Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1153
“For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” Ephesians 5:30.
I DO not hesitate to say that this is one of the most wonderful texts in the whole compass of Revelation. It sets forth the mystery of mysteries, the very pith and marrow of the loftiest divinity. It is fitted rather to be the theme for a hundred elaborate discourses than for one brief homily. Most assuredly it is a deep that knows no sounding, an abyss where thought plunges into never-ending contemplations. He who handles it had need, first of all, to be filled with all the fullness of God. Therefore we feel incapable of dealing with it as it should be dealt with—it is all too great and vast for us—we can no more hope to compass it than a child can hold an ocean in his hand.
Beloved, it is a text that must not be looked upon with the eyes of cold, theological orthodoxy which might make us content to say, “Yes, that is a great and important Truth,” and there leave it. It is a text to be treated as the manna was that fell from Heaven, namely, to be tasted, to be eaten, to be digested and to be lived upon from day to day! It is a text for the quietude of your meditation, when you can sit still and turn it over and, like Mary, ponder it in your hearts. Long and loving should be your gaze upon the facets of this diamond of Truth, this diamond of Revelation.
It is a golden sentence fitted for those choice hours when the King brings us into His banqueting house and His banner over us is love. When the distance between earth and Heaven has become less and less, till it scarcely exists—those undisturbed times when all is rest round about us, because He who is our Rest enables us to lean upon His bosom and to feel His heart of love beating true to us. I ask you, O my Brothers and Sisters, therefore, as though you were quite alone in your own chamber, to pray for that frame of mind which is suitable to the subject, and to pray for me that I may be placed in that condition of heart which shall best enable me to speak upon it. We need our thoughts to be focused before they can reveal to us the great sight before us. Get to the place where Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and then will this text sound like music in your ears.
Without any accompaniment of exposition from me, it will have all Heaven’s music in it—“We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” Sevenfold will be the happiness of the spirit which knows how to sit down and to taste of the marrow and the fatness, to drink of the “wine on the less well-refined,” which are to be found in this Inspired declaration. Before I preach upon it, there is one thing which it is necessary for us to do. They have a way in Scotland, before the communion, of “fencing the table,” that is to say, warning all those who have no right to come to the table to avoid the sin of unlawful intrusion, and so of eating and drinking condemnation unto themselves. They help the hearers to self-examination, lest they should come thoughtlessly and participate in that which does not belong to them.
Now, my text is like a table of communion richly loaded, and far from you to whom it does not belong, unless you learn the sacred way of coming in by the Door, into this sheepfold, where the pasture is so rich and green. If you come by Christ, the Way, come and welcome! If you rest in Him, if His dear wounds are the fountains of your life, and if His atoning Sacrifice is your soul’s only peace, come and welcome—for of you, and such as you, and all of us who are trusting in Jesus, it may be truly said—“We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.”
But if not Believers in Him, this heavenly verse has nothing to do with you. It is “the children’s bread.” It belongs only to the children. It is Israel’s manna—it falls for Israel. It is the stream which leaps from Israel’s smitten rock and comes neither for Edom, nor for Amalek—but only for the chosen seed, alone. Look back, then, to the beginning of the Epistle, and see of whom the Apostle was speaking when he said, “we.” This little word, “we,” is like the door of Noah’s ark—it shuts out and shuts in. Does it shut us out or in?
Now, the Apostle wrote his Epistle to those of whom he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Answer this question,
you who would enjoy this text—Have you made your calling and election sure? Has that matter ever been decided in your spirit after honest search and inquiry into the grounds of your confidence? Have you been led to choose your God, for if so, your God had long ago chosen you! That matter is ascertained beyond all question and out of it springs the undoubted assurance that you are one with Him, since of all whom He has chosen it is true—“We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.”