. They are gathered together into my body. They share my name. I am in the midst of them.
This is what the Lord Jesus meant. If you want to study it, go back to the Old Testament. See what the Lord means when He says, “You shall not offer your offerings anywhere you choose, but where I shall choose to cause My name to dwell.”
Where was the place where He caused His name to dwell? Jerusalem. And where was the temple? All of which is a picture of this one thing of which we are speaking.
I want you to note the little word “for” in Matthew 18:20. What is the “for” related to? Listen to Matthew 18:18:
Verily I say unto you, what things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then again:
If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father Who is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together into My name, there am I. You see, the whole point is what you do. If you are agreeing together, you do not just agree to agree. You agree because, as it were, mysteriously, you are synchronised. You have somehow been gloriously brought into harmony.
Then it will be done. Why? Because where two or three are gathered into His name, there He is in the midst. He would express Himself. That is the point of it.
He would express Himself. He would reveal Himself through and in His own. He would convey not only by our words, and not only even by our actions, but—listen to this—by our being.
He would convey His love, His truth, His power, His authority, His grace, His faith. We could go on and on. Salvation is life.
The whole point of the church is not that someone stands up in the pulpit and says, “Christ is life,” and it just hangs in the air. Rather, not only are those words said, but there is the very reality which they describe.
When men and women come in, they not only hear the Word of God preached, but intuitively they know it is so. It is not only the words or the actions.
This is the thing that has been lost. Where do we find churches like this? We have enough preaching places, and even there, honestly, what do they communicate?
If we could only have the Word of God preached in all these preaching places, perhaps that would be one thing. Yet even that would not be enough. We need the presence of the Lord. We need the manifested presence of Christ through His body.
Do not look upon me as some extremist, because you only have to read the Book of Acts and you will see all this in black and white.
Of course, you will say to me, “Yes, what happened when Paul stood up, or Paul and Barnabas, or Paul and Silas, or some of the others? There was no church.” Of course, all right.
But see what happens when a church comes into being. These great and mighty evangelists do not say, “Well, that is the work finished.” Oh, no. They come back after a little time, and they appoint elders in every town.
In other words, all these little groups have blossomed and flourished and fruited and increased, so that they can find elders in them. Is that not extraordinary?
No theological colleges, no theological seminaries, no missionary schools. I cannot say these things have no value, but what I am saying is that they seemed to do awfully well without them. Really.
Why? I suggest it is because it was not only words and action, but being. In other words, there was a corporate being, as well as proclamation and activity.
The church, therefore, is not some spiritual machine or some spiritual technique—something cold, correct, and inhuman.
The church is something which lives and breathes, laughs and cries, travails and understands.
I want to suggest to you very, very seriously that when that is missing, everything is missing. Everything is as simple as that.
If the church is not breathing, living, feeling, loving, and caring, you can pack it up—it is over. It is as simple as that, because the church never was and never will be spiritual machinery.
That is why the Lord, at the end of the Bible, says it is a wife, not a bit of machinery or a spiritual technique. A wife is not a piece of spiritual machinery. He wants something that lives and breathes, moves and feels, and understands.
I suggest to you that this is why the Lord is sometimes so seemingly harsh in some of His messages, when everything seems so good, so right, and so correct, and we cannot understand why the Lord seems so hard in His rebuke.
But the Lord has always wanted a bride. If He had wanted a machine, we need not have had all this mess and all this trouble. We could have done away with all the millennia of time. It would have been utterly simple. The Lord could have got His machinery perfectly.
But the Lord is not interested in machinery, and it seems to me that we all have an earthbound tendency to degenerate and deteriorate into machinery. It is so much easier, is it not?
And yet it is not. As soon as we degenerate into that, we know that we are not what we are supposed to be. We know it. Deep down within there is a huge question mark.
That is why you find so much unhappiness among the children of God. It is not just the old nature, of course. There is the old man, plenty of that. But it is not just the old nature. It is this deep-seated, intuitive sense that we were never meant to be machines. We were never meant to be some technique, some pattern.
We were meant to be in relationship—together with Him and with one another.
In other words, what I am simply saying is that the church is the new man.
I believe that, because of the way we have theologically understood that phrase “new man,” we have missed the point.
The Lord says in Colossians 3:10-11, “Ye have put on the new man,” and then a little later He says, “Christ is all, and in all.”
Again, in Galatians 3:28, it says:
There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.
One new man. Now, a man is a head and a body—a head and a body. You will see that this new man is a corporate being, because in Him there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. In other words, there are many individuals in a corporate being.
This new man is Christ and His own.
Why do I say that many of us have missed the point? Because I believe we tend to think of it as merely a kind of theological teaching: “Put on the new man.” We miss the real point, which is simply this: the church cannot be less human than her Lord, and she cannot be more spiritual.
We are the new man. He—that is, the Lord Jesus—is the perfect example of the kind of humanity God wants. We share a new humanity. We share a new kind of man, but the accent is on humanity.
If this message could get over in Christian circles—and I am not now talking about where there is so much superficiality, but rather where there is too much so-called depth—it would be a great deliverance. We have become like spiritual automatons, like spiritual machines.
Whereas the Lord wants us to be the new man: man, the new human man.
In 1 John 2:6, we read:
He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked.
Why did I say that the church cannot be less human than her Lord? I will tell you why: because many of us Christians are far less human than the Lord.
He was never a machine. He hungered. He thirsted. He slept. He grew weary. He cried.
Some people think it is quite unspiritual to cry, and in that they are less human. Is that not an extraordinary thing? Do you think God wants us to be less human?
He wants something not according to the oldness, but according to the newness—that new humanity which we see in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When I say that we are not to be more spiritual, I do not mean that you can be too spiritual. What I mean is that kind of pseudo-spirituality which is artificial and which is always technique.
It does not come from the life within. It is not the product or fruit of that life. In my little experience, every person I have really found to be full of the Lord has, in the proof of achievement, been so normal.
They can laugh, and they can cry. Some people do not cry, by the way; we are not all meant to go around weeping. Some people just do not cry, all right. Some people do cry, all right.
You do not want that dreadful hankering after melancholia which afflicts some believers, as if that is godliness. It is not godliness at all.
But if you and I are this way or that way, then we have to be just what we are. God wants us to be human beings. Let me put it again: He wants not machinery, but human beings.
In Luke 19:41, it says that when Jesus saw the city, He wept over it. I think the word is that He wailed.
Then in John 11:35, the shortest verse, it simply says:
Jesus wept.
I suggest to you that this is one little window into the character and life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it reveals that He was absolutely human.
You know as well as I do that the fact that He wept at Lazarus’s grave has been a great point of controversy and perplexity. Why did He weep when He knew that He was going to raise him from the dead?
People have come to the most marvellous and complicated solutions because somehow they feel that He must be a bit of spiritual machinery. But He was human. He was overcome by the circumstances of what was going on. He knew exactly what He was going to do, but that did not stop Him weeping.
Well now, I think we see what I have been saying in the extraordinary way in which love is emphasised in 1 Corinthians 13.
I have said this before here, but at this particular point it needs to be underlined. Right in the middle of dealing with practical matters of the local church—ladies taking part, the Lord’s Table, different functions, harmony in the body, the priesthood of all believers, and later the freedom of the Spirit in gatherings—right in the middle of it lies this most emphatic chapter on love.
If it had been chapter 14 followed by chapter 13, we could all have understood. Then we would have had a wonderful treatise on love and gone on to a wonderful treatise on resurrection.
But why does this whole matter of love come right in the middle of all these practical things of the church?
Look at 1 Corinthians 12:31:
And moreover a most excellent way show I unto you.
The Authorised Version says, “And yet I show unto you a more excellent way”—something else that is better than any of them. The Twentieth Century New Testament puts it, “Yet I can still show you a way beyond all comparison with the best.” Moffatt puts it, “And yet I will go on to show you a still higher way.” Phillips puts it, “And now I shall show you a way which surpasses them all.”
Then look at 1 Corinthians 14:1. The Authorised Version says, “Follow after charity.” Others put it: “Keep on pursuing love.” “Make love your aim.” “Make love your great quest.” “Seek this love.”
Do you not think it is extraordinary that this comes right there? What does it mean? Is it not exactly what I am talking about?
The apostle Paul, in explaining all these practical matters of the church—matters to do with order and pattern and gifts and functions and all these other very important principles—suddenly stops and says, “Now look here. Unless you miss the whole point, I will show you the most excellent way.”
It is not order. That is important; you cannot do without it. It is not truth. You cannot do without truth. It is not gifts. You cannot do without them. It is not the freedom of the Spirit, the harmony of the body, or the priesthood of all believers. These are all vital things.
But the most important and most excellent way of all, for the world to get life, is this divine love.
Most of us have understood it like this: I must personally know something of love; you must personally know something of love. But really what Paul was trying to say was this: the church has got to become the embodiment of divine love. It has got to become the expression of divine love.
Not sentimental, not sloppy, not falling over itself all over the place. No, but divine love—the kind of love that we know in God: firm, true, faithful, which will not flinch from disciplining us when we need it.
That kind of love. The church has got to be the embodiment of divine love—not something that goes head over heels and loses itself, but something patient and enduring: divine love.
That is why John, who was nearest to our Lord, when he came to write his letters, spent over three of the chapters of 1 John talking about love.
It is not merely the love of God in the abstract. Through chapters 2, 3, and 4 of 1 John, you have all these formulations: “If you do not love your brother, you do not know God. How do you know you love God? Are you loving one another?”
Why was John going on and on about this? People say, “Oh, John was so simple.” Yes, he was—up to a point. What he was really saying was this: you do not know what divine love is until it is lived out.
Make no mistake about it. I think it was Brother Watchman Nee who said that the church’s great ministry was recovery. Is it not interesting that John talks so much about divine love, just in case we get the idea that recovery happens by technique or order?
You cannot get away from it. One of the harshest words of all is in Revelation 2:4-5, where the Lord says:
But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent.
He speaks to a company whom He commends for their works, their labour, their patience, and their toil. Then He says, “I have this against thee: thou didst leave thy first love.”
Then He says, “Repent, and do the first works.” But they were still doing all the works. The works were there. “I know thy works, and thy toil, and thy patience.” But what were the first works? What was the difference? The first works flowed from first love.
Then He says, “Repent, or else I come to thee, and will remove the lampstand.” Is that not a harsh thing to do?
“Lord, this company is a church. This company has all the principles operating. They have the freedom of the Spirit. They test those who call themselves apostles and are not. They hate the Nicolaitans, with their distinction between clergy and laity, and all the rest of it.”
But you see, the Lord’s whole point is this: if they have lost this love, they have lost it altogether. It is only a matter of time before the whole thing is over.
They are going through all the meetings—the Bible studies, going out in the streets, all the rest of it—but they are repetitively attending their own funeral, because they have left their first love.
Now, I say that is a very harsh word if you look at it from one point of view. Why should the Lord do that when everything else was right?
I will tell you why: because of this very point I am trying to make—that the church is the manifested presence of Christ.
We have not nearly finished with this point, and I cannot deal with it at length now, but it is this very manifestation of what God in Christ is—love and light—that makes the impact upon this world.
When people come in and touch love, not a silly thing but a real thing, they know it. No one has to say, “We love you.” They know it.
They touch light, and they know it. They have been in darkness long enough to know it. I suggest that this is the impact, the thing that makes the impact.
Was there any New Testament locality that did not feel the impact and influence of the church in its beginnings? They turned the world upside down.
As I said, it was not merely a matter of preaching, gifts, knowledge, or method. It was the manifestation of the presence of Christ—the sovereign presence of God—through everything and everyone.
That is why, in 1 Corinthians 14, this unsaved man comes in, falls on his face, and says, “God is among you indeed.” Not a marvellous meeting: God is among you indeed.
The manifested presence of God in time.
We could say so much. You will find it in the notes, what we have said about the church being used to manifest things to the unseen world, let alone the seen world.
Scripture speaks of angels desiring to look into these things. There are angels and hosts all around us, and you and I are their object lesson.
“To the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.” Not only men, but angels desire to look into these things. They are being educated by what they see in and through the church.
Do you understand that every time we celebrate the Lord’s Table, we declare His death until He comes? We do not merely go through a little ceremony; we actually proclaim something in the unseen realm.
Paul says:
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Here they all are. They are being instructed. How are they being instructed? They are being made a spectacle of through the church—or, I will not say merely by the church, but in the church—because He is Head over all things to the church.
Every time a battle is won, something more becomes a footstool of His feet. I do not think a battle is won merely by always seeming to be on top. The Lord won His greatest battle when He cried out, “My God, My God.” That was when He won the battle.
Sometimes the church will do that too.
There we are. I have made a few references to the lampstand. When I come back, we shall talk about the testimony of Jesus as a separate matter, and in the notes you will find something about the lampstand.
Let me just say this: it is not, I am sure, an accident or a strange coincidence that we come back to the matter of the lampstand.
The lampstand, we know, in Zechariah 4, is immediately connected with the building and with the top stone. In Revelation 1:20, we are told that the seven golden lampstands are the seven churches. We all know that.
But if you look in Exodus 25, you will see this golden lampstand. What is it? Is it simply an exceedingly costly, valuable, beautiful ornament?
It is pure gold. It is beaten work. Of course it has pure olive oil as fuel for the light within it. All right. But tell me: is it just an ornament? Is it a costly ornament wrought at great cost, of pure gold with pure beaten olive oil within its lamps?
We know those things have significance. The gold speaks to us of the divine character and life of Christ, out of which the church is formed. The beaten work, or one beaten work, speaks of His oneness. We know that.
We are perfected into one, knit together, perfectly joined. The oil speaks of the light—the pure life of Christ by the Holy Spirit.
But tell me, what is the point of this golden lampstand? Is it an ornament? Pure gold, beaten work, oil in its lamps? It is not an ornament. It is a light.
That is the whole point. The church is the manifested presence of Christ. She is alive. She is on fire, if you like. There is a fire there, and light there.
Do you understand what I am trying to say? I am trying to say that the church holds the testimony of Jesus. That is yours.
That lamp was to be a light continually, from generation to generation. You and I, the church, are to hold the testimony of Jesus consistently and continually. It is the manifested presence of Christ.
If you look at the Book of Acts, you see it everywhere. When Ananias and Sapphira came up against it, they lost their lives. Things were discovered all over the place, within and without: the manifested presence of God.
Oh, my dear child of God, that is a hard message to receive. It is much easier to keep the technique, the pattern, the order, or the definition of principle.
But this that I have spoken about tonight, in the ultimate and final analysis, is the thing that matters. If that is missing, I dare to say the lampstand has gone.
Now, Lord, we commit ourselves to Thee. O Lord, this matter finds us all out.
We only bow, but Lord, we praise Thee and worship Thee for Thy grace toward us all, for shedding abroad in our hearts Thy love and life.
Now, Lord, we pray that Thou wouldst keep us in that relationship with Thyself and with one another, in love and in life, which means, Lord, that Thou canst manifest Thy presence in and through us as Thy body.
O Lord, do that, we pray. Burn it into our hearts: when this matter of our relationship with Thee breaks down, the rest breaks down. When our relationship with one another breaks down, the rest breaks down.
Lord, help us. God, hold fast the Head and find the body.
Then we ask it all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.