My Brethren - Later Ministry - G. R. Cowell

“GOD IS ONE”
1 Timothy 1: 1-7, 11, 15-19; 2: 4-7; 6: 13-16, 20-21 Address at Glasgow, September 30, 1961 Following Jesus in the Way, Notes of Meetings, 9: 1-15

THE SHEPHERD AND BISHOP OF OUR SOULS

Psalm 23; John 10: 9-11; Hebrews 13: 20, 21; 1 Peter 2: 25
Address at Newton Abbott, April 18, 1961
Jesus in Control, Notes of Meetings, 8: 69-79
reprinted in The Divine System, Booklet 5: 13-22
'Bishop' as in the KJV is better translated 'overseer' as in JND.

THE SHEPHERD AND BISHOP OF OUR SOULS
Psalm 23; John 10: 9-11; Hebrews 13: 20, 21; 1 Peter 2: 25 Address at Newton Abbott, April 18, 1961 Jesus in Control, Notes of Meetings, 8: 69-79 reprinted in The Divine System, Booklet 5: 13-22 'Bishop' as in the KJV is better translated 'overseer' as in JND.

The Great Shepherd is our theme at this time. The God of peace has brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

He has laid down His life for the sheep, He has met the foe; and on that account He has become the Door. By Him we can enter, and be saved, and go in and out and find pasture.
The God of peace has brought Him again from the dead in the power of the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Think of the power of the blood as the righteous basis on which all the purposes of God will be carried through.
Human failure does not turn God aside. Everything is failure on the side of man’s responsibility, but let us never forget that everything is victorious on God’s side.
He is not even halted by human failure; He does not deviate; He is going on. May He help us to see how He is moving and to move with Him!

It says, “When thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness”, Psalm 68: 7.

Nothing can stay His way. In Psalm 177: 20, it says,
- “Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron”.
He has appointed the Great Shepherd of the sheep who leads His people like a flock, tenderly, leading them by the hand.
Jesus is our Moses and Aaron. Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession is the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

Both John’s gospel and the epistle to the Hebrews show how great the Shepherd is!

In Ezekiel chapter 34, God speaks of the way the shepherds would fail, but He would come in Himself to shepherd His people.
The One who was in the beginning with God, and was God, has come as the Shepherd.
He is the One by whom God made the worlds, the One who is upholding all things by the word of His power, the One who by Himself has made purification for sins; and can He not take care of the flock?
Never, while we are down here, do we get to a point where we do not need the Shepherd. If we let that basic relationship of sheep and Shepherd lapse we shall fail. No one can see us through except the Shepherd.
The Apostle has brought out the knowledge of God. He is indeed Himself the effulgence of God’s glory. The High Priest goes in to God and sustains the service of God. But that very One is the Shepherd.
His shepherd activities are needed to bring us into the gain of all that He is as Apostle and High Priest. So He leads His people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
- “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me”,
  Psalm 23: 4.
Moses had the rod and Aaron the staff. We need them both. We need the Shepherd, not only in the wilderness but also in the land, in the highest levels of the truth, for it says,
- “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he hath founded for ever. And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds: from following the suckling ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands”, Psalm 78: 69-72.
We need to see to it, therefore, that on our side, the relationship between sheep and Shepherd never lapses. It will not lapse on His side. Psalm 23 gives the language of one who has come into the gain of it.
A great word for us at the present moment is,
- “Ye were going astray as sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls”, 1 Peter 2: 25.
We do not need a pope or an archbishop. Bishops have their so-called shepherd staff; but we need no officials like that.
The great thing is the personal link between each sheep and the Great Shepherd. We must bypass men and their systems whoever and whatever they may be; and get back to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.
You may say, ‘Surely there are those under-shepherds who shepherd the flock!’ Well, if we each maintain our personal relation as a sheep with the Shepherd, we shall become serviceable to Him in shepherding one another;
- but the moment we allow our personal link to lapse, we are of no use in shepherding.
Therefore the Lord’s final word in John, addressed to Peter, who had just been commissioned to shepherd and feed His sheep, is,
- “Follow thou me”, John 21: 22.
At all costs therefore maintain your personal link with Christ. It is a very intimate thing.
- “I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father”, John 10: 14-15.
If you are in the gain of that, your link with Christ will be much closer than the closest natural tie. Unless your link with Christ is stronger than any other, you are in danger.
The great thing is to see that not a shadow comes between your soul and Christ.

I suppose we all have been in one man-made system or another. Let us reject all things that are merely from man and return to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.

Let there be no intermediary between us and Christ.

We may help one another as under-shepherds, but that is not an official position as men would make it.
A true shepherd must be a true sheep himself, in touch with the Great Shepherd; and he would never put himself between you and the Shepherd. His object in shepherding would ever be to put you yourself in direct touch with the Great Shepherd.
Anyone who comes between your soul and the Shepherd, you must dismiss; he is not a shepherd according to God. A true shepherd, I say again, would use his whole activity and skill to put your soul in touch with the Chief Shepherd.
And we also help one another, if we ourselves are simply following without knowing we are helping one another. Peter looked round and saw John following. It is a great thing when you look round and see a brother following.
Seeing John following ought to have been enough for Peter, but even then he said, “What of this man?”.
Still Peter learnt the lesson and so we find in the Acts, Peter and John following together – two men who would never have moved together on natural lines – so unlike in upbringing and temperament.
But, as giving heed to the Lord’s word “Follow thou me”, they were moving together and were a beautiful sight at the Beautiful gate of the temple – Acts 3. Peter could rightly say, “Look on us”.

Now, in Psalm 23 you have the language of one who has returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul. I am applying it that way because it fits in with present exercises.

Let us test ourselves by this Psalm as to whether we have so returned. David says,
- “Jehovah is my shepherd, I shall not want”.
Have we proved that? Have we proved His all-sufficiency?
- “He that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst at any time”, John 6: 35.
You come to the Door, you can go in and out and find pasture. There is liberty and yet restfulness.
- “Come to me”, He says, “and I will give you rest”, Matthew 11: 29.
How we tend to move outside this vital link with the Shepherd and so become feverishly active, even in the Lord’s work! But a proof that we have returned to Him is that we are in liberty, freed from every yoke of bondage and we are restful;
- “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul”.
We find liberty, rest, food, refreshment and restoration of soul.

Many here have been through very trying times, times of fiery trial, and they are not over yet; but this is what we prove as we return to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.

Our souls are restored. It is a great thing for the soul to be restored, because we are no help to ourselves or to other people, or in the service of God, if our souls are flagging.
- “Why art thou cast down, my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God”, Psalm 42: 11 and 43: 5;
- and in Psalm 43: 4 he speaks of soul revival. “Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto the God of the gladness of my joy” – his soul set free.

Then it says, “He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake”, Psalm 23: 3.

This is a great need at the moment. We find liberty, rest, food and life.
- “I am come”, the Shepherd says, “that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10: 10;
and it is in the power of life that we can fulfil righteousness. It cannot be fulfilled in our own strength.
The Shepherd has come that we might have life as a free gift, and have it abundantly; and it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that sets us free from the law of sin and death.
As walking in the Spirit We are able to fulfil the righteous requirement of the law.

We shall never be kept together unless we are in paths of righteousness.

The moment we depart from them the enemy can scatter, and damage is brought on the Lord’s name. It is a question of “His name’s sake”, which should touch us all.
Do we not desire to honour the Shepherd who has laid down His life for us and is caring for us every moment? What would we not do for His name’s sake?
Let us surrender to Him and let Him lead us in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Righteousness is a very wide term. It involves the carrying out of our obligations as men, women and children down here; husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants,

but it also involves carrying out our obligations as members of the body of Christ and as forming part of the house of God.

We will not be ready to carry out the latter without the former.
God has made me a member of the body of Christ. I cannot belong to any sect therefore; that would be unrighteous. Membership of the body of Christ is an honour conferred by God.
As a member of the body of Christ, I have an obligation to every other member to do what I can for them and,
- if following the Shepherd in paths of righteousness, I shall be available to fill out my place in the body and thus help to edify the body.
But I shall reject sectarian paths.

I also belong to the house of God and it is a question of what is due to God in His house.

The house of God is not a sect. It is the habitation of God in the Spirit. Everyone who is indwelt by the Spirit is part of the house.
In view of my part in the house of God I cannot be sectarian. I must have an outlook on the whole house of God, on every believer indwelt by the Spirit.
But then, there are obligations connected with the house of God. God is holy. The Lord Jesus is the Holy and the True.
It is a matter of righteousness that I should move here in consistency with the house of God, glorifying God in everything that I do and in the way I walk.
- “This is the law of the house”, it says, “upon the top of the mountain all its border round about is most holy”, Ezekiel 43: 12.
Everything about us is to be in keeping with the house of God. You may say, others are not concerned, but that is not the point.
Your link with the Shepherd cannot lapse on His side; see to it that it does not lapse on yours. He would lead you in paths of righteousness – righteous in your home, in your business,
- but also righteous as a member of the body of Christ and as a living stone in the house of God.

Inside the tabernacle, the boards, representative of the saints, stood on bases of silver.

The silver bases mean that the ground of our standing before God is the righteousness of God. We stand before God as justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

The priests could take account of the boards thus when they went into the sanctuary of God.
But the court round the tabernacle represents the public position which any man can see. There, the pillars were standing on bases of copper. What does that mean?
- Practical righteousness. The altar was made of copper and the bases on which the pillars stood were made of copper.
They represent the saints as in communion – or fellowship – with the altar, true to the death of Christ, refusing anything inconsistent with His death – see 1 Corinthians 10: 18.
What is being consistent with His death? Devoting ourselves to God’s will as He did. He devoted His body to death for God’s will and God’s glory, and this involved devoting His body for us that we might be sanctified.
We are to devote ourselves to God’s will and God’s glory, and thus to the saints for service, as those who form His house. That is righteousness. Only thus are we truly ‘in the fellowship’.
“Copper” is our only public standing in this world if we are going to be faithful to the Lord.
- We are to be like those pillars, adorning the doctrine of our Saviour God, holding up the curtains of pure fine linen, the practical purity which alone is suitable to God’s house.
Then there were the connecting rods of silver, representing our links with one another in Christ.
- The silver is not to be debased by allowing anything social or worldly.
We would not have known one another but for the redemptive rights of Christ, the fact that the Good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep.
- Are we going to debase these links, formed at such a cost? Far be the thought. That would be unrighteous.
Righteousness requires that my walk should be in keeping with the copper, true to the altar
- and my links with the brethren should be preserved in Christ on the holy level of the silver; not governed by social status, nor by natural or racial proclivities.
Men should be able to take account of us thus in the sphere of testimony.

Let us consider for His Name’s sake, dear brethren. Let us not rebel against the Shepherd’s leading. We need it now, at this very time, otherwise we may stray away into by-paths.

Then it says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me”.

John 10 is the Good Shepherd; in John 11, the enemy, death, attempts to seize a sheep out of His hand. Lazarus died.
You say, ‘Can the Lord be a real Shepherd to stay two days away and let Lazarus die?’
It was part of His Shepherd care. He was using the rod. Although they all loved Jesus, Lazarus was the centre of the circle, but after that incident Jesus was the Centre, the Son of God, and Lazarus in his right place.
The whole orientation of the home is altered, and that is what the Lord would do for us. We need His rod, but when His rod is acting, the staff is there to comfort us, to support us.
We think of Moses’ rod, the rod of authority, and Aaron’s staff. They are both in the hand of the Shepherd.
But I understand that the figure used here is that of sheep walking through a ravine with wolves ready to cut off their path. Unless the Shepherd were with them they would never get through.
They need His rod and His staff for protection and support as they go through the valley with the wolves ready to harass them on every hand. Jesus says,
- “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep; but he who serves for wages, and who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees”; and also,
- “Beware of false prophets, which, come to you in sheep’s clothing, but within are ravening wolves”, Matthew 7: 15.
Such would tear the flock and scatter it.

Paul speaks of grievous wolves and of men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them – Acts 20: 30. They would draw them away from the Shepherd.

Once you are away from the Shepherd you are powerless. What could a sheep do against a wolf unless the shepherd were there with his rod to deal with it?
Our business now is to help one another to keep very near to the Shepherd, heeding His voice, and rejecting the voice of strangers – those who speak perverted things.

The thought of His rod is a comfort to me at the present time. We are all apt to stray, not knowing which way to go. How are we going to be united? We can count on the Shepherd’s rod.

He can deal with each one of us with the rod of His authority, so that the flock is preserved together.
I am thankful for His rod, I am counting on it myself. The Lord alone can subdue each one of us.
He is going to shepherd the nations with an iron rod. It does not say He shepherds us with an iron rod. Nevertheless, there is the rod:

“None but Thyself, Lord Jesus,
Conquered this wayward will;
But for Thy love constraining,
I would be wayward still”.

We have to remember, therefore, that we are going through, at the present time, the valley of the shadow of death.

There are wolves, and we need His rod and His staff. Otherwise, if we get a little bit out of the way, the wolf may fasten upon us.

Then think of the joy as we cleave to the Shepherd and get through this valley!

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over”.

This is wonderful. God grant that we may reach it – the table prepared, the head anointed, the cup running over, and finishing up in the house of God. That is where the paths of righteousness lead.

“I will dwell in the house of Jehovah for the length of the days”.

Hebrews 13: 21 gives another side. On the one hand we are following the Shepherd, listening to His voice, submitting to His rod and getting the gain of His staff.

But, on the other hand, God is working in us and that also is a great comfort to my soul. I see the fruit world-wide of God working in the saints.
We need to work out our own salvation because it is God who is working in us – Philippians 2: 13. Let us be careful not to obstruct that work.
I may allow position and place, claims of relatives and many other things to divert me from God’s will. But if we are under the Shepherd the work goes forward,
- “doing in you what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for the ages of ages. Amen”, Hebrews 13: 21.

Let us finish on that note as we look up to the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Let us join together in saying,

To him be glory for the ages of ages; and also to the God of peace, who brought Him again from among the dead!

Page Top Article Top

“GOD IS ONE”

1 Timothy 1: 1-7, 11, 15-19; 2: 4-7; 6: 13-16, 20-21
Address at Glasgow, September 30, 1961
Following Jesus in the Way, Notes of Meetings, 9: 1-15

I wish to say a word, dear brethren, about God, the One who is the beginning and the end, and especially to speak of Him as the End, the great End, the great objective in all divine operations.

God is the beginning and the end of everything. He is the beginning and the end with each one of us as to our soul histories.
We begin with God, having to do with God about our sins, and if we move right on in the divine way, we end with God in profound worship, making our boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
While that word comes in in Romans 5, JND said that it is something we can never get beyond – making our boast in God, God Himself,
- “through our Lord Jesus Christ”, verse 11.
I also wish to speak of the Mediator,
- “the mediator of God and men … the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2: 5
– and the glory of the Mediator. Then also to refer to God’s desires for men.
- “Our Saviour God, who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Timothy 2: 4.
Now that word, “knowledge” means full knowledge. The note says “true knowledge” but it is also translated equally “full knowledge”, as in Ephesians 1: 17, where Paul bows his knee,
- “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him”.
I don’t know of anything in Scripture greater than the proposal that the creature, man, should come to the full knowledge of God.
So God desires that all men should be saved – but don’t let us stop there – and come to the full knowledge of the truth. The truth in large measure is summed up in what follows.
- “For God is one”;
it is the great truth of the moment. God is one is an eternal truth.
- “God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all”, 1 Timothy 2: 5.
The point is to come to a full knowledge of what it means.

I pause here a moment and refer to the fact that God desires all men to be saved – it says,

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, 1 Timothy 1: 15

– and if He came into the world to save sinners, what are you and I in the world for?
He had other objectives in mind. He came to secure the assembly for Himself, but He could not do that if He had not come to save sinners.
So we may have other objectives, too, in being sent into the world, for the Lord says to the Father,
- “As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world”, John 17: 18.
Our only right reason for being in the world is as having been sent into it; taken out of it by the gospel and then sent into it to represent God and to represent Christ in the world.
However much we have failed in it and however little we have done it, let even the youngest believer here get some impression of that, that the reason for your being in the world is to be in it as sent into it.
The gospel has taken you out of it. That is out of the world in its moral power as a system; so if you are in the world, the thing is to be in it as sent and as representative of Christ and of God.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. What are we doing? It is part of our mission surely, as sent into the world.

Therefore we need to have preachings which sinners understand. The Lord may help us and give us wisdom as to how to make more contact.
We do not need worldly means. Many think worldly means would help them in representing God and Christ. How could they? How could the world help you to represent God and Christ?
If we wait on the Lord He can help us. We are to get near to men as Jesus did. How near He was to men!
Any doctrine which contravenes that is from the enemy and would rob us of vital Christianity, and rob men of representation of a Saviour God.

But when it comes to fellowship the command in this epistle is quite clear,

“Lay hands quickly on no man, nor partake in others’ sins”, 1 Timothy 5: 22.

We can go a long way with people, but we must heed divine commands.
The epistle, written for the benefit of the Ephesians, deals with the house of God in its public aspect and of what is due to God in His house which is
- “the pillar and base of the truth”, 1 Tim. 3: 15.
On the one hand God is to be represented as the Saviour, the Preserver, the Blessed and only Ruler.
We are to let men know about Him, to get near to men to tell them about Him, this blessed God,
- and the way that we tell it, and the words that we speak are to convey the glory of the blessed God.
Everything we do in testimony is to be according to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God.
But then in God’s house, what is due to Him is maintained. So in chapter 5: 21-22 of this epistle,
- “I testify before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, that thou keep these things without prejudice, doing nothing by favour. Lay hands quickly on no man, nor partake in others’ sins”.

This epistle is full of commandments. We don’t like the word much, do we?

John, the great writer about love – the love of the Father for the Son, the love of the Son for us, and so on – speaks more about commands than any writer in the New Testament.
Christian commandments are not negative, not “thou shalt not”. There are positive commandments.
- “Love one another; as I have loved you”, John 13: 34.
It is a new commandment. Think of the positive nature of commandment in this epistle!
- “Apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the command of God our Saviour”, 1 Timothy 1: 1.
What if God had not made that command, had not sent out an apostle to tell us about God our Saviour, where should we have been? It is by command. God commands all men everywhere to repent.
So in this epistle, which deals with the house of God, he speaks a good deal of enjoining and commanding.
- The test of our love for Christ is that we keep His commandments.
His commandments are not grievous. Christian commandments are just the things that a Christian would love to do.
They are partakers of a divine nature, and when a Christian commandment is put to you, all that is within you, as it were, responds, unless you are governed by the flesh.
You say, that is just what I would like to be, and just what I would like to do.
- So the “end of what is enjoined is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith”, 1 Timothy 1: 5.
There is nothing I would like better than to be marked by love out of a pure heart and a good conscience. I would like always to go on without a cloud between my soul and God.
- “And unfeigned faith”.
Oh! you say, that is just what I would like to have – unfeigned faith.

All Christian commandments are within the bounds of possibility. You can carry them out.

You have the Spirit of God dwelling in you. You are not in flesh but in Spirit and you have power in the Spirit to carry out every one of them.
The Spirit has wrought in you; you have been born of the Spirit. Think of that act of love on the part of the Spirit! He has begotten each one of us.
So, as born of the Spirit, all our desires are in that direction. We have the flesh still in us, but let us walk in the Spirit and we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
If we are led by the Spirit we are not under the law – glorious liberty of Christianity.
So that we can say that His commandments are not grievous. We love them; we delight in them, and by the Spirit we have power to do them.
So that we can honour God in His house as belonging to His house. We can honour Him from every standpoint.
Who is the One we honour? The King of the ages. Think of belonging to the establishment of
- “the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God”, 1 Timothy 1: 17.
That is the God I belong to. That is the God I serve. That is the God to whose house I belong, and I want to behave myself accordingly.
I would not like to bring – though I have often failed – any kind of dishonour upon His name.
- “I am a great King”, He says, “and my name is to be revered among the nations”, Malachi 1: 14.

Now you will find in Ephesians, which is the complementary epistle, much is said about relationship.

I think the term “Father” is used seven times in Ephesians – Father or God and Father, eight times, including the opening salutation which occurs in most epistles.
In Timothy, the term Father is mentioned only in the opening salutation.
We never forget that God is our Father, and the more we enter into the relationships of love in Ephesians, the more our whole being will desire in all our ways to bring honour to Him as the King of the ages.
- As it says, unto Him be “honour and glory to the ages of ages. Amen”.
That is the great end – that we should be for the honour and glory of God through eternal ages.
- “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”, Ephesians 3: 21.
That is what I mean when I say God is the beginning and the end.
He has brought us into the closest relations with Himself and, because of those close relations, we ought to be able to honour and glorify Him more fully than any other creatures. If we do not, it is to our shame.
If we have such a close place in sonship, then we ought to be able in the fullest way to render glory to Him and rightly to represent Him in everything, and thus bring honour to Him who is the King of the ages.

He is incorruptible. Are we corruptible? Our natural hearts are. Ephesians ends,

“Grace with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption”.

If you love the Mediator in incorruption, you will love God in incorruption, and nothing that you do or say will bring dishonour upon the Name of the King of the ages.
Thank God we are looking on to a time when we shall have bodies of glory and nothing we shall ever think, do, or say will bring any dishonour upon the Name of the King of the ages.
- We shall be to His honour and glory to the ages of ages.
But we belong to His house now and His house is here in testimony. Let our behaviour be in keeping with it.
In this world, those who belong to a royal household, know how to dress becomingly, how to behave becomingly. Do we know?
We belong to a royal household, par excellence, the house of the King of the ages, and yet that blessed One is referred to in this epistle as, “God our Saviour”.
Think of the King of the ages stooping down to save persons such as we! Think of Christ Jesus coming into the world to save sinners; could you ever have conceived such a thing? He who Himself is
- “over all, God blessed for ever”, Romans 9: 5;
He in whom we shall see expressed the majesty of the King of the ages, think of that blessed Person coming into the world to save sinners!

Chapter 1: 11 refers to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God. There you have Ephesians. The glory of the blessed God! What glad tidings!

It has often been linked with Luke 15; the shepherd going after the sheep, the woman sweeping the house, the father receiving the returning son. What a picture of the glory of the blessed God!
How He has moved to save sinners, but not only to save them, but to give the best in heaven even to men who may have been the worst on earth.
So that Ephesians shows that in the gospel there is not only the negative side that God would save sinners, but that He would do the very best, more than the human mind could conceive –
- “bring out the best robe and clothe him in it”, Luke 15: 22.
What a love chapter the 15th of Luke is, God acting to satisfy His own love! So Ephesians 1: 6 speaks of the best robe –
- “Taken into favour in the Beloved”, and it speaks of the “good pleasure of his will” that we should be “to the praise of the glory of his grace”.
- Again later it says, “to the praise of his glory”, verse 12 – the glory of the blessed God.
Everything in God’s house is to be in keeping with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. Sound teaching is always in keeping with that.
There are the law teachers with weak and beggarly elements, nothing to give, always demanding. There is nothing so opposed to sound teaching, according to the gospel of the glory, as law teaching.
What is maintained in God’s house is teaching according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.
We need sound teaching on that line, so that we never again turn to the weak and beggarly elements of law, nor put ourselves in any kind of yoke or bondage.
God has come in in His glory to set us free in freedom through Christ, to bring us into the greatest blessings.
Yet the God who has moved like that is the King of the ages, and He counts upon those He has blessed in such a way and brought so close to Himself, to honour Him in all they do and say.

He is also referred to in this epistle as the “preserver of all men, specially of those that believe”, 1 Timothy 4: 10.

We hope in Him in that way as the living God who is the Preserver of all men. If God was not moving in that connection, men would destroy themselves. But
- “we hope in a living God who is the preserver of all men, specially of those that believe”.
It is another way in which you are alongside of men. Paul, the chief of sinners, was alongside of every man from that standpoint. He could take his place along with any sinner, to speak of the need of a Saviour.
Then as needing preservation, we can place ourselves alongside of men and tell them of a God who is preserving them, their very breath being in His hand, saving them from themselves and their folly, from self-destruction.
- “The preserver of all men, specially of those that believe”.
Finally in this epistle Paul praises Him as,
- “the blessed and only Ruler, King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise Lordship”, 1 Timothy 6: 15.
And his thoughts go out to Him in a place where He is unapproachable
- – “dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see: to whom be honour and eternal might”.
It is to give Timothy an idea of how to move at Ephesus and how to speak of God in Ephesus, with a view to glory to Him in the assembly in Christ Jesus, at Ephesus.

Well now, to speak a word or two about the scripture, “God is one”.

I would say that whereas the teaching of Ephesians, opening up our place in the heavenlies, specially links with the Lord’s words in John 20, the words of the Mediator,
- “I ascend to my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God”, verse 17;
this passage in Timothy links more with the words of the Mediator in Matthew 28, and the great unfolding connected with the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Apart from that unfolding this word of Paul that, “God is one” would have no force. Even in the Old Testament they knew there was only one God but they did not know God as One.
It is an expression that only has force when you come to the Christian unfolding of the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are One in eternal Being in Godhead. And then the Mediator of God and men is also one, the Man Christ Jesus.
- No man has seen God at any time; “whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”, 1 Tim. 6: 16.
Therefore we need a Mediator. The Mediator is the image of the invisible God, because He is God.
In Him God was manifested in flesh down here, and now God’s glory shines forth in Him without a veil.
It is wonderful in any measure, by the Spirit’s power, to have an apprehension of the shining of the face of Jesus, the glorified Man; soon we shall see Him face to face.
Many glories attach to the Mediator. There are many official glories. He is Lord and Christ, the Great Priest and the Head over all things; and behind all is the greatness of His Person.
- “Before Abraham was, I am”, John 8: 58.
I suppose the greatest glories that have come into display in Him are the effulgence of God’s glory and the expression of His substance. These glories are greater than any that could be conferred on Jesus officially.
In glorified Manhood, He is the very effulgence of God’s glory; and if we want to know the Father, the glory of the Father is resplendent in the Son.
As our hymn says, ‘Not an eye those hosts among but sees His glory Thine’.
- “He that has seen me”, He said when here, “has seen the Father”, John 14: 9.
Fatherhood was perfectly expressed in the Son, in lowly grace here. When He washed their feet, He was doing just what a father would do for his children. And in the very next chapter He says,
- “He that has seen me, has seen the Father”.

Now to go on for a moment to Paul’s commission. He says, speaking of the testimony,

“to which I have been appointed a herald and apostle (I speak the truth, I do not lie) a teacher of the nations in faith and truth”, 1 Timothy 2: 7.

That also links in my mind, with the 28th of Matthew,
- “Go and make disciples of all nations”, verse 19.
No doubt that has an application to the Jewish remnant in the day to come. The word will go out to the kings of the earth,
- “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way, though his anger burn but a little”, Psalm 2: 12.
But there can be no doubt that the commission to the nations during this church period was specially handed over to Paul. He refers to it in Ephesians,
- “prisoner of Christ Jesus, for you nations”.
We find it in Romans where he says,
- “I am apostle of nations, I glorify my ministry; if by any means I shall provoke to jealousy them which are my flesh”, Romans 11: 13.
So, in referring to his apostleship of the nations, in verse 7, he says,
- “I speak the truth, I do not lie”.
Someone might raise a question and say, I did not think Paul had anything to do with the commission in the 28th of Matthew. Well, he tells us he did and that he does not lie in saying it.
- “I have been appointed a herald and apostle, I speak the truth, I do not lie”.
Why does he bring that in? I suppose the Spirit of God foresaw that some would challenge that. They would say that the commission at the end of Matthew belonged to the eleven – or the twelve – only.
They had a part in it of course. Peter was sent specially to the circumcision and others went elsewhere. We may be sure all the twelve had much to do.
Historians tell us China was evangelised, Japan was evangelised, Tibet was evangelised, and there is still the community of professing Christians in Travancore, South-East India which has been Christian since apostolic days, where Thomas is supposed to have laboured, died and been buried.
But Scripture is silent about those things. The truth of the mystery being committed to Paul, he is sent forth officially as the apostle to the nations and he says, “I speak the truth, I do not lie”.

So that commission in Matthew, in so far as it applies to the Christian dispensation, has been carried out in a special way by Paul

and we are the fruit of it; and we would seek to be available and to continue in it.

We have Paul’s gospel; we have the truth of the mystery which he ministered.
We would seek in our little way, without having official commission like Paul had, to herald the gospel and to teach the nations. It is a marvel that we have the opportunity.
Let the evangelist go and herald the gospel. He faces the world for God.
But then, when the evangelist has done his work, the teacher is needed. The nations are to be taught the truth of the mystery –
Romans 16: 25-27.
Do not let us shut our eyes to what there is still to be done in a quiet and obscure way, and who knows how much God may do.
The wind bloweth where it listeth. If we are available, the Spirit of God surely will make known to us where He is working.
He made it known to Paul. He forbad him to go one way and the Spirit of Jesus did not suffer him to go another, and then he concluded, from a vision, the Lord’s mind as to going to Macedonia.
The wind was blowing that way, as you may say. The wind bloweth where it listeth. So we need to be available in these things.

But now I want to say another word about God, and about the Mediator.

There is another glory attached to Christ and that is that He is the Declarer of God. No apostle could declare God nor did; it was impossible.
You say, Were not the apostles inspired? Indeed they were. But no inspired human vessel could declare God.
The only begotten Son alone could do it and we need to give Him that glory and place in our minds, and to take great heed to what Jesus said about the Father and about Himself and about the Holy Spirit.
- Therein lies the declaration of God.
The apostles had the ministry of the gospel to bring men into the gain of the declaration and, in that way, from the point of view of experience, they could enlarge on it;
- but only from that point of view – not to bring out anything fresh in declaration.
Paul had the truth of the assembly in order to bring about a full response in men to the declaration;
- because no individuals as such, however many, could adequately render glory to God. This requires the assembly.
And so we need to keep in mind the glory of the Man Christ Jesus;
- “the only. begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”.

Now I believe that response should cover every feature of the declaration in suited proportion, and that we should always keep in mind that, since He declared God.

God is the great end in view.

I think you will find in the epistles that the word, “God” is referred to about 800 times, the word, “Father”, about 60 in all the epistles.

If you include Revelation, you will find about 12 doxologies to God. There are about six to our God and Father, and even there you see God attached.

I would commend to the brethren to read again Mr. James Taylor Sr.’s reading on, The Worship of God Himself 1935 at Eastleigh. It was reprinted as a pamphlet, but it is also in volume 179 – New Series 68.
- I would ask all the brethren to read it again. It is based on JND and is very emphatic as to the things that I am speaking about now.
I think we should be exercised as to the truth of God as unfolded by the One who declared Him, so that we have things in right proportion in our minds in our responses to Him.
We have to consider whether it is right to exclude any feature of the declaration in our response. Everything needs to be in balance. The Scriptures would afford us balance.
This is one of the epistles where the personality of the Spirit is brought before us. After unfolding the mystery of piety which is confessedly great, and so on, immediately it says,
- “The Spirit speaks expressly”,
and He speaks to guard that great mystery.
We are a habitation of God in the Spirit. He speaks expressly and we may depend upon it that He would speak expressly at other times.
Scripture gives us this one example of the Spirit speaking expressly as soon as evil is coming in. A great attack against vital Christianity
- – forbidding to marry, bidding to abstain from meats, doctrines of demons that would overthrow vital Christianity –
that is what we have been faced with and the Spirit speaks expressly, that the mystery of piety might be maintained amongst the saints.

I leave these exercises with us, dear brethren, as to the great truth that God is One, and to bear in mind that

the doxologies in Romans – three to God and one to Christ – and the doxologies in Timothy, as well as others, are to help us as to assembly praise;

and the more we know of the intimacy of the relations into which we have been brought through the declaration, the more we shall be qualified to render praise to God in accordance with these doxologies.
I may add that, in connection with the relationships into which we are brought, the unfolding of God’s name, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
- was essential if we were to be brought into the place which is ours according to purpose, as accepted in the Beloved.
Similarly every other family named of the Father will be brought into its place, not so great as that which the assembly has, not so near, not so blessed,
- but all on account of that unfolding, the unfolding of the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The Name does not, in itself, suggest any relationship on the part of men; it is an unfolding; although the word “Father” contains the idea of it. But it is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – an objective presentation.
Then we learn how, on the basis of that unfolding, all believers, as belonging to the assembly, are brought into the very closest place – through the Son and by the Spirit we have access to the Father and are taken into favour in the Beloved.
Every other family will learn their place. But the result is that from every family, in the degree into which they are brought near to God, there will be response to God Himself, this God who is One.
May God help us as we think over and consider these matters for His Name’s sake!

Page Top Article Top