The crowning blessing we can know is God dwelling with us. Of the eternal state it says, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them.

• What could be more blessed, yea wonderful, for the creature than to be so loved that God made His abode with him?

• God has set His love upon men in Christ and has purposed to dwell with men all through eternity, to make His abode with men and that because He is love and He will live forever with those He loves.

• Those upon whom His love is set supremely are those who form the assembly, those who are the tabernacle of God and will be all through eternity.

• We need to keep in view the great objective; God dwelling in a unified vessel where no element of discord will ever exist or can ever come. This means supreme blessing for us and supreme joy for God.

• How we should love to find our home in God’s presence at the present time! It says “He will rest in his love; he will exult over thee with singing”, Zephaniah 3: 17.

Jude, verse 24, says “To set you with exultation blameless before his glory”. For God exults in this matter and He would have us exult in it. Let us come into His presence with exultation.

• God exults to dwell with men; God takes the lead in it. Think of God exulting!

• He so values this, His love is so set upon it, it is so necessary for the satisfaction of His heart, that He exults and does call upon His people to exult, Zephaniah 3: 14, and we are to experience this at the present time.

• God loves us too well to wait for eternity. His love is so great that He comes and dwells among us now, where we are, in the unholy cities of men. He loves us so well that He will not put off the dwelling.

• An appreciation of His wonderful love will make us careful to avoid all discord amongst ourselves. God cannot dwell where there is discord.

So the first thing is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. The previous psalm, 132, refers to God’s habitations. How blessed they are! Think of David as a young man, perhaps a boy, making a vow to God:

• “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for Jehovah, habitations for the mighty God of Jacob”.

• This is a word for young people. David was a boy, perhaps in his teens, when this happened. Think of a boy like that, making such a vow!

• God would look for us to make vows as knowing the divine objective, for which He would love to see us set through the whole of our career.

• The only career worth going in for is to be set from our earliest days, to find a place for God – present dwelling conditions for Him now in the localities where we are set.

• David said he would not give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids until he found a place for God. Where are we to find it? In our localities.

• He says, “We have heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood. Let us go into his habitations, let us worship at his footstool”.

David knew of nothing more blessed than to go into the presence of God. “Let us go”, he says.

• That is what we would say to one another. “Let us go into His habitations, let us worship at His footstool” – no more blessed exercise for the creature than that.

• In doing it we give the heart of God what He is looking for and has paid an unspeakable price for.

• Later, David was able to say, “Arise O Jehovah into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy strength!” If we make that our concern, what blessing we shall prove!

• “Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy”. And the answer is “I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud with joy”.

• If we consider for God, we shall be surprised at what joy and blessing will be our portion. All that is set out in Psalm 132; but then it continues:
  • “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”, Psalm 133.

What is in the previous psalm can never be realised unless the brethren are dwelling together in unity; there will never be a place for God and therefore these joys will never be experienced by the saints. They are not known in christendom.

• God has in mercy recovered some of us to the truth, and it ought to completely govern us as it did the sons of Korah:
  • “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of Jehovah; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God”, Psalm 84: 2.

• So God has recovered the truth to us and us to the truth. It is all with a view even in outward smallness, to conditions being secured in our localities where God can find His rest.

• I would again call upon the young men and women here to make this their career, as David did. The fact that he became king was but incidental to the great end in view.

• He did not choose to be king. We do not have to choose our personal careers. God will do it for us.
  • Make this your career. Let all your labours centre around a place for God, God and the Ark of His strength.

• Unity in the family is basic to all this and everything else. There are other things to be built on to it, but we must begin with unity among brethren, unity in the family of God. John’s epistle is written to help us on this line.

The history of Joseph and his brethren is also written to help us on this line. Jealousy and rivalry and all sorts of things are apt to come in and, if allowed, hinder brotherly relations.

• They may even go so far as to bring in hate; but, as John’s epistle says, we either love or hate. It does not suppose a middle course. “Everyone that hates his brother is a murderer”.

• God does not wait for you to do anything, but He sees your heart. John’s epistle is written that we might love our brother.
  • “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”.

• Whatever difficulties exist among brethren, if we begin to get the idea of laying down our lives for them, things will soon get right.
  • “Love one another as I have loved you”.

• He laid down His life for us and that is the level of divine love. The last thing anyone will do is to lay down his life; therefore if you are prepared for that, you will do anything for the brethren.

If this is brought in, any discord will be removed. Joseph had experienced much hatred from his brethren, but he did not bear them any grudge. It did not once make him hate them.

• It did not make him the less prepared to lay down his life for them. He dealt with them in faithful love. He got them all to open their sacks and search.

• That is what is needed – a search. If there is not this kind of unity, a search is needed. The Lord is operating tonight to bring about a search.
  • “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”.

• So however you have sinned on this line, the precious blood of Christ can meet it. We are not afraid of a search. If it were not for the blood of Christ, we should be afraid. The thing is to be prepared to walk in the light.

Discord always comes from dark motives, motives which we would like to cover up. We would like to justify ourselves by all kinds of excuses, but the search exposes the real thing.

• Joseph’s brethren had to turn out their sacks and that is what we need to do, turn ourselves inside out, as it were. Let everything come into the light.

• Let the all-searching light of God search to the very depths of our being to see if there is anything there contrary to the Divine nature.

If we are born of God, we have the capacity to love; we have the Spirit.

• Motives contrary to the Divine nature bring in the discord. Walking in the light involves judging every motive except love.

• There could not be anything but love in God’s dwelling; and if I am to be with God in His dwelling, I must bring nothing there but love.

• When other motives begin to work, we fail to have the sense of the presence of God, and no wonder, for the Spirit of God knows well what is now working.

• The Lord would help us, each one, to accept the searching; and from now on, from tonight onward, to learn to walk in the light as He is in the light. There is an old verse:
  "Eternal Light! Eternal Light!
  How pure the soul must be –
  When placed within Thy searching sight,
  It shrinks not, but with calm delight,
  Can live, and look on Thee!"

That is what God has in mind for us. We are going to live in His presence eternally which means we shall always be in the all-searching light of God.

• How pure our souls will be in that day! There will not be a mixed motive then. When placed under that light, we will not shrink, but live and look on God, God known in Jesus.

• That is to be anticipated now, 1 John 1: 7. We shall be there eternally on the ground of the blood of Christ, but we shall no longer need a present application of it.

• We can walk in this light now in spite of flesh in us and sin in the flesh, because, as we make discoveries in the search – and the search goes on day by day – there is the efficacy of the blood.

• We are not turned out of God’s presence because of discoveries. What would cause us to leave God’s presence is the fact that we are not prepared for discoveries. We refuse to be searched.

• If we are prepared for the search and if we face the discoveries which the search brings to light, then the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.

• This then is the way for us. This is the only way for brethren to dwell together in unity.

In most meetings there are always little difficulties coming up between the brethren,

• and it is because the search is not maintained, the all-searching light is not allowed into our souls.

• So this is the only way to bring about this verse:
  • “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

• This is a basic matter. That is why Paul, wherever he went, laboured first of all to bring about family conditions before he spoke about the assembly.

• We cannot have the assembly functioning without the family. You must have the family affections functioning as the basic thing.

• You will find after Paul comes on the scene in the Acts it repeatedly speaks of the brethren. Before Paul comes on the scene they are called disciples.
  • In Philippi he came to Lydia, to “the brethren”, and at Thessalonica, “the brethren”.

• You can see clearly that Paul laboured everywhere to bring about family conditions.

• The Thessalonians were a young company, but they were “In God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”. He left them united, having himself been a nursing mother and a nursing father among them.

If we have these conditions of unity, the Psalm indicates the blessing that follows.

• “Like the precious oil upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, upon Aaron’s beard, that ran down to the hem of his garments”.

• There are no loose ends to the garment, no unsettled questions among the brethren, but, as suggested in the hem, all are tied up and finished. There is nothing to hinder the oil from flowing.

• We get the gain of the anointing and then “the dew of Hermon that descendeth on the mountains of Zion”. We are ready for the ministry that comes from our glorious Head who has ascended above all heavens.

• Mount Hermon is three times the height of Mount Zion and the dew of Hermon falls on the mountains of Zion, and the ministry of Christ comes from the place to which He has ascended, above all heavens.

• We cannot go there but the ministry comes from there. He has “ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things … with a view to the work of the ministry”.

• But it is only those in these conditions of unity who get the benefit of it, who get the grace of the anointing from the ascended Christ and the dew of Hermon.
  • These are blessings little known around us in Christendom because unity is not there.

• “Jehovah commanded the blessing, life for evermore”. Marvellous thing! God delights in these conditions and grants the blessing.

• What marvellous blessing we prove in these days! We know what it is to enjoy eternal life. All this is necessary if God is to have His portion from us.

The next psalm brings in active priestly service. Psalm 132 says “Let thy priests”, but what must come in between is unity. Once this is secured it says

• “Behold, bless Jehovah, all ye servants of Jehovah, who by night stand in the house of Jehovah”, Psalm 134.

• Now the priests are functioning. Our concern should be that we should all be among the functioning priests.

• These are the priests who are clothed with righteousness, these are saints who shout aloud with joy; these are in the gain of eternal life, the precious oil and the dew of Hermon.

• The New Testament gives us further light. The habitations of God that David had to do with, though God’s presence was known there, were but type and shadow.

• While we must have unity as brethren basically, it is the foundation for other things.

The next thing is the truth of the body. This involves the unity of the Spirit and is a testing truth.

• It tests our wills because it involves the sovereignty of God in the position in which we are set and, therefore, if we are not found in family affections, we shall find ourselves unable to take up the truth of the body.

• It is not taken up in christendom. They say you cannot work it out, and of course you cannot if you are not in unity.

• The truth of the body involves stresses and strains which only a thorough foundation of family affections will stand.

• If I am founded in family affections, conscious of being a child of God and one of the sons of God and loving my brethren upon whom the same honours are conferred, I value these family relations in which we all have equal status.

• But in the body it is different. The body is a living organism and God has set the members in the body as it has pleased Him. So the truth of the body is the test for every Christian.

• The family is a test in its measure, but assuming there are happy family conditions, the next test to face is the truth of the body.

• That is the order in which it is put in Romans. Sonship is introduced in chapter 8 and the body in chapter 12.

• Paul exhorts us to “think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith”. Do not quarrel with the sovereignty of God. Be wise. Accept it.

• God has dealt to each a measure of faith for action; faith which qualifies us to act and fulfil our function in the body. God does not place us in the body without giving each member a measure of faith which equips him.

• The fact is that God has had dealings with every one of us and has dealt a measure of faith which the recipient, accepting it and ready to use it, will be enabled to fulfill a certain function in the body which no one else can fulfill in the same way.

• If you contract out of it, others will have to do their best to fill your place.

• If I lose an arm; the other members have to do their best to fill the place of the missing one. Nevertheless, that particular function cannot be carried out by any member in the same way it could have been by the member to whom that particular ability has been given.

We have to face up to body exercises. Sometimes when we try to work out the truth of the body we get upset and that disturbs family relations, because the truth of the body involves divine sovereignty.

• We are to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith, and we should look at the brethren to see what place others have and then take our own place.

• We are not to be marked by that pride of false humility which would lead us to say we are not fit to take the place God has given us. Is that pleasing to God? Of course not.

• If He has given us a place in the body, He intends us to fill it out. The functioning of the body is God’s supreme concern.

• Nor are we to be marked by the pride of place-seeking, wanting some position that we have not been given. In unselfish love we are to encourage everyone to fill out his place.

• By one Spirit we have been baptised into one body and the Spirit manifests Himself through the members of that body.

• The way I can maintain the unity of the Spirit is to seek humbly to be then available for His manifestations in the position that has been given to me in the body and in love to encourage everyone of my fellow-members to fill out theirs.

The 12th of Corinthians gives the manifestations of the Spirit and the 13th gives us the way of more surpassing excellence.

• If love is operating according to 1 Corinthians 13, no one will be discouraged but each encouraged to fill out his place in the body. It is thus that we keep the unity of the Spirit.

• Ephesians 4 says “with all lowliness and meekness”, that is the suitable attitude toward others. One should take account of what God has given to the other rather than what God has given to one’s self.
  • “With long suffering, bearing with one another in love; using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”.

We cannot comprehend how much for Christ and for God depends on these body relations.

• The ultimate end in divine workmanship is not only the family but a corporate vessel to be, first of all, the body and fulness of Christ.
  • “Head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”.

• This corporate vessel is needed for that, as loving Him in bridal and wifely relations. If we are not maintaining unity as brethren, and keeping the unity of the Spirit bodywise, bridal response to Christ will be lacking.

• Then God Himself requires this corporate vessel, this tabernacle. John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,
  • but heard a loud voice saying, the tabernacle of God is with men, showing that this vessel is the tabernacle of God. God needs this vessel for His dwelling.

• That vessel is the joy of Christ and therefore Christ is enshrined in it. It becomes thus the habitation of God. If Christ is enshrined as the ark was enshrined in the tabernacle, everything must be pleasing to God.

• Everyone in that tabernacle is a first-born son; for what we begin with familywise continues through eternity. Then it is in that vessel, the tabernacle, that the sons find their scope and service.

• Therefore we need to face the matter of body relations, and not shrink from the exercises involved. As they are faced, we come to the final thing which is the tabernacle of God.

In Ephesians we see the assembly functioning in relation to God at the present time. The apostle says in chapter 3

• “to enlighten all with the knowledge of what is the administration of the mystery”.

• What I have been saying as to the body is part of the administration of the mystery. The body is mysterious in its working. It goes on to say
  • “who has created all things, in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God, according to the purpose of the ages, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

• God had a purpose about the present time, that is, that “now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God”.

• This is the assembly functioning under the headship of Christ according to God’s own mind, functioning in service Godward and in administration manward.

• How can this be if there is discord among brethren? How can it be unless being right familywise we are prepared to face body exercises and function bodywise? These things are to be faced if God is to have a present portion according to His own purpose.

• If these things are faced, the assembly functions in all her dignity under the direction of her glorious Head as endowed with the unsearchable riches of Christ.

• The Queen of Sheba came and saw Solomon’s wisdom, especially culminating in his ascent to the house of Jehovah; and so today,
  • if we move on these lines, there will be some expression in our localities of the heavenly service proceeding under the headship of Christ.

• It says “in whom we have boldness and access in confidence by the faith of him”. This is service proceeding in the assembly, the saints having boldness and access in confidence to God. The heavenly principalities take account of it.

So in verse 20 it says, “to him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us, to him be glory in the assembly”.

• How wonderful that this ascription of glory already begins at the present time! It involves unison. We cannot have unison without unity.

• The great climax is unison in praise to God. That would link with Psalm 134. Then it goes on in Psalm 135,
  • “Hallelujah! Praise the name of Jehovah; praise, ye servants of Jehovah, Ye that stand in the house of Jehovah, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise ye Jah; for Jehovah is good: sing psalms unto his name; for it is pleasant. For Jah hath chosen Jacob unto himself, Israel for his own possession”.

• There you have the idea of unison in praise. That is the great testimony of the moment – testimony to angels, angelic principalities, and testimony to men, that a company should be so unified in God’s praise.

May the Lord help us, for His Name’s sake!

In each of these passages the word implies being “filled full”.

1. It was given to Paul to fill full the word of God; the church is filled full in Christ;

2. we are to be filled to all the fulness of God;

3. and then in Revelation, the force of the expression is the same, the works were not “filled full”.

• One is confident that the desire of our hearts is to go on to completion, to arrive at the fulness of things; and that, as a result, our works might be filled full;

• that they may not be unworthy of the dispensation in which we are, but that the Lord may be able to say something about completeness in connection with them.

The first thing to notice is that it was given to Paul to complete, or fill full, the word of God,

• “the mystery”, as he says, “which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but has now been made manifest to his saints”.

• We shall never know anything about completion unless we understand the mystery of the Christ.

• In the last chapter of Colossians Paul asks the saints to pray that he might have utterance “to speak the mystery of the Christ” – as it should read –
  • and, in Ephesians 3, he writes that they might “understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ”.

• It is really in the unfolding of the mystery of the Christ that the word of God has been completed, and it was given to Paul – we have to note that – to unfold the mystery, and thus “fill full” the word of God.

• It shows the importance of Paul’s ministry, for it was not given to any other apostle or servant to do that.

• If we miss Paul’s ministry we shall never come to completion. It is he who unfolds the distinctive feature of this dispensation, and that is the mystery of the Christ.

• We are not to be afraid of the term “mystery”, because it is given to us to know mysteries: the whole idea of a mystery is that it is known to those initiated.

• Every Christian should thus have a knowledge of the mystery, for it says “… has now been made manifest to his saints”.

• If I number myself among the “saints” I do well to challenge my heart as to whether the mystery has been made manifest to me. God manifested it through Paul.

There is no mystery attaching to Christ’s relations with Israel; prophetic testimony makes it clear that

• He is their Messiah, the Anointed One of God, the King of Israel, the expected One.

• But what came out in Paul’s ministry is far greater than Christ’s relations with Israel. He unfolded that the Christ is the centre of all the counsels of God.

• The title “the Christ” is one we need to consider, dear brethren; it speaks of His official position, if I may speak of it thus, in the counsels of God; His Headship, the greatness of His Manhood.
  • There is the greatness of His Person in Deity, He is the Creator, co-equal with the Father.

  • There is also His unique relationship in manhood, He is the Son.

  • These personal glories, of course, underlie all that He is as Man.

• But the title “the Christ” brings before us the glorious character of His Manhood, the One in whom every thought of God as to man is fully established,
  • and who is great enough to fill all things, thus effectuating God’s pleasure in a universe ordered in every way according to the counsel of God’s will.

• Any bride or wife delights in the glory of her husband, and this title is therefore especially attractive to the assembly.
  • in fact it is as the Christ that she is united to Him. It is always Christ and the assembly.

• It is in His glorious Manhood that the assembly is united to Him, as the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

• True we are associated with Him as Son, having our place with Him as sons before God, but union is between Christ and the assembly. So Ephesians is full of that title; it is referred to about twenty times.

• While, of course, the sonship of Christ is implied throughout the epistle, the title “Son” is not used, except in the reference to the Son of God in chapter 4: 13; and there is no direct reference to His deity.

• Ephesians, which brings out truth of the highest character, is occupied with the glorious manhood of the Christ as the centre of the counsels of God.

• It was given to Paul to unfold this mystery, purposed before the world began and only made known in the present dispensation.

• It is a great thing to have an appreciation of His glorious Manhood and the assembly’s place as united to Him, sharing with Him the place of glory in the system of Divine purpose and counsel.

The mystery of God’s will is referred to in Ephesians 1: 9 –

• “Having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth”.

• In such unfoldings of the truth Paul completed the word of God. It is important to understand what that means (See JND’s notes on Colossians 1: 25, and Matthew 5: 17).

• It does not mean simply that Paul’s epistles added to the word of God, complete the canon of scripture, but the force of the expression is that
  • Paul’s writings fill full and make understandable all that has gone before.

• It was given to him to complete, in that sense, the word of God. So that Paul’s ministry becomes a key which opens up the truth of the Old Testament,
  • and we can see now that the One in whom the mystery was hidden through the ages and generations, God Himself, in inditing scripture,

  • put the impress of His thoughts upon every type and shadow. We thus find that the word of God is filled full for us.

• If we go back to the beginning, how could we understand Adam and Eve as a type if we had not Paul’s ministry as to Christ and the assembly?

• So with regard to the other types; Isaac and Rebecca; Joseph and Asenath; the tabernacle; the temple; David; Solomon, etc., we need Paul’s ministry to fill them out.

• The mystery of the Christ throws light on the whole of scripture.

• I wonder if the word of God is filled full for you. Do you find the scriptures full of interest, filled full with instruction?

• If not, it is because you have not this key to it, you have not given enough attention to Paul’s ministry. There is no lack on God’s side; full provision has been made, the word of God has been completed.

In the next passage read it says of Christ, “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”. You could not think of a greater idea of completeness than that.

• All that can be known and displayed of God dwells in Christ bodily – all of it! What a wonderful Person He is! What a privilege to know such a Person!

• Then it says of the assembly, “ye are complete” [or filled full] “in him”. What more could the assembly desire? What a marvellous position!
  • It means that she lacks nothing, she is filled full in Christ – God, as it were, could supply no more.

• That is the truth from God’s side. But then, it has to be arrived at from our side, and so the apostle says, “Beware”.

• He warns us against going outside of Christ for anything. What havoc has resulted from not abiding in Him – not holding fast the Head!

• So Paul in Ephesians prays to the Father that He would strengthen them “with power by his Spirit in the inner man, that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”.

• He prays that this glorious Person in His glorious Manhood, the centre of the counsels of God, might dwell in their affections.

• I believe it involves what the Lord speaks of as “first love”, the proper affection of the assembly for Christ.

• “First love” does not mean the love that we begin with when we are converted, although the germ may be there;
  • first love is what marked the assembly at Ephesus after the whole counsel of God has been declared to them.

• The Lord Jesus says “Thou hast left thy first love”. It was the kind of love that marked the company to whom Paul had announced the whole counsel of God.

I believe our affections for Christ develop in three ways.

1. Firstly, on the line of Romans, like the woman in Luke 7, who loved much because she had been forgiven much.

   The foundation of affection for Christ lies in this that He has come to our side of things to meet every need of our hearts and souls.

2. But then, the Lord has come to our side and met our needs in order that we might be set free to be engaged with Him in the greatness of His Person, and Colossians brings this out.

   Chapter 1 refers to Him as the Son of the Father’s love and also stresses His Deity –

   • “all things have been created by him and for him. And he is before all, and all things subsist together by him. And he is the head of the body, the assembly”.

   Such language as that can only be taken in by a soul who, in some measure, has been relieved in his own side of things
   • and can now sit down in the presence of the One who has met his need, and contemplate the greatness of His Person,

   • his heart bowed in adoration as he realises that such an One is Head of the body, the assembly.

3. Then the further stage, the development of full assembly affection, lies in apprehending Him in relation to the whole counsel of God, as set out in the epistle to the Ephesians.

Paul prays to the Father that the Christ – Note, he does not say “the Son” – might dwell in our hearts by faith.

• He would have our hearts enter into the joy the Father has in the fact that His Son is the Christ, filling out so gloriously the place the Father has given Him in the counsels of His love.

• As the Christ thus dwells in our hearts, true affections are fully developed, and we are able to look out on the whole range of things centred in Him, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.

• The greatness of Christ only enhances His love; that we should be loved by One so great! In the Song of Songs the Beloved is the King, and the effect of that is only to enhance His love to the bride.

• The realm of glory would not be complete for Him if the assembly were not there by His side. But it is all to the end that we might be filled even to all the fulness of God. The fulness dwells in Him bodily and we are filled to all the fulness of God.

Now just a word on the Lord’s remark to Sardis, where He speaks of works. He says, “I have not found thy works complete” [or filled full] “before my God”.

• It is the Christ speaking, and it is His God whom He is considering. That is what marks the Christ, He ever considers for God.

• It is He who has brought about all the counsels of God, every thought of God, and He measures things from that standpoint.

• This is a solemn matter, and I believe the reason for incompleteness lies in failure to give heed to Paul’s ministry as filling out the word of God; failure to accept the truth that we are filled full in Christ, and thus failure to develop first love.

• To Ephesus the Lord says, “I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works”.

• I believe first works are complete works, works filled full for God’s pleasure, works which flow from first love.

• They were doing wonderful works at Ephesus: I do not think we would have found anything wrong with them. But the Lord says, “Do the first works”.

• He could see that the works were not filled full, there was not that fulness about them which gives pleasure to Divine Persons, the fulness which flows from first love.

Incompleteness has especially marked Protestantism, which Sardis represents.

• There has been failure to recognise Paul’s ministry, and therefore failure to recognise that Christ is Head of the church.

• In this country the King is called the head of the established church; and the Prime Minister appoints the bishops on the King’s behalf.

• That kind of thing has marked Protestantism as a whole, that is, failure to recognise and own Christ’s place as Head of the church, and that we need nothing outside of Him; and consequently failure in affection for Him.

• No one can say that what marks Protestantism is first love; what marks it today is a Laodicean state, indifference to Christ.

• It matters not to them where Christ is; He is outside knocking, but it matters not to them, they are not at all interested.
  • “Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking”, but they say, “I am rich, and am grown rich, and have need of nothing”.

• If God is disciplining the English-speaking world, it is His mercy to them; He is disciplining the part of the earth most favoured during recent centuries.

• But where the most favour has been bestowed, utter indifference to Christ has resulted.

• If the Lord’s voice of discipline is heeded, we shall have to own that this part of the earth in which, perhaps, we ourselves have had a certain measure of pride, is the “wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”.

• For if you have not Him you have nothing: the church is only complete in Him.

• You may have the riches of the earth, the trade of all nations like Tyre of old, but if you have not Christ you are “the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”, Revelation 3: 17.

But still, the voice of the Lord is saying, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which are about to die”, and He finds an answer.

• In the dead state of things which followed the Reformation, there were some who gave heed to His word, and a Philadelphian condition, to some extent, developed, for He says to Philadelphia “Thou hast a little strength”.

• They had strengthened the things that remained; and while it could not be said that they had much, yet they had a little strength.

• Even this, however, does not suggest completion. What I think I can see is this: that there is no real completion in works except in an overcomer.

• Even if you think you are attached to something Philadelphian in character, do not suppose that that, in itself, means completion.
  • It is happy if a Philadelphian state exists, although we have to be very careful not to credit ourselves with it, lest we become complacent.

• But even if such a state were present, it would not follow that our works were complete before Christ’s God; I doubt if it is true of anyone except an overcomer.

• So we are all challenged, for overcoming means continual conflict. No one marked by complacency or self-satisfaction will ever reach completion; even Paul said,
  • “Not that I have already obtained the prize or am already perfected; but I pursue … looking towards the goal for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”, Philippians 3: 12.

  • That was Paul at the end of his life!

• We need to beware of complacency, for it leads to a Laodicean state. But the Lord would stimulate us to go on to completion in our works, and I think the way to it is on the lines of which I have been speaking.

• Complete works can only come about in the measure in which the Christ is supreme in our hearts. It is as the Christ is supreme in our hearts that His God becomes supreme.
  • “I have not found thy works complete before my God”.

• The more attractive Christ becomes to you the more attractive His God becomes to you. What a God He must be to be His God!
  • “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ …” – the God and Father of such an One.

And further, as the Christ, the One in whom every thought of God has been established, dwells in our affections, there will be in some measure, an answer to these thoughts in us.

• It was ever God’s thought that the assembly, which is His body, should be a continuation of Christ down here. The Lord referred to His own body when here, as being the temple; and now the assembly is “temple of God”, 1 Corinthians 3: 16.

• The Lord could speak of the Father abiding in Him, and now the saints are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit, Ephesians 2: 22.

• The fragrant graces of Christ’s Manhood mark the new man here and are to find expression in our demeanour towards one another, as Colossians indicates.

• Then in our testimony towards men, according to God’s thought, there is to be correspondence with Christ. Paul speaks of the testimony of the Christ being confirmed in the saints. The Lord does not care for testimony that does not flow from first love.

• We may not be much concerned as to the kind of testimony we render – we feel we ought to say something; but the Lord says to Ephesus,
  • “I will remove thy lamp out of its place, except thou shalt repent”;

• as much as to say He does not care greatly for testimony which springs from anything less than first love.

• There is a ring about testimony which flows from first love which cannot be imitated; like the woman in John 4,
  • “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done; is not he the Christ?” Her heart was full of a Man, the Christ.

First works, full works, complete works, mean, then, that the holy activities, seen in perfection in Christ, are continued here in the saints, as those who recognise that

• they are of His body, the assembly; the vessel intended by God to be a living expression of Himself here – God’s temple, God’s habitation, God’s vessel of grace to men.

• If you think of the activity that has gone on since the Reformation, how little of it has been on this level. There has been much activity for the supposed benefit of men,
  • but complete works can only spring from having the Christ in our hearts and being filled full in Him, who is the expression of all that is pleasurable under God’s eye.

• The Lord has nothing else in mind, and it is reached in the overcomer, for He says of the overcomer in Philadelphia,
  • “Him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and I will write upon him the name of my God”, Revelation 3: 12.

• The greater the Christ is in your heart, the greater His God will be to you.

• The overcomer there has evidently in some measure understood the idea of completion, because it is a question of what is pleasurable to Christ’s God; it is that which he understands.

• He must be in measure the expression of it, otherwise the Lord would not speak to him about it.
  • “I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name”.

May the Lord help us each to be exercised

• as to understanding Paul’s ministry as completing the word of God,

• and as to understanding that we are complete in Christ and need not go outside of Christ for anything, because “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”.

• Then, as the Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, may we know something of being filled to all the fulness of God, so that there may be here a practical answer in us to His own thoughts, a continuation of Christ down here!

It is important to keep in mind that the Lord is praying in view of His departure out of this world to the Father, that is, that these requests were to be fulfilled after He had departed out of this world to the Father.

• We are also told in chapter 13 that He came out from God and was going to God. That wonderful mission was about to be completed; and it is touching and most instructive to take account of the Lord’s requests at that time.

• What He requested was essential if the purpose of His mission, in coming out from God and going to God, were to be achieved, that is, if the God from whom He came out and to whom He has gone were to receive the responsive worship and praise which He came to secure.

We need to keep in mind the present position of the Lord Jesus. He is now with the Father.

• In the beginning of chapter 14 He says, “ye believe on God, believe also on me”; that has reference to the Lord’s present position.

• He is now an object of faith to us as having departed out of this world to the Father.

• I feel, dear brethren, that we need help by the Spirit to grasp that and to be maintained in faith in Christ as and where He is.

He speaks of glory in a threefold way.

1. In verse 5 He says, “now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”.

   He does not speak of that glory as given; it is a glory which was ever His. In that glory He is reinstated; glorified along with the Father with the glory which He had along with Him before the world was.

   I am not suggesting that we can behold that glory. But the Lord says this in the presence of His disciples, and it comes down to us to affect our souls, that

   • the Lord Jesus is no longer in the scene of His humiliation but that, while retaining Manhood, He is glorified along with the Father with the glory which He had along with Him before the world was;

   • emphasising, among other things, how important it is to have the Deity of Christ ever in our thoughts.

   Now, as I said, while retaining Manhood, He is glorified along with the Father with the glory which He had along with Him before the world was.

   Think of that glory! A glory, I suppose, that was there before any creature came into existence; and yet, perfect in the place and condition into which He had come, He requests to be thus glorified on the ground that His mission was completed.

   • “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”.

   He had come out from God and had completed the work; He thus anticipates His death. So He requests to be glorified along with the Father, with the glory which He had along with Him before the world was. We need to hold that in our souls. It is the present position of the Lord Jesus.

2. But then, later in the chapter, He speaks again of glory, “the glory which thou hast given me I have given them”. There are glories given, given to Him as Man, which He shares with us.

3. Then, in verse 24, there is a glory given which He calls “my glory” – “that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me” – which we are to be with Him in order to behold, but which we are never said to share.

All this is to be in our minds as to the present time, as to where Jesus is,

• glorified along with the Father with the glory which He had along with Him before the world was,

• having also glory given to Him as Man which He shares with us,

• and having also glory given to Him which we are to behold but cannot share.

Many glories are, I think, included in the expression “my glory”, verse 24. I believe it includes His glory as the Centre of the divine system.

• He is the Image of the invisible God; the Mediator of God and men; the effulgence of God’s glory and the expression of His substance; and the One in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily.

• These are glories which we behold, but which none can share; they relate to what He is from God towards man. What a glorious Person He is!

Then on the return side, on the line of the response from man Godward, He is Minister of the holy places. No one can share that glory.

• But how wonderful to be with Him where He is and thus, in the greatest nearness, to behold His glory – so varied!

• How wonderful, too, that the assembly should so derive from Him as to be His fulness, “the fulness of him who fills all in all”.

• You say, it means that the assembly is the fulness of a Man. It does, indeed; nevertheless no one less than God can fill all in all. That Man is the One in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily.

If we understand that the assembly is His fulness it will give us an incentive to take account of the unities to which I have referred; and I believe, in this connection,

• the Spirit of God would encourage us to find our resource in spiritual matters in the Father more than we have done.

• In chapter 14 the Lord first brings Himself very definitely before us as the Object. “Ye believe on God, believe also on me”; “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”.

• Then in chapter 16 He brings the Spirit before us in His activities in glorifying Him.

• But then, He brings the Father before us, and He says, “whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he may give you”, referring to the spiritual realm of things. The Father delights to bestow wealth upon the saints, if they are ready for it.

• Prayers of this kind are on the level of the apostle’s prayer in Ephesians 3. Do we often hear such prayers? If we do not ask we shall get nothing; if we ask we shall get exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

So the Lord asks – not that our asking can be on the level of His.

• The word translated “demand” in this chapter, as the note indicates in chapter 14, is a familiar request on the part of an equal. The Lord was speaking thus to His Father.

• The word used as to our asking is the word which we would normally speak of as prayer.

• Nevertheless, the Lord is surely giving a lead in asking; and, before making these specific requests as to unity, we get an indication of the Lord’s outlook on the saints.

• I do not think we can pray on the high level unless we have a right outlook on the saints. So far as the Lord’s words in this chapter are concerned,
  • we would not know that those for whom He was praying had had any sinful history or sinful origin.

• Why could the Lord speak of them and regard them abstractly in this way – as apart from what they were as after the flesh? The basis for it is set out in verse 4:
  • “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”.

• Within a few hours of uttering this prayer the Lord was crowned with thorns, robed with a purple robe, scourged, crucified.

• He was hanged upon a cross; they pierced His hands and His feet, a soldier with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came thereout blood and water. That is involved in this expression,
  • “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”.

• What it cost the Lord, dear brethren, that He might have the right to look upon the saints according to Divine purpose, apart from their sinful history altogether, and give us the right to do it!

• What a real thing it is that Jesus ended His path of testimony here upon the cross for us! Oh, the reality of it! It should touch our hearts and teach us to have a right outlook on the brethren.

He says, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. They were thine”. That was their origin, they belonged to the Father, and He gave them to the Son.

• Later He says, “they are thine”, verse 9. That is because His work is regarded as completed.

• “They were thine” in purpose, “they are thine” because His work is done, redemption is accomplished. This is the only gospel which mentions the blood and the water.

• He says, “they are thine, and all that is mine is thine, and all that is thine mine”. Think of the community of ownership of the Father and the Son – no separate property! “All that is mine is thine and all that is thine mine”.

• The Father delights to hear the saints spoken of like this because they belong to Him; they were His and He gave them to the Son, and they are His.

• It is with this outlook on the saints that we can pray aright for them, and unless we carry all the saints in our affections we shall never arrive at divine thoughts. “That ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints …”

• Do not think, dear brethren, that, if we leave the saints out of our thoughts and prayers, we shall apprehend the thoughts of God. We have to carry them along with us in our affections – “with all the saints”. What an example the Lord is to us thus!

So He goes on to His specific requests, and the first is, “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one as we”.

• This, of course, especially relates to the twelve. There were eleven only here; but the number was made up by one who had assembled with them all the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out amongst them.

• How wonderful these pronouns are – “one as we”, “one in us”. I believe the first relates to unity in the Divine nature, seen in all its perfection in the Father and the Son.

• But we have been made partakers of the divine nature, as Peter says; we are born of God. In chapter 1 the writer speaks of those who have the right to be called children of God – those who were born of God.

• So the word is, “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me”. It is a question of being kept in the name of the holy Father, so that we are true to our family status.
  • “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”, 1 John 3: 1.

• That word ‘children’ is not diminutive; however much we grow in spiritual stature we are still children of God. It is a dignified term, and it implies that we partake of the divine nature, and it has in view testimony; and, applying to the twelve, what a remarkable thing it was!

• This dispensation has been founded by twelve men in whom this prayer was answered, they were “one as we”. None of them had a selfish end in view; none of them drew disciples after themselves.

• The number ‘twelve’ goes down through scripture as representing unity in administration and testimony in the oneness of the divine nature.

• Those twelve men had seen the way the Father and the Son moved in testimony; so that, having received the Spirit and looking back, John could say,
  • “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth”.

  • He also refers to the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.

• What oneness they took account of, and how they appreciated what they had seen! “Our fellowship is indeed with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”, 1 John 1: 3.

• I believe the basic idea of oneness lies in the Divine nature. The Christian has not two natures.
  • We have the flesh in us but we need to regard it as a foreign element, for we have been made partakers of the divine nature and we need to identify ourselves with that.

• We have been born of God, we are children of God. Let us seek grace to be kept in the name of the holy Father, that is, in the consciousness of our true family status, so that our activities may flow from the divine nature and that we may be one in all administrative matters.

• How we can thank God that this dispensation was founded through the instrumentality of twelve men who were free from every selfish motive, one in the divine nature in what they did; so that their names appear in the foundation of the heavenly city. What we owe to them!

• Alas, how many who came after have led away disciples after themselves; and how this can happen even in our localities! But, if kept in the name of the holy Father, Divine love will be our only motive and thus there will be unity in administration, in the oneness that love affords.

As regards the second unity, the Lord says, “I do not demand for these only, but also for those who believe on me through their word; that they may be all one”.

• The first applies to us by extension, for we all have to take up administrative matters; but this specifically brings us in.
  • “That they may be all one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”.

• The basis of this unity lies in the gift of the Spirit. The three unities run on together and I do not wish to separate, but the Lord distinguishes them.

• This request has been answered. Whatever may be the outward state of things it is still true that there is one body and one Spirit.

• Thank God, we have been brought back to the light of the one body, and we are being more and more helped as to the one Spirit, with a view to keeping the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace; and for that purpose we need all lowliness, meekness and longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.

• Are these features present in our localities? Are we using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace?

The unity of the Spirit exists for “there is one body and one Spirit”. We are to keep it. The compensation for keeping it is immense, because the Lord goes on to say,

• “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee” – what a vista of affection opens up! “That they also may be one in us”. Can you think of anything more blessed than that?

• Oneness must precede the blessed consciousness of being “in us” – “that they may be one in us”. “As thou, Father art in me, and I in thee”. What close affections, what intimacy!

• And now we are to be brought into the most intimate relations with the Son and the Father, “that they may be one in us”.

• How marvellous these pronouns “we” and “us” are, involving equality of the Persons, though distinction of relationship and activity. “One in us” – could anything be more blessed to the creature than this?

• But we cannot know our place of blessing and privilege in the Son and in the Father unless we are one. We cannot circumvent this matter. If we are out at elbows with our brethren, not keeping the unity of the Spirit, we forfeit the blessing.

• “That they may be one in us”. I do not know whether we have taken enough account, dear brethren, of the “us”. It indicates that the Son never ceases to be an Object.

• Even when the Father is the main Object, the Son has an objective place; He is never lost sight of amongst the brethren. We are apt to lose sight of Him in certain phases of the service.

• The Lord says, “ye see me; because I live ye also shall live”, and also, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father unless by me”, John 14: 19, 6-7.

• I believe that once the Lord has come to us and we see Him, we should keep our eyes upon Him right through the service.

• Even when the Father, as He should be, is the Object of our worship and praise, the Son is still an Object, although we are not addressing Him; “that they also may be one in us”. “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”.

• In the epistle John says, “ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father”, 1 John 2: 24 – that is the way of it. How wonderful this blessing is, and think of the testimony which flows out!

• If the saints are in the good of this, surely, in some little way, there will be fresh experiences of the world being turned upside down! “That the world may believe that thou hast sent me”.

• It is from this unity that testimony, in the true sense, flows. If we know what it is to be “one in us”, as the Lord says, how can there be other than a ceaseless flow of praise and a powerful testimony flowing out to men from the very joy that is our portion!

• Can you conceive of joy like this, that we should be one in the Son and in the Father? All this flows from the gift of the Spirit. The Lord had said, in view of the Comforter coming, “It is profitable for you that I go away”.

• It is because of the presence of the Spirit that we are one, and not only one but one in the Son and in the Father; and thus we know God in a practical and experimental way.

• We know Him as being ourselves one in the Son and in the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. The whole Godhead is involved in the matter. It is thus we know God and it is this God whom we worship.

• As we experience being one in the Son and in the Father in the power of the Spirit, we can say, “This is that God”! From eternity and to eternity He is God; and now that He is declared it is our privilege to dwell in Him and He in us.

But then the Lord goes on to speak of a third aspect of unity. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them; that they may be one, as we are one”, verse 22.

• We are coming now to glory. The fulness of this is future but it is to be known at the present time. “Whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”, Romans 8: 30.

• This, again, is the result of the Spirit given, but it is the glorious side of the matter. The Spirit is the Spirit of sonship, and I believe it is not only the glory of sonship
  • but that we enter in our spirits into the glory conferred upon us assemblywise as His wife, His counter-part; the glory that we share with Him as a result of union.

  • “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them”.

• We are coming into a setting of glory, and glory is unifying in a most practical way.
  • “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory, to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”.

• So the unity, or oneness, here brings in the idea of the vessel, the assembly. The word is not used but the substance is here, for the Lord goes on to say,
  • “the glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one. I in them and thou in me”.

Now you come to the Divine abode. “One in us” is our abode. “Thou hast been our dwelling place through all generations”.

• But what about the Divine abode, what about a place for God? Where is that? In the assembly. “I in them and thou in me”.

• The Son in the saints, and the Father in the Son – or, to use the Old Testament language, “Arise, unto thy rest, Oh, Jehovah Elohim, thou and the ark of thy strength”.

• The ark enshrined – “I in them” – but where the ark is God is. “I in them and thou in me”. That is, the assembly is the Divine abode.

• The Spirit is already there. It is by the Spirit that the assembly is formed, and now the Son is there and the Father is there – God is there, the fulness of God.

• This involves being filled to all the fulness of God. “I in them and thou in me” – what fulness! – the Spirit filling the vessel and the presence of the Son and the Father known. “I in them and thou in me”.

Then the Lord goes on to what is distinctively future: “that they may be perfected into one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me”.

• How it will be proved to the world that we are loved even as Christ is loved! Because the assembly will be seen publicly as the dwelling-place of God.

• Persons dwell where their affections rest. The assembly is the Divine abode and, so far as I know, no other vessel is.
  • God dwelt in the midst of Israel, in that which was a figure of the assembly, but the assembly is the Divine abode.

• How could God come and dwell with us if we were not loved even as Christ is loved? And the world will know it, and what glory will shine out of the vessel in that day as we are perfected into one! “I in them and thou in me”.

• What a glorious display in that coming day, “I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me”!

All this is leading up to the Lord’s final request, “Father, as to those whom thou has given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me”.

• Dear brethren, unless these three aspects of oneness are known practically amongst us, we shall never know in our spirits what it is to be with Jesus where He is.

• As I said before, we cannot circumvent this matter. If we allow the flesh in our relations with one another, we forfeit all this blessedness.

• Let us be more on our knees in prayer as to oneness, that
  • we may be preserved in oneness in the divine nature;

  • in oneness in the unity of the Spirit, in the Father and the Son;

  • and in oneness assemblywise in such a manner as to experience, “I in them and thou in me”.

• If this oneness is brought to pass we shall, with clear undimmed vision, behold His glory which the Father has given Him.

• We shall see Him as the One in whom the Father’s glory shines, and see Him as the image of the invisible God, the effulgence of God’s glory and the expression of His substance.

• Our blessing depends upon our having a clear vision of that glorious Person. Mr. Darby’s hymns stress it:
  “There Christ the Centre of the throng
  Shall in His glory shine”,

  that is not the glory He shares with us –

  “But not an eye those hosts among
  But sees His glory Thine”.

We behold His glory, and in beholding His glory that is given to Him, as the Centre and Light-bearer of the whole scene,

• we behold the glory of the Father, we behold the effulgence of the glory of God.

• We see as far as the creature can – the expression of God’s substance; and in the light of all that what can we do but worship!

• It is a wonderful thing, dear brethren, if this prayer in any way finds a practical answer in us, and if it is to do so let us bow our knees to the Father. That is the way it will be brought to pass.

• It is a remarkable thing that the greatest truths have come out in the way of prayer: John 17 and Ephesians 3 contain the greatest truths.

• This indicates, no doubt, that our entry into these things practically must stand related to prayer.

• If we know more of what it is to bow our knees in prayer and also pray on this line in our prayer-meetings, we can expect marvellous surprises – if I may put it that way – in the morning meeting –
  • marvellous disclosures of glory through the bringing to pass of the oneness, in a practical way, of which we are speaking.

May the Lord help us to carry in our spirit in prayer that which, in this last hour of His life here, the Lord was carrying in His Spirit – for His name’s sake!