The Risen Lord

Zechariah 4:6

Does it not strike you assignificant, and very impressive, that when the veil was rentIsrael was set aside? Israel had been called in to maintain atestimony in types. Christ had come and fulfilled all the types,and being the center of all the types, the veil, all that keptGod shut off from man, was now dealt with, and the way was open.There was no need for types now. So the custodian of the typesdeparts with the types. This is not the dispensation of thetypes: this is the dispensation of the reality, the dispensationof a heavenly union with a risen Lord, and of all that thatmeans. Our danger is of bringing back types. The types have goneand that is the whole message of this letter to the Hebrews.Christ is everything. The outward order of the Old Testament isset aside, and now all that obtains is Christ Himself. He is the Priest; you no longer have priests on earth in the Old Testamentsense. He is the Sacrifice; there is no need for any othersacrifices. He is the Tabernacle; He is the Temple; He is theChurch.

What is the Church? It is Christ in living union with His own, that wheresoever two or three are gathered together in His name there He is in the midst. That is the Church. You do not build special buildings and call them “the Church.” You do not have special organisations, religious institutions, which you call “the Church.” Believers in living union with the risen Lord constitute the Church. This is the reality, not the figure. That is to say, His flesh, human limitation, is done away. Now in union with Christ risen all human limitations are transcended. This is one of the wonders of Christ risen as a living reality. We are brought into a realm of capacities which are more than human capacities, where, because of Christ in us, we can do what we never could do naturally. Our relationships are new relationships; they are with heaven. Our resources are new resources: they are in heaven. That is why the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians and said that God hath chosen the weak things, the foolish things. The things which are despised, and the things which are not, that He by them might bring to naught the wise, the mighty, the things which are. Why did God appoint it so? Because it is not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit; and to show that there are powers, energies, abilities for His own which transcend all the greatest powers and abilities of this world.