The Dais
Chapter Ten
The Divine at the Dais
GOD’S WORK IS PERFECT. Ours is full of failure.
Happy are those who can keep them separate, who do not adulterate His doings with their
feeble efforts! Much of human misery comes from the lack of discrimination between the
divine and human sides of salvation, in its various aspects. If we mingle these, we do not
raise the puny putterings of man to the pure perfection of the divine, but drag down the
glorious achievements of God to the low level of human shortcomings. We must draw a clear
line between redemption and ransom, conciliation and reconciliation, Christ’s work
and our walk, His suffering for our sins on the cross and our loss for lack of endurance
at the dais. The divine side has practically disappeared in Christendom, and has been
swallowed up by the human.
This distinction comes into
sharpest contrast where the same phrase is affirmed and denied. On the divine side all
is out of God (Rom.11:36). Yet our Lord, when speaking of the human aspect, averred that
those who do not hear God’s declarations, are not out of God (John 8:47). The
usual reaction is to join the latter class and insist that this proves that all is not
out of God, even if God Himself is the One Who gives a spirit of stupor, eyes not
to be observing, and ears not to be hearing (Deut.29:4). Those to whom the Lord spoke were
calloused by God (Isa.29:10), so that it was out of Him that they were not out of
Him! These two passages occur in entirely different contexts. One deals with the basic
position of God in His universe, the other with temporary human relationships to Him. Both
are true in their own place, but contradictory when cut out of their contexts.
REDEMPTION AND RANSOM
Theology
makes no distinction between these two, hence the greatest and grandest thoughts connected
with the divine side have been branded heresy. Because redemption is limited both as to
time and extent, ransom is also contracted, notwithstanding the plainest possible passages
to the contrary. Because God wills all mankind to be saved, the Man Christ Jesus gives
Himself a Ransom for all (1 Tim 2:6). This is the divine side which should
be believed in its own context, not rejected because the human side is set
forth elsewhere. Only believers are redeemed by His soul, which figures His
blood, that was shed for many (Matt.20:28).
Redemption is clearly
limited in time. It ends with the jubilee. All legal obligations such as mortgages and
slaves might be redeemed in Israel before the time of expiration. But redemption became
inoperative in the jubilee, because it was not needed. Then it practically became
transmuted into ransom, for God had made provision for all to be freed, and for all
land to revert to its allottees every half a century.
THE DIVINE IN THE HUMAN
The
great advantage of distinguishing the divine from the human side in God’s eonian
operations is further heightened when we discover the divine element in the human. This
will bring us into harmony with the basic truth that all is of God (Rom.11:36), and
the final perfection when God is manifestly All in everyone. Not only is ransom the
divine side of redemption, and conciliation God’s side of reconciliation, but even at
the dais, where the conduct of the saints is especially in view, we may see
clearly that it is God Who is operating in us to will as well as to work for the
sake of His delight (Phil.2:13).
THE DIVINE IN REDEMPTION
God is
not limited in His operations to man’s relations to Him. He also controls the acts of
men with regard to each other. This is plainly apparent in Israel where He gave them laws
which regulated their relationships. No other nation could possibly have a law like that
of redemption and the jubilee, because this was a type of the eonian times, of which no
man could know apart from revelation. It was God Who instituted it in order to reveal His
ways. He made it possible for a man to redeem his kinsman in order that their hearts
should grasp what He would do for them and the nations through His Messiah, their glorious
Redeemer. It was God Who arranged matters so that there should always be poor people among
them, because the sorrow of loss would be more than compensated by the joy of a redeemed
or restored allotment. He gave the famine which brought Ruth from a foreign land to enjoy
redemption at the hand of Boaz.
It was God Who limited
redemption to the period before each jubilee. That man would never have made any such
provisions is evident from the fact that, in modern theology, this feature is absent. All
who are not redeemed are utterly lost, eternally tormented, or hopelessly annihilated,
according to orthodoxy. God’s idea is just the opposite. Whatever failed to be
redeemed in Israel went out free at the jubilee. Christendom knows of no jubilee,
with its joy and exultation, apart from redemption, and has reversed it into wailing and
gnashing of teeth. It rejects the jubilee altogether, and opposes the plain statements
that speak of it as the time when all mankind will be saved and justified, and all the
universe redeemed. Redemption under the law, in Israel, and under Christ, was all the work
of God, Who alone knew the great lesson which it is intended to teach. It could not be
left to men, for they did not grasp its force.
THE DIVINE IN RECONCILIATION
That
fearful travesty of the truth which misrepresents God as threatening the sinner with
eternal torment unless he mends his ways, and which demands of him to pray for mercy, and
to promise to believe and obey, has almost obliterated the gospel of God’s grace,
instead of heralding it abroad. No conciliation is possible on the part of the sinner
apart from the previous conciliation on the part of God. The appeasing Sacrifice was
offered long, long ago. When the savor of Christ’s offering of Himself ascended into
the nostrils of the Deity, then it was that He was conciliated to the world.
Nothing needs to be added to Christ’s sufferings and death to conciliate God. Nothing
that the shiner can do will add in the least to His satisfaction. And nothing is needed.
Nay, it is offensive to God and delusive for the sinner.
But God plays the principal
part in reconciliation also. Even when the glorious and gracious truth is presented to an
enemy of God, showing that He is conciliated, that He is not offended, that He
is offering His friendship, nay, that He is actually entreating and beseeching,
“For Christ’s sake be conciliated to God!”—even then there is no
response unless that also is due to the power of God’s spirit. Many have heard or
read these words, but have neither understood them nor acted upon them. Even in the
heralding of the kingdom, a thing which Israel as a whole ardently desired, our Lord could
say, “ No one can come to Me if ever the Father Who sends Me should not be drawing
him” (John 6:44). Paul is very bold and says, “it is not of him who is willing,
nor of him who is racing, but of God, the Merciful” (Rom.9:16).
The laudable desire to drag
in everybody with the gospel net brings many deluded hypocrites into the so-called
“church.” But, unlike the fisherman in the parable, the bad are not cast away
(Matt.13:48). To some extent even man’s methods recognize the fact that men are not
able to do anything to save themselves. So they appeal to the soul by music and
with promises of earthly and heavenly bliss, instead of appealing to the spirit by
means of God’s Word. They do not realize that it is not a matter of flesh or
of soul, but of spirit. It is not a question of substance or experience, but
of life. And life must come from without. A dead man cannot vivify Himself. The
life is imparted only by God’s spirit, through His Word. This should lead us to use
His inspired, living, life-giving words alone in our heralding of His evangel.
The subject of the evangel
for today is neither the sinner nor his sins. The glad news is for him, not about
him. Christ and God are the background of the evangel. They do the work of
saving. Christ has offered His sacrifice. God is now calling those whom He chose long ago,
before the disruption, through His spirit, by His Word. So it is even in the human side of
salvation. God works in and through His saints to do that which delights Him.
THE DIVINE IN THE DAIS
All
reward or approval at the dais will indirectly be the work of God Himself. In the full and
final treatise on the conduct of the saints, Paul’s epistle to the Philippians, we
are told that it is God Who is operating in us to will as well as to work for the sake of
His delight (Phil.2:13). If we are in the flesh we will take this as a signal to lay down
our tools and fold our hands, for what is the use of working if we can’t do anything
anyway? But, if we are in the spirit, it will be the greatest possible encouragement, for
we will have such a low estimate of our own powers that we would despair of ever doing a
single thing worthy of God’s approval. The perfection which would please Him is
altogether beyond our reach. In the light of the dais our best efforts would be so
imperfect that we would be ashamed to submit them to the public eye. But if they are His
workmanship, the product of His spirit, then we will do our utmost in His service,
to merit His applause.
THE BASIC GRACE OF THE DAIS
Superficially,
the dais of Christ seems to be a “judgment seat,” as our popular version calls
it. But if we probe beneath the surface we will find even its most forbidding aspects
suffused with favor to ourselves and to our fellows. Everyone who will be presented there
will be a chosen favorite of God and will be treated accordingly. Not only will his sins
be absent, having been transmuted into God’s righteousness through the infinite
virtue of the blood of Christ, but he will be reconciled through His death. God, in
Christ, will not be there as a Judge to condemn us for our sins and offenses
against Him, but as a faithful Friend, to reward us for our service and suffering, to
adjust our relationship to our fellow saints, and to prepare us for our future glorious
service by removing every impediment and hindrance.
The very losses we may
sustain for faulty service or failure in conduct will be essentially gracious, for their
effects will prepare us for the future. Even their remembrance might mar the bliss of the
far-flung eons that follow, unless all were finally satisfactorily settled. Just as we
burn up the rubbish that accumulates and threatens to become an eyesore, so the fire will
consume only that which has no place in final perfection.
One of the most gracious
aspects of the dais is its influence on our present service and conduct. If all realized
that much that we do will be made a bonfire in that day, it would radically revolutionize
“Christian” service. If we, only remind ourselves that the race is not to the
swift, unless they observe the rules, we would be more concerned to heed the Scriptures,
and not walk disorderly. Even if we attain the highest honors among men for the passing
period of our earthly life, what is that if it puts us in the lowest place in the coming
eons? This is a very mean motive, but the grace of it lies in the fact that the very same
selfish desire to have the preeminence, when viewed in the light of the dais, will cure us
of it now, when we need such help.
GRACE EXEMPLIFIED
The
evangel of grace, heralded by Paul, not only differs from that of the Circumcision in
doctrine, but radically departs from it in practice. Like the priests of old and like all
engaged in the service of the temple, Peter and the eleven had a right to be
supported by the saints. Paul also had this right, but it was wrong for him
to use it in making known the evangel of transcendent grace. Instead, the
greatest of all the apostles, through whom more spiritual wealth was distributed than
through any other, refused to claim his rights, and worked with his hands to supply his
needs. This is the deportment which accords with the doctrines of grace. Without this
spirit back of it, the truth will soon become lifeless and sterile, formal and corrupt.
The demand for and
insistence on our rights is a prolific cause of fiction and contention. God recognized it
in the service of the Circumcision, but He has no pleasure in it now, for it is out of
line with His operations and the spirit of grace in the evangel. Seldom, indeed, do others
agree with us in what we consider to be our rights.
This does not necessarily
imply that an evangelist must earn all his bread by working. Paul often received gifts,
yet these also were the unforced fruits of the evangel, which are in accord with
the present grace. But he did not claim them as a right. He should have
had enough of these to free him from manual toil, if anyone could claim that right.
And if he had received enough, no doubt he would have given all his time and strength to
the evangel. This should be the case wherever it is practicable, and does not detract from
the spirit of grace, which is the outstanding and essential characteristic of the present
administration.
But in our own case, as in
Paul’s, who was chosen to herald and defend the evangel, it is best that it be made
without expense, if possible. As the central exponent and defender of gratuitous grace, it
is fitting that we make no charge for the riches that we distribute, in order to maintain
a harmony, a concordance, between our words and our ways. That is why we toiled for many
years and gave only our spare time to the work. And even since we have given almost all
our time and strength, because we saw that the tremendous task before us demanded it, we
have continued to do some manual labor almost every day to help the work. At first we
charged half price for our time, in order to pay our way, but the Lord arranged our
circumstances so that, for many years, this is no longer necessary. Rather, we are able to
contribute to the work.
We, like Paul, would like
to be a model in this matter (2 Thess.3:9). We have often been told that the value of our
work is such that we have the right to claim the support of the saints. But we wish to
exemplify the grace which we seek to share with others by making it free of all cost, so
far as we are concerned. At the same time we do not refuse or undervalue the gifts which
are sent for our personal welfare. But, unless specifically marked to that effect, all
gifts go into the work, which never has enough to carry out our plans. There are still
about seven books which should be republished, besides the versions and concordances, the
initial cost of which is very high at any time, but especially so at present, when prices
have risen higher than ever before.
The vast value of this
course was impressed upon us during our stay in Europe. A publisher desired the right to
issue a series which had appeared in our magazine in book form. He could give it quite a
circulation among the saints, so I was eager to let him have it, and was willing to donate
the cost of translation and the use of the set pages free. But the author insisted on a
royalty, so nothing came of it. As a result our other writings, which had not the
advantage of a popular publisher, have been a much greater blessing than this series,
which might have had a much wider circulation.
Let us learn this precious
lesson. God’s grace is not exhausted in effecting our salvation. He continues to be
gracious in using us in His service. And the measure in which this is true of us is,
humanly speaking, the amount of grace which is found in our service. The grace should not
only be heard in our preaching, but seen in our practice. It is only when we realize that
we have no more rights than the crucified criminals who suffered at His side that we are
eager to renounce every claim for ourselves and seek to seize every opportunity to serve
others with the same grace with which God has blessed us. And then we will not even claim
the credit for our grace, but ascribe to God alone the power and the impulses which have
enabled us to will and to work in accord with His delight.
A. E. Knoch
