Unity

by J. Miller | Category: Unity | Nov 1933

In Hebrews 1. 8, the inspired writer definitely states that "Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever," refers to the Son. The words are cited from Psalm 45. 6, where in the original, time word God, is Elohim-- a Divine title in the plural. Clearly therefore, time Son is God, equally with the Father and the Eternal Spirit. Hebrews 1. 12, is equally conclusive for there the work of creation is ascribed to Him referred to (as we have stated) in verse 8.- " Of the Son He saith, Thy throne. 0 God, is for ever and ever."

Some would water down time truth of His Sonship amid speak of His being the Son of God in time only. Can it be then, that he can change His Being, His Personality? Nay, personality is unchangeable neither He nor we, shall ever be other than we are. Men's ways change, their characters, their circumstances an(h environment change but never their persons a slave who might become a king would still be the same person. Joseph was time same Joseph when he lay in the dungeon as when he ruled time land of the Pharoah ; aye, and Christ travel-stained an(l weary sitting by Sychar's well, was the very same Person as when He sat on the throne of heaven. His Being was unchanged, though for our sakes He had become Man and passed through the vicissitudes of human life.

What was it that disturbed the Jewish elders more than aught else that had fallen from His lips ? It was the fact that He had said that He was the Son of God. No false conception had they of the import of this. " He not only brake the sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God" (John 5. 18). He had said, "My Father worketh even until now, and I work." It was not "our Father worketh." No! No! "My Father." His was a unique relationship ; it meant equality with God ; nothing less than that. Did the Lord fall back abashed as if before the blasphemous error of their conclusion ? No. Did He rend His garments as -Paul and Barnabas at Lystra and spring forth among the multitude and say, " I am a maim of like passions with you ? " Never! never! Read what lie said in John 5., read and re-read and see how the Father and the Son are bound by the ties of (I.) perfect love, (II.) unerring knowledge. (III.) unfailing power, (IV.) completeness of testimony to men.

I. " The Father loveth the Son " ; II. He " sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth " ; III. " As the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son " ; IV. " He that heareth My (the Son) word, and believeth Him (the Father) that sent Me." Who is this Person that makes such a stupendous statement--though only one among others - -" The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth in Him all things that himself doeth " " Sheweth Him mill things ! " "All things ? Are we listening ? Do we hear aright ? mind who is this who is shown all things - The Son is His Name ! The statement disturbs Jerusalem-a lame man is healed by the pool of Bethesda, not by One who is a man merely, but by One who says He is the Son, the Son of God. This to the Jews was blasphemy. " For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy ; and because that Thou, being a man makest Thyself God " (John 10. 33). 0n the day when He stood on trial for His life, and when the whole of their case broke down- not two of the witnesses agreeing together, the high priest sought incriminating evidence from His own mouth. " I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ-, the Son of God. Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said " (Matthew 26. 63, 64). There is no dubiety here ; plain and definite was the interrogation, and as plainly and without equivocation came the answer----" Thou hast said." What is the import of the high priest's query ? Does he simply wish to know that as Adam by creation was the son of God (Luke 3. 38) that the Main who is before him is such ? or is it the Being of the Man who is before him--" tell us whether Thou be the Christ. the Son of God " ? " Whether Thou be ; it is not His body but His Being that He wants to know about. Who is this Being? this Person? Not what He became-a man of sorrows, a carpenter, a stranger on the earth, a preacher; all these He has been, but they are incidental phases of His character and transient ; but who is He ? Ah, that is what the high priest seeks, not as a foundation for his faith or a stay for his heart, but to find excuse to pass the sentence of death upon Him. This he got, alas for him ! revelation was not unto life in his case, but unto destruction.

Not so had it been with Peter and the rest. They knew

Him not by hearsay, not through flesh and blood, but from Him whom the Lord called "My Father." Who do men say that the Son of Man is? Some say John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, and so forth. Note that it is His Being, men have been trying to describe; it is the individual who dwells in that body-a reincarnation of one of these departed prophets, is the voice of hearsay and human opinion--a veritable transmigration of spirit, the soul of the dead appearing again in another form. Is that it? What is His Being? "Who say ye that

I am"? Not, who have I become? but who "I am"? They are asked to give a description of His Being. Clear, unmistakeable, potent, is Peter's declaration of faith-" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Thou art! It is His true and essential Being that is here defined, "the Son of the living God "-no reincarnation of the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, but God's incarnate Son. This is the Rock on which the Church is founded, and Peter's confession is the very charter of that Church. Some modern teachers say that He was only the Son of God in time: then He must be only the Rock in time, though Moses, David and others spoke of the Rock in their day, and spake too, of the coming One who would become a man-God's Prophet, and Mediator, and David's Son, who is also David's Lord, who is the Son of the Living God.

But we live in a day when faith is hacking, when the human intellect would with lame and stunted phraseology seek to put bounds on the eternal Sonship of the Lord. New light they call it; aye, it is new light, but not the light of the lighthouse, it is a wrecker's light. If men water down the truth of the Divine and eternal Sonship of the Lord they have produced a draught in which life is lacking; the Bible in their hands has no living message for men, but is merely a book for the exercise of mental gymnastics, a mere debating ground for Bibleologists; and the poor children who are growing up, and the world at large, are without a gospel and without a Saviour; that is, so far as such people are concerned. The Son of God is the Rock on which the Church the Body is built, and the ministry of the gifts of the Ascended Christ is to the end that all members of the Body should come to a full knowledge of the Son of God.

Where this is lacking, and where there is no attaining to the unity of the Faith, believers are like "children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness, after the wiles of error." Alas, how "the systematizing of error " has grown! and those who are unwary and uninstructed are caught in the net that is spread for their feet.

Whilst Ephesians 4. 11-13, describes the work of special gifts for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering unto the edifying of the Body ; verses 15 and 16 show the regular working and flow of the truth to each part or member of the Body. "Speaking truth in love," " according to the working ... of each several part " (or member), does not describe the ministry by outstanding gifts so much as the flow of the truth through each member of the Body. Great is the blessing of a godly and faithful ministry in an Assembly of God, and correspondingly great is the importance of the truth percolating through each member of the Body "speaking truth in hove." Public ministry will be a formal thing if it is not followed by a speaking truth in love, a mutual sharing amongst members, of the spiritual things known and enjoyed. Where believers meet and speak of everything but Christ, and almost every social problem, but not of tine things which pertain to the Faith, you have a state bespeaking inertia or death; but where you have believers with their Bibles at their elbow and seeking to share spiritual things together, you have that which "maketh the increase of the Body unto the building up of itself iii love." Thus the Body is edified by the ministry of the gifts, and the Body builds itself up by that which may be regarded as more ordinary, but not less vital than public speaking-the

speaking truth in love by the members during the course of their daily life, the common tasks of the daily round.

Let us then despite the character of present times, and in this day of remnant testimony seek to exhibit that which should be true of the whole, which was seen in Apostolic times in operation to a marked degree in the people of God, gathered together in Churches of God (some of which we know of from the apostolic letters) and let us seek to keep the unity of tine Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.

J. Miller | Nov 1933
Unity