The Goal of God. (I Cor. xv. 28).- (8)

by Charles H. Welch

No.8. The Creation of Gen. i. 1 a “Firstfruits” (contd.). 

Not only do we have the most careful choice of terms ‘become’ in John, ‘work of Thine hands’ in Hebrews, and ‘create’ in Colossians, but the three titles of the Creator are similarly selected and related. 

“The Word” Logos reveals the hidden thoughts of God, and makes them manifest in creation. “The Image” eikon reveals that which is otherwise ‘invisible’, so that Christ could say “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father”. “The express Image” is the character, the “Person” is hupostasis substratum, that which lies under. 

Creation is the thought of God expressed in the material world. The Saviour is the Image of the invisible God, even as He is the external character of His invisible intangible reality. John says “all things were made by Him”. Colossians says “all things were created by Him”. Hebrews says that He it was Who “in the beginning” laid the foundations of the earth, and declares that the very heavens are the works of His hands. 

These three great references to Christ as the Creator of Gen. i. 1 are followed by references to His descent into humanity for the purpose of redemption. Let us go over the ground again with this in view: 

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt (as in a tent or tabernacle) among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth . . . . . and of His fullness have all we received” (John i. 14-16). 

 “And He (Who created all things) is the Head of the Body, the Church: Who is the BEGINNING . . . . . in the body of His flesh through death, to present you . . . . . holy . . . . .” (Col. i. 18-22). 

He Who is the express Image of His person, the Son Who is God, seeing that the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 14, 15). 

When the heavens & earth were created, the goal of God set forth in I Cor. xv. 24-28, that God should be all in all was envisaged, and a word used by God to Job is highly suggestive of the redemptive character of creation. 

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth . . . . . whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?” (Job xxxviii. 4, 6). 

Two very different Hebrew words are here translated ‘foundation’. The first word is the Hebrew yasad, which means to establish anything upon a foundation and this is equivalent to Heb. i. 10, the same word being used in the Septuagint showing that the Almighty Who spoke to Job was the One we know as Christ, but the second word is peculiar. It is the Hebrew word eden a socket, which word is employed 52 times, for the silver sockets upon which the Tabernacle rested (Exod. xxvi. 19 etc.). When this fact is taken in conjunction with the testimony of Isa. xl. 22, that God stretched out the heavens ‘as a curtain’ and spread them out . . . . . as a tent (ohel) tabernacle (Exod. xxvi. 9) to dwell in, the redemptive aspect of creation is most vividly suggested. We must, moreover distinguish between the creation ‘in the beginning’ and the reconstruction of the earth, together with the limited ‘firmament’ or expansion which followed the ‘overthrow’ of Gen. i. 2. The creation of Gen. i. 1 seems to be in view in John i. 3 and in Col. i. 16, 17, but in Heb. i. 11, 12 the transitory character of the creation is stressed: 

“They shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment: and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.” 

This would fit ‘the heavens’ of II Pet. iii. 10 which are to pass away, or the heavens of Isa. xxxiv. 4 which shall be ‘rolled together as a scroll’, a figure that is congruous if the heavens here are ‘the firmament’, the stretched out curtain, but not congruous if it refers to the abiding dwelling place of the living God. When Scripture affirms that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”, it also affirms that God must have been in Being before creation, and also that ‘heaven’ is not the dwelling place of God, the Invisible, Absolute and Unconditioned. God, Who existed before the first atom of creation came into existence, and cannot be conceived of as ‘dwelling’ anywhere. To ‘dwell’ in the very ‘heavens’ is a concession, a condescension, a self-imposed limitation. Solomon realized this when he said “The heaven and heaven of heavens CANNOT contain thee” (I Kings viii. 27). However much we may fight against it, when we point that “God is in heaven”, we have mentally localized Him. This is not an error, it is simply the recognition that unless God stoops we can know nothing of Him. We maintain that God is a ‘person’ simply because a person is the highest form of existence that we know. Yet the word is derived from the Latin persona a mask, especially one worn by play actors, from per ‘through’ and sono ‘sound’: 

“No man can long put on a person and act a part but his evil manners will peep through the corners of his white robe” (Jeremy Taylor). 

Consequently when we speak of the ‘Persons’ in the Godhead, we employ a term that really means that the Invisible, Unconditional, Absolute has ‘spoken through’ the person of ‘Father’ or ‘Son’ or ‘Holy Ghost’ in the N.T., even as He spoke through the titles Elohim, Jehovah and El Shaddai in the O.T. No one name, nor all the names of God employed together, can encompass and fully present God Himself. Even the employment of the masculine pronoun ‘He’, ‘Him’ is a concession to our limitations, for God Who is Spirit, Invisible, having neither bodily parts, form or parts cannot be properly conceived of as male or female. At every turn human limitation is met by Divine condescension, and nowhere is this more evident and more necessary than in the revelation of His unspeakable nature to man. In philosophy or logic a name is ‘a word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark, which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before’, but like words, names are often mistaken for things to our undoing. God is Elohim, but He is infinitely more. God is Jehovah, God is Father, God is Son, God is Holy Ghost, but God is, in Himself—what? That is a question never raised and never answered in the Scriptures. For us, at least, until in the glory we shall be in a position to know even as we are known, we exultantly behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and if we ask ourselves, as we should, “What is God like?” the answer is that Christ is ‘the character’ (the express Image) of His invisible, unknowable substance or reality (hupostasis Heb. i. 3). 

Now all this mighty movement, Creation, Purpose, Manifestation, Self-limitation must, if God be wise, holy and just, have an equally wonderful goal. That goal is indicated in I Cor. xv. as we have earlier suggested: 

“That God may be all in all.”

That is ‘the end’, and creation, overthrow, Adam, redemption, resurrection, eternal life and ultimate glory, are all the blessed means adopted to ensure at last this most wonderful end is attained. We must contemplate this unfolding therefore with bowed heart and reverent thought, for the unveiling of this purpose will ultimately unveil the heart of the living God. 

The key found in the words “Image and Likeness”. 

Let us now return to the opening theme of our study and endeavour with the light we have now received to take another step forward. We have already observed that in the world of Nature God is, and always has been, “All in all”, and it is toward this same glorious and acknowledged supremacy and fullness in the world of moral agents that the purpose of the ages moves. Where, however, in the world of physics, God could say “Let there be light” and there was light, where, in the realm “He spake and it was done, He commanded and it stood fast”, in this highest world of morals, it takes the slow unfolding centuries, the bitter lesson of the ages, in other words it takes “the perfecting through suffering” before the God of creation can be the confessed and acknowledged “All in all” in the hearts and consciences of men. 

Two passages in Heb. ii. which have not yet been considered must now be given attention, for they contain within them the solution of one of the great problems of the ages, namely, in what way will God be so ‘all in all’ that the relationship shall carry within itself its own guarantee of permanence and its assurance of richest intimacy. The passages are: 

“Perfect through sufferings” and “all of one”. 

This oneness is to be effected between two parties separated by a gulf that at first seems impassable: The INFINITE God, Who is Spirit, and FINITE man who is flesh. The gulf is spanned by the provision of the Mediator, Job’s “daysman”, the One Who could lay His hands upon both God and man, in short, He Who was “God manifest in the flesh”. Here, in Him, God and man can meet. We are already taught that God is ‘like Christ’, so that if redeemed man can become ‘like Christ’ also, oneness is assured and for ever established by the possession of this common likeness. This truth we now seek to establish by an examination of the Scriptural employment of the word “Image”. 

First we must consider those passages which teach that “God is Christ-like”, in which God comes down and finds a meeting place with man, in the person of His Son, the One Mediator. Then we must consider the passages where man (1) by creation, (2) by redemption is said to be either created in the likeness of God, or predestinated to be conformed to the Image of His Son, or is yet to have a body like unto His body of glory; and having discovered in this blessed Person, the Son of God, the Divine meeting place of God and man, we shall have discovered the way, and the only way indicated in the Scriptures, for God to become All in all to His people. That will be when He Who is the Word, the Form, the Image, the Character of God, and they, for whom this same glorious One became flesh and was made like unto His brethren, shall have become one in the sense indicated in John xvii.: 

“That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us . . . . . I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may have been perfected into one” (John xvii. 21-23),

or shall be ‘all of one’ as indicated in Heb. ii. 11. 

This subject will scale the heights and descend into the depths, for it embraces Deity and Humanity, Creation and Redemption, and must be approached with reverence and with godly fear. Let us consider first of all those Scriptures which teach that God is “Christ-like”. 

There appears to be several ways of attempting to answer the question “What is God like?” There is the approach by metaphysics, but this avenue is one that ends in ‘nothing’, God being No-thing (see the philosophy of Hegel) or in a series of negative abstractions like “Infinite”, that is to say “not finite”. This approach is of no use to a seeking sinner or to the Bible student. The Being and Nature of God can be approached along the line of His relation to created things, so that we can understand that the invisible things of Him are clearly seen by the evidence of His handiwork. This however fails to teach us what God is like, for “that which may be known of God” by this means is exceedingly limited. We may deduce by logic a Being of Almighty Power, but we could never discover by this means “The God of all grace”, for the necessary promises are not discernible in nature. Atonement, Redemption and Salvation lie outside the scope of creation’s witness. We leave the work of His hands therefore, and come to the Word which He has inspired, and that Word focuses our attention upon One, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, Who is the fullest manifestation of what God is like that has been or can be given. This manifestation is twofold. First, before creative times, Christ was “The Word” (John i. 1): “The Form” (Phil. ii. 6); “The Image” (Col. i. 15); “The Character of His substance” (Heb. i. 3); “The Brightness of His glory” (Heb. i. 3). Then, “The Word became flesh”, and as a result, God Who is invisible, Whom no man hath seen at any time was ‘declared’ (John i. 14, 18). He Who in days past had spoken unto the fathers by the prophets, spoke at last “In Son”. This strange expression is a Hebraism, as for example where in Exod. vi. 3 of the A.V. we read:

“And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty”,

the Hebrew reads B’El Shaddai literally “in God Almighty”. Just as to the Patriarchs, God had appeared to them “in God Almighty”, so to their descendants the same God appeared “in Son”. 

In Isa. xlv. 18-23 we read:

“God Himself . . . . . none else . . . . . no God else beside Me . . . . . I have sworn by Myself . . . . . that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” 

This the Apostle Paul, by race and upbringing a rigid upholder of the fact that there is “One God”, refers to the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. ii. 10, 11). 

The same prophet Isaiah saw the Seraphim and heard their cry: 

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is Jehovah of Hosts” (Isa. vi. 3), 

and John declares that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ, and spoke of Him (John xii. 41). 

Yet again, Isaiah says: 

“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isa. xl. 3). 

The Gospels reveal that this was fulfilled by John the Baptist the Forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

When Israel tempted the Lord, Psa. lxxviii. 56 declares “They tempted and provoked the Most High God”, yet I Cor. x. 9 says they tempted Christ! The epistle to Titus declares that our hope is directly associated with the glorious appearing of “our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus ii. 13). Here in the Scriptures we have cited we find such titles as “God Himself; Jehovah of Hosts; The God; The Lord . . . . . our God; The Most High God; The great God”, each and every one finding their full expression in one Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is, as I Tim. iii.16 declares, “God manifest in the flesh”. These mighty Scriptures are a sufficient justification for seeking further evidence of what God is like in the Person of Christ. Here are a few that doubtless come to the mind of every reader.

“The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. iv. 6). 

We shall see later that there is a transfiguring power in that “face” (II Cor. iii. 18) but this we must leave for the moment. 

“Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John xiv. 9). 

“Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape . . . . . for Whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not” (John v. 37, 38). 

If I desire to understand the righteousness of God, the love of God, the peace of God, the forgiveness of God, or any other of His glorious attributes or gifts, I can see them as I shall never see them otherwise, in the life, person, walk and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (I John i. 1, 2). 

Here therefore is the Godward side of the great movement. God stoops down and reveals Himself in the Person of His Son. The manward side also will be found to be completely covered by the same term ‘likeness’ and this we must approach from more than one point of view, first as to man at his creation, secondly in his redemption and thirdly in the Person of Christ as The One Mediator, “The Man Christ Jesus”. The reader must remember, therefore, that our argument has not yet been fully presented. We must consider the same line of teaching from man’s standpoint. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 44, page 72).

http://charleswelch.net/BE%20Vol%2044%20Final.pdf

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The Will of God. (1) - by C. J. Holdway

No.1. The need for its Assessment. 

We hope to write a number of articles on “The Will of God”. This is a subject which is perplexing, perhaps particularly to young believers. At the outset, let us be quite clear that this is not the easy matter some would have us believe—save in its fundamental aspect, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification”. We are well aware we have taken this out of its immediate context in I Thess. iv. which is that of moral impurity. Nonetheless the sanctification of the believer, is, above all else, the will of God for him. Many are the references to bear this out, e.g., I Pet. i. 15,16: 

“As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written ‘Be ye holy; for I am holy’.” 

In the context of the knowledge of the will of God, Rom. xii. 1, 2 is particularly apt, for it outlines the pre-requisite of this knowledge: 

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” 

That this is particularly important is shown by Paul’s appeal to the ‘mercies of God’. Surely there can be no stronger appeal to a believer than the mercies of God, involving, as they do for us, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Yet in this epistle Paul musters a great ‘weight’ of the mercies of God; in the earlier chapters he deals with the believer’s deliverance from sin and its power, with justification by faith, the believer’s identification with Christ in His baptism into death—in short, with many of the fruits of Christ’s death on our behalf. Often chapters ix.-xi. are referred to as a parenthesis—the appeal being back to chapter viii., yet who can deny that these three chapters also deal with the mercies of God? What are these chapters but the exposition of the particular mercies of God applied dispensationally? The believer is reminded of God’s absolute faithfulness to His Word and Covenant, though man may be faithless; is reminded of the extension of His mercies to others in spite of, and indeed by reason of, the failure of His Chosen People. 

It is on the basis of such incredible mercies of God—to ‘speak as a man’—that Paul makes this appeal: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, that ye yield your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing unto God, which is your rational service . . . . . to your assessing what is that good, and well pleasing, and perfect will of God”. 

The mind needs renewing (of which more later) in order that the believer may assess what is the will of God. Not only that he may be able to weigh up the situation and decide “this is His will for me”; but also, and more importantly, be able to discover the ‘sterling worth’ of the will of God. The word translated ‘prove’ in the A.V. is one which can be used of ‘assaying’ metals, proving their value. No one can know how good, how well pleasing and perfect is the will of God, unless he presents himself a living sacrifice to God—as the old saying has it, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”, so the proof of the will of God is in its performance. 

Present your bodies a living sacrifice. The word translated ‘present’ in the A.V. is rendered ‘yield’ in Rom. vi. 13, 19, and in this sense implies that this, also, is the will of God for the believer. The primary sense is ‘to stand beside’ (hence, to yield), and in the days in which we live, how essential it is that in yielding to the mercies of God, we also take our stand beside Him! Unless we are prepared to do this, we shall never be in the position to ‘assess’ how good, well pleasing and perfect is His will. 

In Rom. xii. 1, 2 Paul mentions two aspects of yielding—one negative, ‘be not conformed’, the other positive ‘be transformed’. 

Be not conformed to this world: more accurately, be not conformed to this age. Basically the word for age has the significance of a long time, but a time with definite limits to it, and therefore, according to context, can have the significance of an age, a generation, or a lifetime, and in the latter sense speaks particularly to us: do not be conformed to the things of your lifetime. In the course of a lifetime many things change, and not always for the better. In the course of our own lifetime we have seen many things change in connection with Christian life and witness, conforming to current fashions and trends, and know from experience something of the pressures, both deliberate and incidental, to conform to the things of one’s lifetime. 

The word ‘conform’ is one which occurs only twice in the whole of the N.T., and is not found in the LXX version of the O.T. The only other occurrence is I Pet. i. 14 “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance”—not conforming to former desires (the word does not necessarily have the implications associated with our normal use of ‘lusts’) when we knew no better. Rather, as Peter continues in the following verse, “as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, be ye holy; for I am holy”. The basic thought of ‘holy’ is separation—“Be separate from the things of your former conversation” Peter says in effect, and this is Paul’s thought when he exhorts “be not conformed to the things of your lifetime”. 

Dr. Bullinger’s Critical Lexicon defines “conform”: ‘to form, fashion, or shape one thing after or like another’. Perhaps we might put it this way: Do not ape the things of your lifetime. The word also has implications of unreality and pretence, so that we could also put it “Don’t try to be what you are not: don’t pretend to be like others”, for the believer is a new creature in Christ; he is not of the world, and he should be like Christ. 

The word translated ‘conform’ is a compound one suschematizo, ‘su’ being a form of sun meaning in conjunction with, jointly, the whole word, therefore, signifying here to fashion oneself like the world in conjunction with the world. The world plays its part in so fashioning the believer who wishes to conform to it, and in conforming, the believer becomes a part of the world. How can the believer do such a thing? In Rom. vi. 2 Paul says “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”, and in Gal. vi. 14 he boasts “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”. If the believer is indeed ‘in Christ’, then the world is dead to him, he sees it as something lifeless and corrupting; but also he is himself dead to the world, there is nothing in him now to respond to anything in the world. How indeed shall we that are dead to the world, or to the things of our lifetime, live any longer therein? 

Do not join the times in which you live by aping their ways . . . . . but be ye TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind. The transformation is the result of the renewing of the mind. The original does not give ‘the renewing of your mind’, but ‘the mind’. If your mind is renewed, it is the mind of the old nature which is reinvigorated, and clearly this is not in Paul’s thought here. There is a significant hint in the word used for ‘renewing’ which is anakainosis, the latter meaning ‘to make new’, while ana indicates motion upwards—a new mind which is higher, the whole word have the meaning of ‘making other and different from that which had been formerly’. “We have the mind of Christ” says Paul in I Cor. ii. 16, and surely it is the mind of Christ which needs to be constantly renewed in the believer, transforming him from what he was into the new creature he is in Christ. We can do no more here than to say that the renewal of the mind of Christ in us comes as the result of searching the Scriptures, through prayer and by setting our minds on things above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. The result will be transformed lives. 

Like the word for conform, transform also is little used in Scripture. Apart from the use in Rom. xii. 2, and by both Matthew and Mark in their description of the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus Christ, it occurs only in II Cor. iii. 18: 

“But we all, with open (unveiled) face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed (transformed) into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 

Moses’ unveiled face shone with the glory of the Old Covenant, when he returned from the mount. The believer’s life should shine with the glory of the Lord. Far from being ‘like the world’, the believer should be ‘like Christ’. The believer who is like the world, like those of this lifetime, is one who has not yielded himself a living sacrifice to God. Several years ago a young believer, clad in the rags of the latest fashion of the pop scene excused his appearance and practice, by claiming it was a sacrifice for him to do and be so—“I don’t like it; I do it to reach the unconverted!”. The magnet which is de-magnetized will never make another piece of iron into a magnet. 

The Companion Bible defines “transform” thus: “to change to a new condition”—a very different thought from aping the world, albeit on the pretence of winning others for Christ. This word has also its own implication—of beauty. Paul is appealing on the basis of the compassions of God, for the believer to live a life of beauty before the Lord. When we recall the Psalmist’s words (xxix. 2) “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”, there can be little doubt that Rom. xii. 1, 2 is an appeal for a life which is beautiful with holiness—beautiful in its separation from the things of this life. 

Again, like the word for ‘conform’, the word translated ‘transform’ is a compound: meta-morphoomai, meta having the significance of ‘in the presence of’ or ‘in the midst of’. The perfect illustration of the whole word is to be found in the account of the Transfiguration, where both Matthew and Mark make the clear statement, He ‘was transfigured before them’. He changed to a new condition before the disciples, and at that moment was not associated with them in any way. So the believer should be changed to a new condition before the world, in no sense in association with them. It is not surprising to discover that the word Paul has used is exactly the word used by the evangelists to describe the change which took place in the Lord: Be not conformed, but be transfigured. The Lord became obviously different from the disciples; the believer should increasingly become obviously different from those of this age. This is what Paul desires for the believer, that he should become obviously different from those in the world among whom he lives. 

We have already said that the believer’s relationship with the will of God is not as easy as some would have us believe. This Scripture makes this point quite plain: “Yield yourselves a living sacrifice”. It is a sacrifice which goes on day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year: there is a cost to the reasonable service. Yet compared with the compassions of God, and in the light of the increasing assessment that the will of God is good, and well pleasing, and perfect, how small is the cost! Nonetheless, the cost must be faced squarely first. 

This aspect has to be faced before transfiguration can begin. The Lord Himself faced this question before His transfiguration. 

“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed . . . . . And after six days Jesus . . . . . was transfigured before them” (Matt. xvi. 21 and xvii. 1, 2). 

And there, on the mount of Transfiguration He entered into a foretaste of the joy that was set before Him. He, ‘for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame’ (Heb. xii. 2). He knew the will of the Father to be good, and well pleasing, and perfect, and that its fulfillment could only result in glory.

Considering the compassions of God, and the eternal weight of glory which will result from our fulfillment of the will of God for us, in spite of the sacrifice involved, we should be living a transfigured life, which is a foretaste of the joy and glory which is set before us. 

By the mercies of God, I beseech you! What compassion God has shown to us! He gave His Son for us a Sacrifice for sin on the cross; by Christ’s death on the cross we are justified by faith and the righteousness of God is reckoned to us; we are members of the Church which is His Body; hence, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places; our hope is to be manifested with Him in glory. So we could go on. But all begins with the cross: with the sacrifice of Christ. Surely, in the light of such love, of such compassions, it is but our reasonable, logical service, to yield our bodies living sacrifices, separated, well pleasing unto God, being not conformed to this age, but being transformed by the renewing of the mind to our assessing what is the good, and well pleasing, and perfect will of God. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 47, page 157).

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