Greatness
Early Ministry by G. R. Cowell
– Part One

Hebrews 1: 1-3

Hebrews 1 and 8 refer to the greatness of Christ in a striking way, particularly the former. It is essentially the chapter of greatness as regards Christ.

• It brings Him before us as the One in whom God has spoken, and is speaking, because the speaking goes on.

• God has spoken "in Son", and the speaking is now from the place where Jesus is.

• It is not simply an historical matter; the Scripture brings before us the place from which the present speaking comes. As it says,
  • "having made by Himself the purification of sins, He set Himself down on the right hand of the Greatness on high".

In this chapter the Scriptures, particularly the Psalms, are quoted extensively to bring out the greatness of Christ.

• The chapter brings out who He is in His Person. As it says lower down,
  • "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands. They shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they shall all wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the Same".

• That is a title of Deity – "Thou art The Same", although applied to the Lord in manhood. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever", Heb. 13: 8.

• In His Person the Lord Jesus has never changed. He is the same whatever the circumstances into which He has come.

• He Himself is unchangeable in His unspeakable greatness, whether on earth, or going into death, or risen and ascended.
  • His conditions have changed, but He in His Person has never changed.

• Though, truly, in His perfect manhood here He learned obedience in the things that He suffered – Heb. 5 – yet that does not affect the truth that in His Person He is unchanging and unchangeable.
  • It is a great thing to get that into the soul.

• And yet He is truly Man. He has come into manhood in order that the whole mind and will of God as to man might be expressed, including God's disposition towards man, and the speaking involves these things.

The Son is said to be "the effulgence of His glory and the expression of His substance"; thus the One in whom God speaks is entirely in accord with the speaking.

• He could say when here, "I am altogether that which I say unto you".

• The expression, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all", implies that God is always what He purports to be; His word is a true expression of Himself.

• And so this blessed Person, in whom God has spoken, is the full expression and out-shining of God; and, at the same time, the expression of His pleasure in man.

• He is the Man who can fill out everything for God. What a delight to God to have such a One, the One who is going to take up all things as the true Heir.

• But redemption was a necessity, and so it says, "having made by Himself the purification of sins, He set Himself down on the right hand of the Greatness on high".

I would like to commend that expression to you, because the Lord Himself is ineffably great, and yet as Man He has set Himself down at the right hand of the Greatness.

• That word "the Greatness" is the supreme expression of greatness in Scripture.

• The right hand is the most important seat. How great Christ must be, to be able, without presumption, to set Himself down at the right hand of the Greatness on high.

• We cannot measure what is involved in that expression "the Greatness".

• It involves, no doubt, essential Deity, but how it magnifies the Lord Jesus that as Man He has gone in and set Himself down at the right hand of the Greatness on high.

• That is the blessed place He has taken as Man and it is from that point that the speaking comes at the present time. It comes from the very presence of the Greatness on high.

Before I pass on I would just say this: love enters into the whole matter. "Taking a place by so much better than the angels".

• No angel could ever have that place, no angel could set himself down there. That was reserved for man, but only one Man.

• He is more than man, of course – He is the Same. He Himself has part in Deity, and yet this is intended to magnify to us the great fact that a Man has sat down there.

• Only One who Himself had part in "the Greatness" could do it, but how wonderful it is that a divine Person has taken manhood, and as Man has taken a place that an angel could never take!
  • But that Man is the Son. "To which of the angels said He ever, Thou art my Son".

• We must not think that the thought of greatness shuts out affection. Love marks the whole position.
  • "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, and again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son".

• That is how God regards this One who has set Himself down at the right hand of the Greatness. He is the object of the Father's love.

Hebrews 8: 1-2

But now in chapter 8 it is Christ on our side. In chapter 1 we see Christ on God's side, the One through whom God speaks, and in that respect He must be alone in all His greatness, but in chapter 8 the apostle says,

• "Now a summary of the things of which we are speaking is, We have such a One high priest, who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Greatness in the heavens".

• It is what we have. In chapter 1 it is what God has – His Son, through whom He can speak. Chapter 8 is what we have.
  • "We have such a One high priest, who has set Himself down (see J.N.D.'s note) at the right hand of the throne of the Greatness in the heavens; minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man".

• He is there as our High Priest, our Representative. He is there as the true Aaron. We are in the position of Aaron's sons who were with him in the service.

• But how great it is that the Lord Jesus as the High Priest has sat Himself down as our Representative; He has set Himself down at the right hand of the throne of the Greatness in the heavens. What a wonderful contemplation!

• The Man, speaking reverently, who is our Representative, has, without any presumption, sat Himself down in the seat of greatest honour and power, at the right hand of the throne of the Greatness in the heavens.

We are a part of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man; we are in immediate proximity to the throne. We must not be geographical in our thoughts.

• The true tabernacle has its application to the assembly here on earth and as belonging to the assembly we belong to the most holy place; not that they could go in in the fullest sense – the way into the holy of holies was not then made manifest. Heb. 9: 8.

• But now it is fully manifested, for the very Person in whom God has made known Himself and His mind and thoughts is the One who has gone in as High Priest and who is over the whole service, and who links His brethren with Him in the service, in the presence of God Himself.

• As I said, I believe God would help us to become more accustomed to being in the presence of greatness – the greatness of Christ, and then –
  • what is even more wonderful – the Greatness; that which is beyond us to comprehend, and yet as in the presence of God we have a sense of it.

• We know God as revealed and yet we are in the presence of One who, though known as revealed, is in His own Being beyond our comprehension.

• We know Him revealed as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. His Father and our Father, His God and our God, yet there is always that which is beyond us,
  • but it is the very sense of that, the Greatness, that gives the highest note to our worship.

• We are in the presence of "the King of the ages". Paul say, "to Him be honour and glory to the ages of ages".

We are before Him as sons. The more we enter into the relationship of sons the more we shall cherish the thought of greatness, the greatness of the One we know as Father, His ineffable greatness as God.

But then there is the question of the greatness of the saints. In thinking of the greatness of the saints we need to be very careful always to maintain that Christ's greatness is outstanding.

• In a way there is no comparison. I love to make that clear for the joy of my own heart.

• Think of the ark, and then think of one of those boards. Yet the board was made of the same material as the ark, and the boards put together made a fit setting for the ark, they made the shrine where the ark was.
  • In that sense the saints are great, although Christ's greatness is unique.

• Even the church complete cannot compare with Christ in the greatness of His Person, although as regards His Manhood she is His fullness.

• The saints are great because they form an adequate setting for Him. We sing, "Of Thy body, Lord, are we".

• We are a necessity to Christ, not only for His heart's affections but for the display of His glory and to be a fit setting for Him.

• We are a necessity to God, too, for His habitation, because it is where Christ is enshrined, and all is in keeping with Him, that God can dwell complacently.

It is a great thing to see that the assembly is a necessity to Christ and to God. God will never dwell with angels in that sense. God dwells with men.

• Man is the order of being that alone can satisfy the affections of the heart of God and provide Him with a habitation according to His own thoughts.

• His eternal purpose is in regard to man – Christ, indeed, supremely, and yet – I speak reverently – the saints are a necessity to Christ in connection with the setting in which He is to be seen eternally, and the saints similarly are a necessity to God.

• Divine Persons are always self-sufficient, of course, but divine love and glory require the saints. It makes the assembly great in our minds, it makes the saints great, and yet Christ is ever outstanding.

Yet in whatever setting we see Christ, in their measure the saints correspond with it.

• If we see Christ as the ark, the saints are the boards, of the same material; if we see Christ as the veil, the saints are the curtains, the same material.

• We think of Aaron – we are the sons, clothed with garments for glory and ornament, though not so resplendent as Aaron's, associated with him in the service of God.
  • "He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one".

• It is a wonderful thing to see that the saints correspond with Christ. In whatever setting Christ is seen, the saints, in their measure, correspond with it.
  • "As He is, so are we in this world".

Ephesians 2: 4-6

And so when you come to the thought of sitting in heavenly places, Ephesians shows that the saints are brought into correspondence with Christ in their measure.

• "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us with the Christ … and has raised us up together" – that refers to elevation – "and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus".

• The Lord Jesus sat Himself down at the right hand. I love to think of Jesus going thus into the presence of the Greatness.

• The Lord Jesus could go in and take the highest seat without presumption. He sat Himself down – it was His right place.

• We could not set ourselves down, but it says that God has made us sit down. If we found ourselves in the presence of earthly greatness, in the palace of the king, we should stand, and if the king made us sit down how honoured we should feel!

• But that is what God does with the saints, it is what divine love does. It is "because of His great love". Love enters into this whole matter.

• We must not separate love and greatness. Because God loved us, He wanted us in the most exalted place, and He has made us sit down there. Love would not have been satisfied otherwise.

• We could not have set ourselves down there. But God has raised us up together and made us sit down together. A most touching thing!

• It would not satisfy Him if we were not perfectly at home there. There is no sense of discrepancy. God makes us sit down. We are brought into correspondence with Christ. And unless it were so we could not provide a fit setting for Christ.

• We are the very shrine where God is, where Christ is. How could we have been the shrine, the temple of God, if we were not able to sit down?

• The Lord Jesus has set Himself down and God makes us sit down in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, and it is in this sense of restfulness that the service proceeds.

• In the Old Testament no priest ever sat down, and when the glory filled the house they could not even stand to minister.

• In Christianity our High Priest, the Minister of the sanctuary, has sat Himself down at the right hand of the throne of the Greatness in the heavens,
  • and God has raised us up and made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, to provide a setting for that blessed Person.

Acts 2: 1-2

Acts 2 refers to the public position down here corresponding with our place above. The saints were together with one accord in one place, and Christ was enshrined in their hearts.

• Some of them had seen Him go up, His hands uplifted in blessing. It was a company gathered in the light of Christ having gone up. And then it says,
  • "There came a sound from heaven as of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting". It was the glory coming in.

• Just as when the tabernacle was set up of old, the glory came in and filled it, so now. Who was coming in? A Divine Person, the Holy Spirit.

• One feels how little we apprehend that we are in the presence of the Holy Spirit, that He is with us and in us; that a Christian in that sense is always in the immediate presence of God.

• Here it says, "It filled all the house where they were sitting". The glory came in.

• Of old when the glory came in the priest could not even stand to minister, but it does not say that these Christians stood. They were perfectly at home in the presence of a Divine Person, they were sitting.

• Their actual position on earth, where they could be seen by men, corresponded with Christ's position above. He was in the presence of the Greatness on high; they were in the presence of the Holy Spirit. He was sitting, and they were sitting.

• I only mention these things to show the greatness of the saints. As I say, not to belittle the outstanding greatness of Christ, but to show the greatness of the place that God has given to the saints – how great is His workmanship.

• It is no credit to us. It is because we are God's workmanship, and all in view of providing an adequate setting for Christ.

2 Samuel 7: 18-24

I read the passage in Samuel as an encouragement to us to be like David and to go in and sit before the Lord.

• One feels for oneself that one has hardly done this at all, and yet it is open to us. I know we do it to some extent collectively and there are wonderful manifestations. We hear His voice and we respond.

• But one would desire to encourage one's own heart and the brethren to come into this personally.

• David went in and sat before the Lord. It is the attitude of sitting. He was beyond his dispensation. It is really the Christian position, to go in and sit before the Lord.

• We should be concerned that the atmosphere of the holiest should mark all our meetings, but it is a wonderful thing that it is open to the individual too.

As we sit there we become impressed with a sense of greatness, we are in the presence of greatness, so David says here – verse 21 –

• "For Thy word's sake, and according to Thine own heart, hast Thou done all these great things, to make Thy servant know them. Wherefore Thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like Thee, neither is there any God beside Thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears".

• He had taken in divine speaking. There was all this greatness that God had made known. He says, "Wherefore Thou art great and there is none like Thee", and then he goes on to speak of the greatness of God's people,
  • "and what one nation in the earth is like Thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself, and to make Him a name, and to do for you great things", so that in this interview that David had with God as sitting before Him, he made way in his soul for impressions of greatness.

May we spend more time in the presence of Divine Persons! We find time for other things, why not find more time for this?

• To be in the presence of the ark, as it were, as David was here, and in the presence of the God who dwells between the cherubim, and to let impressions of greatness come into our souls,

• impressions of the greatness of God – "there is none like Thee" – the greatness of Christ and all that He has done, and the greatness of the saints as God's workmanship.

• May God help us in it, for His name's sake.

What is the Gospel?

Now the first question I wish to raise is, What is the gospel?

• At the end of this epistle to the Romans, Paul says, "Now to Him that is able to establish you, according to my glad tidings and the preaching of Jesus Christ".

• Who gave Paul the gospel? He tells us in Galatians 1: 15-16.
  • "God, who set me apart even from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, that I may announce Him as glad tidings among the nations".

We can have no doubt therefore, as to who is the subject of the gospel. God's Son is the subject.

• Why is God's Son presented as the subject of the gospel? That men may be brought into sonship.

• A gospel that does not bring men into sonship is not Paul's gospel. It may be part of it, but we are speaking about the entire gospel.

• God looks for us in these last days to hold to the gospel in its entirety, and this means not only the forgiveness of sins, but deliverance from the power of sin through the gift of the Spirit.

• Paul, quoting from Hosea, says, "And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called Sons of the living God", Romans 9: 26.

But then Paul adds, "and the preaching of Jesus Christ", Romans 16: 25.

• What does that mean? It means that God has only one Man before Him, and that is Jesus Christ.

• The gospel is not to improve man in the flesh, for he cannot be improved. He can be trained to be amiable, but an amiable man still hates Christ. You cannot improve that man.

• The "preaching of Jesus Christ" means that, in the cross of Christ, God has for ever condemned sin in the flesh.

• Our old man has been crucified with Him and we have been buried with Him, so that we, as in flesh, have been put out of God's sight for ever, and God has one Man – Jesus Christ – only before Him.

• "Examine your own selves if ye be in the faith", writes Paul; "prove your own selves: do ye not recognize yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed ye be reprobates?" 2 Corinthians 13: 5.

• Anyone who professes to be a Christian and has not Jesus Christ in him is a reprobate,
  • but a man who has truly received the gospel, and has been born again by the living and abiding word of God, judges himself and Christ lives in him.

• Can the sons of God be any other than those who have Jesus Christ in them? God does not adopt man in the flesh. He adopts those who are of the faith of Jesus Christ.
  • Paul was a living expression of such a one. He says, "I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me", Galatians 2: 20. That is why he so fully enjoyed sonship.

Where is the Gospel?

I will now move on to my other question, i.e., Where is the gospel?

• We have already noticed how the gospel was committed to Paul. To hear the full gospel you would have to listen to Paul.

• But in the days when 2 Timothy was written, Paul was in prison. It is a testing time when Paul is in prison. That is his position today.

• The religious leaders of Christendom keep him in prison. They dare not let him out of prison because, if they did so, their system would crumble right down to the ground. They dare not accept Paul's ministry.

• And you will find that, if you accept Paul's ministry, you will be in prison, too in the sense that you also will be restricted. Not many people will want to listen to you.

• Many Christians would like to have a certain part of the gospel but not the whole gospel. How few listen to Paul today!
  • Even many companies who call themselves by the name of brethren have parted company with Paul. They say, The path is too restricted, we must have more scope to preach the gospel.

• But the gospel is in prison. 2 Timothy 1: 8 shows this is so: "Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but suffer evil along with the glad tidings".

• Very few people are willing to listen to the gospel, as Paul had it. In this chapter the gospel was suffering; it was in prison with Paul, and Timothy was to suffer evil along with the gospel.

• If we stand for the gospel as Paul had it, we shall suffer evil; our fellow Christians will speak against us and persecute us, and part company with us.

Then he says, "All who are in Asia, of whom is Phygellus and Hermogenes, have turned away from me".

• The fact that he names Phygellus and Hermogenes shows that they were well known. I suppose that at one time they had been very serviceable; they may have been at Ephesus.

• The church in Ephesus had not given up Christianity, but it had turned away from Paul. Paul says, they, "have turned away from me", but the Lord sends a message to Ephesus according to Revelation 2: 4-5, through the apostle John.
  • He says, "I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works". First love and first works go together.

• Turning away from Paul is sure evidence of departure from first love for Christ. Go back to Paul, accept the whole of his ministry.

• Do not be hindered by the feeling of restriction, for the state of Christendom is such that to be faithful to the Lord we must accept these prison conditions and not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of Paul His prisoner.

At the beginning of the church's history, there was indeed the reproach of Christ, but there was not the reproach of the broken state of Christendom such as exists today.

• But we must not try to avoid that reproach by leaving Paul. If we do, the Lord will say, "Thou hast left thy first love". Put Him first.

• Christ is the Truth and I must stand for the whole truth. This is the meaning of first love for Christ.

In those days, I might have gone to Ephesus and asked, Why have you left Paul?

• The reply would most probably have been: 'Paul is too extreme, he insists on repentance, he insists on separation, he stands for the truth of the assembly and we are not prepared for that. We do not want to be restricted with him, we want to go on with the gospel'.

• But where was the gospel? It was not with those at Ephesus, it was with Paul. And it is still with Paul, and I am certain that no Christians who are not cleaving to Paul have the gospel of God, the whole gospel.

• Let us cleave to Paul and yet be urgent in season and out in preaching the word. Let us avail ourselves of every opportunity to preach Paul's gospel in the meeting rooms, in the open air, and to individuals.

Where does the Gospel lead?

My third point is, Where does the gospel lead? The last few verses of Romans make it clear where the gospel leads.

• "Now to Him that is able to establish you, according to my glad tidings and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, as to which silence has been kept in the times of the ages, but which has now been made manifest, and by prophetic scriptures, according to commandment of the eternal God, made known for obedience of faith to all the nations – the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever. Amen".

We cannot separate the gospel from the truth of the assembly, the mystery. The gospel is "according to the revelation of the mystery".

• This is supported by Colossians 1: 23-25, where Paul says that he became minister of the glad tidings and that be became minister of the assembly. God had committed both ministries to him.

• It was really one ministry in two parts, and it was the ministry of the assembly that completed the word of God.

• The ministry of the gospel would thus have been incomplete without the ministry of the assembly.

Paul thus had two great ministries committed to him; but the basis of all was the full declaration of God by our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone could make God known and declare His Name.

• The ministry of the gospel, committed in a special way to Paul, is to bring men into the gain of the declaration with the Lord has made,
  • while the ministry of the assembly sets believers together as Christ's body and God's habitation, so that there might be a full response to God as thus declared.

We can see thus how the ministry of the assembly completed the word of God.

• If we do not go on to the full thought of the assembly, God is deprived of His portion.

• We are saved through the gospel and brought into sonship in order that we might be brought into that one body, the assembly, in which there is to be glory to God unto all generations of the age of ages.

• The assembly is His sanctuary, His dwelling place, and that is the answer to the question, Where does the gospel lead to?

• Is it optional whether we should move on to the truth of the assembly? Look at the end of Romans.
  • "the mystery … according to commandment of the eternal God, made known for obedience of faith to all the nations", chapter 16: 25-26.

• It is the commandment of the eternal God. The eternal God has commanded that the truth of the mystery should be made known for the obedience of faith to all the nations.

• In chapter 1 the gospel was for the obedience of faith among all nations, and the scope of the mystery is as wide as the scope of the gospel.
  • Therefore everyone who receives the gospel is under command to obey the truth of the mystery. Have we obeyed this command?

• Are we going on to the great truth of the assembly, Christ's body, Christ's bride, God's tabernacle, God's house, God's sanctuary, where all that is due to Him in His house must be maintained?
  • If not we are disobedient; this is strong language, but we are disobeying the command of the eternal God.

Someone may say, There are very few Christians who do it.

• That must not affect me. If I have an obedient heart I must go on with this even if I am alone.

• But usually the Lord does not leave us to walk alone; usually there are others to walk with, even if is only two or three.
  • He says to such, "Where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in the midst of them", Matthew 18: 20.

• Gathering together unto the Lord's name means that I accept the truth of the gospel and recognize that it must not be separated from the truth of the assembly.
  • I dishonour His name if I try to separate these two great ministries.

Let us take courage. Let us not be ashamed of the gospel of God. Let us encourage one another as Paul did Timothy:

• "Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; but suffer evil along with the glad tidings, according to the power of God", 2 Timothy 1: 8.

Then at the end of the epistle comes an urgent request from the beloved captive in the Roman prison. "Use diligence to come to me quickly". Shall we give heed to this?

• Most have turned aside, but let us return to first love; let us be like the elders of Acts: 20 who covered Paul with kisses.

• Let us take up our stand with him, prepared to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. What a soldier Paul was!
  • He says, "I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is come. I have combated the good combat, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith", 2 Timothy 4: 6-7.

• We are called upon to combat the good combat, for the maintenance of the whole truth; we are called upon to run the race, the race from Egypt to Canaan; we are called upon to keep the whole Christian faith.
  • Paul says, "I have kept the faith" – the Christian faith in its entirety.

Beloved brethren, the gospel from that Roman prisoner has reached us in France; it has reached to England, to America, to the utmost parts of the world.

• Where is the gospel that was preached by those in Asia who had turned away? Forgotten. Paul's gospel goes on – because it is God's gospel.

• See Paul in chapter 4: 16-17, one man standing alone. "At my first defence no man stood with me … But the Lord stood with me, and gave me power, that through me the proclamation might be fully made, and all those of the nations should hear".

• What an opportunity the Lord gave to His beloved prisoner to testify before the emperor and before a company which represented the whole empire of Rome!

• He will give us opportunities too in testimony. To the Philippians he says,
  • "Ye have me in your hearts, and that both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation of the glad tidings ye are all participators in my grace", 1: 7.

I trust these words will encourage our hearts. May the Lord help us all!

I think we can see that in Abraham's case there was not only separation from evil, but also separation to God;

• separation to God in such a manner that, when he was tried, he did not hesitate to offer up the supreme object of his affections on earth.
• God was everything to Abraham, more than anything He had given him.

• How easily we make idols of what God has given us! We may make idols of our ability, our skill, our natural relations, our work, our houses.

• God gives us things; what a recompense it is when we allow such things to come between our souls and Him!

• That was not so with Abraham. Separated from evil, he was separated to God; God completely commanded his affections.

• Thus when the word came, "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac … and there offer him up for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of", he rose early in the morning to do it.

• No wonder he was called the friend of God! God can trust a man like that with His greatest secrets.
  • One of the greatest privileges a human being can know is to be trusted by God with His secrets.

In Numbers, Balaam remarks as to Israel, "it is a people that shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations", Num. 23: 9.

• You see how this principle is carried forward. Why were the people to dwell alone? Because they were dwelling with God, and God with them.

• So that while the Nazarite's vow is called a special one, God looked for it amongst His people.

• He looked for those who would not only be separate from evil, but be separated to Himself – He Himself everything to them.

In his epistle, John speaks of our dwelling in God, and God in us.

• If that is true of us, dear brethren, as dwelling in love, how could we do other than dwell alone?

• If we are dwelling in God, and God in us, what part can the world have with us? How separated we shall be!
  • Such people must dwell alone, as far as the world is concerned.

• And so the word to the Corinthians is "Ye are the living God's temple; according as God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among them", 2 Cor. 6: 16.

God is the living God, and He is the loving God, and nothing will satisfy Him but full-hearted responsive love from His people. He is a jealous God, because He is love.

• Think of a God who loves so much that He has come forth from His own place of separatedness where He ever dwells in unapproachable light,
  • and has made Himself known in order to dwell among men responsive to Himself.

• He has not chosen to dwell among angels, but among men. How it should move our affections toward Him!

• Furthermore, He has not waited for the eternal state, a perfect condition, but has come down to dwell among us now.
  • "I will dwell among them, and walk among them" is the present position, the wilderness position.

• The temple in Corinthians is the temple of the tabernacle (see 1 Sam. 1: 9; 3: 3, and Rev. 15: 5).

• We are the very shrine of God. What can we have any more to do with idols
  • How can we have to do with anything that is contrary to God when we realize that the great, the glorious, the eternal God has come forth in love to dwell among us now?

He had come to dwell among His people in such a city as Corinth, and, in spite of their state, He had not left them.

• Their state prevented their enjoyment of His presence, and prevented His enjoyment of them; but He had not left them.
  • "I will dwell among them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be to me a people".

• That is the basis of His appeal. "Wherefore come out from the midst of them, and be separated, saith the Lord".
  • It is His own appeal to our hearts at this time, to be separated from evil, separated to Him, and wholly for Him.

"And touch not what is unclean, and I will receive you". He is longing to receive us in the sense referred to here.

• And we need fear nothing, because it is the Almighty God who is calling us out; a God whose almightiness we have to learn first, if we are truly to apprehend it, in ourselves as Abraham did.
  • The disclosure of the Almighty God to Abraham related to what Abraham was going to experience in his own body.

• And we learnt the almightiness of God, if we learn it effectively, through the power of the Spirit in ourselves, the almighty power of God in the Spirit.
  • And if we have learned it that way, we shall have no fear as regards circumstances.

• I am not suggesting at all that I am in the gain of this as I ought to be, but I can see that,
  • if we have learned the almightiness of God in dealing with the greatest mountain of difficulty that could face us, sin in the flesh, then it will be simple to trust God as regards circumstances.

• Abraham learnt the almighty power of God in himself, in a physical sense; we learn it in a spiritual sense.

Numbers 19 – The Red Heifer

And so this appeal comes to us, and I want to reinforce the appeal by referring to Numbers 19.

• We have referred in these meetings, to the cross, and how God's wrath from heaven was revealed there against sin in its totality;

• and this passage, one of the most solemn in Scripture, indicates to us what that day of greatest sorrow, that day of unfathomed grief, meant for Christ;
  • "when Thou didst taste the horror of wrath without relief". [No. 190 by J.N.D., in the 1973 Hymn Book.]

• I do not think any burning in Scripture is depicted like this one. It says,
  • "one shall burn the heifer before his eyes; its skin and its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall he burn", (v. 5).

• What a burning! All that God is against sin fell upon the Lord Jesus. God made Him to be sin for us; where should we be otherwise? What a burning!

And this is to be before our eyes. Paul put it before the Galatians' eyes.

• He said, "to whom, as before your very eyes, Jesus Christ has been portrayed, crucified among you", Gal. 3: 1.
• We need to consider the cross. If we pass by judgment, we pass by the love of God, as the Lord says.

• We learn the love God in the way He has met this terrible matter of sin, and in the awful sufferings Christ has passed through.

• Christ was the greatest Sufferer; but how deep the Father's anguish, and the Spirit's feelings, too.

We may sometimes overlook a little phrase in Hebrews 9: 13.

• "The blood of bulls and of goats", would refer to the day of atonement;
  • but it adds, "and a heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled".

• Do not let us ignore that little phrase "a heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled".

We should have no access to God, indeed we could not even approach the tent of meeting, without the death of Christ in this character.

• The blood of the red heifer was sprinkled seven times before the tent of meeting.
  • It is a type which depicts the death of Christ from our side, what He suffered for us, for our purification.

• The day of atonement, although it is the basis of all blessing, emphasizes what He suffered for God, and what the blood is for God.
  • But this type emphasizes what He suffered for us.

• It should greatly touch our hearts to think that we could have no part in the worship of the living God, no part, indeed, in the Christian system at all, but for the "heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled".

The thought of the ashes should affect us profoundly.

• The Lord Jesus said in Spirit in Psalm 22: 15, "Thou hast laid me in the dust of death". He has been into the dust of death for us. "Dust thou art; and unto dust shalt thou return", Gen. 3: 19. He has been into the grave.
• But the ashes refer to what transpired before that, in those three hours of darkness when, for us, He endured and exhausted the wrath of God.

• The ashes are the witness that the all-consuming judgment of God on sin in the flesh has been borne. Our true place, therefore, is in dust and ashes in repentance before God.

The water of separation – note the word 'separation' – was made from those ashes. It was a purification for sin; Num. 19: 9.

• It was thus that the heifer's ashes were sprinkled upon the defiled.

• The sprinkling is to bring home to us the true force of this aspect of the death of Christ and the awfulness of it, that it might move our souls.

• God made His soul an offering for sin, and it should move our souls, so that we shall say,
  • "What have I to do any more with idols?", Hos. 14: 8; what have I to do any more with the unclean thing?

And so it goes on to speak of one who touches a dead person, any dead body of a man (v. 11).

• We have each and all touched the dead body of a man, we have each been identified with what we are after the flesh, "this body of death", Rom. 7: 24.

• Nothing that we could do would have delivered us from it, the dead body of a man. Jesus has laid the basis for our deliverance by bearing all the judgment Himself.

• Nothing is left, as it were, before God, of the man so offensive to God (and now, through grace, so offensive to us) but the ashes.

"Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?" The ashes are the witness to our deliverance at such a cost.

• We are no longer identified with sin in the flesh in the mind of God, but with Him who took our place, and has been raised.

• But then the sprinkling means that the force of that is brought home to me, so that I no longer identify myself with it. That is the lesson of Romans 7.
  • "It is no longer I that do it", Rom. 7: 17.

• I see what a deliverance has been wrought, and the heifer's ashes sprinkled on me mean that I can take my stand apart from that body of death.

• It is no longer I that do it, but the sin that dwells in me; and I am purified from sin through the death of Christ – the heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled.

• I can say that I delight in the law of God after the inward man and that I myself serve the law of God.

Romans, chapter 8, shows how the Spirit makes the deliverance effective.

• According to Numbers 19: 17, "they shall take … of the ashes of the purification-offering that hath been burned, and shall put running water thereon in a vessel".

• The running water speaks of the Holy Spirit given, on the very basis of these sufferings of Christ, so that we may be in practical deliverance from this body of death.
  • "If Christ be in you, the body is dead on account of sin, but the Spirit life on account of righteousness", Rom. 8: 10.

• You say, 'Alas! how often I give way to sin in the flesh'. Well, the ashes are always available.

• The water of purification was applied to you once, in the fullest way from God's standpoint, when you were converted; so that the thing stands from the divine side; but in your experience you may need it renewed.

• Who of us does not need continually to come back to the force of these heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled, which is the basis of our deliverance from the dead body of a man?

• So that it is one thing to say "this body of death", and another thing to say the body is dead. If the body is dead, we are delivered practically, in the power of the Spirit.

• The body is dead, because of sin, and the Spirit is life; and if the Spirit is life, it means that we can present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

• As far as sin goes, the body is dead; but as far as its activities go, the Spirit is life.

• That is a primary application of the teaching of Numbers 19, but it is not the whole matter.

The word in 2 Corinthians 6: 17 is, "touch not what is unclean".

• I have to see I do not touch the unclean thing in myself; if I do, I have to learn to judge myself, which would imply getting back to the meaning of these ashes and purifying myself accordingly.
  • But I am also not to touch the unclean thing around.

• You will notice that it says of the heifer, in verse 2, "a red heifer without blemish, wherein is no defect, and upon which never came yoke".

• Was Christ ever yoked with the world? Not at all.

• 2 Corinthians 6 has to do with yokes. "Be not diversely yoked with unbelievers".

• It bears on this type of the death of Christ, the red heifer. Upon Him never came yoke.

• He was wholly for God, as we know, from the womb; and separated to God, the great Nazarite of God;
  • separated from evil, of course; we do not need to say such a thing as that; but separated to God.

Nehemiah 12 – The Dedication of the Wall

Now I wish to go on to Nehemiah, because it speaks there about the dedication of the wall. It is dealing with days of recovery and a good deal had preceded.

• God raised up Cyrus, His beloved, His servant, His shepherd, who opened the door for the remnant to return to Jerusalem, and they went up under Joshua and Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel meaning 'born in Babylon'.

• The first thing they did was to build the altar, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
  • That bears on the heavenly side of things and that is how the present revival began.

• It began with light as to Christ as Head in heaven, as to His body here on earth, and as to the presence of the Holy Spirit.
  • It was the feast of tabernacles in principle, the top-note. That is what brought people out into separation.

• The altar was set up, the Lord's Supper recognized, and the service of God begun.

That start of things, according to the book of Ezra was remarkable. The returned captives must have studied the Scriptures closely, because it says

• they offered daily burnt-offerings by number at the feast of tabernacles, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required; Ezra 3: 4. It means they knew Numbers 29.
• Later, when the foundation of the temple was laid (3: 10), they instituted the service of song according to the directions of David, king of Israel, they were governed by the light given to Moses and to David.
  • And that has been a feature of the present revival – the knowledge of the Scriptures and of the whole truth bearing on matters.

• And it says, when the foundation of the house was laid, the people shouted and "the noise was heard afar off". Later the house was finished, and they kept the dedication of the house with joy.

• Many years later, Ezra came up bringing more treasure and more vessels, to beautify the house.

• Finally Nehemiah came up to rebuild the city, and its wall, and chapter 12 records the culmination, namely, the dedication of the wall.

I believe, dear brethren, this specially links with the present time.

• What the Spirit of God would stress now, the dedication of the wall. There has been much building of the wall.

• When Nehemiah first went round, the wall was in ruins, and if the wall is in ruins, Christians are in reproach, as it says (2: 17),
  • "I said to them, Ye see the distress that we are in, that Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach".

• If you have not got the wall, you will escape the reproach of Christ, but you will be in great reproach.

• I would rather have the reproach of Christ than be in reproach amongst men in the sense this means, that you are despised.

• Men do not object to the open principle, they will go on with those who hold it and, thus, the reproach of Christ is avoided.

• Nevertheless men realize that it is compromise. They have an impression of what Christianity ought to be.

• Christianity involves the reproach of Christ, and if we try to escape it, we become despised by the very people whose reproach we are seeking to avoid.

• But then, as this book proceeds, the wall is rebuilt against much opposition. There will always be opposition to the building of the wall.

• But finally it says, in chapter 6: 15, "So the wall was finished", and in verse 1 of that chapter, the "enemies, heard that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it".

Now what about the wall today? Is there a breach left in it? This is the time for seeing that there is no breach left in the wall.

• The time came when Nehemiah said that the enemies heard that there is no breach left in it.
• If we have not got a wall, there can be no administration. Gates are of no use without a wall. Once you have the wall, you can have gates and true administration.

• The wall is very attractive, do not think I am saying anything that is not attractive.
  • It is said of the Holy City, that the building of its wall was jasper, and the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every precious stone.
  • What a wonderful structure the wall is! Why should we be ashamed of it?

• And so, if the wall is there, the gates can function, each gate a pearl.

• The gates of the city according to Revelation 21: 25 shall not be shut at all by day, for night shall not be there. Yet nothing unclean is allowed into the city.

• That is the idea of administration. The gates are open to receive all that is of God, all that should come into the city, but nothing common nor that maketh an abomination and a lie, shall at all enter into it. There we have true administration.

In Nehemiah 12, when the wall was completed and the gates were erected, there was the dedication of the wall. It was the culmination of joy.

• The name Ezra means 'help', but the name Nehemiah mean 'comfort of Jehovah'. There is no real comfort for the saints until the wall is there without a breach.
• The city of God is a wonderful, inclusive conception. Among nations of men the metropolitan city contains all that is most precious, both to the king and the nation.

• In the city of God everything most precious to God, and to the people of God, is conserved.
  • But we must have a wall to protect it. There can be no comfort if you feel it is exposed.

• And so the dedication of the wall became the crowning joy of the recovery.

• It is not simply the shout was heard afar off, but it says, "the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off". God would bring us to this joy, dear brethren.

Now I want to say a word about dedication. There was the dedication of the house earlier (Ezra 6: 16), and now the dedication of the wall.

• For us it means that we dedicate ourselves. "Whose house are we".

• The dedication of the house of God means that we are dedicated to God; and likewise, the dedication of the wall, because the wall is in the saints. The wall today is not a material structure.

• The dedication of the wall means that I am dedicated, we are all dedicated. Let us be in this dedication.

• And that corresponds with the vow of the Nazarite, not only separation from evil, but separation to God.

• We recognize that we belong to the house – "whose house are we" – and that we also form the wall of the city, and we dedicate ourselves accordingly.

In the recovery, every person who is vitally in it, is a Nazarite. Indeed in Christianity, what was special of old is normal; Nazariteship is normal.

• The joy expressed on those occasions of dedication shows the principle of the Nazarite's vow operated in that day of recovery of old, because they were not relying on any natural joy, or earthly prosperity, for stimulation.

• Their joy was entirely related to God, and His house, and His city. That is the idea of a Nazarite.

• It is not only that he does not touch a dead body, but he separates himself from wine and strong drink. He will not allow anything natural to be his stimulation.

• God is the source of his joy. The God of the gladness of my joy, the Psalmist says; Psa. 43: 4. And that is what marked these returned captives. May the spirit of the Nazarite mark us!

• Let us ask ourselves, dear brethren, what is keeping us going? Is it some new foible down here? Do we need such things to keep us going?
  • Or is it God our exceeding joy? If so there will be no difficulty about the wall. It will be a great joy to us to be in the dedication.

And see how remarkable are the movements of the two choirs upon the wall! Without the wall we could never maintain the service of God; it is impossible.

• "Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the hill of his holiness", Psalm 48: 1.
• But you must have the wall. And so, at the dedication of the wall, what service there was – these two great choirs!

The first one, with Ezra in front, had the musical instruments of David the man of God.

• They started at the dung gate, because that is where we must start if we are to fulfil our part in the service of God. "Let a man prove himself, and thus eat of the bread, and drink of the cup", 1 Cor. 11: 28.

• We start at the dung gate. But it goes on to say (v. 37), "at the fountain-gate, and over against them, they went up by the stairs of the city of David".

• In chapter 3: 15 it speaks of the stairs that go down from the city of David, but now the time comes for going up those stairs "at the ascent of the wall, above the house of David, even to the water-gate eastward"–
  • suggesting the service of God in full activity, leading to the outflow of ministry and an outlook towards the Lord's coming.

The second choir, in the opposite direction, with Nehemiah behind them, began at the tower of the furnaces, where all the rubbish was burnt.

• There is a lot of rubbish to burn in days of recovery; we have got to get rid of all the wrong ideas and the tower of the furnaces is available.

• Then the broad wall, suggesting the scope of the truth; the gate of Ephraim, fruitfulness; and the gate of the old wall, divine principles, going back to the beginning.

• Then the fish-gate, the tower on Hananeel, and the tower of Meah, even to the sheep-gate; "and they stood still in the prison-gate".
  • Until you have got the wall you cannot exercise discipline, but now there is the prison-gate. Sanctions are available to maintain what is due to God.

Thus the first choir is the upward line – the service Godward

• – and the second choir is the administration manward, the fish-gate, the sheep-gate, the prison-gate.
• And both choirs stood in the house of God.

• "And that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy; and also the women and the children rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off". What a day, dear brethren!

• And this is what God would bring us to now. This is the point in the great the recovery at which God would have us arrive now.

You may say, 'If I accept separation in the way you are speaking, my wife and children will suffer'.

• But the wives and the children were in this, the women and children rejoiced.
• We were much affected recently to meet a brother with a wife and young children, suffering, having lost his work through trade unionism.

• They were having to sell their home and we were greatly touched to see the attitude of the wife, the way she supported and encouraged her husband.

• In spite of all the pressure, they were experiencing something of this joy. "The women and the children rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off".

Now I want to say one more word. The second choir was going over the ground of administration manward, ending at the prison-gate;

• but it speaks of the tower of Hananeel, and Hananeel means 'God is gracious'.
• We want the breaches in the wall closed, but, let me say a word to the brethren as to the spirit in which we endeavour to do it.

• It is greatly affecting to see Paul's spirit in these matters. The Corinthians were in a bad state; how does he address them? In the first epistle he says, "Wherefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry".

• Idolatry is a dreadful thing. Every association which has not God as its centre is, in principle, idolatrous.

• But how does he approach them? My beloved, he says. This is the way to approach our brethren. We need patience and much love.
  • God is gracious. The tower of Hananeel is there before the prison-gate.

• And so let us make love's appeal to one another, "Wherefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry", 1 Cor. 10: 14.

• And in the second epistle he says, "Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in God's fear", 2 Cor. 7: 1.

• Let us know how to appeal to one another as 'beloved'. Love would not lose one person through lack of patience and care.

In the representation of God in the living creatures in Ezekiel 1: 10, we have the lion, and the lion roars sometimes as the prophet Amos indicates.

• Paul speaks somewhat like a lion at the end of this epistle. He says, "I have declared beforehand, and I say beforehand as present the second time, and now absent … that if I come again I will not spare", 2 Cor. 13: 2.

• But he is not speaking thus in the meantime; he is entreating by the meekness and the gentleness of the Christ; 2 Cor. 1: 10.
  • There is the face of a man, "the likeness of their faces was the face of a man", Eze. 1: 10.

• "Now I shall most gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls, if even in abundantly loving you I should be less loved", 2 Cor. 12: 15.
  • What a man Paul was, the face of a man in Paul – the face of Jesus!

• And then the face of the ox, suggesting patience; love has long patience, is kind.

• When the time comes the lion roars; but do not let us roar before the time. And when the time comes the eagle swoops.
  • But let us rightly represent God in all these exercises.

• Otherwise, in our very effort to get things done, we shall lose divine support; we shall allow, in another form, the very man we are seeking to exclude.

• I just say that, dear brethren, that we might imbibe the spirit of Paul, in the way we apply the truth.

• Even as to the work of the Lord, in which the Corinthians were very remiss, he said,
  "So then, my beloved brethren, be firm, immovable, abounding always in the work of the Lord", 1 Cor. 15: 58.
  • Let us learn how to appeal to one another on these lines.

• Should love's appeal fail, and the sanctity of God's house and His city be involved, there are the sanctions; they stood still over the prison-gate.

• But may the Lord help us, so that love's appeal – God's own appeal (2 Cor. 6: 17) may be heeded.

More could be said as to the great heights to which the note of praise rose, once the wall was completed.

• "Bless Jehovah your God from eternity to eternity. And let men bless the name of Thy glory, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou art the Same, Thou alone, Jehovah", Neh. 9: 5-6. What a marvellous note of praise was reached!
• The title 'El' is also brought in (Neh. 9: 31-32). "El" refers to God in His strength, not only physical, but in the strength and unchangeability of His nature and character.
  • God never changes. His attitude to sin never changes.

• The returned captives come to a very distinct appreciation of El, the unchanging God, who never deviates, never lowers the standard,
  • and yet, would, so long as it is right to do so, wait upon us in patient grace.

• But I believe the time has now come for us all to be concerned to fill up all the breaches and to dedicate the wall.

May the Lord help us for His name's sake.

Note Mr. G. R. Cowell gave the preceding landmark address at the London Special Meetings with Stanley McCallum – of Detroit – in July 1958. SMcC photo at right. The address appeared in the Stow Hill Depot publication, of notes of those meetings, now out of print, entitled Distinctiveness and Finality in Paul's Ministry, pages 168-83. G.A.R.