Gooding, David: 8 - Movement Two (Part 2)

Ah, but now notice in chapter three, two more examples, I say, of this idea of progress, and in verses one to thirteen, it's progress of God's revelation. And in particular, it is the progress in God's revelation that has taken place since our Lord Jesus went back to heaven. For in chapter three, Paul was about to encourage the believers by telling them that he was praying for them. Praying for them that God's purpose might be realized ever more fully in them and that Christ might dwell in their hearts. And he happened to say by inspiration, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord for you Gentiles, and then was guided by the Spirit to break off. For it reminded him of his special ministry in history. You all have a very difficult job to exaggerate the importance of Paul in history. I want to spend a few moments pressing home what Paul himself here says. It is exceedingly important for our Christian faith. For the fact is, there was a great deal of truth that our Lord himself never spoke about while he was here on earth. Nor spoke about in those forty days before he left, as far as we know. But told his disciples before he left them that the Holy Spirit would come, and when the Holy Spirit was come, the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth. Paul is now pointing out to us that what our Lord promised by that promise has now been fulfilled in God's holy apostles and prophets like Paul and others, and supremely in Paul. You say, what kind of thing? Well, take this matter that the Gentiles are fellow members of the body. You won't read of the body of Christ in the Old Testament, will you? I don't know, anywhere, do you? Ain't there. Abram, poor chap, didn't even go to meetings, did he? So weren't the meetings to go to? Moses and Co. went to some meetings. They knew about forgiveness, they knew about redemption. Never heard of the body of Christ. Isaiah, he knew a bit more, in a bit more detail. He talked of that growing time when Messiah should come, and all the Gentiles should come to Messiah, but even Isaiah never, never talked about the body of Christ. Ah, yes, you'll tell me, ah, but when you come to John, Mr. Preacher, yes, the Lord Jesus doesn't actually use the word the body of Christ, but he's talking about the same thing. I dare say he is. Those other sheep that have got to come, and there be one flock that's getting perilously near it, isn't it, what? And then what he told us about himself dwelling in us, and we in him, and God in him, and he in the Father, and the Father and the Son in us, that they might be one. Well, he doesn't use the word body, does he? But he's now beginning. But that right at the end of his ministry. And that in an upper room, from the lips of somebody who never went anywhere near a Gentile, save on one or two occasions. Occasion. It was no accident, but by divine intention that God's revelation did not finish with the ascension of the Blessed Lord. But as our Lord promised, there was to be a further revelation after our Lord had ascended by the Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets. And I say again, what an exciting thing it turned out to be. How that, uh, the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise. Why didn't God talk about it before? Because it wouldn't have made sense before, would he? Just let me remind you again. Well, let's go back. The Jews had the promise, and they were made heirs. Genesis fifteen will tell you about it, won't it? As God covenanted by promise to Abraham and to his seed. Made those glorious promises of what the New Testament eventually describes as world inheritance to Abram and to his seed. And the old Jews said, yes, that's us, you know. Abram was our forefather, and we're the seed. And as for those Gentiles, hopeless. Just not in it, you see. There's the covenant. Read Genesis fifteen. It's a legal document, you know, signed, sealed, and settled. There isn't a breath in it of any Gentile inheriting anything. Bad lot, says the Jews, these Gentiles, you know, haven't got a, haven't got a chance. You say, how do you get, eh, that's a point. How do we Gentiles get into that old covenant? We do, don't we? Hey, don't you say we don't. As Paul says, we do. How do we get in? Why? Because listen to the covenant again, the covenant of promises to Abraham and to his seed. And the seed was Christ. Yes, but you've been baptized into Christ, my good man, if you trusted the Savior. You good woman, if you trusted the Savior, you're in Christ. You put on Christ. And if you are in Christ, then you too are the seed. And heirs according to the past. Staggering, isn't it? But let's think out how that, how that could possibly be. And when you ponder it, you'll begin to see the wonder of God's progress. You see, when Jesus Christ our Lord came into our world, he came as a real man, but not just as a man. He came as a real man, a different kind of man. He came not merely as a son of man, he was the son of man. And because he is the Son of Man, he is able to incorporate all those who trust him into himself. Yes, I don't get that. Of course you don't get it. You've never seen such a thing. All you know about is men walking about on two legs. Ah, but God's got new ideas. Gonna make a new kind of a man, and Jesus Christ is the Lord from heaven. A life-giving spirit. The marvel about him is he's able to incorporate men and women into himself so that you can literally say of them they are in. Now you think of that for a moment. The world has had some great teachers, and it's had some very wonderful religious leaders, hasn't it? It had Plato, for instance. Interesting. Don't you find Plato interesting? I find him very interesting. I hope you read him now and again. He had some very good ideas, but even those who admire him most would never talk of being in Plato, would they? Didn't make any sense. Our good friends, the Mohammedans, Muslims, as they prefer to be called, they revere their prophet, but even they never talk about being in Muhammad. Wouldn't make sense, would he? Ah, but with Jesus Christ, there has come something fantastic and unique. Not merely that he came and taught, he's a kind of a man, a new kind of a man that can incorporate men into himself. Whether you know it or not, if you have trusted Christ, you are in Christ. And that ancient promise of covenant that God promised to give certain things to Abraham and his seed, it will be given to you because the seed was Christ, and you are in Christ. Cool, that surprised the Jews no end. They hadn't reckoned, they hadn't reckoned on that. But then you never can keep pace with God, can you? He's always doing more than you expect. Thus has he shown us a magnificent salvation in Christ. Once in Christ, in Christ forever. Yes, an individual still, a personality still, but not just an individual. Salvation, my good friend, if you're saved, has done a something to you more than I could possibly describe or you take in, but you're no longer your little self by yourself, you know. When you said yes to Christ, you were consenting that Christ took you as an individual personality and incorporated you into himself, so that you and he become one. And to tell us about that wonder and all its implications, its unfathomable implications, God had to wait until the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead. What sense would it have made for Jesus of Nazareth to say, for instance, to the woman of the issue of blood, trust me, my dear go- my dear good woman, you could be in me. In you. How could you be in him as he walked the streets of, of Canaan? That would have made no sense, would it? It had to wait to the Lord had come, died, risen again, and gone back to the Father and sent forth the Spirit, that any talk of the body of Christ would make sense. It's not a little bit tacked on to the gospel, therefore, this that Paul preaches. It is one of those next stages forward in God's progressive revelation to men. And Paul says, I want you to get hold of it, you Gentiles in particular, for you scarce realize yet, do you, how important I am. I'm in prison for you. And you might think if you weren't careful, and particularly if you listened to the Jews and some rather funny brethren, you might think I was an oddity. James isn't altogether sure yet. But it's your very glory that I'm suffering for you, for what God has made known to me is by a dispensation that he's given me, I who am the least of all the saints, but given me this particular place in history to make known this glorious new thing by the revelation of God. A new thing so new that even the principalities and powers in the heavens look on it at God's. Ma. The idea thrills me as well. I would like to think there was something old Michael didn't know. It overjoys me there's something the devil didn't know. And the Bible tells me there are two things none of the princes of this world knew. They had hidden wisdom of God, for if they'd known it, they wouldn't have gone and crucified the Lord of glory, would they? And the next thing they didn't know. They didn't know this great new thing that God was doing in the middle of creation, making a new kind of man. This new thing called the body of Christ, and they see it with wonder, and they're agog with expectancy as they see the man Jesus raised above them, still human. And there's news that a lot of these little things down here on Earth called men, hmm, have been united with the Son of Man, and in God's purpose they too are destined to be above angels, principalities, and power. And the novelty of it causes the angels themselves to bow and scrutinize and think and magnify the variegated wisdom of God. Hm. Progress? Why should I bother to notice this matter of progress of revelation? Why, because there are a lot of folks that deny it, that's why. Not you, old, elderly, and mature and solid Christians who never came within ten miles of liberalism. But you have to come near its blasts in school and elsewhere and have to hear people saying, ah, but that was only Paul. As one learned philosopher has said, um, a theologian indeed, that in the Old Testament and in the New, what we have is not the word of God, we have the word of certain elders in the churches. Oh. And the common basis of criticism is, ah, well, yes, that's what Paul says, you see, but that was simply Paul's response to the Christ event, whatever the Christ event was. But of course, Paul could be wrong. We don't necessarily have to agree with Paul's response to the Christ event. We can have our own response to the Christ event. You'll find them saying, look, Paul tells us in so many words of Christ's pre-existence. They say, uh, Jesus didn't claim pre-existence. You say he did. He said in John chapter eight, before Abraham was, I am. Ah, they say, there you are, there you go again. That's what John says. Oh. So they don't accept what John says and what Paul says as the revelation from the risen Lord. No, they don't. It's merely the response of certain early Christians to what they are pleased to call the Christ event. And come to that, I myself have heard it with my own two ears from people that never did claim to be theologians and are never likely to be. You present them with some command of Paul in the New Testament to be baptized or something, and they say, oh, but that's only what Paul says. Well, really? So you don't believe this bit of progress, that after the Lord rose and went back to heaven, there came a further revelation by the Spirit to the holy apostles and prophets? Well, you want to be careful, my good man, for if you don't accept those apostles, our Lord is on record as saying that if you don't accept them, you don't accept him either. Church is built, you know, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, of course he is. But if you don't get built on the foundation layer of apostles and prophets, perhaps you're not in the same building. Building. And there's only one true building. Progress then? Yes, and chapter three, as it comes to its end, tells of another progress. And yet again, we're thinking of God's great purpose that runs through this section of the epistle, that God will make himself a dwelling place in the hearts of men. And already that purpose achieved, because when any man receives Christ, Christ comes into him. And yet, and yet. Paul tells us here that he prays, and he makes it explicit he's praying for people that are already believers. They already have the Holy Spirit, yes, but he prays that God would give them the workings of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, that they may be strengthened in their inner man by that Holy Spirit. What for? That Christ should dwell in their hearts? You say, he is dwelling in my heart. Oh yes, of course he is, if you're a believer. He's dwelling in my heart too. But you have a look at me just for five minutes, if you can tolerate it. God's desire to dwell in us. Do you think he's satisfied with what he's got in me just yet? Because you'd be disappointed, wouldn't you, if he were? You would have your doubts about heaven if he were. No, the final product even in me will be this, that I should be filled with all the fullness of God. And all the glory of God and all the character of God. Come and find its expression in me till there isn't a particle of me but what he feels. Yeah, you know, when they built the tabernacle and they presented it to Moses, and Moses erected it and presented it to God, then God came down and filled it. There wasn't room for anybody else, and the priest had to get out. God is not going to be content, not with me, nor you either. Until his dwelling in us means that he's filled us in every part of our being, and all the fullness of God is in us. Hasn't happened yet, has it? You say it will happen when the Lord comes. So it will, my brother, and it better start happening now. Why do you suppose the Lord has left us here and not taken us at once to heaven? You know, we're not just kicking our heels around, twizzling our palms. But, uh, you know, the Lord's left me around, I think I do some gardening and things. I should be here when the Lord comes. Lord, when you want to take me, I should be around. Meanwhile, I'm just twizzling my fingers. I hope not. History is more real than that. The purpose of time is that we make progress. The years of our converted life are not to be frittered away, standing still. They are that during this time of life, by God's spirit, our hearts might be strengthened. That Christ might come and take his abode ever more fully in our hearts. That's a process, isn't it? And it's a protest that takes a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a necessary preparation. It involves the strengthening of my inner man by God's spirit. And it involves that I become more and more rooted in the love of God. Now you could test me out again there. Not when I'm on the pulpit, because I'm remarkably w- uh, well behaved on the whole when I'm in the pulpit. How you want to get me down at my work when somebody has just given me a little bit more than I can take? Stamped on my little toe or something. Huh. You'll find out how rooted in the love of God I'm now. You'll find I lash out here and lash out there with my tongue, and when I'm bidden to forgive so and so, I say, no, I never will, can't afford to. And you'll say, oh, fancy that. I thought he'd made more progress than that, but nah. Not yet really secure in the love of God. So he's all on the defensive. He doesn't, insecure, you see. Hasn't really got the sense in his heart of the overwhelming love of God, absolutely secure. So he's afraid that you find out that he isn't, uh, one hundred percent a saint, yeah. And he cheats occasionally, and he lies occasionally. And he isn't prepared to forgive. He can't afford it, he thinks. Eh. Which comes from not being rooted and secure in the love of God. I pray for you, says Paul, pray constantly for you, that God would by his spirit go on of this work of strengthening your inner man, that Christ might more and more and more dwell in your heart, that you being rooted might come to understand the tremendous height, length, breadth, and depth of this great mystery that embraces both Jew and Gentile and all who will trust the Savior. That you might finally know the love of God and be fulfilled in all the fullness of God. Ah. And some of you older believers. You've lived long enough now, haven't you, to know the difference it makes. And there's the old man, the outside man, I mean, has, uh, got a bit old and decrepit. And inside, there's a security now, there's a firmness, there's a calm, there is a rootedness in the love of God. Didn't used to be there, did it? There are times when you get insights into the love of God that you'd think it were like a wave that would carry you over the border of time into heaven itself. We're meant to make progress. Of course, God will do more even than we can ask or even think. And that doesn't mean we should take it for granted, but we too should bend our knees with Paul to pray God would do this thing for us. Because eternity will soon be here, won't it? And with not a lot more time to play with. That brings us to the great final matter of progress, the progress that chapter four speaks of in the building up of the body of Christ. But of that we must speak tomorrow, for the clock likewise makes progress and tells me it is long since time I stopped.