I wonder if we could turn to Ephesians, chapter 3—the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 3. I will read from verse 1. I am going to read it in the Jerusalem Bible this evening.
Before we read this, may I just say one or two things about this time? The burden in our heart for these days was really for a deeper and solid teaching, which we believe can only really come by dependence upon the Lord—and indeed, if our hearing is right as well.
One of the things we would beg of you all is to really seek the Lord earnestly for revelation. There are two things, really, we would ask you to particularly take hold of the Lord for.
The first is real revelation, because what we are dealing with over these days is not just a light subject. It goes really to the heart of everything. We know also that the enemy is very much against it. If he can just help it to get into us as a theory, he does not mind that quite so much. But once it dawns upon us, it is as if our whole lives are reorientated—not just for time, but for eternity. And that needs revelation.
The apostle Paul once said, when writing this very letter, that he was praying for these people that the spirit of wisdom and revelation should be given to them in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that is the first thing: we need to really ask the Lord for revelation.
The second thing we need to ask for is that we may really be doers of the Word. This is one of the reasons we have set aside a room specially for prayer, so that in all our fellowship, which we hope will be joyful and happy, there is one room where people can go in and be absolutely quiet.
Feel quite free after gatherings to slip in there and seek the Lord, if God has been speaking to you and you want to get away and be quiet. There may be places in the garden, for instance, that you can get away to as well and sit quietly. But take these times. Do not let them just be teaching sessions, and no more. Take them really to the Lord, and ask Him to give you that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we will read in the Jerusalem Bible, Ephesians 3, from verse 1.
So I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you pagans—you have probably heard how I have been entrusted by God with the grace He meant for you, and that it was by a revelation that I was given the knowledge of the mystery, as I have just described it very shortly.
If you read my words, you will have some idea of the depth that I see in the mystery of Christ.
This mystery, that has now been revealed through the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets, was unknown to any men in past generations.
It means that pagans now share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to them in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
I have been made the servant of that gospel by a gift of grace from God, Who gave it to me by His own power.
I, who am less than the least of all the saints, have been entrusted with this special grace: not only of proclaiming to the pagans the infinite treasure of Christ, but also of explaining how the mystery is to be dispensed.
Through all the ages this has been kept hidden in God, the Creator of everything. Why? So that the sovereignties and powers should learn only now, through the church, how comprehensive God’s wisdom really is, exactly according to the plan which He had had from all eternity in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is why we are bold enough to approach God in complete confidence through our faith in Him. So I beg you, never lose your confidence just because of the trials that I go through on your account; they are your glory.
This, then, is what I pray: kneeling before the Father, from Whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name.
Out of His infinite glory, may He give you the power through His Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith; and then, planted in love and built on love, you will, with all the saints, have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.
Glory be to Him Whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
Glory be to Him from generation to generation, in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.
Now this evening we come to the first of these times. We have entitled it:
We will just bow together in a word of prayer.
Lord, how we praise Thee together that Thou art with us, and how we thank Thee for the anointing upon the Head, our Lord Jesus, that runs down to the hem of the garments. We thank Thee for speaking and hearing alike; Thou art sufficient.
We praise Thee, Lord, that we believe in this time it will not just be a teaching time, but, Lord, a time of revelation. May the eyes of our hearts be opened in a new way, Lord. May we be brought to Thy feet in wonder, love, and praise.
O Father, we give ourselves to Thee, that we may all be lost in Thee. In my weakness be strength, Lord, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This matter of vision is absolutely vital. I do not suppose that really needs to be said here this evening.
Prophets are called seers. That is really literally what they are called: seers, people who see something. The Bible, from beginning to end, is the story of vision—God breaking in again and again and again into human circumstances, into human lives, and giving a vision of His glory, a vision of His purpose, a vision of His objective.
I think if the enemy cannot stop us from getting saved, then he will stop us from getting vision, or beginning to understand something of what God has saved us into. It does not matter where you look in the Bible: you will find that this matter of vision is fundamental through every single thing that God has ever done.
Take right back in the beginning Abraham. We are told in Acts 7 that the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, and said to him, “Get thee out of thy father’s house, out of Ur of the Chaldees.”
It was a vision of God—not necessarily a literal vision. It may well have been that, but it is not necessarily that, for we are told in Hebrews 11 that he went out and sought the city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
In other words, he saw something. With the eyes of his heart, he came into an understanding of something which many Christians have not come into. That is the tragedy. Abraham, whilst under the old covenant, which by its very nature was inferior to what we have come into, saw, in many ways, much more than many believers today. And that is our burden.
It does not matter where you turn, you will find this matter. It was Jacob who wrestled with the angel—with the Lord Himself—and saw the face of God, and said, “I have seen the face of God, and I have lived.” He called it Peniel: the face of God.
He was changed from Jacob to Israel, and Israel is the name which has passed to the whole people of God, founded in vision. It was a vision of the glory, the power, and the grace of God.
Oh, we can think of Moses—Moses in the backside of the wilderness, when he turned aside to see that great sight and saw a thorn bush which burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
That was not just some small coincidence. It was one of the greatest revelations God ever made to any human being. It was God revealing Himself to Moses in a way that Moses could understand.
What God was saying was, “Moses, you are this dead thorn bush, and I am the fire. I am the glory. I am the life. I am the power. I AM. Tell them, ‘I AM hath sent you.’”
It was one of the greatest revelations ever given to man. It goes to the very root of God’s conception in the people of God. It goes to the root of God’s conception in what we call the church: that we might be a people who are in ourselves nothing, but are a revelation of the glory, the power, the mind, and the life of God.
Oh, if we could only understand something of this matter. All the prophets were men of vision. Some of them actually called their prophecies “the vision.” Nahum calls his little book The Vision of Nahum. Others call it the visions of so-and-so. They saw something.
It was not just that they saw some parables, some pictures, even literally; but they saw through to fundamental principles, things that govern the whole work of God. Oh, how much you and I need to be people of vision.
When we come to the apostle Paul, of course, he summed it all up in wonderful words when he was before King Agrippa. He said:
Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
It was that vision which mastered Paul from the day he was converted on the road to Damascus to his very last day on earth. He was mastered by vision—a man of vision. He had such a panorama, as it were, before his eyes. He saw so much, because we have got it in his letters.
Now, if we turn to Proverbs 29:18, we meet well-known words, I think, to most of us:
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
You see, in your Revised Standard Version it says, “Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint”; or the New English Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people break loose.”
It is a difficult verse. But the Hebrew word for vision here simply has as its root the thought “to see” or “to behold.” Yet it has the thought not only of seeing something, but of teaching something—of the Word of God.
You will see this if you turn back to 1 Samuel 3:1:
And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision.
There was no frequent vision. So this matter of vision is also connected with the Word of God. We need to understand that in all this matter to do with visions, they are always connected with the Word of God—always the explanation of the Word of God, always the interpretation of the Word of God.
We can be careful of any vision that is extra to the Word of God, or leads us in a way contradictory to the Word of God, or away from its principles. That is just an aside.
But the fact of the matter is this: where there is no vision, the people perish. The word perish is a very interesting word also in Hebrew, because it means to uncover, to be uncovered, to unbind—for instance, to unbind a headdress, to unbind long hair and let it down—to be naked, to let loose, to break loose.
That is why you have this variety of translations. One modern version says, “Where there is no vision, the people go wild.” Another one says, “Cast off restraint.” I think that is the Revised Standard Version. The Authorised Version says, “Perish.” They are all different, but the idea is this: where there is no vision, there is great danger.
We today must be very, very careful. In all that God is doing—and He is doing wonderful things in our day—we have got to be careful that we are people of vision; that we really are understanding the burden of God’s heart, that we have an understanding of the times in which we live, that we have some understanding of the will of the Lord as it is related to us in our day and generation.
Now, that is our burden: where there is no vision, the people perish.
It is the word some of you may want to study. You look up Exodus 32:25. Remember, when Moses came down from the mountain, the people had made a golden calf and were worshipping it, and it says he saw that the people had broken loose. That is the word. It is the same word here in the Authorised Version: perish.
Broken loose; cast off restraint; exposed themselves; got uncovered. Now, one of the greatest dangers whenever the Holy Spirit starts to move is getting uncovered. The enemy’s aim, once people begin to know something of the work of the Holy Spirit, is to push us out into a place where we are uncovered.
So here we have one scripture which I believe is fundamental to all our times in these few days: where there is no vision, the people perish.
We ought to take seriously the warning of church history. Church history, as I trust we will see tomorrow evening, is full of the most amazing interventions of God. Again and again and again, when things have been darkest and most hopeless, God has sovereignly broken in by His Spirit and done a new work, expressed and manifested His glory—not only to, but through, very weak, ordinary people.
But church history has a serious warning. For every single intervention of God, within a generation, has died upon them, has become just a crystallised institutional tradition.
There is much, of course, we could learn again from that. But what we have to at least underline now is that vision determines everything in the end.
Because if, by the grace of God, we can see the thing that lies on the heart of God, and by His grace alone, by the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit, do not deviate from that, we shall be enabled by the grace of God to come right through to the end on course.
Now there are some gloomy prophets who tell us that no one has ever come through on course; that the whole Bible speaks of even the greatest men who failed in the end. But we must thank God for the apostle Paul.
He was as weak and as human as any one of us. In actual fact, he did some silly things. But it still remains true that he could say to King Agrippa, just before he was sent to Rome, “I have not been disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
Later, in his last letter before he died, in 2 Timothy 4:7, he says these wonderful words, which I pray God may be on the lips of all of us when our turn comes to die—if the Lord, praise His name, does not come before and we are raptured:
I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the course.
I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day: and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.
What a wonderful way to end: “I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. I have fulfilled the ministry.”
He made his mistakes, but his heart was in the right place. He had seen something, and what he had seen mastered him.
When we turn to Philippians 3, I think we have a corrective to so much of our littleness. You know, most of us, if we see a truth, we have to expel nearly everything else that went before. So tremendous is the truth that we see that we cannot contain anything else, and we think everything else is absolutely dead—only the truth that we are seeing at that particular moment.
It is true of most of us, is it not? I know that whenever I see a new truth, it seems to me that every single chapter in the Bible speaks about it. I see it everywhere. I think, “Isn’t that amazing? There it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is.” Isn’t that true with you when you see something?
But we are so finite. We have such finite minds and heart-spirits that we can only really contain one truth. That is why we need one another. That is why the tragedy of denominations, in one way, is that they have specialised in different truths. We have got to get us all together. What a fullness we have got. That is why we need each other—but that is, again, by the way.
The fact is, here in Philippians 3 we have a corrective. There is none of this: “Well now then, everybody, listen to me. I have been caught up to the third heaven and heard things which it is not even lawful for a man to utter, so respect me. I am not going to tell you what I saw, but I saw tremendous things. I will tell you what I heard—that I heard tremendous things.” None of that.
Listen to the apostle Paul. This is what this heavenly vision has done to him. He says in Philippians 3:7:
Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.
Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for Whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.
What is this man talking about? Is he not a believer? How does he say, “That I may gain Christ”? Is this not the man that has already written the Roman letter, the first and second Corinthian letters, the first and second Thessalonian letters, and the Galatian letter? Why, most of us would be opening Bible schools!
Just think of it, would you? “Oh, if I had all this knowledge, this revelation this man has got in these letters—just that—I would go all over the world teaching, teaching, teaching. I would say to everyone, ‘Just listen to me. This revelation I have got—I have been caught up to the third heaven. I have heard things it is not lawful for a man to utter, but I will let you have what I can let you have.’”
But not this man. He says, “I count the whole thing but loss, that I may gain Christ, that I may be found in Him.” Then does he believe that you can be saved and lost? What is he talking about?
He goes on. Listen. Philippians 3:10:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead—not the resurrection of the dead, from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold.
What a word. Is not this man a saved man? Is not this man a man with a real experience of what it is to be crucified with Christ, and to know the resurrection of Christ in his body? Is this not the man who said he got the sentence of death within himself, that he should not trust in himself, but in God Who raiseth the dead? Is this not the man who saw triumph after triumph after triumph? Is this not the man who was given the revelation of the mystery hidden from ages in God?
What is he talking about? “I do not count myself yet to have laid hold.”
Some of us only have to get a real experience of the Spirit of God, and we feel we have got it all. There used to be a hymn that made me shudder. Its last verse was, “And now I know it all.”
But you see, here is a man who has got a vision. He has got a vision of such range, of such eternal reach, that he can never speak of himself as having it.
So he says:
But one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Then he adds this beautiful little word:
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.
Oh, how we need vision. How we need vision—the vision of God’s eternal purpose.
Now let me move to a second point I would like to make this evening. There is only one purpose of God. God has not many purposes. He has only one supreme purpose, and if there are purposes, they are all related to that one great, all-determining purpose of God.
Now, if you turn to Ephesians 3, the chapter that we read together, and verse 11, we read these words in the Authorised Version and in the Revised Version:
According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now in the Revised Standard Version, those of you who have that version will see it says, “This was according to the eternal purpose which He has realised in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The New American Standard Bible has gone one better: “This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Or the margin says, “Which He has formed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
There is an eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ. The word is just setting forth. Indeed, it is the Greek word used to translate the Hebrew word for shewbread—the bread of setting forth.
So this purpose of God has been set forth in Christ. It has been carried out in Christ. It has been purposed in Christ. It has been, as it were, realised in Christ. In Him, and in Him alone, we find the eternal purpose of God. He is God’s new creation. He is God’s new man. He is God’s new world.
So much more we could say, again, on this matter. You noticed in the Jerusalem Bible the way they have put this:
So that the sovereignties and powers should learn only now, through the church, how comprehensive God’s wisdom really is, exactly according to the plan which He had had from all eternity in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now get this clear. Let every one of us—may God reveal it to us—understand that God has had in His heart a plan from all eternity, and it was in His Son, Jesus Christ. That was His best. He has had it from all eternity in His Son.
So there is only one purpose, and it is all in Christ. It is in Christ.
You ask us, “What is the eternal purpose of God? What really is that eternal purpose? If you have been saved according to that purpose, if all God’s dealings with you are in the light of this purpose, do you know what it is? Could you say in a sentence what it is?”
Supposing we were now to stop this evening, and we were to give every single one of you a sheet of paper and say, “Now, would you please every one of you write down in a sentence: What is God’s eternal purpose? What is the eternal purpose according to which you have been saved?” Could you do it?
Now, many people say, “Oh, you cannot expect me to put it in a sentence.” But it is true, I am afraid, that if you have to write an essay, you have not really seen. Now, that may seem strange, but it is true. The more you have to write in this matter, the less you have really seen.
When a person has seen something, they can be absolutely lucid and clear. In one sentence—less than a sentence—you can, in fact, put down what is God’s purpose.
Now some people will say straight away, “Well, I do not know. Is not the important thing to be saved? That is the important thing, is it not?”
Well, I always illustrate it like this. If you have a car and you have got to get to Glasgow, there are people who say, “Now, the important thing—the important thing—is to have a car. That is the important thing. You must have a car.”
But there are other people who feel a little more than that, and they would say, “No, no, no, no. The important thing is you must have a car, and you must have fuel. You must have power.”
But what is the good of having a car and petrol if you end up in Exeter?
Some people say, “Well, the main thing is to be sincere.” But we can be sincerely wrong. We can drive in quite the wrong direction.
Now, without trying to be critical or unpleasant, is it not true when we look at Christian work? Is it not true of it? What the prophet Haggai said thousands of years ago: we are earning wages to put into a bag with holes in it.
Oh, the effort we put into Christian work—the activity, the meetings, the money that goes through. Everything goes in, but it all goes so often into a bag that has holes. It disappears. At the end, we do not know really what we are doing. So much expenditure, so much energy, so much money, so much time, and yet at the end of it, hardly anything to really show.
The fact of the matter is, we need to be absolutely clear where we are going. What is God’s direction? What is God’s goal? Of course, we need to have a car—we need to be saved. Of course, we need to have petrol—we need the power as well. We need the power of the risen Christ, meaning the power of the Holy Spirit, if we are going to get anywhere.
But then we must be absolutely clear as to the direction in which we are to go. This is the whole importance of this matter of understanding the purpose of God.
Well, what is the eternal purpose of God? Being saved? There is something bigger than salvation. Our salvation is tremendous, but there is something even bigger than our salvation. Our salvation is a means to an end, not the end in itself.
Or someone says, “Getting others saved—is not that the purpose of God?” Someone puts it a little better, someone a little more deeply taught, and says, “Well, I think it means we are saved to serve.” Saved to serve. Wonderful phrase, and he is absolutely right.
We are saved to serve. What do we mean? What is eternal service, may I ask? Where are we going to serve? How are we going to serve? What does it mean to be saved to serve?
Oh, someone who is far more deeply taught says, “Well, is it not that we should be to the praise of His glory?” Lifted it clean out of Ephesians 1: to the praise of His glory. But just wait. What is glory? What do we mean that we might be to the praise of His glory?
Glory is not just Victorian splendour. You know, we often get the idea of glory that it is one of those great old things where everyone sings “Land of Hope and Glory,” the band blasting out, and then the Queen comes forward and pins the medal on someone’s chest.
But the Bible’s idea of glory is not that at all. The Bible’s idea of glory is something quite different. It is not just splendour. That is why I do not like the New English Bible translating this wonderful word glory by the word splendour. It falls short of the whole meaning, because glory in the Bible is always related to the manifestation of God.
It is not just doing something, but something that God is. Even more wonderfully, it is related to people. The first time the glory of God ever touched the earth was when it came down into the tabernacle, and they could not even enter it because the glory of the Lord filled the whole thing.
At the very end of the Bible, we see the city of God, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of God, having the glory of God.
Now what does all this mean then? Are you all lost? Or have you so far managed to follow us by the grace of God?
Well, now we come to these charts. If you have not got lost now, you will get lost at this point.
You see, there is the most marvellous correspondence between the beginning of the Bible and the end. Nor was this correspondence ever designed by man. When John wrote down the Book of Revelation, it never did occupy, at the beginning, the last part of the Bible. For at least three centuries it was even questioned. It was only really in the fourth century that it finally came to occupy its position as the last book of the Bible.
Now, if you look at this chart, you will see the most amazing correspondence between the first three chapters and the last three chapters. In the first three chapters: heaven and earth. In the last three chapters: a new heaven and a new earth. Well, that is time and eternity.
Satan enters; Satan is cast out forever. Paradise lost; paradise regained. The earth cursed; no more curse. Adam and Eve—only two people—but at the end, a redeemed people whom no man can number.
At the beginning, a garden; at the end, a city. The garden has become a city—a garden city, it is true, but it is a city. The garden has given place to the city. At the beginning, the tree of life; at the end, the tree of life. At the beginning, the river of life; at the end, the river of life.
At the beginning, God walking in the midst of the garden. Once per day, He visited the garden and spoke with Adam and Eve. But in the last part, we have God dwelling in the midst of His own forever, to go no more out. There is no temple there. There is no place where you can go and visit God. God is the whole thing, filling the whole thing.
At the beginning, we have earthly marriage—man and woman in Genesis 2. In the last chapters, we have a heavenly Man, the Lamb, and the wife of the Lamb. In the first three chapters, we have pain, sorrow, and death—Genesis 3:16-19. In the last chapters, no more pain, crying, mourning, or death. The former things have passed away.
In the first three chapters we have three materials. Now, to find these three materials, you have to follow the course of the river. This is very interesting. If you look in Genesis 2, you will see that it is deliberately connected with the river. You follow the course of the river and you find three materials: gold, precious stone—onyx stone—and you find a thing called bdellium.
These three things you find at the beginning. At the end of the Bible, you have only three materials mentioned, out of which the city of God—which is not just a literal city, but which is called the bride of the Lamb—is produced: gold, precious stone, and pearl.
Some people will ask about the version of pearl here. Bdellium, the Hebrew bedolach, is simply a name, although the rabbis in our Lord’s time did argue as to whether it was a pearl that is found in the river. Bdellium, however, is an aromatic plant which, when broken, exudes a substance that dries very quickly into an opaque pearl colour.
During the first three chapters, you have the Spirit of God brooding. The word is, of course, “The Spirit of God was upon the face of the waters,” but He is literally hovering, as an eagle brooding.
Now, when an eagle is hovering over the face of the water, it is looking for something. It is either looking for something to feed itself with, or it is looking for a place to perch somewhere.
But here we have the Spirit of God brooding, as if the Spirit of God could find no rest, as if the Spirit of God could find no inheritance, as if He could not find the thing that He most longed for.
But in the last three chapters of the Bible we have the Spirit and the bride saying, “Come.” At the very end of the Bible, the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” The Spirit of God has finally produced something: the bride. So, as it were, the Spirit and the bride say to all, “Come, come.”
I hope that you can understand, at least, the correspondence. Now, between these two, we have the Lamb slain and a fallen man redeemed. Somewhere between this and this, we understand the eternal purpose of God.
I think it is even more remarkable because if we take the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation, we have the beginning and the end of a matter without the mention of the Fall. It is only in Genesis 3 that we have the Fall come in, and in Revelation 19 and 20 we have the end of that thing—as if the brackets are put into their place again.
The whole thing of time: we have the first two and the last two chapters completely correspond.
Now again, there—I am afraid we have not got enough space—some of you can go and look at that chart. We have got the relationship of the eternal purpose of God to the redeeming purpose of God.
There are many people who believe that the purpose of the Bible is the redeeming purpose of God. Now, I think that the eternal purpose of God, if we could so speak, is greater than the redeeming purpose of God, in the sense that it was His original purpose. The redeeming purpose of God, from the foundation of the world, was that He might save fallen man and bring him back into the original.
So there, you see—in that which is meant to look like a library of books—you had the original intention of God and the Fall, Genesis 1-3; and at the end, the original intention realised and the glory which followed, Revelation 20-22.
Then you have all the books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, all the way through Jude and Revelation. Right through the whole, you have a threefold cord.
Here is the threefold cord which brings the original intention of God and its final realisation together: the Redeemer, the work of redemption, and the redeemed.
Whenever you look in the whole of the Bible, you find that threefold cord. The Redeemer, promised from Genesis 3; the work of redemption—God slew, evidently, an animal and clothed them with skins. Remember, He would not accept Cain’s sacrifice, Cain’s offering of fruit.
All I have tried to show you in this chart—still look at it afterwards—is just how this purpose of God works. The yellow line is the eternal purpose of God, His original purpose. The red is redemption. The brown is the Fall of man.
If only Adam had gone and taken from the tree of life instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then he would have gone straight on to the formation of the bride, the marriage of the Lamb, the city of God, and the ages of the ages.
But he took of the knowledge of good and evil, and so began the whole terrible story of man that you and I know. Yet we have also come, by the grace of God—I suppose nearly everyone in this room—into the redemption of the Lord, the salvation of God, through the seed of the woman, the promised seed of the woman, through the Lamb slain. We have become the redeemed of the Lord.
Now we are taken up through so great salvation back into God’s original purpose.
If there had been no Fall, then it would have been just like this: the creation of man; the tree of life—that is, the receiving of the life of God into us, what we would call now new birth; betrothal, the union with Christ; then transfiguration in glory, just like the Lord Jesus was transfigured in glory as the last Adam.
You see, it was not a spotlight, as we often imagine—a spotlight of glory coming out of heaven shining on Him—but it was glory that came from within Him and completely transfigured His mortal body.
Now, if Adam had never fallen, he would finally have been transfigured in glory through the life of God in him. So, in union with Christ, he would have been transfigured in glory and then would have gone on to the marriage of the Lamb. The betrothal would have given place to the actual marriage, and the city of God and the ages of the ages.
Well now, I do not know whether you get that. What, then, is that purpose? What, then, is that purpose?
In one word, it is Christ. But more—just wait.
According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But just wait. Just wait. Praise God, it is not just Christ alone, but you and me in Him. In Him.
So we have that wonderful little phrase which covers the whole of the New Testament: in Christ, in Christ, everything in Christ.
Blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. “My God shall supply all your need according to the riches of His glory in Christ.” It is in Christ. Everything is in Christ. Where are you? You are in Christ.
You know where it says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world”—surely everyone here knows that—“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Now why does it say “on Him”? Unfortunately, in some of the very new Bible versions, they have obscured this wonderful thing. I mean, the Greek is a preposition of motion. So our original translators scratched their heads and said, “Now, if we say ‘whosoever believeth in Him,’ that is not true. They believe in Him over there. No, that is not true. When they believe, they believe into Him.”
When they have saving faith, God takes them into Christ, and forever He sees them in Christ. Once you have been saved, once saving faith has been given to you, that moment and forever after, God sees you in Christ.
You are redeemed in Him. You are saved in Him. You are clothed with the garments of salvation in Him. You have the garments of praise upon you in Him. You are made powerful in Him. You receive the promise of the Father in Him. Everything is in Him forever afterwards—in Him.
It is simply wonderful when you see it.
It is all so simple. You see, we have got so complex. We try to think round a mass of great long theological terms as to what the purpose of God is, and they get weightier and weightier and weightier. In the end, you have to put an ice pack on your head to really understand the last phrase in the light of the first phrase of the sentence.
But really and truthfully, when it comes to it, the eternal purpose of God is simplicity itself. What is it? It is that you and I, by the grace of God, have been placed in Jesus Christ.
That is why our translators said, “Well, we cannot say ‘into Him’; it does not sound quite right in English,” so they created a new sort of phrase, really: “Believe on Him.” Believe on Him. I say, you have got to believe on Him—you move unto Him, you understand? And forever afterwards, you are in Him.
That is why the Lord Jesus did not say, “Now then, all of you always be striving to get into Me. Those that strive to get into Me, and I strive to get into them, they bear much fruit.” No, He never said that. He said, “Abide in Me.” Stay where you are placed. Remain in Me. Remain in Me. Where God has put you, stay.
Oh, where has God put you? He has put you in the Vine. He has put you in Christ. He has put you in His Son.
Well now, once you begin to see it, it absolutely dawns on you. It is not just that the purpose of God is Christ alone; it is you and I in Him, sharing with Him in His glory, joint heirs with Him of all that belongs to God. It is wonderful.
We Christians should be the happiest people in the world. Well, not always.
In Colossians 1:16, it puts it like this:
For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him.
Isn’t that wonderful? Or again, a bigger mouthful in some ways—at least for us to understand—in Ephesians 1:9-11:
Making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him, unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say, in Whom also we were made a heritage.
Now, is that not marvellous, really, when you think of it? This whole business of the rapture is not just going to be that you and I are going to float up, and somewhere up there we are going to see the Lord.
Of course we are going to see the Lord. We are going to see His actual body. We are going to see the marks in His hands, the marks in His feet, the pierced side—it is still there forever. We are going to see it, and with these eyes we are going to see it.
But that is not the real meaning of the rapture. The real meaning of the rapture is this: that at that time you and I are going to be caught up together to be with Him, to be the heart, the centre, of a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
It is so wonderful, really, when you begin to see it. And you see, then we come right down to this: what really, to put it in simple terms, is that you and I are to become part of Christ.
Now some people will say, “Oh, can you say such a thing? Is not that almost to take away from His glory? Is not that to take away from His unique Sonship?”
Well, it would be if the Scripture did not say so. But whilst we must always recognise the unique glory of the Lord Jesus, the unique position and Person of the Lord Jesus, the fact of the matter is that we have become partakers of the divine nature. It says so in 2 Peter 1:4.
We have become partakers of the divine nature. Christ has got into us, and we have got into Him.
What happens when you have a meal? It becomes your flesh and blood. You eat an apple, and within an hour or two the apple has become flesh and blood. You eat fish, and within a few hours the fish is you.
It does not matter what you eat. You eat, you partake, you partake. Now you say, “Oh, now you are taking it—you are getting fantastic.” No, I am not. If you want to put me to the test, stop eating. Oh, I do not mean stop eating for a fast. I mean stop eating altogether. Let us see what happens.
In about nine weeks’ time, for stronger ones, we shall have a number of funerals—and quite a few before for those who are weaker—because you eat to live. You partake, and as you partake, it becomes your flesh and blood, and that is how you live.
Now do you begin to see what the eternal purpose of God is? That is why the tree of life—the tree of life—it had fruit, fruit. Whether it was physical or literal, that to me is immaterial. The fact is that it represents something. It represents the very life of God in Christ that you and I receive. We become partakers.
Or again, I think of 1 Corinthians 1:9:
God is faithful, through Whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Not just fellowship with His Son, but the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. I am in Him; you are in Him. Now you begin to see how wonderful it is, do you not? Well, I do. I think it is utterly marvellous.
You see, this is how it starts: he is in Christ, he is in Christ, he is in Christ, he is in Christ, he is in Christ. I am in Christ.
Are there so many Christs? Has he got his own Christ? He has got a Methodist Christ. He has got a Baptist Christ. He has got a Pentecostal Christ. He has got a neo-Pentecostal charismatic Christ. He has got an Anglican Christ. Oh, there are so many Christs! Oh, we had better have the Brethren as well.
So now we have all got our own little Christ. “I am in Him”—a personal Christ. Terrible phrase, is it not? “Personal Christ.” But there is no such thing as a personal Christ. There is only one Christ.
Now, the Christ he is in is the Christ he is in, and him, and him, and him, and him. Now, what has happened to us? We are all in the same Christ.
He has become a partaker of Christ. He has become a partaker of Christ. He has become a partaker. I have become a partaker of Christ. We have all become partakers of Christ. Christ has become our life. He has become his life, his life, his life, his life, his life.
Now what has happened? I say, “Well, Christ is in me.” He says, “No, no, He is in me.” And he says, “No, He is in me as well.” Now, what has happened? Is He in at different times, passing from one to the other? No.
He is so great that all the billions of believers in the whole time are found in Christ, and the one Christ is found in all of them. Is that not wonderful?
No denominations, no labels, no names, no particular tenets which divide, no middle walls of partition. The whole thing is gone—but in Christ.
I find that that is one of the most wonderful things in the whole Bible. And what is the purpose of God now?
Well, it is that you and I might be saved, that we might be built together, that we might learn from one another, that we might let the Holy Spirit discipline us, shape us, fitly frame us together, knit us together, get us to grow up into Him as the Head.
Do people obviously think that somehow or other, in the twinkling of an eye, crabby old Christians are going to become sweet saints? But in many places where I go, this seems to be the idea. You can be as crabby as you wish, but in the twinkling of an eye you will be changed.
Where does it say? It says that in the twinkling of an eye your body will be changed. Personality is personality. Now, I am not going to say that if you are crabby now, you are going to be crabby for all eternity. May the Lord preserve us.
But what I am saying is this: that the whole question of rewards and positions and everything else in the kingdom of God—the city of God, our place in the city of God—is all determined by the amount of material which God can produce in us now by the Spirit.
What is that material? Gold, precious stone, and pearl.
Gold, so refined, so fired, that it is as gold that no one has ever seen on this earth: you can see through it.
Precious stone, which has been produced in the dark places of the earth by tremendous pressure being exerted upon it with fire.
Pearl, which is produced by a piece of grit falling into the softest, most sensitive part of a clam, so that it excretes a substance out of its inner life which goes round to try and expel the grit. But the grit stays, so it does another, and another, and another—just like the apostle Paul, a thorn in the flesh.
Every time, you see, “Get rid of it, Lord. The life came out and said, ‘I am going to stand against this. Get rid of it. Out with it, Lord.’” The Lord said, “No. My grace is sufficient.” So a coat went round the grit, and another coat, and another coat—and a pearl.
The city is made out of gold. Its foundations are made out of precious stones, and its gates are each one a pearl.
Dear child of God, is the gold of Christ being produced in you? Jesus said to the Laodicean church:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined in the fire, that thou mayest become rich.
Is there precious stone? God promises:
I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.
Do you know anything about the pearl?
The fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.
Dear child of God, these things—these things we have been talking about—are not just some wonderful ideal, some glorious theory. It is something which the apostle Paul somehow took to himself in such a way that it took him right through, in prison, at execution.
It took those early believers into arenas, so that they were able to die, because all they were worried about was material for the city. Here we are, some of us Christians, and we do not know the first thing about these things. “This is all such deep things,” we think. “Oh, I never heard that.”
I will tell you this: Abraham’s whole life was spent for this city. His whole life was spent in anticipation of this city.
What did the writer to the Hebrews say? He says, “They without us should not be made perfect.” Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Isaiah—all of them. God held them back and said, “No, I have a great multitude to come in from every nation of the earth.”
Oh, how wonderful. How we need revelation.
What is the church? Is not the church just those who are in Christ? Is not the church just those who are in Christ? Forget the institution, forget the organisation, forget all the other things. They do not know what it was.
Is not the whole purpose of the church that we may be built together, fitly framed together; that we may be disciplined together, may share Christ together, may love Christ together; that we may somehow or other open our arms to a dying world, that they may come in and find the living God through us and in us?
I do not know. I can only say that the purpose of God now is that. We will say a bit more about its practical outworking tomorrow, but may I end with just one thing? What about the purpose of God in the future?
You see, Adam to now—it is going on.
Some people’s idea of being a Christian is that you get saved, you get forgiven—and that is tremendous—and then you sing hymns, say prayers, read your Bible, if you are particularly good, every night before you go to bed. If you are very zealous, you witness to others.
Then one day you will die, and then you will go to heaven and sit on a cloud and play a harp, sing in a great choir, praising everyone. Where do we get the idea?
Of course, the ages of the ages will be filled with song, filled with music. What are we going to do?
Now here is the thing that most deeply thrills me: we do not know.
I am not just being funny. It thrills me. It absolutely thrills me. I think it is wonderful. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God.” We do not really know what God is going to do.
All we know is this: when we come to the last chapters of the Bible, we come to a wedding. Now, as we have often said, there are only two ways of looking at a wedding. It is either the end or it is the beginning.
There are only two ways of looking at your marriage. It is either an end or it is the beginning. But in actual fact, surely it is both. It is the end of one whole phase and the beginning of another.
Then we get it in Revelation 21. The voice of God says:
The former things have passed away. Behold, I make all things new.
Former things. It is as if God is waiting now—I am speaking as if in a Sunday-school way—but it is as if God is waiting now, itching, as it were, to put a final bracket in. The first bracket began with the Fall of man. The whole parenthesis of time, the whole everything in the brackets—we are now in the brackets.
Now, in redemption, we are here. This is all the wonderful part in time. But God is just waiting to put the other bracket on, and it is done. Finished. All the former things have gone away. Do not talk about them anymore.
And if He sees anyone cry, He says, “Here.” God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
Then what is it? What is it? All we have is the most beautiful picture which I think is known to every one of us. It is the picture of a newly married couple moving out into eternity.
Would you know what they are going to do? We only know that they are one. They have found their home in each other. They are absolutely one.
So wonderful is it that when the glory of God gets into the city, no one knows where the city begins and ends. It is one dazzling blaze of glory. It is transparent. There is no temple there. There is no place where you can locate God. He is everywhere.
Well, what shall we do? People ask, “What, shall we eat in eternity? Shall we recognise each other in eternity? Will we do this or will we do that in eternity?” Oh, does it matter?
The thing that matters is that we are with Him. And if you have got to know Him now, that really is the explanation of eternity.
I can only say this: I find God, if I may say it without being irreverent or blasphemous, almost—I find Him too exciting. So exciting. Always doing something new, always surprising. One moment He does it this way, then suddenly He does it that way, and you think, “Well, I have just got to know it.”
Just when you say, “He could never do anything among Roman Catholics,” He is doing it. Oh, He is so wonderful.
Now, if God, Who has created every single thing that has been created, and even in its fallen condition it is so wonderful—whatever will it be like when all the former things have passed away and when God says, “Now we can get on with the job I originally intended”?
We do not know what the job is. Maybe it will be the creation of new universes—we do not know. But what we do know is that we shall be with Him, and it will be absolutely thrilling.
I feel so sorry for some Christians, and for unsaved people, who have got the idea that we Christians have somehow or other got some small little gospel which means that you get sort of forgiven, make a decision—and please do not think I am devaluing forgiveness, because it is absolutely tremendous.
But it seems we have put over the idea that it is just a question of making a decision, and then you go to heaven and lie on a bed for all eternity, getting up now and again for a kind of hilarious time of worship.
We human beings are being made in the image of God. We have got the same creative genius in us as God. We cannot wait, if we are really human beings. We cannot really rest. We have got to be doing something. We have got to. So it is the same with God.
How wonderful. I cannot wait. I really cannot wait for it all to end. Can you?
No wonder when these men saw it, they said, “Lord Jesus, come quickly. Come quickly. Let us get the thing done, Lord.”
But you know, the wonderful thing is that in many ways those who have for long been asleep in Christ, in His presence, but their bodies in the ground—they are in no wise going to come after us.
If some of us were to die tonight and others were to live to the coming of the Lord, at that day we shall all be together. Think of it. What a meeting.
It will not be a teaching then. It will be glory in, or glory out—I do not know—but all I can think of is, just think of it: Paul here, and Abraham here, and Isaac over here, and Martin Luther, and Zwingli, and Augustine—all of them together.
What does it mean to be called according to purpose? I think it means something tremendous. What does it mean to see God’s mind concerning His church? I think it is tremendous.
May God give us revelation, and may He so help us that we shall, with the eyes of our hearts, know Him. Because in the end, it is a matter of Christ. It is not a matter…