C.A.C. If saints walked rightly it would not be very difficult to help them in the truth. Our difficulties are more practical than doctrinal; a consistent walk so that we live on the principle of what pleases God would settle a thousand questions. What will come out at the coming of the Lord is what already exists, I suppose; it makes the present time very important. We may have the consciousness of pleasing God. If a saint does something solely to please God it is a very happy moment.
This would show that they had taken up Romans 6. The members are yielded in righteousness to God as under grace -- to the blessed God as instruments of righteousness (the hand, foot, etc.). Then there is the fruit unto holiness. There is the sense of obligation founded on ownership; it is the effect of being under grace. The young convert can take it up the first day of his life. There is no bondage in it, but great delight to one turned to God. It is then walking in the light of One raised by the glory of the Father -- that is newness of life. It is to put its mark on the walk of the saint. Old Testament saints had not that, but they will be seen in the life of Christ in that day; all will be made alive in Christ.
Rem. "What then shall we say?" (Romans 6:1). It demands an answer, a practical one, to the baptism. It comes first, morally like Him as regards life, but awaiting the glorified body.
C.A.C. It speaks here of possessing our own vessel; the body is viewed as taken possession of by me to be held for God. We are entrusted by God with a vessel. Each one of us possesses a vessel irrespective of our stage of growth. It is a vessel inasmuch as it is held for God, and yet that is the place of the youngest believer.
Rem. Walking precedes talking.
C.A.C. Yes, that is rather good.
Rem. This is taken up as a trust.
C.A.C. The question of the body is a most vital matter.
"In your mortal body", it says (Romans 6:12); it is a very great triumph for God.
Rem. If the eye is single the whole body is full of light.
C.A.C. Sanctification -- you see it absolutely in Christ, "who from God is made to us ... sanctification" (1 Corinthians 1:30, Authorised Version).
Rem. We need to view things at the level at which God holds them. What helps us is always to have before us what God has before Him.
C.A.C. And the Holy Spirit would not deviate from that.
Rem. The rights of the brother are the test (verse 6).
C.A.C. The consciousness of his own works being evil puts him on the line of hating his brother. If there is a talk of love, there is generally some practical defect behind it. "For ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. For also ye do this towards all the brethren in the whole of Macedonia". It indicates that we have a sphere that comes within our range -- not exactly local and not to all saints. It would preserve us from being parochial in our sympathies. It shows the kind of people ready for the truth of the rapture.
Rem. It would prepare us for that truth in our minds and hearts.
C.A.C. Yes, I thought so. Thinking of His coming back would influence the present.
Rem. Divine Persons treasure every expression of Christ down here. He is bringing it all back with Christ (cf. Luke 10).
C.A.C. It is a wonderful interval of which very little is told us. Very little is given as to it, and it has been left to be expanded in the hearts of the saints, and has been in hundreds of hymns.
Ques. Why should it be "in the clouds", not heaven?
C.A.C. Well, I suppose the saints will disappear from
Rem. It speaks of the Son of man coming on the clouds (Matthew 24:30).
C.A.C. There is no scripture that suggests the thought of a long interval, is there? It is open to us to be in the grace of His coming now.
It is of the deepest interest to consider the state and happiness of departed saints. Countless thousands in the course of past centuries have "fallen asleep", and each day adds to their number. But the subject is not only of general interest as referring to the present state of millions of saints beloved of God, and redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. It appeals to us on very close and personal grounds as we think of those we have known and loved, and with whom we have enjoyed christian intercourse and fellowship, who are no longer here.
And in times of personal bereavement it is a very real and divine comfort to have distinctly before our hearts the character of the blessedness which our departed loved ones enjoy. The Lord has most perfect consideration and sympathy for us in these times of grief. And one very distinct form which His consideration for us has taken is that He has been pleased to tell us what the blessedness of the departed is, while they await the full and final triumph of divine love and power which will invest them with spiritual and glorious bodies like the body of Him who sits as a risen and glorified Man at God's right hand.
If the Lord has seen fit to give us such a clear view of the happy state of those who are fallen asleep, we may be well assured that there is that in it which will prove of the greatest comfort to us in our sorrow. But I think we shall find that there is much more than this in it; we shall find it possessed of power to carry our hearts into a region where no sorrow can come. How blessed to be brought in mind and affection to such a region by the grace of the Lord, and by the power of the Spirit! That is, to be brought to taste and know in a deeper and fuller way what the Lord Jesus Christ
is: and to know that we, and all His saints, are for ever bound up with Him, to possess and enjoy through Him and in Him and with Him the precious fruit of the love and victory of God!
It is this which departed saints enjoy, without any hindrance from the flesh, or creature weakness, or circumstances. Their joy is not in its character different from that which is the present portion of saints; so that the more clearly we see their blessedness the better shall we apprehend our own. And this brings the true blessedness of christianity home to our hearts in a very simple and effective way, and shows that it lies completely outside this world. To enjoy it we have to be in spirit, as the departed saints are actually, quite apart from this world. And the more our affections entertain the thought of what they enjoy, the more shall we be drawn to the present good of that Person who is their portion and happiness.
There are four passages of Scripture in the New Testament which speak of the state of departed saints. As to number of words, they are few, but as to significance, what they convey is blessed beyond expression. They are as follows:
"And Jesus said to him, Verily I say to thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).
"We are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). "Having the desire for departure and being with Christ, for it is very much better" (Philippians 1:23).
"And I heard a voice out of the heaven saying, Write, Blessed the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow with them" (Revelation 14:13).
How plainly do we see from these scriptures -- particularly from the first three -- that the blessedness of departed saints lies in the company of a Person! The full title of that Person is the Lord Jesus Christ, and these scriptures show
us that each part of that title gives character to the divine felicity of those who are with Him. In the first scripture it is the blessedness of being with Jesus that is emphasised; in the second it is the thought of being with Him as the Lord; while in the third the "very much better" portion is to be with Christ. How great is the happiness thus brought before us! May our hearts burn as we consider it!
"To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" was the word of Jesus to one who had only known and trusted Him for a few minutes -- one to whom infinite grace brought blessing in the last solemn hour of a sinful history. In his case, at any rate, there could be no question of human merit. Whatever he got in those last wondrous moments of his life on earth -- whatever happiness paradise itself could afford him -- was brought to him by the Person near whom he hung upon the cross, and secured to him in divine righteousness by the death of that blessed One.
Think of the One who was there! Think of Jesus, the blessed Vessel of divine grace, as the Holy Spirit presents Him to us in this gospel of Luke! He was God's salvation for sinful men; the One anointed to preach glad tidings to the poor; the One who said that He came not to call righteous persons but sinful ones to repentance! He was indeed the Creditor, but here to pronounce a frank forgiveness to all His debtors! The Samaritan freely expending divine wealth and resources in compassion upon the misery of man ruined by sin and Satan! The One who told of the great supper of grace, and of the blessed invitings and compellings of divine love! The Shepherd who would go after the sheep which was lost until He found it! The One who as the Vessel of all the grace of heaven told of the joy of God in receiving a repentant prodigal! The One who by the grace of God tasted death so that the river of that grace might flow forth for world-wide blessing through a channel of divine righteousness!
As we gather all this up in our thoughts -- if we can speak
of gathering up such infinite things in our feeble thoughts -- does it not fill us with wonder to think of being with the One in whom such matchless grace shone forth, and in whom it all subsists as the risen and glorified One?
We may consider that the penitent thief of Calvary knew but little of the fulness of grace that resided in Jesus. And there are many indications in the gospels that the disciples, and even the apostles, failed to realise that grace in its proper character and glory. But it was all there in Him. No dullness of apprehension on their part, no want of capacity to take it in, could make that grace one whit less than it really was. It was God manifest in flesh, not imputing trespasses, but winning men's hearts by presenting to them all that He was in grace, and all that His grace delighted to do for them, without looking for one scrap of merit or goodness on their part as the condition of blessing. Would that our hearts understood better what He was, for what He was is what He is and will be eternally!
There are feeble believers today, but the question is, On whom do they believe? Is it Jesus, the blessed Son of God? Then their blessing is measured by what He is, and by the grace which He brought, and which He died to secure in righteousness for them -- lost, guilty and ungodly as they were.
What a prospect opened up before that young convert on the cross! "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise"! With the One in whom all the grace of God was! The guilty past left behind, cleansed from every sin by the precious blood, no trace of evil remaining: with Jesus! What happiness!
And this is the portion of every departed believer in Jesus. Dear bereaved one -- whatever the link of affection that death has torn -- if you would know what is the present joy of your loved one who died in Christ, consider Jesus. How great He is -- the Son of God, the Son of the Highest! How low He stooped in grace -- even to the death of Calvary! What a great salvation began to be spoken by Him: how
deep and dire the need which it meets, how glorious the favour of God into which it brings! And every believer who has fallen asleep is with Him! The scene of temptation and trial, of sorrow and suffering, is left behind for ever. The spirit has passed altogether away from the flesh, the world and Satan's power. Now it is with Jesus, the blessed Mediator who brought God in grace so near to men, and did that glorious redemption work which enables Him to bring men in perfect justification and acceptance so near to God. If we think of Jesus, how perfect the grace that shone in Him, that told itself out in His words and His deeds, that wrought redemption, and that is now radiant with glory in His face at God's right hand! Departed saints are with Him. It is enough. We bless God for their happiness; and we pray that we may know better as a present living reality the Person with whom they are.
"We are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). The dissolving of "our earthly tabernacle house" is a deeply solemn event, for there is nothing in which the utter weakness of man is so apparent. While in the tabernacle we groan, being burdened, and this is weakness; but the putting off the tabernacle is the extreme point of creature weakness. In prospect of such an event, what is the language of faith? "We are confident ... and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord". How blessed to think that the saint dies "to the Lord" (Romans 14:8). That is, he dies in view of that glorious Person who "has died and lived again, that he might rule over both dead and living" (Romans 14:9). The Christian, whether living or dying, has the Lord before him. We have learned Him as supreme in the administration of grace. We know that every heavenly, earthly and infernal power will yet have to bow before Him. His power is not yet asserted publicly, it is hidden in the heavens, but one of the greatest realities in the universe is that Jesus is the Lord.
There are tremendous powers of evil in the world which may well be feared, but Jesus is the Lord and protects those who confess Him. The mightiest power of all is death, but in the dread domain of death Jesus is Lord. At the right hand of God, supreme in power and glory, sits Jesus the Lord. There is no might so great as His; the world powers will all ere long have to give place to Him. He is, and soon will be manifestly, King of kings and Lord of lords.
In the domain of death He is the great Conqueror; He has entered the dark stronghold and borne away in triumph its gates and bars. He now in resurrection holds the keys of death and hades, and the hand of faith can be put forth to lay hold of death itself as part of the spoil of His victory. "Death ... yours" (1 Corinthians 3:22). What far-reaching authority, exercised in the beneficent activity of divine goodness and love, lies in that title -- the Lord! What comfort and peace and joy are found in the recognition that Jesus is Lord!
But how sweet to remember that to the saint His lordship not only implies authority exercised against all evil and to secure all blessing, but it implies His personal ownership. "Both if we should live then, and if we should die, we are the Lord's" (Romans 14:8). We belong to Him; He has rights over us which He will not surrender. He claims us in life -- may we own the claim more fully and gladly! -- and He claims us in death. The believer is claimed in that solemn, yet blessed, moment by the Lord. We are apt to think of our loved ones as possessions of ours, but the moment comes when we have to surrender them. But the Lord holds them when our poor hearts have to let them go. He holds them even in death in the power of redemption, in the power of the love in which He gave Himself for them. And on their part, in the peaceful and happy recognition of His claim and ownership, they "die ... to the Lord".
Then as absent from the body, they are present with the Lord. He receives their spirits. They are immediately in the region of power, for they are with Him who is supreme in
authority and might. Henceforth no other power but His will ever touch them, and that power is the servant of a well-known love. With what blessed confidence does this fill the soul!
"Having the desire for departure and being with Christ, for it is very much better" (Philippians 1:23).
We can understand Paul's desire to be with Christ, for we know what a sense he had of the love of Christ, and of the unsearchable riches of the Christ. It is he who told us that saints are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, that all God's promises are Yea and Amen in Christ, and that He is made wisdom, righteousness, holiness and redemption to those who are in Him. With what keen zest, and with what intelligent joy could he anticipate being with Christ, for he had known here "the fulness of the blessing of Christ" (Romans 15:29). And his great longing here was to have Christ for his gain. Hence when he spoke of being "with Christ" there was no vagueness or uncertainty in his mind as to what those words conveyed.
He had long before learnt that in himself good did not dwell, but that every divine thought of good and blessing had been brought in and established in another Man. The Christ is God's anointed Man in whom all His thoughts for men are fully made good. He has taken up all that we were, and glorified God about it in bearing its judgment, and now we are entitled through infinite grace to see Him as the divinely appointed Head, and that a world of holy blessing centres in Him.
In Him we are justified from all things, and have redemption; He is the door of liberty by which we escape from all that we were involved in as fallen and guilty children of Adam. But then we see also everything that is positively good and blessed, and according to God's delight, in Him. Man in everlasting righteousness before God, in the most blessed favour and acceptance, having every quality and characteristic that can yield pleasure to God! How blessed
to open the eyes upon a Man like that! And to know that He was once made sin for us upon the cross, and tasted death, meeting all the power of Satan and glorifying God, so that there might be nothing left to hinder us from having the full blessing of God in Him! And now we see Him in the condition of a risen and glorified Man, eternally before God for His pleasure. God's delight in Man -- in Christ -- is perfect, and changeless now to all eternity.
We know the qualities of Adam, the fallen man. They are a grief and trial to us; how much more so to God! But, thank God, He is relieved of that man by the death of Christ, and He has the Man of His good pleasure now ever before His face. Let us think of the qualities and characteristics of the accepted Man! They are not much in public admiration now, but they very soon will be. The world of lawlessness, and lust, and hatred, and man's glory is all soon passing away. Everything that is not according to Christ will have to pass out, and the whole of God's reconciled universe will be filled by the qualities and characteristics of Christ the glorious Man -- the Head.
How blessed the portion of the believer today! He is still in the scene where he once exhibited the qualities and characteristics of Adam, the rejected man, but he is now a believer in Christ, the accepted Man, and he has received the Spirit of that glorious Man that he may delight in, and be formed in, the features and characteristics of Christ. Is it not a profound joy when we get favoured moments in which no other but Christ is present to our thoughts and affections? And, on the practical side, is it not a joy when a little that has been found to be carnal or worldly or merely natural is allowed to drop, and a little more of Christ brought in by His Spirit? Could you think of greater happiness than to be removed from the presence of every trace of the Adam-man or his influence, and to be introduced to a region where there is nothing to distract from Christ, and from all the qualities and characteristics of Christ which are to be the
delight of God, and the delight and life of saints eternally? That is the "very much better" portion of those who are with Christ. They enjoy what they truly enjoyed on earth, but they enjoy it now with Him in a state where there are no distractions.
We may well turn to God with joy and praise as we think of our loved ones with Jesus, with the Lord, and with Christ. We do not think of praying for them, but the contemplation of the Person with whom they are may well lead us to pray earnestly for ourselves that we may know Him better. We want to know the One we are going to be with, do we not? Every bit of evidence we have that the preciousness of that blessed One was cherished in the minds and affections of our dear departed ones is very sweet to us. The more He was known to them here, the greater their link with what is there. We need to strengthen our links with what is outside the death scene, and outside all the confusion here. Let us not be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And as He becomes the treasure and glory of our hearts we shall know even here the character of joy that is the portion of those who are with Him.
One more word remains for our consideration in connection with this blessed subject:
"And I heard a voice out of the heaven saying, Write, Blessed the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow with them" (Revelation 14:13).
We do not fail to note that this scripture has direct application to saints of a future period, who will die in the Lord during the terrible time of tribulation after the rapture of the church, and before the appearing of Christ to judge and to reign. But what the Spirit says of them is true of those who die in the Lord today. There may be a special sense in which they will "die in the Lord", as martyred because of their faithfulness to Him, in the confession of His name amidst surrounding apostasy. But it is our privilege to be in
the line of the same witness today -- to own the lordship of Jesus as those who are truly His bondmen, and who gladly recognise what is due to Him, and who are set to maintain His interests in the scene from which He has been rejected!
How blessed to be "in the Lord"! To be in the consciousness of His supremacy, and of His support in a life here dedicated to His service! No labour is vain that is "in the Lord". Nothing that is done by a loyal heart in subjection to Him, and only seeking His pleasure and glory, could possibly be in vain. No human eye may have seen it, but His eye has marked the quality of its conception and execution with deepest pleasure. Those served may not have known how to appreciate the service rendered, but the Lord took full account of its value. How blessed to recall the features of a life here that has been in any measure in a true and real way "in the Lord"! No part of such a life has been in vain. Whether long or short, it has been freighted with that which has divine and eternal worth, and their "works follow with them".
We may be sure that those who live in the Lord die in the Lord, and they go into His presence attended by all the works which have been the fruit of their having come under His lordship here. What a comfort and joy to recall, as to those we have loved, that they lived and laboured "in the Lord", and to know that they have gone to Him attended by such a train and retinue!
We cannot dwell on what has passed before us without being reminded that the state of the departed saints, blessed as it is, is not the consummation of their joy. For this they, and ourselves, await the coming moment when the Lord will utter His assembling shout, and gather all His own to Himself in the air. Then will the Son of God receive us to Himself, and set us with Him in His own place in His Father's house, conformed to His image in bodily condition that He may be the Firstborn among many brethren, all set eternally in the glory and affections and condition of sonship
for the satisfaction of the Father's love.
This crowning glory also we contemplate in the same blessed Person -- God's glorious Son. So that to learn Him is the key to everything. That we may do so is often the reason why we are called to tread the valley of the shadow of death. It was only in going that way that the sisters of Bethany could learn Him who is "the resurrection and the life". Their sorrow passed, as ours will, but the gain of learning such a Person abides as an eternal wealth of the joy in the soul.
The mystery was made known to the apostle Paul by revelation, and it was bound up with the glad tidings which he preached, as we learn from Romans 16:25 and Ephesians 3:2 - 12 and Ephesians 6:19. He spoke of it to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:7, 12, 13), and to the Colossians. This truth is universal, and is for the enlightenment of all. It is in no way limited to anything local.
Another important part of Paul's teaching is that the assembly is the house of God (1 Timothy 3:15). There is one foundation, one corner-stone, and in Jesus Christ "all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also [Gentiles] are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:21, 22).
Paul speaks further of the saints as being called by God "into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:9), and that their fellowship is set forth in the cup which we bless and the bread which we break (1 Corinthians 10:16, 17). He assumes that all believers bless the cup and break the bread, for he says, "we". It is evident that there cannot be two divine fellowships.
The apostle, or the Spirit of God by him, gives no hint that the assembly, in a universal sense, was an invisible body. He regards it as one body on earth, gifts being bestowed with a view to its edifying, that it may work for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love (Ephesians 4:1 - 16). The saints are called in one body to let the peace of Christ preside in their hearts. There is no thought of an invisible body.
I Corinthians gives us the truth as it is to characterise each local assembly, for it is addressed not only to Corinth, but to "all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ". The saints universally are set in the light of
that epistle, which makes known that all saints are baptised in the power of one Spirit into one body (chapter 12: 12, 13). "The Christ" (verse 12) is clearly a corporate designation of the saints as one body, which could not be limited to one locality. The saints at Corinth were "Christ's body, and members in particular" (chapter 12: 27), but only in virtue of having part in the universal unity of chapter 12: 12, 13.
In that epistle we see that assembly administration is to be carried on locally. The saints at Corinth were directly responsible to the Lord to exercise discipline upon an evildoer in their midst. Such an act was to be done in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to Matthew 18 it would be bound in heaven. If, after the Corinthian assembly had acted thus in discipline by the Lord's commandment, the assembly at Cenchrea had said that the act did not bind them, the latter assembly would have been marked by pure lawlessness. It was binding, if for no other reason, on the ground that there is "one Lord" who had entrusted responsibility to act for Him in such matters to the local assembly, and whose name was connected with their action. In apostolic times "the power of our Lord Jesus Christ" was formally associated with His name when the assembly dealt with evil (1 Corinthians 5:4).
Now, to pass from the days of the apostles to our own, we find that, in the revival of the truth over a century ago, what was prominent in the minds of the spiritual was the truth of the assembly. We have been told that the light broke into the soul of Mr. J. N. Darby that there was a Head in heaven.
Then, said he to himself, there must be a body on earth. If we read his early writings, such as Considerations on the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ written in 1828, we find that it is the assembly which is before him, and its moral and spiritual features. The coming together of saints was to be in the light of those features which pertain to the assembly universally. The revival was definitely on the line of Paul's glad tidings, and of Paul's ministry of the assembly.
The brethren who were spiritually instructed had no such thought as that it was the divine intent that the assembly in its universal aspect should be, or should become, invisible. On the contrary, they felt deeply the fact that it had become so; that 'the true Church of God has no avowed communion at all' was a grievous evil to be mourned over and confessed. They felt that the body is here as a substantive reality to be edified, and to increase with the increase of God. Christ is sanctifying and purifying the assembly, and nourishing and cherishing it. This is not in heaven, but down here on earth.
But alongside this revival of Paul's doctrine there was developing amongst the brethren an entirely different system of teaching. There were those who held that the assembly in its universal aspect had become invisible, and that nothing now remained but to set up local assemblies, each being a self-contained body, having no responsibility with reference to other such bodies, and free to receive any individual believer supposed to be personally sound in the faith and consistent in life, without taking any account of the associations in which he may have been previously. The truth of the assembly in its general unity, calling for recognition in a practical way by those who have the light of it, thus entirely lost its due place. According to this system of teaching, each separate meeting is an independent 'assembly', even if there are several in one town. Scripture never speaks of different assemblies in one city. At Jerusalem, where there were thousands of believers, and where they no doubt met in many different places, it is always "the assembly" -- in the singular. The idea of independent churches, without any recognition of a universal bond of responsible partnership, is quite foreign to Scripture.
There are thus two different conceptions in the minds of brethren. One was governed by the thought of the unity of the whole assembly as one body, one house, one temple, and by the thought of all the saints everywhere being called
to one universal fellowship. The other was based on the idea of each meeting being an independent 'assembly'. The moment was bound to come when these two different principles would be found to be entirely out of keeping with each other. It was not long before circumstances arose which brought this to light. But it is important to recognise that what happened at Plymouth did not bring about the difference of principles. It only served to expose what was there before.
Mr. Darby and others separated from the original meeting at Plymouth in 1845 because clericalism was set up there, which they rightly judged was not of God. But the Lord in His wisdom did not allow this particular matter to become the general test. In 1847 it was discovered that Mr. Newton held and taught most serious error as to the Lord's personal relationships. This false teaching definitely raised the question as to whether fellowship involved a responsible partnership or not. The extreme gravity of false teaching as to the Lord's relationships ought to have helped the brethren to be very sensitive in their affections, as well as in conscience and intelligence. They ought all to have weighed well that fellowship (or partnership) with such error was most serious in the sight of God. The ground was taken eventually at Bethesda, that the error was condemned, but that fellowship with it by breaking bread with those who held it was no bar to communion, and that no individual believer was to be held responsible for what he might be walking in partnership with, unless he actually avowed the error himself.
Thus where this principle is adhered to, no assembly bond of partnership which involves saints in common responsibility is admitted. Each is regarded as an individual who is not to be held responsible for any associations he may have been in, but only for his personal views and conduct. There is no thought of fellowship in this, for fellowship means a common equal sharing, or joint participation, and this, when it is a question of breaking bread, in a most solemn way as before God.
The fact that defilement is contracted by touching what is
unclean is clearly laid down in the Old Testament, and the New Testament expressly says, "Touch not what is unclean" (2 Corinthians 6:17). It is also clear in Scripture that a much less thing than breaking bread with a person may involve one in responsibility for what he does, for John says that the one who gives a friendly greeting to a man who does not bring the doctrine of Christ "partakes [the verbal form of the word fellowship] in his wicked works" (2 John 11). One is viewed as in fellowship with his wicked works if simply greeting him. This shows what a very small thing, as men would say, involves responsibility as before God for one's associations.
If to break bread with an evil-doer does not, in the minds of believers, involve any complicity in his evil, neither does breaking bread with faithful saints involve the recognition that we are in the most intimate partnership with them. The sense of the divine bond is lost; persons break bread as so many individuals without any sense of responsible partnership. So that, according to these principles, the local assembly takes independent ground in declining to be bound by any assembly action other than its own, and the individual is held free of any responsibility, even in his own assembly, for anything that may have taken place there save his own views and his own conduct. This principle annuls responsibility in regard of associations, which Scripture so carefully maintains; it entirely sets aside the true thought of fellowship.
The questions raised in your letter are important, and they involve much that can hardly be dealt with briefly. But I will endeavour to answer them as far as I can according to the exercise which I have in the light of Scripture.
It is true that J.N.D. or J.B.S. would have received to break bread 'a godly clergyman', or 'a person known to be godly and sound in the faith who has not left some ecclesiastical system ... as to which his conscience is not enlightened, nay, which he may think more right'. And the question is now raised as to whether brethren still do so, or whether they are on sectarian ground if they do not.
It is evident that J.N.D. and J.B.S. had in view, in writing as they did, the spiritual conditions of the time. They did not contemplate persons being received who came from associations leavened by all kinds of worldliness, or by evil teachings on vital matters. Their uncompromising separation from Bethesda, and all who espoused its principles, in 1848, showed that they regarded associations with evil as a definite bar to christian communion.
Truth and divine principles do not change, but it has not been the way of God -- either when first giving the truth through the apostles, or in reviving it during the last century -- to give all the truth at once, or the full bearing of it. He has brought it out as the needs of the church required, according to the exercises of the time, and with regard to the conditions obtaining in relation to His testimony. It is well to inquire what the conditions were, under which J.N.D. and J.B.S. wrote as they did.
At that time those in the sects were marked individually and collectively by a very considerable degree of separation from the world, and by much true devotedness; they preserved in large measure purity of doctrine as to fundamental
truth. Before the movement of separation began, it is obvious that whatever light there was, or whatever faithfulness or testimony there was, was found in those bodies. There were "a few names" in Sardis of whom the Lord could say that they had not defiled their garments, and that they should walk with Him in white, for they were worthy. Such had preserved in holy integrity what was consistent with the truth so far as they knew it. If there had not been such, there would have been no material suited to receive the Lord's further testimony. But there was material out of which something truly Philadelphian in character could be formed as ministry was given from Christ as Head.
Now I do not learn from Scripture that it has ever been God's way suddenly to disown, or break the link with, what has been, in its day, of Himself when He brings in further and greater light. He acts in patient consideration for His people. He respects, if one may so say, His former ways. He has regard to that which He may have been pleased to use even though it fell short of what was in His mind. It was so when judaism was superseded by christianity; there was a transition period during which the separation between the old and the new was not definite. The faithful remnant entered into the blessings of the new order without altogether severing themselves from the former system -- now really set aside by God. It was not until the epistle to the Hebrews was written that they were definitely called to "go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach".
There is a certain analogy between what the epistle to the Hebrews was to the believing remnant of Israel, then made partakers of the heavenly calling, and what 2 Timothy is to us as calling us into separation from those things in the christian profession which are not suitable to the present testimony of God, and which largely have the character of judaism. But the application of 2 Timothy was accompanied by much consideration -- which was, I believe, at the time, of the Spirit of God -- for faithful and pious souls,
even though they were not fully prepared to take the path of complete separation to the Lord. The practice of eighty or ninety years ago was probably, at that time, of the Lord, for it was important to make manifest that the spiritual movement was in no way a sectarian one, but that it opened up a path, through divine favour, for all saints.
But every exercised Christian must see that there is an immense and solemn change in the whole condition of things since those days. Evil has come in like a flood; there has been no power to keep it out of religious bodies; all kinds of leavening influences are at work. No grave and exercised mind can be unaware of the tremendous change. It calls imperatively for greatly increased vigilance and care on the part of those who desire through grace to maintain what is due to the Lord, and to preserve a purity of associations which shall be in keeping with the truth of God's assembly, and with the principles of 2 Timothy 2.
Then it must not be overlooked that if there has been a terrible downgrade movement affecting more or less all the organised bodies, there has been another movement marked by the following of righteousness, faith, love, peace, and by calling on the Lord out of a pure heart. It is evident that the breach between these two movements must necessarily have been widening all the time. The separation between them becomes continually more definitely marked. And I have no doubt that this is felt, and that it has the effect of restraining persons from wishing to break bread who are not prepared to break their links with what is, in the light of Scripture, unrighteousness. So that it becomes increasingly rare for any to wish to break bread while still retaining their links with the systems. I think the incompatibility of the two positions is felt by many who have not even seriously weighed the reasons for it.
Things can only be maintained for God as we act on the principles laid down in 2 Timothy. The twofold seal of God's foundation is that "The Lord knows those that are his; and,
Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity". We cannot have christian fellowship in any definite or practical sense except on this line.
God works by the ministry of what is positive -- by the truth. Certain things have been seen to be evil, and they have been withdrawn from because they have been judged in the light of the positive truth. The lordship and headship of Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the truth of the body and the house, the divine order of the assembly, the spiritual character of all that is for God's pleasure, the heavenly calling of the saints, and much more that might be mentioned in detail, are the great and precious realities by which saints have been revived and moved in these last days.
In the light of these things the present condition of the christian profession generally has been discerned to be one of great departure from the truth, and this we have to own humbly as having our part in the responsibility of it. But the instructions of 2 Timothy have provided an open door by which to escape from things which are inconsistent with the truth, and with the fellowship to which believers are called. This open door is available for all saints. The truth of the fellowship is only known practically as we avail ourselves of it. The fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and of the body and blood of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, and of the apostles, is the only fellowship which Scripture recognises as being a divine one. It is because the truth of this fellowship could not be realised in systems characterised by human order and clerical office, or where a sectarian bond was recognised or boasted in, that so many have definitely separated from such systems. Souls have been freed from these things by the power of positive truth, as they have moved after Christ, and after what is of God, with a desire to realise the true position and wealth of the assembly in the Holy Spirit. And in proportion as there has been separation to Christ, and giving place to the Holy Spirit as practically recognising His presence and action in the
saints, there has been great enlargement in the communication and apprehension of the truth concerning Christ and the assembly.
It is impossible to say that there is anything sectarian about this. It is a path clearly indicated in 2 Timothy, and it is open to all saints, and every one who has truly found that path would earnestly wish that all saints might also be found in it. And there is an unrestricted ministry of positive divine wealth going on all the time, through what is spoken and printed, by which what is spiritually attractive is put within the reach of those whom the Lord loves, and for whom He cares, and to whom He sends light and food that they may find His path, and know the blessedness and the bond of the fellowship. If souls take this path, they will find the privilege of the Lord's supper awaiting them.
Every Christian is divinely called to the fellowship, it is there for every one who has faith and affection to take it up. And I think it must be admitted that being true to the fellowship morally precedes the eating of the Lord's supper together. 1 Corinthians 10 precedes 1 Corinthians 11. We get first "the teaching and fellowship of the apostles"; then "breaking of bread and prayers" (Acts 2:42). But the truth of the fellowship clearly raises the question of associations. It did so at the beginning. How much more so -- may we not say? -- in the midst of all the confusion of the last days. Can there be any doubt that 2 Timothy is given to us as a special guidance for the last days? And does it not raise the question of associations very definitely? It is a powerful divine call to take heed to our moral condition, and to look well to our associations.
In the last days, fidelity becomes of the utmost importance, and the faithful word must have its place. "For if we have died together with him, we shall also live together; if we endure, we shall also reign together", etc., "Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity". It is needful to purify oneself from vessels to
dishonour in separating from them, if one would be a vessel to honour. And we are to "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart". I would submit that the title of any Christian to be received to partake of the Lord's supper has now to be conditioned by the principles laid down in 2 Timothy. Our companying with saints is clearly to be on those lines. This raises the grave considerations as to how far those should be received to the eating of the Lord's supper who are obviously not maintaining fidelity to the truth of the fellowship. To partake of the one loaf and to drink of the one cup is the most intimate and holy expression of our participation in the fellowship. It is a serious thing for any to commit themselves in a most solemn act to a fellowship which in their minds they are not prepared to take up. No doubt many look upon the Lord's supper merely as individual privilege and do not consider that it involves any definite fellowship. But it is really the most definite commitment to the fellowship, and to all that the fellowship involves. To sign a deed of partnership is a serious matter even in human things; how much more so in the holy things of God! If souls are not prepared for the path of separation from evil, in the light and blessedness of all the good that is of God, they would do well to wait upon the Lord until they are assured as to the path in which He would have them to walk.
Members of religious bodies stand publicly committed to the acts of those bodies, and these are often such as to raise a question as to whether those who remain identified with them could be regarded as calling upon the Lord out of a pure heart. Not, of course, forgetting that we can only take account of what becomes manifest, and of what persons are identified with in public profession. Present-day conditions call for careful and godly doorkeeping.
There is a further serious aspect of this question which we have to face. The course of the testimony during the last hundred years has been attended by many conflicts. And
succeeding separations have tested the saints, and have left permanent results in a form that is sorrowful and humiliating, but which cannot be ignored. We cannot now say that we are free to receive Christians without raising any question as to their associations. It would mean confusion and looseness, and would commit us to the practical acceptance of principles which we believe to be contrary to divine assembly order, and to the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ. So far as we have learned the mind of God, we wish to maintain it in a practical way. The principles which govern the fellowship are universal and abiding. They have had to be maintained in times of conflict at the cost of separation from many brethren. But it is impossible to accept identification with principles which we have definitely separated from as not being of God. The door is widely open for any to acknowledge the divine principles which they may have formerly refused. But to receive them without this would be to deprive them of the spiritual gain of the exercise which the Lord permitted to be raised.
It may be truly said that many now know nothing of the conflicts which have resulted in their being where they are; many, perhaps, converted long years after such conflicts have taken place. In such cases, if the Lord were drawing one by the attraction of increased knowledge of Himself, and of spiritual light and food, it would be manifest that spiritual motives were at work. Such a soul, finding the Lord amongst His saints, and prepared to move as having the Lord before him, would find no difficulty. He would be received as having moved, through spiritual exercise, from his former associations.
1 Timothy 3:14 - 16
Ques. Is it one great thought of the assembly that it is God's house?
C.A.C. I trust that we really value the privilege of forming part of God's house and having a place in His assembly. It is a place where we have to learn how to behave ourselves. The ways and manners of the world will not do for God's house. We have to learn to set them aside and to acquire the manners suitable to God's house, God's assembly. Wonderful things are said of the assembly, "the assembly of the living God", the place where God dwells, His house. It is a place where everyone must learn how to conduct himself or herself. There is a place for each servant, each vessel, and piety is the livery; each one must wear that. There is nothing much more important than piety.
Rem. And this does not contemplate us as come together but as before men.
C.A.C. Yes. It is the assembly as "the pillar and base of the truth". It is God's pillar in this world, always standing. There is stands. It is a reference to Genesis 28:10 - 22, Jacob at Bethel. He "took the stone ..., and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el [house of God] ... . And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house". There is the thought of a pillar there. We have to recognise that God's pillar is in this world, set up in the power of the anointing; therefore there is ability to maintain the truth in the Spirit. There is power to maintain the truth in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will never deviate from the truth. That is very plain.
Rem. He is "the Spirit of truth".
C.A.C. Yes. "The Spirit is the truth" (1 John 5:6). The Spirit is never going to move a hair's breadth from the truth.
One Person, the Spirit of God here, will stand by the truth.
Our great privilege is that we are to stand by the Spirit of God; that is how we become the pillar. If I stand by the Spirit of God, then I can be a pillar. We may be conscious that we are a poor and feeble folk, and know that people laugh at us as they did in Nehemiah's day, saying, "Even that which they build, if a fox went up, it would break down their stone wall" (Nehemiah 4:3). But we are identified with God's pillar and with the Holy Spirit. An old man used to say to us, 'Boys, keep on good terms with the Holy Spirit'.
The Holy Spirit is never going to deviate from the truth and, by God's grace, we are going to stand by the truth and by the Spirit and count on God to support us all through.
The house of God is marked distinctively by confession. "And confessedly the mystery of piety is great". That confession marks the house of God. Each one in the house is marked by that confession. In one sense the support of God's pillar is piety. Not one of us here will be any good for the pillar or suitable companions for the Holy Spirit if not marked by piety.
C.A.C. Piety at the present time is a mystery. It is not mysterious but you have to be instructed, initiated into it, let into the secret of it. Piety is the secret of the people of God; we must be let into the secret to know it. It is the greatest favour to be let into it, so as to become really pious. These six things that follow (verse 16) show us what the character of piety is. They are not mentioned in historical order at all, not put together in order of time. For example, Jesus was received up in glory before He was preached among the nations. But they are put in the order in which we have to take them up spiritually to be instructed in the mystery of piety.
Firstly "God has been manifested in flesh". God has actually brought to pass what He had in His mind from the very beginning. "Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness" (Genesis 1:26). Man should be in His image and likeness. God wanted to give expression to Himself, the invisible God. As long as He was that, He could never be known. We could not know the invisible God.
Rem. "Whom no man has seen, nor is able to see" (1 Timothy 6:16). "No one has seen God at any time" (John 1:18).
C.A.C. We can know about Him in creation, "both his eternal power and divinity" (Romans 1:20), but that does not give us to know Him. Just as we might examine a table or a watch in which we could see the ability of the workman, but not the workman himself. Creation does not make God known to me. He wished to be known. So the first thing is the true knowledge of God as manifested in flesh in Christ. What is going to make piety work? We want the spring as with a clock. The spring is, first, what God has set forth of Himself in Christ. We were in flesh as created. He would come very near to us "in flesh", "manifested in flesh". A nobleman was once calling this in question and, pointing to some ants, said, 'How could I make myself known to them?' A sister answered, 'You could do it very well if you could become one of them'. That was very fine. It is the way God has taken. A lowly Man in this world, but who could say, "Before Abraham was, I am".
'Thou wart the image, Lord, in lowly guise, Of the Invisible to mortal eyes'.
It is a wonderful thing to consider as we look at Jesus. A lowly Man with no position, no wealth (He had not a penny), but "who is over all, God blessed for ever" (Romans 9:5). A Man feeling, speaking, etc., but all that comes out in the expression of God. We might well say that "the mystery of piety is great". We confess that it is great. What marks all who are in the house is the confession that God is fully revealed in a Man. There are no questions, no misgivings, we know the blessed God Himself revealed in Jesus. There things get a place in our hearts and form a secret spring that sets piety in movement. How it would affect me and bring
everything in my life under the influence of what God is!
God has His place in everything in the hearts and lives of those who compose His house.
Rem. We are controlled from inside.
C.A.C. Yes, and with a view to the same kind of thing coming out in our flesh that came out in the flesh of Jesus.
God is dwelling here is His house. He was here in Jesus, and now by the Holy Spirit in His house. We are in His house and if marked by piety we shall learn to give all these things their place.
Secondly, "Has been justified in the Spirit". We learn to recognise that. Though everything that was of God and pleasing to God was in Jesus, it was never honoured by men, not even by those nearest to Him. "Neither did his brethren believe on him" (John 7:5), and on one occasion His relatives "went out to lay hold on him" (Mark 3:21). He was not justified in this world. Those thirty years of the private life of Jesus ("the hidden manna") were justified by the Holy Spirit coming down on Him (Matthew 3:16, 17). The people who lived in the same house with Him did not justify Him, but the Spirit did. The Spirit justified Him in all His works. He was left alone of men but the Spirit justified Him. Are we prepared to follow One who was not justified by men but always justified in Spirit? Piety would be content with that, no vindication or justification by men but content to be justified by the Spirit. If the Spirit justifies, it does not matter who condemns. The blessed Lord was always justified in Spirit.
Thirdly, "Has appeared to angels". Piety always takes account of the angels.
Rem. "On account of the angels" (1 Corinthians 11:10).
C.A.C. Piety takes account of unseen spectators. Every step in the pathway of Jesus was followed with intense interest by myriads of angels. See them at His birth, in the wilderness and in the garden. We are always under the observation of angels. It is a great mark of piety to recognise the
angels. Angels are mentioned 172 times in the New Testament. They are unseen spectators. With what adoring delight they followed Jesus! They never had to learn obedience, they had always been obedient. And now they saw the One whom they worshipped ("When he brings in the firstborn into the habitable world, he says, And let all God's angels worship him", Hebrews 1:6), their Creator, come down and learning obedience, what He had never done before. They watched it and wondered at it. Obedience at the cost of suffering was seen in His sufferings. What a sight for them! They sat "one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain" (John 20:12). "Which angels desire to look into" (1 Peter 1:12). It is part of piety to recognise that. Angels are watching us. As another has said, we are 'a lesson-book for angels'. "In order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God" (Ephesians 3:10). Think of angels looking down at what we do in the assembly. What would they think if they saw a woman with her head uncovered or with her hair cut off? Angels would be perfectly horrified at a woman having her "glory" cut off (1 Corinthians 11:15).
"Therefore ought the woman to have authority on her head, on account of the angels" (verse 10), not because there are any men looking on. It is part of God's wisdom. Man prays with head uncovered. The truth of headship is to govern all in the assembly. The question is, what do the angels think? They are watching us when the brethren are not. What about the angels? They are watching.
Rem. After the obedience they saw in Jesus, they could not tolerate lawlessness in us.
C.A.C. Obedience, dependence and subjection were all seen in perfection in Him.
Fourthly, "Has been preached among the nations". The whole scope of the testimony of grace has been preached among the nations. We have to be careful that we do not belie or spoil that testimony. Gehazi spoiled the testimony. A
Gentile had been cleansed and he wanted to pay a very large sum for it, but that would not be consistent with the grace of God, and the prophet would not have it. Naaman is sent back to testify of free grace to the Gentiles in Syria. But Gehazi by his subsequent actions would leave an impression of covetousness and selfishness on Naaman's mind. It is a dreadful thing if a Christian leaves that impression on the world. What sort of conduct are you going to show to the Gentiles? A spirit of grace? We must take heed that we do not belie the preaching or spoil the testimony. A man to whom I was seeking to present the gospel the other day said to me, 'I have had a lot of nasty things done to me in my life and they have all been done by professing Christians. I do not want to hear what you have to say'. Those 'nasty things' were not piety. We need to be careful in our ways with men that we do not spoil the testimony of God. It is a very important part of piety.
Fifthly, "Has been believed on in the world". There is a great company of persons in this world who have believed on Jesus in whom God has manifested Himself. It is God's treasure, the household of faith. We should like to know every one of them. They are the only thing of real interest to us in the world. Our interests, service and care are bound up with those people. They do not believe in man after the order of Adam at all but in the Man in the image of God. Piety takes account of them all. We are linked in our affections with all the people of God; we have a vital link with them.
C.A.C. Yes, quite so. You seek to get into touch with them and to help them to believe. John's first epistle is to those who have believed. All our confidence and joy is centred in the Man who is the image and likeness of God.
Sixthly, "Has been received up in glory". Piety recognises the present place of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. Everything now for us turns on the place where Christ is. If Christ were on earth, earth would be the place for us. The German emperor once sat down by mistake at the wrong end of the
table, at the foot of the table. His attendants drew his attention to the mistake he had made, but he answered, 'Where I sit is the head of the table'. This may serve as an illustration. Where Christ sits is the place of importance. If He were on earth we would like to build a wonderful place for Him. He will have one.
Luke 9:51, where we come to "the days of his receiving up", is the turning-point in the gospel. After that the Lord says to the seventy, "rejoice that your names are written in the heavens" (chapter 10: 20). Our place is where Christ has His place. He has been received up. Everything in Him was suitable to be received up. He was invested with a glory suitable to be received up. Piety would cultivate those things that will be received up in glory. God is our glory now. It is said of Israel that "they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass" (Psalm 106:20). We often change our glory, what we know of God. We are often ready to give it up for something worthless. Jesus went up in the glory of it all.
C.A.C. He has carried into heaven what adorns it. We are here to be waiting for the moment when we will be received up. Our names are there now. We are citizens of heaven. Enoch was translated, but "before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God" (Hebrews 11:5). Enoch was not missed in the theatres and art galleries of the world; he was not always reading newspapers, etc. "Enoch walked with God", and he went on walking with God higher up. "He was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:24).
It is very helpful to put these things together as forming the hidden spring of piety in our souls; as they are in us and abound, they qualify us for the house of God, the assembly of the living God. We shall stand firm for God "as mount Zion, which cannot be moved" (Psalm 125:1), and God will be known in His house.
2 Timothy 1:1 - 18; Numbers 1:1 - 4
Ques. Why did you suggest the scripture in Numbers?
C.A.C. Well, I suggested adding the four verses from the book of Numbers because Numbers is the book of the testimony.
C.A.C. Well, it is so. The testimony belongs to the wilderness. It is important for us to get hold of that because the teaching of the New Testament is based on the Old. The testimony is a word with a specific meaning in the Old Testament, and the Spirit of God in speaking of the testimony in the New Testament has in mind the Old Testament presentation of the testimony, and in the book of Numbers we find the tabernacle of the testimony, and the people are taken account of in connection with it. That is why I suggested the verses in Numbers. What do you think?
Rem. I think that is very good; please go on and open out a little more.
C.A.C. Well, I think we have to gather up the thoughts from the Old Testament if we want a proper idea, and we find that primarily the thought of the testimony was written on the two tables of stone and put into the ark, so that the prominent feature of the book of Exodus is the ark of the testimony. Then we find, in the end of the book, a reference to the tabernacle of the testimony, and what stands in relation to it. It is not developed in Exodus as it is in Numbers, and there is no reference to it in Leviticus. You would not expect in the book of approach to God that you would get the thought of the testimony developed.
Ques. You mean, it is more for man?
C.A.C. Yes, it is a testimony given on God's part to what is in His own mind. The first thought of the testimony is that the will of God is to prevail; what was written on the tables,
that is to prevail. That is the primary thought in connection with it. But then, has it prevailed? Now it is our privilege and joy to say, 'yes', the will of God has prevailed. The tables are in the ark. What a blessed thing to start with! The testimony is fully secured in the ark. That is the great subject in Exodus. You have a redeemed people, a people who know God in the love of the covenant. That is our position through grace: redeemed and illuminated. And now the great thought of God is to show us that His will has prevailed; it has been fully secured in the ark of the testimony.
Ques. What is "the testimony of our Lord" (verse 9)?
C.A.C. I think what the apostle has in mind is the truth of the testimony as God had already brought it out in the Old Testament typically. It had been brought out typically; and what was brought out typically, in the last days becomes in a peculiar way the testimony of our Lord. I do not know that we have any such expression or anything like it anywhere else. It is a term peculiar to the last days.
Ques. You would not have it in the first epistle?
C.A.C. No, the testimony of our Lord suggests to me the testimony to which our Lord is committed. He is definitely committed to it. And He is never going to depart from it. He is going to maintain it right through. But we are in great danger of being ashamed of it, because it is in conflict, and the chances are, if you identify yourself with it, you will be taken prisoner by the enemy. Now are we prepared for that?
C.A.C. That is the idea, it is what the Lord is committed to, absolutely committed to at the present time, and He wants us to be committed to it. We are to be committed to it. We are to be "numbered" for the defence of the testimony. That is the thought in Numbers. Now there is the exhortation to be "not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner". I am in prison, why? Publicly Paul is in the enemy's hands. But though he is publicly in the enemy's hands the
testimony is not. And the testimony was maintained valiantly by a man in prison, and that suggests to me that we have to be prepared for restricted conditions outwardly. Paul in prison is the proper example of a man identified with the testimony.
Rem. He does not speak of himself as any man's prisoner; it is the prisoner of the Lord.
C.A.C. Yes, it was just because he was identified with the testimony of our Lord that he was in prison. He says, "All deserted me ... . But the Lord stood with me ... that through me the proclamation might be fully made" (2 Timothy 4:16, 17). What, a man in prison, bound with a chain? Yes, there is the testimony.
Timothy represents a man of God in the last days, marked by natural timidity. I do not think the Lord is likely to take up what would be called a very strong man for the testimony, but he takes up a man naturally timid and a man of tears. He makes him a valiant soldier in the testimony. The idea of the testimony is a military idea. It is only maintained by soldiers. That is why I suggested Numbers. Numbers is the book of warriors, it is those who go forth to war, those who are competent for military service. The testimony is not a matter for babes in Christ.
Rem. You would not exclude sisters.
C.A.C. Many sisters are mighty men of war!
Ques. Why does he open the epistle to the Corinthians with the testimony?
C.A.C. You get there the introduction of the testimony of God in the gospel, and the first establishment of the testimony of the Christ in the assembly. You get the initial suggestions. So that Paul comes to Corinth with the testimony of God, and he came there with no outward strength, but came with weakness and fear and much trembling, and his speech was not with enticing words, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in God's power. Now that is how the
testimony started. The gospel coming in divine, spiritual power in a vessel, and no human ability about it; that is how the testimony came to us Gentiles. And then when people were converted and the assembly of God in Corinth was formed, they were endowed with every spiritual gift that was necessary to maintain the testimony of the Christ. They were enriched in Christ, they came behind in no gift, and the testimony of the Christ was confirmed there. It was there amongst them. They might not be in the good of it, but it was there. It was set up by the power of God amongst them. That is the beginning.
Ques. What is the meaning of the cross?
C.A.C. The cross is the shutting out of the man after the flesh altogether.
Ques. What is the difference between the testimony of the Christ and the testimony of our Lord?
C.A.C. I thought the testimony of the Christ was that there was a spot in Corinth where there was divine testimony, by the Spirit, to God's anointed Man. Whether they fully understood it, or were in the good of it, is another matter, but there was a spot in Corinth where the candlestick was set up. There was the shining of the testimony to God's anointed Man in a heathen city.
Ques. Has the character of the testimony been always the same?
C.A.C. Well, yes. It is in type in the Old Testament. You have the thought of God's pleasure fully secured in Christ: that is Exodus. The great central point in Exodus is the ark of the testimony, that the pleasure of God is fully secured in Christ, and then you get a whole system of things identified with that. The whole tabernacle system had its centre in the ark of the testimony. And the tabernacle became the tabernacle of the testimony, and the people were all set around it. They were all set in relation to it, and it was a military position. So that they had to be numbered as soldiers, and the assembly of Israel. The early chapters of Numbers do not include women and children. They only include the fighting
strength of the company. Now it is only such persons who are really identified with the testimony of the Lord. It is a company where there is fighting strength.
"God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion", and Paul goes on to speak to Timothy about being a good soldier. Soldiers are wanted for the testimony.
C.A.C. Well, I suppose it was that nothing should impede the testimony. And, more particularly in Numbers, the testimony is moving through the wilderness, which answers to the present position of the testimony, it is moving through the wilderness in the face of everything that is adverse, and it is only soldiers that are any good. The question is, have we been enlisted as soldiers? This is not a matter merely for believers, it is for soldiers.
Ques. What is the difference between this and the apostle John in the Isle of Patmos?
C.A.C. Well, he was a soldier, and there is another man in prison! The enemy has got him. You may be taken prisoner. You may find yourself greatly restricted outwardly, but the testimony never held on its way more victoriously than when Paul and John were in prison. It was fully maintained by those faithful men. The testimony is not bound. Paul may be in prison, and John, but the testimony was liberated. The testimony went on its way. It is a fine thing. There is no such thing as defeat. Being in prison does not mean defeat. Getting out of prison often means defeat. If you want to be enlarged in the present state of things that means defeat.
Rem. The ministry of Paul was largely written in prison.
C.A.C. Yes; in all Paul's epistles you see what he is driving at; he is trying to make soldiers of the saints. Look at the military vein that runs through Paul's epistles; you can see that what he is after is soldiers.
Rem. He is the only one that speaks of prayer in relation to
the testimony. That is very remarkable.
C.A.C. It is good if you get in prison for the testimony. Suppose you lose all your old friends. That is the sort of prison. You must be prepared for it. You might have had a wide circle of friends, you might have been the most popular man in the town, and your affections get attached to the Lord. He does not say the testimony of the Lord, it is the testimony of our Lord. Now you are identified with that, and that big circle of friends will drop off. It is like a man in prison, but that means spiritual enlargement. It means that the testimony is going to move.
Rem. You take account of yourself as being the Lord's prisoner.
Rem. "Prisoner of the Christ Jesus for you nations" -- not only prisoner of the Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:1).
C.A.C. And he says many of the brethren are waxing confident through his bonds. It made soldiers of them. He says, I know you are fully identified with me in my fighting, and my defence; you are shoulder to shoulder with me (Philippians 1:9 - 14). He has a fighting company whom he can number as men of war.
I think the testimony can only be taken up by people who have learnt the teaching of Exodus and Leviticus. Numbers supposes that you know Exodus and Leviticus. That is, you know what it is to be redeemed, and you know the grace that is an unfailing resource in the wilderness; and it is by learning redemption and by learning grace that you can be separated in the wilderness to become a fighting man. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they were men that had to be shielded and God had to lead them around where they would not meet with enemies; they were not able; and God in His grace shields young saints, babes in Christ. He does not expect them to be fighting men; you must be 20 years old before you can fight, but the children of Israel soon grew up to be men. They came out of Egypt as babes, but in Exodus 17 Moses says, "Choose us men".
Ques. Do we see this too with Gideon's army?
C.A.C. Yes, they had to be thinned down.
Ques. Does this military service begin with ourselves?
C.A.C. Well, yes. You have to declare your pedigree before you will be put on the military list. That is very important. That is, they had all to demonstrate that they were Israelites. It did not suffice that they should have descended from Abraham. Some people like that to settle everything.
Is he a believer? Then that is all right. But it is not all right.
You may be descended from Abraham and not be fit for the testimony.
C.A.C. Yes, Ishmael was not fit for the testimony, and nor were any of his descendants.
Lot was a kinsman of Abraham. He was a believer, but he was not in the testimony because there was no separation there; he was found in Sodom, miserable man he was too! He had no power for testimony. He was not numbered, he was not counted for the testimony. What I want to know about myself and everybody here tonight is, have we really been numbered for the testimony? Or are we content to be believers, and that if we died we should go to heaven? It will not do to be satisfied to be connected with Abraham. Abraham is the head of the believing family, but that is not enough for the testimony.
So Ishmael went out. And Paul has to tell the Galatians that in going back to law they were really taking the place of Ishmael's descendants. They were taking the place of having the bondwoman for their mother. Now those people cannot be numbered for the testimony. If people are on the line of improving the flesh and bringing divine and spiritual influences on the flesh so as to correct it and make it what it ought to be, those people have no place in the testimony. They cannot declare their pedigree. They are not of Israel.
Rem. It is not sufficient that we are breaking bread with a company of believers.
C.A.C. No, I may be breaking bread as a babe in Christ,
and quite right. The Lord loves to see the young people breaking bread. Never discourage the young people from breaking bread, if they know at all what they are doing, but they should know that they are coming into identification with the most wonderful testimony that there ever was, and that they may grow up to be fighting men. Then they will be identified personally as well as positionally with the testimony.
Ques. What is the meaning of the word testimony?
C.A.C. To be identified with what is wholly for the pleasure of God at a time when there are all sorts of mixed conditions around us. What is for the pleasure of God takes a more distinctive character in the last days than ever it did. The public profession has all drifted; it is on the line of Lot, or Ishmael or Esau. The whole christian profession is on the line of one of these three men. Lot is the man who would not separate; that is to say, separation is essential to the testimony. If you name the name of the Lord you are to depart from iniquity, you are to withdraw from all that is unholy and untrue. And then Ishmael represents a believer who is trying to make something of the flesh; and Esau descended from Abraham, typically a believer, but he despised the birthright and he minds earthly things. These things are all inconsistent with the testimony, so that we have to prove that we are not on these lines. Can we really prove before Moses and Aaron and the brethren -- can we stand up boldly and prove before Jesus as Lord and as Priest and before the brethren -- that we are not on the line of Lot or Ishmael or Esau but that we are of Israel? Could we prove it? Such are the men for the testimony.
Rem. Timothy proved it by his tears.
C.A.C. Yes, I do not doubt at all that Timothy had been enlisted for a long time.
Everything has to come into line with the will of God, and the saints are to be identified with it and set for it. It calls for subjection to the authority of the Lord. It is what every Christian should do, but can I say, I am doing it?
Ques. How far does the question of voluntary action enter into the matter?
C.A.C. If we know what it is to be a redeemed people, taken out of the world for the pleasure of God, and have known what it is to be supported by divine resources in the wilderness (we have had flesh, and manna, and water from the rock), and know the covenant, the love of God, so that we really love Him, there will be a great desire to be numbered for the testimony. It will be nothing to shrink from; you will want to be numbered. It does not take long for a babe to become a man. We shall not have to wait twenty years literally. Paul began as a babe and he was a man in Christ in a day or two. It does not take long. If a babe walks in the Spirit, it will be very few days before he is fully grown in Christ. That is, as fully grown in Christ you have an apprehension in your soul by the Spirit that all your blessing is in Christ, and you stand to it intelligently and affectionately. That is what Paul means when he says that he announced Christ to the end that he might present every man perfect in Christ. 'I want them to see what is in Christ'. A man is twenty years old when he sees that.
Ques. Is the Ethiopian eunuch an example of this rapid growth?
C.A.C. As he went on his way with the book of Isaiah in his possession he was probably a full-grown man in Christ before he got home.
Then there is what brings you to the side of God's election. Now you have Jacob, and you have had to learn that it was all hopeless on your side. You have to be reduced and humbled on your side, and learn that God must do everything for you. He takes pains to cripple you, and then you become Israel. We have to prove that we are of that stock. We have learnt our own weakness, we have had our thigh put out. It is declaring the pedigree. So Paul speaks of God's purpose and grace, etc., God's election and grace, and His powerful working with Israel.
The first epistle to Timothy is according to the command of God our Saviour, so that you have injunctions and charges. But when you come to the second epistle it is according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. You have the thought of a living system, a system that stands in living relation to the work of the testimony.
It is most important to see the great tests of things is the lordship of Christ. That is why it is Moses and Aaron and the princes who have to do the numbering. None of us can be numbered unless we pass the inspection of Moses and Aaron and the brethren. Now mark that! There is no one numbered for the testimony who cannot pass that threefold test. No one will be numbered for the testimony if they cannot pass Moses and Aaron and the brethren.
C.A.C. Because that is vital. The princes represent the brethren; they represent those who have an assigned position of responsibility amongst the brethren.
C.A.C. If you want to be numbered you will have to find them! If I cannot prove to the Lord that I am fit to be enrolled as standing in defence of His testimony, I need not try to prove it to anybody else. His authority is the great test. It is only as coming under subjection to the Lord's authority that we can have anything to say to the testimony of our Lord. And then there is Aaron too, representing the priestly discernment of the Lord. He has not only authority, but He has priestly discernment, and He is exercising it tonight. He is looking for soldiers. When He walks in the midst of the candlesticks that is what He is looking for -- soldiers. He singles out the overcomer; that is the man that is numbered.
It is most encouraging, most touching, that the Lord should say, "I also have overcome". He has been the Soldier of God. The testimony was never so maintained as when it was all centred in one blessed Man. He overcame every hostile power, and now He is looking out for the overcomer; that is, the
soldier. It is only the overcomer who is really for the testimony. I believe that is a very solemn reality.
Ques. Does that not narrow up the testimony?
C.A.C. Yes, but then, think of the value of it, and the dignity of it. If anything that is of God is brought in, and it is, it is brought in as secured in Christ, and it is brought in to be secured by the Spirit in the saints; and if that is so, what a dignity! It is possible for two persons in this place to be enrolled as soldiers in defence of the testimony. What a dignity! Then, if you pass the Lord as the Priest, you have to pass the brethren. That is, you have to commend yourself to those who are already identified with the testimony.
There is a definite principle for anyone who wants to walk with the saints, a definite principle that they be introduced as commended by those who have responsibility amongst them. It is a definite principle, and if we see that the Lord has a testimony and that certain persons through grace are identified with it, we should like to be approved by those persons. I should like to be approved by certain persons. I should be very sorry to be so conceited as to be satisfied with my own appraisement of myself. It is not enough that the Lord should be satisfied and that the Priest should discern that I am an overcomer. Now that brings it home to all of us -- how am I going on before the saints? If they cannot approve me I shall not be enrolled. The saints can recognise whether I am on the line of Lot, or on the line of Ishmael, or on the line of Esau. Spiritual persons can recognise whether I am really an Israelite.
Ques. How does that link with chapter 2?
C.A.C. Those calling on the Lord out of a pure heart are really identified with His testimony. Every one who calls on the Lord out of a pure heart is identified with the testimony. Now I am to walk with those. If I am to walk with them, I must approve myself to them. Anybody who was right would be delighted to be under the scrutiny of his brethren.
Ques. What does it mean, to call upon the Lord out of a
C.A.C. It is that the affections are really set. The Lord has become everything to you and you do not want to be identified with anything that is not of the Lord. And you find that you have not strength for it except you call upon Him. Jacob has to be crippled, he has to cling to the One who wrestled with him. That is what calling on the Lord out of a pure heart is.
There is such a thing as having to do with the Lord with a consciousness of perfect integrity. And if we have not got the consciousness that we can come to the Lord with no unworthy motives in our heart and no reserves, we are disqualified for His testimony. It is no use talking about the testimony of our Lord if we cannot go to the Lord and say, 'Lord, Thou knowest all things and Thou knowest that I want to be for Thee'.
Ques. What is an "honest and good heart" (Luke 8:15)?
C.A.C. What it means is this, that nothing counts but the work of God. There is nothing pure about me inside or out, except the work of God. Now that it is the thought in connection with Jacob. Jacob has to be taken to pieces and put together in an entirely new way. And we have all got to come to it, that there is nothing about us that is of any value, except what God has wrought.
It characterises certain persons that they call upon the Lord. It distinguishes them. Instead of forming a committee to see how things can be done, and trying to work up a cause, or making arrangements so that the wheels go round, the only source of power that they know is to call on the Lord. People will be brought in by the enemy amongst the saints, people that are on the line of Lot, or Ishmael, or Esau, but none of those persons will ever call on the Lord out of a pure heart, though they may be believers.
The testimony period is practically running out. We are just at the end of it, and therefore if we want to have any distinction in connection with the testimony, we shall have to be quick about it. If the Lord's assembling shout were to ring out
tonight the testimony would be over, and we should never have the chance to be identified with the testimony of our Lord again. The testimony is the present witness in the power of the Spirit to what will shine out in display in the world to come.
Paul looks to Timothy to rekindle his faith himself, he does not look to the Lord to do it.
Any support we get from the brethren is an extra support. There should be power with us to go on if everything is contrary. I have no other business than to serve others. "For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion".
It is a threefold cord that would carry us through everything. This epistle supposes a general state of decline, and I am not to be part of it. This blend needs "wise discretion", or the good may be lost of the other elements. The "testimony of our Lord" is all that He is rendering, all He would bring out, not merely that we are giving testimony to Him, but His testimony from heaven. The subject is what follows in verses 9 and 10 -- all enters into the scope of it. (Reference to chapter 4: 17.) It brings people into the glorified state. We ought to boast in such testimony -- not be ashamed of it! Every preacher is representative of the Lord as Administrator. (cf. Revelation 1:1. It is revelation given to the exalted Man. It is His own revelation, giving peculiar interest to the book.)
C.A.C. This passage reminds us of the craftsmen in Zechariah 1:20, "cutting in a straight line the word of truth". We ought not to be occupied with things that have no constructive element in them.
Ques. What is, "cutting in a straight line the word of truth"?
C.A.C. To minister the word so that it is not distorted, so that our application of Scripture is according to the truth. I am afraid Scripture is often handled to please men. We should be more definite and accurate in what we say as to the word. It is astonishing how mixed up and inaccurate the thoughts of many believers are as to Scripture -- I suppose the result of wrong teaching. The result of the revival of the last century has been that accurate attention has been paid to Scripture and to the statements of Scripture, so that any deviation from them can be detected by the saints.
C.A.C. Yes, things must bear the test of the plumb-line; the man using it is the kind of workman that is valuable. "Iniquity" is 'not right', out of the straight; it will not bear the plumb-line. Every thought on divine things is either right or wrong, there is no middle course, so none of us should be content to have loose ideas. God's things are precise, and specially when He communicates His mind in the Scriptures. So the devil discredits the Scriptures to get rid of the measuring line. He has a subtle object in quoting Scripture (cf. verse 18).
Rem. God's ministry has a definite end in view.
C.A.C. If twisted, the whole building is thrown out of line. All must fit into the plan, or all is spoiled. Wrong teachers get worse and worse. Subversion of Scripture is more dangerous than outright denial of the truth.
Rem. We need to ask whence come and whither lead such statements.
C.A.C. It is overthrowing -- the opposite to building. God intends that things should be built up in the souls of saints, in persons. It is not much good for the truth to be only in the Bible! The saints are the pillar and base of the truth, the living witness and support of the truth. We should definitely stand in the truth.
Ques. The foundation is in resurrection, would you say?
C.A.C. I think the point here is that the saints are the foundation. "Those that are his". The seal examined is seen to be the saints, God's firm foundation on this earth that cannot be destroyed. If the devil destroyed all the bibles the foundation would still remain in the saints. It is a remarkable statement, like, "And on this rock I will build my assembly". There are those that are owned of the Lord, He does not own any bad material. The seal shows something on earth marked by this, that there is something on earth owned by the Lord as His (cf. the signet in Haggai 2:23). And then there is the responsibility to withdraw from iniquity. What delight for the Lord to see something of Himself in a human heart -- some appreciation of Him, or a desire to be faithful to Him or to suffer for His name. How the Lord loves it wherever it is found.
Rem. The apostle appeals to God -- "God is my witness".
C.A.C. "Before the Lord". It was important for Timothy that everything should be done before the Lord. What is the use of anything done merely before men or before the brethren?
There is also a public side, "Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity". That brings the saints into evidence publicly. They are only known to be such as withdrawing publicly from what is not right -- particularly in the profession. There is a tendency with us to water things down.
Ques. What is naming the name of the Lord?
C.A.C. To call on the name of the Lord marks a Christian, and he names the name of the Lord. We ought to bear that in mind, that we name the name of the Lord when it is suitable. It is a great matter to do it, and it has power, for it is a name of great power. But then I must not connect it with what is wrong. The name of the Lord is what takes the place of the Lord in His absence. His name is here and confessed by the saints. We are identified with His name.
"By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong" (Acts 3:16). It is the gathering-point, we are gathered to His name, not to the Lord. One day we shall be gathered to Himself.
Rem. "For the name have they gone forth" (3 John 7).
C.A.C. There is only one name. It is characteristic of us that we "name the name of the Lord", and that we call upon His name. Everything about us must be consistent with it, otherwise I am only a hypocrite.
"Iniquity" is 'unrighteousness' -- what is not right. This is a very important scripture, because it defines our position. "The Lord knows those that are his" -- J.T. has called this objective knowledge (cf. "I know him" [Abraham], Genesis 18:19, i.e. I know how he will carry on; and, "I know them" [my sheep] in John 10:27). He recognises what is of Himself. Lots of people pretend to be His, but He says He does not know them. It is not enough to say, I know the Lord. Does He know me and see features in me that are of Himself? Nothing else is built into His house. The way to begin the day is to say, 'Something of Christ is to be in my heart and under His eye which is of Himself', and at the end of the day take stock of how much has been of that character, and then have it all out with the Lord.
Ques. What is a "pure heart", spoken of in verse 22? Could every Christian be said to have a pure heart?
C.A.C. I suppose it is characteristic of Christians as such. Speaking of the conversion of the Gentiles in Acts 15:9, Peter says their hearts were purified by faith.
Rem. In his epistle, Peter also says, "Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth" (1 Peter 1:22).
C.A.C. Yes, it says, "Love one another out of a pure heart fervently". I think a pure heart is a heart delivered from selfishness by the knowledge of the love of God. The love of God gives one a pure heart because it breaks the power of the selfish motives that had governed us. Nothing will break the power of selfishness but love. A heart brought under the influence of the love of God is free from all those things that mark the natural man. If God has given me everything in His love, I do not need to be seeking and grasping after something for myself; and then one can call on God with a simple reference to God's will, with nothing but a true desire to walk in the path of God's will. We see the model of all those things in the Lord; it is very encouraging to see that.
Rem. We get an instance of the reverse of this in those who said, "Lord, Lord", and did not the things that He said.
C.A.C. Yes, that illustrates it exactly; that would be calling on the Lord out of an impure heart, a pretence to calling on Him with no intention of doing what He says. A pure heart calls on Him because it is set to do what He says.
Rem. It is happy to own His authority; it is not doing so in an empty way. Many Christians choose their own path.
C.A.C. That is a denial of the lordship of Christ. It is a fundamental truth of christianity that Jesus is Lord.
Rem. There is a company which recognises that; it is "with
those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart".
C.A.C. It is the owning of Jesus as Lord that brings us together rightly; it marks us off as true Christians.
Ques. Is it walking in self-judgment?
C.A.C. That would be involved in it.
Ques. Does it suggest that in this day there are those who do not call on the Lord out of a pure heart?
C.A.C. It suggests there is christian profession without a pure heart. Men have no intention of doing what the Lord says. The exercise with us should be to be here for God's will; we are set to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace; all these things are in the will of God.
If people are caught in Satan's snare, the servant is to seek to recover them. Satan is doing his best to get Christians to be here for their own will, which is really for Satan's will, but our object should be to be here for God's will. There is a beautiful word in John 7:18: "He that speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but he that seeks the glory of Him that has sent him, he is true, and unrighteousness is not in him". It is what the Lord was; you see righteousness there, a blessed Man seeking the glory of the One who sent Him. When we begin to measure things by the will of God it throws a new light on everything. Christendom is full of good things which we like and even approve, but when we put them in the light of God's will there is no justification for them.
Rem. The beginning of the passage is, "If any one desire to practise his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine" (John 7:17).
C.A.C. Yes: the one who is said to practise the will of God has a pure heart. God has His right place in the thoughts of such a one; that is a Christian characteristically. It may make us very ashamed of ourselves, but that is a Christian.
Rem. We are not always prepared to do God's will.
C.A.C. If we examine our motives we find them very mixed, and this necessitates self-judgment. We have to remember
there is the snare of the devil referred to in the passage we are reading. The snare of the devil is anything that takes us off the line of God's will, and of righteousness, faith, love and peace.
Rem. It supposes something definite.
C.A.C. It is a perversion of things brought about in a man's mind which results in his opposing the truth. The servant is to recover him. He is not to be left as a bad job. This shows the recoverability of a bad case.
Rem. Speaking of the qualities of an overseer it says, "The overseer then must be irreproachable ... . apt to teach, ... mild, not addicted to contention" (1 Timothy 3:2, 3).
C.A.C. Yes: it speaks of what the Lord was Himself. The devil did his best to take that blessed One in his snare; but nothing moved Him out of the path of God's will.
Rem. It is said of the Lord, "He shall not strive or cry out, nor shall any one hear his voice in the streets" (Matthew 12:19).
C.A.C. Yes: it is a most important principle. When one has to do with all sorts of evil there is such a danger of getting into contentions. If we have the truth it keeps us quiet because we trust in the Lord to support it. We have to put it before people in a spirit of meekness, and the Lord supports it. We have not to contend. This gives us great peace as to controversies in which the truth is in question. The path of the testimony in the last days is beset by controversies. All the truth we have has been maintained notwithstanding controversies; we do not need to be alarmed about it.
Rem. Division may result from it.
C.A.C. Division among saints is the fruit of self-will. If no will is at work, brethren would never divide. If we are really brethren we shall never divide, but there are those among us who do oppose the truth, as we find in verse 25. If they are not really bad they will be recovered by the servant "in meekness setting right those who oppose". If there is
nothing bad at the bottom of a man's heart he will be recovered, but if self-will is working he may be allowed to go on and fall over the precipice.
Ques. Our attention is called in chapter 3 to those we have turned away from (verse 5). There are those God may give repentance to (chapter 2: 25), but it is a serious thing when we have to turn away from any. What is the difference between the two?
C.A.C. The men in chapter 3 are clearly unconverted persons; they have "no love for what is good"; they are "lovers of pleasure". You cannot do anything with them, there is nothing of God there. You do not keep company with persons of that sort. The Lord tells us not to cast pearls before swine. If people have no love for what is good, what can you do with them?
Rem. One has been exercised about persons who are professedly servants of the Lord, as to how far one should combat that sort of thing.
C.A.C. The Lord said of the Pharisees, "Leave them alone" (Matthew 15:14). But another class is contemplated, not at all like these who come into opposition with the truth. We find brothers at a time coming into opposition, but they have to be dealt with in gentleness and meekness so that they may be recovered. We have to act in such a way that they may be won.
Ques. In what way would they recover themselves?
C.A.C. By repentance. If God gives it to them in the acknowledgment of the truth, they wake up and see they have just been in the snare of the devil all the time.
Rem. It is a great deliverance when a man who has been opposing the truth is led to see it, and wakes up and repents, and is found once more for God's will in this world.
C.A.C. It is a blessed deliverance! It can only be brought about by coming into the atmosphere of Matthew 11. The Lord says, "Come to me". 'Just stand where I stand; look at things as I look at them', and then He says, "Learn from me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart". It is very beautiful. We are to be characterised by His Spirit; this is how He always had to do with opposers; He endured such contradiction of sinners, and those cavilling. See how quietly He answered them, and how gentle He was.
Rem. He had to meet opposition in His disciples and in all around.
Ques. Would you say there is restoration when they recover themselves?
C.A.C. Yes: the snare is broken. To my mind it is very important that we should count on more power for recovery. Nothing exercises me more than the lack of power of recovery. If people get wrong it seems impossible to get them right again.
Ques. Is it lack of exercise on their part?
C.A.C. That may be, but what troubles me is my part. I feel I ought to have more power to get them right. We have to bear in mind that if there is anything of God in a soul it will respond to the Spirit of Christ. If a man is wrong and I can approach him in the Spirit of Christ, in the faithful grace of Christ, he will respond, and then I must not let him go till I have got him back for God's will.
Rem. The Lord says, "Those thou hast given me I have guarded" (John 17:12); but Cain said, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Ques. Do you not think we fail in not having drunk sufficiently into the Spirit of the One who came down to recover men?
C.A.C. Yes; a new order of man is brought into the world -- man in Christ Jesus, not as glorified in heaven, but brought in morally down here. We find it all through this epistle: "Faith and love which are in Christ Jesus"; "Be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus"; "Live piously in Christ Jesus". Paul spoke of his ways "as they are in Christ" (1 Corinthians 4:17). That is, the qualities of Christ Jesus are brought in morally down here; it is down here they are seen. If we are
in the line of what is in Christ Jesus we shall show His qualities. If we have not the Spirit of Christ we shall pretend to have it. In principle we are all men of God or magicians, we all either have the Spirit of Christ or pretend to. Jannes and Jambres imitated what Moses did; what he did by divine power, they did by human, or perhaps Satanic, power, but in the end the finger of God triumphed. There came a time when it was a question of life, and then they could do nothing. When Moses and Aaron turned the dust into lice the magicians tried with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could do nothing, and they had to say, "This is the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19). The moment it was a question of life they were baffled. You can imitate what is external in a Christian, but it is irritation and will sooner or later be exposed.
Ques. Would you say that we could imitate?
C.A.C. I think there is a great deal of imitation in Christendom, and I find all the evils of Christendom in my own heart. Whatever is current in Christendom you find in yourself. But if you get on to the line of what is in Christ Jesus, that is the vital line and that will triumph.
Rem. What I find in myself is assuming to be what I am not.
C.A.C. Yes: there is an outward show that has nothing behind it; it is very humiliating. If we were only content to be what the grace of God has made us, how happy we should be!
Rem. Even our quietness is a pretence sometimes.
C.A.C. On the principle that "even a fool when he holdeth his peace is reckoned wise" (Proverbs 17:28).
Rem. We want the continuation of Christ in His people.
C.A.C. Christianity is the continuation of Christ in the saints. I do not understand anything else. We want to keep clear of all imitation. Let us have the real thing. If people can get gold they do not want brummagem! What a contrast the apostle draws. Some are "found worthless as regards the faith" and the end is, "Their folly shall be completely manifest
to all". Then the contrast is in verse 10: "My teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, endurance". There are the imitation and the genuine. Timothy had followed up the genuine; he had seen it in Paul, and that was the line Timothy was on. We have to be on that line too; we have to follow up what is vital.
Rem. The Lord could say of Himself, "Altogether that which I also say to you" (John 8:25), and Paul could point to his manner of life for us to follow.
C.A.C. There was perfect transparency in the Lord and transparency in the apostle. We ought to consider more than we have done the life and character of Paul. You see Christianity in Paul, if I may say so; you cannot quite see it in Christ; that is to say, you do not see the divine triumph in Christ, because He was a Man out of heaven. But you see the divine triumph in Paul, "who before was a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing man" (1 Timothy 1:13). It is in such a man you see the divine triumph. People say we must be occupied with Christ. Yes, I say, and with Paul also. He is put before us as a model, and the spirit and service of Paul are an integral part of Christianity. He says, "Thou hast been thoroughly acquainted with my teaching, conduct". That is the triumph. In Christ you see the power and grace that could effect the triumph. But in Paul you see the triumph. If ever a man was marked by what was diabolical it was Paul, and yet you see such a man transformed, the spirit and life and ways of Christ reproduced and perpetuated in a man who still has the flesh in him, who is still, as we say, in mixed condition. There is the triumph of God.
Rem. Yes; the Lord only could say, 'The devil has nothing in me'.
Rem. We read that Saul was to be "turned into another man" (1 Samuel 10:6).
C.A.C. Yes, those early chapters of Samuel show us the moral road to the kingdom; they are most instructive.
Ques. Is there not a right and a wrong way of contending? Jude speaks of contending for the faith. A verse in Proverbs says, "Answer not a fool according to his folly", and then, "Answer a fool according to his folly" (Proverbs 26:4, 5).
C.A.C. It is better to avoid some foolish questions altogether as waste of time. It might be better to ask such a man if his sins are forgiven! We should all avoid contention, and should be able to tell him something -- if he will listen -- so that things are met by the truth. It speaks of "setting right" those who oppose the truth; somewhat different from contending with them, is it not?
Rem. With a mixed condition, men with their natural minds bring in unspiritual thoughts. In some parts of the country such terrible thoughts have been brought in as to make readings of the Scriptures impossible; only addresses can be given. Proverbs 8:5 speaks of finding "sense", "Ye foolish, understand sense" (or heart, see note a, Darby Translation). What comes out of and into the heart is then of God: "Those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22). The Darby Translation has a footnote to verse 23 about a man following his own mind and will.
C.A.C. The truth is to be maintained; there is to be no surrender of it.
Rem. It is a question of bringing in the truth as governing the position, something positive, where there has been something negative.
C.A.C. The Lord did not always answer questions, but dealt with the questioner's state of soul. Wisdom and spiritual power are needed to meet such questions. To bring forward what is positive truth is the thing, and they may be set right. "If God perhaps" -- it is doubtful, but there is the possibility. There are professing believers who may be taken
in the snare of the devil, a very solemn thing to contemplate. People who are wrong may not be subject to Scripture; I have no more to say to them if they do not submit to what Scripture says.
With the preaching of the gospel you open people's eyes, whether they accept it or not; that is, you give them the truth of the position. Their eyes are opened all the same and they have the opportunity of seeing things as they are.
Ques. That they might wake up for God's will, could you say (verse 26)?
C.A.C. Yes. One may have a thought not according to God's will, and then wake up to it.
Rem. We may be brought up in what is erroneous, and the light comes and releases the wrong thought.
C.A.C. It is a wonderful thing for any of us to be brought into harmony with God's will, having always wanted to pursue our own. It is the greatest miracle conceivable. There is nothing we are more fond of than our own ideas.
Ques. Is there the side of proving all things by the Scriptures?
C.A.C. It would refer to what is said in the assembly.
Rem. We ought to be glad to be adjusted to the truth. The point is to be balanced in the truth, not to 'specialise'. Some get taken up with an idea and never get away from it the rest of their time.
Ques. The product of the underlying will comes out in detail in chapter 3. Self-expression comes out in this sad category, would you say?
C.A.C. Much of modern philosophy would encourage a man to develop greatness on that line, but it is correspondence with the devil, nothing of God in it. It is increasingly difficult in an environment like this to get a man's ear for the gospel, or for what is of God, so as to make headway. It will be more and more difficult to maintain anything that is of God. It will lead up to men reverting to the original type -- what they were as natural men before christianity came. As
christianity is given up they will revert. It is going to be more and more difficult to maintain any testimony for God.
Ques. Is there any difference between "the latter times" (1 Timothy 4:1) and "the last days"?
C.A.C. "The latter times" are more the things seen in popery, more what was seen in the last century. "The last days" would be more the giving up all that there is of God -- what is morally like God given up. Along with it all there is a certain imitation, "A form of piety but denying the power of it", like Jannes and Jambres. So the antichrist is always like a man, as Christ is, though his voice is like a dragon's.
Ques. What is meant by "instruction in righteousness"?
C.A.C. Righteousness is an extensive subject and there is need for constant instruction. It is a subject for the higher classes as well as the lower ones. It is educational. We are learning what is eternal; the new heavens and new earth will be marked by righteousness dwelling. It is an eternal state, the dwelling there of righteousness.
Ques. Does it not enhance the triumph of God that He can teach us this in a time of lawlessness?
C.A.C. In the psalms, righteousness is regarded as an attractive subject. Would it contain everything that is in the will of God?
Ques. Would you say more what is in your mind?
C.A.C. I was asking a question!
Rem. We speak about righteousness reigning.
C.A.C. At the present it is more a question of righteousness reigning, but the assembly should surely go beyond that in apprehension and should be the dwelling-place of righteousness as it will be known in the eternal state, when the will of God has taken the place of every other element. It would now include the mystery, the thought of the assembly; that is, what is right. It is a great thing to be instructed in what is right in the divine estimate; it is instruction in what is eternal. Perhaps we have been a little limited in our thoughts of it. We are favoured to be here this afternoon to be instructed in what is to be eternal, and we find it all in a written and permanent form as a record. We are all, seniors and juniors alike, set together to be instructed in what is going to subsist eternally. We are accustomed to what is all wrong.
We are to pay attention to every word of God to us. We are encouraged by instruction to go from a scene of
lawlessness into a scene of righteousness. The assembly and our relations with the brethren are things we do not come into suddenly; they are not like being born again, but they are things we get into by instruction. As it says, "They shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45). "Born of God" is initial. We must put the instruction in righteousness into practice or we get a bad conscience.
Rem. So a position physically is not sufficient.
Ques. "He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake" (Psalm 23:3). Is that what you were referring to in the Psalms?
C.A.C. A number of psalms refer to righteousness and our having pleasure in it, delighting in it, loving it. Loving righteousness is a great thing.
Ques. What would "every good work" mean?
C.A.C. That goes with what was said as to working things out practically. Preaching and the ministry of the Lord's servants are all part of this great instruction. The assembly is the only place where you can get a good education.
The man of God is qualified, having passed the test, and so can be trusted to impart the right kind of instruction.
Rem. The disciple shall be as his teacher.
C.A.C. Very good indeed. The object is to bring us up to the measure of the teacher. It applies in the fullest way to the Teacher.
Rem. A divine work is going on to produce meekness for the place we are to occupy.
C.A.C. "Blessed they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). It is something to live on, is it not?
Rem. The enemy would discredit the Scriptures, and we can see why.
C.A.C. All Scripture is divinely inspired, every word of the Scriptures coming to us as giving what is in the mind of God. And all this is in view of the appearing.
Ques. Does this charge, "Before God and Christ Jesus, who is about to judge living and dead", show the great issue at stake?
C.A.C. It is a most solemn appeal, is it not?
Ques. Is that why he says, "Proclaim the word"?
C.A.C. Yes. He has in mind the general departure and the need for the word to be authoritatively proclaimed.
Ques. Would you distinguish between the three things in verse 1: Christ Jesus, who is about to judge living and dead; His appearing; and His kingdom?
C.A.C. They are three very solemn things; they all will actually happen in this world -- He is about to do this. Everyone will have to pass His scrutiny.
Rem. God "has set a day in which He is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom He has appointed" (Acts 17:31). We are to be linked with the glory of that day and the righteousness of it now.
C.A.C. Yes. Hundreds of millions alive on the earth will see Him coming with the holy angels.
Rem. One sees the need of setting things right before the incoming of these events.
C.A.C. The rights of Christ are soon to be asserted publicly. The thought of the rapture has taken too great a place in the mind of the saints, and it has tended to looseness, J.B.S. said. The great objective is the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. The rapture has come in by the way, in two scriptures only, while the appearing is mentioned in numerous Scriptures. It is the secret of the assembly that we are coming with Him; "When the Christ is manifested ..., then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4). It might be asked, 'How can we come with Him?' The answer to that is the rapture, when He will descend from heaven for us with a shout, etc. What is in view is coming with Him. This is the reason of the alteration of the line of Hymn 235 to, 'bring us with Thee as Thine own'. The old hymn book had given far too much prominence to the rapture, it
was felt, so several hymns relating to it have been left out to restore the balance of the truth. "And to await his Son from the heavens", 1 Thessalonians 1:10 says. We are waiting for Him to judge the living and the dead and bring in His kingdom.
Rem. "Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43).
C.A.C. So it is a test of righteousness. If I pursue the line of righteousness I shall get the crown of glory. I could not love the appearing otherwise, though I might look for the rapture to take me out of pressure.
Rem. The rapture has not quite to say to a moral state, the appearing does.
C.A.C. So the Master takes account of His bondmen (Matthew 18:23). "Trade while I am coming" (Luke 19:13) is to carry on in the light of the coming kingdom. What I am doing this week is going to stand the scrutiny of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire. The Lord would have us consciously standing at the judgment-seat all the time.
Rem. Timothy is told, "Fill up the full measure of thy ministry".
C.A.C. All is to further righteousness amongst the saints, and it becomes more urgent as things get worse around us. What little measure we have, we are to go on with it and not be limited to available opportunities. "Do the work of an evangelist". Timothy was not an evangelist, but that does not absolve him from the work of an evangelist. We cannot let ourselves off from doing the work of an evangelist, any one of us.
Rem. We only have one evangelist named as such in Scripture, and that is Philip.
Ques. What is the work of an evangelist?
C.A.C. The work of an evangelist is summed up in three words. A verse in Isaiah says, "O Zion, that bringest glad tidings, get thee up into a high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest glad tidings, lift up thy voice with strength: lift it up,
be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God" (Isaiah 40:9). I should say that is the work of an evangelist, that is the gospel in three words, to get people, if we possibly can, to look at God as we know Him. Zion and Jerusalem are looked at here as bringing in glad tidings and crying to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" and the gospel is what God is for poor fallen man.
It is impossible to know the Saviour without longing to make Him known to others. His unspeakable love claims the utmost devotion of every ransomed heart, and kindles the desire to make Him known far and wide amongst the sinners for whom He bled. The woman of Sychar cannot rest until she has said to the people of the city, "Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?" (John 4:29). Andrew has no sooner found the Messias than he runs for his brother Simon to share the blessing (John 1:41). Philip has no sooner beheld the beauty of Christ than he is found bringing Nathanael to the Saviour (John 1:45). And thus, in some measure, it ever is.
Answer, every believing heart! Is not this a cherished desire? Hast thou not deep longings to make known thy Saviour's name in all its living power? Wouldest thou not be delighted to see multitudes at His feet, joyful in His salvation and rapturous with His praise? Does not thy spirit kindle with joy at the thought? In the Old Testament, God's witnesses were impelled by a command from without, but in the New Testament there is also a constraint of love within (2 Corinthians 5:14). It is characteristic of the dispensation that Moses reasons with the Lord to be excused from going at all (Exodus 4:10); while Paul reasons with Him to be allowed to stay at Jerusalem (Acts 22:19, 20). Yes! there is a desire in every believer's heart to make known the Saviour.
It is our blessed privilege to sound out the word of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 1:8), and to hold forth the word of life (Philippians 2:16), but this demands a path of decision and self-denial which our hearts often shrink from, and thus the desire to do so is nipped in the bud. The sword of violent persecution is sheathed at present, but in the fear of misapprehension and ridicule, Satan has found a more potent means of silencing
our lips. How often, 'It will be thought out of place'; 'They will think me odd and peculiar', have closed our mouths! Shame on our coward hearts!
Let us cry to the Lord, like the disciples in Acts 4, that we may speak His word "with all boldness". It was the earnest desire of the apostle (Ephesians 6:19, 20) that he might open his mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the glad tidings; that therein he might speak as he ought to speak. This spiritual boldness is what we need. Not the forward flippancy of the flesh that irritates without convicting, but the calm courage of the one who can say, "I have a word from God unto thee" (Judges 3:20).
Nor let us be discouraged by the consciousness of our own weakness; rather let us glory in it as that which makes room for Christ's power. How sad that we should be considering difficulties and probabilities, which would never have a place in our minds if self was not before us instead of Christ, while souls are perishing around us! Why should we calculate our abilities and resources, as if we were sent to warfare at our own charges? Have we not received the Holy Spirit to empower us to be witnesses unto Christ? Then let us lay aside indifference and sloth, and be followers of him who said, "I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Timothy 2:10).
The sovereignty of God in grace was not distorted by the apostle into an excuse for indolence and indifference, but with him it formed the spring of an energy in service which never tired, and is a blessed fact pregnant with encouragement to every worker in the gospel field. To know that there are elect souls whom God will bless, and that if we do not seek them out God will send somebody else to do it, ought first to fill our hearts with prayer that we may be guided like Eliezer to the very spot where we shall find them, and then it ought to make us very earnest in dealing with souls when we reflect that, in the sovereignty of God, their eternal
salvation may depend, instrumentally, on the few words we say to them, or the tract we put in their hands.
Oh! brethren, this is a day of good tidings, let us not hold our peace. Let us imitate the blessed example of those believers who "went every where preaching the word" (Acts 8:4, Authorised Version). Let us arise to "do the work of an evangelist" (2 Timothy 4:5). Let us not attempt to cast off the responsibility of this great privilege. Let us not ask in guilty indifference, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Let us consider these striking and solemn words, "Deliver them that are taken forth unto death, and withdraw not from them that stagger to slaughter. If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not, will not he that weigheth the hearts consider it? And he that preserveth thy soul, he knoweth it; and he rendereth to man according to his work" (Proverbs 24:11, 12). Nor let us forget that "A true witness delivereth souls" (Proverbs 14:25), and "He goeth forth and weepeth, bearing seed for scattering; he cometh again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves" (Psalm 126:6). "So then, my beloved brethren, be firm, immovable, abounding always in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58).
In conclusion, we cannot be too solemnly reminded that gospel testimony in conjunction with a worldly walk has a terribly hardening effect on sinners. If, like Lot, we live near the world and like the world, the world soon comes to the conclusion that there is not so much in it after all. Small wonder that loving invitation and solemn warning alike fail to awaken souls when they come from those who are identified with the world. In Lot's case, "But he was as if he jested, in the sight of his sons-in-law" (Genesis 19:14). It is the one who comes to the world as Jonah went to Nineveh -- out of the jaws of death, in resurrection power, a man of another sphere, without a single moral link with the scene against which he denounced judgment -- whose testimony takes mighty effect. May there be a complete divorce between us and the ways of the world; and in the power of this
Nazariteship may we bear witness to sinners of redemption accomplished and judgment approaching.
C.A.C. What belongs to this age will be broken up and set aside at His appearing, so it would not be possible to love both, would it?
Rem. Loving His appearing involves a course down here just as loving this present age does; it is not just looking forward to the time for Him to have His rights, but it governs our present conduct. Demas went in for everything that was current on the earth.
C.A.C. Loving His appearing is not merely an event, but the state of heart that values all that is coming in at the appearing.
Rem. Both the rapture and the appearing are calculated to produce certain effects in us, and would work out in a certain way, as with Mephibosheth who neither showed outward gladness nor took up any position.
C.A.C. Everyone in Jerusalem could see what he was looking out for. The slothful bondman who hid the talent could not be said to love His appearing. It would imply an extreme degree of faithfulness.
Rem. So the crown of righteousness would be something superlative in that way. On the mount, Peter is engaged with that glorious Person.
C.A.C. Yes, and he carried all the time the impression of what he had seen.
Ques. Would the testimony be maintained at full height in that way? "He received from God the Father honour and glory, such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory" (2 Peter 1:17).
C.A.C. Yes. The Lord loves persons of that type. The Lord preserved certain saints; their walk and ways and state of heart were such as to call forth the love of Christ.
Ques. What did the apostle refer to in verse 10, "Demas
has forsaken me", and, of Mark, in verse 11, "He is serviceable to me for ministry"?
C.A.C. It looks as if Paul himself was a great test. He was so personally representative of the Lord that it was a very solemn thing to leave him. All in Asia had turned away from him, he had said.
Rem. It would be a test today regarding our relations with the brethren. If we love His appearing it is a question of finding companionship, etc.
C.A.C. It is part of our necessary exercise to take account of persons; not only doctrine, but persons, everybody that we come in contact with, how they really stand in connection with the Lord and His testimony. You do not commit yourself exactly to everybody.
Rem. It is not altogether what a person holds, but how he conducts himself, showing what is in his heart.
C.A.C. That is very important. We are called upon to discern the character of persons, especially those having the appearance of serving the Lord.
Rem. It was not very commendable to go to Thessalonica.
C.A.C. When we go wrong, we go to persons who are congenial to us. We are all tested by the kind of people we associate with. We should be on the lookout for the most spiritual persons. It was the greatest privilege of that day to be with Paul; there was great comfort for the spirit, but probably not for the body.
Rem. Paul was living in the presence of the righteous Judge, and it would be a test to be with him.
C.A.C. Tychicus had a very good reason for leaving Paul, for he had a mission. Sometimes service has to take precedence over privilege; there might be a service calling us to give up privilege. Even spiritual privilege may become a selfish thing.
Rem. "Serviceable to me for ministry" -- ministry was before him.
C.A.C. Departure marked so many, but there was at least
one who sought Paul's company -- one who formerly refused his company.
Rem. Mark was to be brought with Timothy.
C.A.C. He has to be content to accept a subordinate position, which is a test.
Rem. Tychicus is a spiritually affectionate link between Paul and the brethren.
Ques. Would this suggest that Mark's gospel would be useful as supporting Paul in a peculiar way in service?
C.A.C. Yes, I think that is good. In service Mark was one who could give help. It would lead us to peruse Mark's gospel, and "Luke alone is with me" would lead us to consider Luke's gospel. Both would support Paul. I suppose John had not at this time written anything.
"Books" and "parchments" make us think of what was written -- they are not to be overlooked, whether the Scriptures or other profitable writings. I do not think you would have found any worldly books in Paul's library.
Ques. Is there any difference between the books and the parchments?
C.A.C. It seems to show that amongst things recorded in written form there might be different grades of value. We need not attach the same value to every book published. Parchments would be intended to be permanent, something that would bear a good deal of handling. There is certain ministry of that character; other ministry would be for the time.
Ques. What would the cloak be; it has been said it was his purse?
C.A.C. That would not be of much value. The cloak would suggest the measure of the man, a big or small man.
Rem. "Come before winter". We are liable to forget that side -- the needs of the servant.
C.A.C. Legitimate needs are considered by the Lord and allowed for in His arrangements. Paul had left a good bit at Troas as well as his cloak.
Rem. You are speaking of his address at Troas (Acts 20:9).
C.A.C. I would give something to have notes of that address! He gave them a wonderfully comprehensive outline of the ministry of the assembly.
Rem. Daniel knew by the books.
C.A.C. He had paid attention to Jeremiah. Had he been careless he would not have known that the captivity would be seventy years.
If we pay attention to the ministry, we know what is going on in the ways of God; we should not know what is going on in the world by reading the world's literature.
Rem. Would the books suggest what had been put in order, current things? There were things to be set in order by the assembly for all time. What is particularly important is that which is current, the other may be basic and holds for all time; there is that which is special to the period. Parchment would be something loose in contrast to books. We are left to speculation.
C.A.C. It calls attention to the importance of what is written and available in a permanent form.
Rem. Parchments might refer largely to the New Testament writings prior to Paul, because he came in after.
C.A.C. Yes, you can picture Paul's delight if he could have got hold of one of the gospels, if any of them were written in his lifetime.
Then it says, "Alexander the smith did many evil things against me".
Ques. Do you suppose he was a Christian or just an opponent possibly?
Rem. Paul leaves him with the Lord, as in verse 8, "The Lord, the righteous Judge".
C.A.C. It is a statement, "The Lord ... will render to me in that day". It is a fact.
Rem. There is a withstanding of the words of Paul today, we must beware of this.
Rem. He seems to have felt very much that all deserted him.
C.A.C. It refers to those who had been with him; they had run away from the colours.
Rem. It was what the Lord had to go through, "And all left him and fled" (Mark 14:50).
C.A.C. It is the difference between weakness and will -- I suppose it was a wicked will in Alexander, he was a definite adversary. It was a will which must be dealt with in judgment, but these brethren deserted him through weakness, they could not stand the test, they deserted him. There was a great difference morally between the two. They saw what was coming, his execution. A great deal that transpires is through weakness, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
C.A.C. Paul was a man with the glory shining in his heart.
Ques. "The Lord stood with me". What does that mean? Deliverance out of the lion's mouth was something Daniel proved.
C.A.C. In this case there was much more than the deliverance of the servant at stake. "That through me the proclamation might be fully made", etc. We should like to have a report of that address, would we not? We have to gather it from the writings of Paul and what he said on other occasions.
Rem. The vessel is nothing without the power for what is entrusted to him.
C.A.C. This was just the one occasion he had, and perhaps he did not speak for more than half an hour, probably less, and yet to put the whole proclamation into it without leaving out any essential part of it was a wonderful preaching.
Ques. Could it have failed to have result?
C.A.C. You can hardly suppose it went for nothing, but it is an official kind of thing. The importance of what was proclaimed was far greater than any results that might follow, so we are not told how many conversions there were -- Paul speaks of "my first defence". It was what he stood for. He was "set for the defence of the glad tidings", it says elsewhere (Philippians 1:16).
Ques. "The lion's mouth" -- what do you think of that?
C.A.C. He was delivered from the mouth of the lion. He was set at liberty, it is said, for a season and went to Spain. On the return he was taken prisoner again, then his second epistle was written, and his execution took place. Verse 18 shows that his confidence in the Lord was unshaken, and today we have the same source of power and the same assurance to be
helped. "The Lord shall deliver me from every wicked work, and shall preserve me for his heavenly kingdom". This would not be interfered with by Paul being executed. At the close he brings in the thought of what is heavenly.
This proclamation was the completion of his service and a great official occasion when great gentile dignitaries were present -- the whole gentile world in principle -- an important event in the history of the world as he stood there as a personal representative and ambassador for God. What can you do to intimidate a man like that spoken of in 2 Corinthians 1:9?
'The power of the gospel is in the facts of the gospel' (J.N.D.).
C.A.C. Questions often arise in the minds of young believers, and old ones too sometimes, as to the Spirit, and it is well for us to see how the Spirit is given and for what purpose. We find in this scripture that it is one great expression of the kindness and love of the Saviour God to man. There is not a feature on man's side which is commendable; Paul says, "We were once ourselves also without intelligence, disobedient", etc. (verse 3). That is the condition on our side, and the kindness and love of our Saviour God appeared in those conditions; and His mercy appeared, not on the principle of works which we had done, but it is all God's doing from first to last. God's doing and what we have done are plainly contrasted. God's object in appearing in kindness and love to man was to introduce an entirely new condition, which is spoken of here as the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. All is from God's side, and it is pure mercy; it is important to see that.
Ques. How far does the renewal of the Holy Spirit go?
C.A.C. I think it involves everything; it is the basis of everything right through to eternal life. What strikes one in the scripture is the extraordinary readiness of God to give the Spirit. My impression is that God gives the Spirit as soon as ever He can; that is, no one ever had any desire for the Spirit that was ever anything but a very feeble desire, but it was the purpose of God to give us the Holy Spirit, and He was set upon giving the Spirit.
Rem. That is very important; it is God's gift.
C.A.C. Yes, because many people do not recognise there is nothing scanty about the Spirit. Many people are like a man who has an estate: he has some property, but he does not know there is a gold mine on the estate. Some day he wakes up to the fact, and that changes his whole attitude of mind. He has
not worked it out yet, but he has that which can be worked to produce wealth to an unlimited and incalculable extent.
Ques. What would make us desire these things?
C.A.C. Nothing but mercy; the point is, am I content to go on in verse 3? I do not suppose there is one person here who would say, I am content. It shows that the mercy of God has reached us. It is extraordinary in Scripture how many different ways the Spirit is presented and received. It seems as if it were to prevent any cut-and-dried dogma (Proverbs l: 20 - 23). It is put that way, as it were: If you will only turn from the foolish (those in Titus 3:3) I will pour out My Spirit. That is the greatest pleasure of God. We get it in type in the prodigal son; he has turned in his mind. What happened? The father sees him and runs to the far country; that is the type of the gift of the Spirit.
Rem. It is striking the way it is put in Proverbs 1.
C.A.C. Yes; because it shows a turning round; God is so delighted to give the Spirit; washing of regeneration and renewal of the mind, that is the way. A time comes when the soul realises it is a privilege to be separated from the world by the death of Christ. I do not think repentance has its right place till, like Isaiah, we judge the world. He says, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6:5). So Peter says, "Be saved from this perverse generation". "Repent and be baptised ... . For to you is the promise and to your children" (Acts 2:40, 38, 39). God says, I want to give every one the Spirit if they will have It.
Rem. And so the Spirit fell on Cornelius's company.
C.A.C. Yes, Peter says, "As I began to speak" (Acts 11:15). The moment Christ was presented, the Spirit fell upon them -- he had not said many words. It shows how God delights to give the Spirit. It is the way of God's salvation. He is saving people out of the world.
Rem. Peter's remark was striking for an evangelist when he says, "Who indeed was I to be able to forbid God?"
C.A.C. That is very fine. The whole system is wrong and he recognises that; many a believer feels that, and feels he should be glad to know of anything to come between his heart and this naughty world; the death of Christ comes in. Peter says, "Which figure also now saves you, even baptism" (1 Peter 3:21), referring to the flood. Every one here can say, 'Thank God, I can accept His salvation'. If we have never accepted before, we can now. It really severs the link with the world.
Rem. That is a very important point.
C.A.C. Yes; it is the question of the kindness and love of a Saviour God. I can look up and see nothing but kindness and love, and they have appeared to make it possible for me to have the death of Christ between me and the world; so that I do not want to have part in the world; and it links us with all that is of God, with everything in God's world; God has a world of His own.
Ques. Is that a progressive movement?
C.A.C. I think you will find you have a gold mine and you have to work it out. If people would only get on to the right side; they get thinking about whether they have the Spirit; but the thing to be occupied with is the One who gives the Spirit. It is poured out richly. At the beginning of every gospel, the Lord Jesus is introduced into the world as the One who came to baptise with the Holy Spirit -- to immerse His own entirely in the Holy Spirit.
Ques. Do you think there are many believers who have the Spirit without knowing it?
C.A.C. Yes, I do; a man told me he had been praying for four years for the Spirit, and thought it was very hard that God would not give him the Spirit; then he suddenly found he had had the Spirit all the time.
Ques. How do you account for that?
C.A.C. The kindness and love of a Saviour God has not been taken in by the soul. If a soul loves the Lord Jesus Christ, He says, "I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter" (John 14:16). Another scripture says, He gives
the Spirit "to those that obey Him" (Acts 5:32); then another, to those "that believed on him" (John 7:39). The moment Christ gets a place before the heart -- not because there is anything good in the soul -- the moment Christ is appreciated, the soul sets to its seal that God is true. God says, I will give you the Spirit; that is what I have been waiting to do all the time.
The Samaritans got the Spirit by the laying on of the apostles' hands (Acts 8:14 - 17); but there was a special reason for that: Samaria had been a rival city to Jerusalem. If God had poured out the Spirit on Samaria apart from Jerusalem there might have been a division, but it was all linked together, so that God was pleased that they should wait till the apostles came over.
Ques. Do you judge the eunuch had the Spirit?
C.A.C. Oh yes, he went on his way rejoicing.
Rem. That was the evidence of the presence of the Spirit.
C.A.C. Yes, if you read the epistle to the Romans, you do not find how people get the Spirit. You find they get forgiveness and justification and redemption, all through our Lord Jesus Christ; then suddenly you find the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit; they have got the Spirit. So great is the value of Christ and the work of Christ that it frees the heart of God to bestow the Spirit; I can thank God that He has ever thought of such-a thing; God does it, it is His kindness, love and mercy; He could not act in any other way.
Rem. He speaks of giving His Spirit to those who ask (Luke 11:13).
C.A.C. Yes, in John 4 He says to the woman, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water". He actually prompts her to ask.
Ques. It does not always come that way, does it, that we pray for the Spirit? Is it not the normal way that we are engaged with the Lord Jesus and God seals that with the Spirit?
Does not the asking apply to those who have the Spirit?
C.A.C. Yes, these instances are to show the willingness of God.
Ques. Some people are looking for a second blessing; is that not a mischievous thought?
C.A.C. Yes; I think people on that line are occupied with themselves and not with Christ. The Lord is the One who baptises with the Holy Spirit. My point is to get round to the divine side. Suppose that one has real pleasure in the things of Christ, that would be an evidence of the presence of the Spirit: suppose one is happy in the love of God and can say, "Abba, Father", it shows that the Spirit of God is there.
Ques. Is not salvation prominent in the previous chapter?
C.A.C. Yes, it is that complete divine deliverance that takes us out of verse 3, and puts us into that world where eternal life is.
Ques. Would it have a bearing on our life now?
C.A.C. Yes, a great bearing. It is the renewal, so that instead of wanting to gratify the flesh, we begin to be exercised in relation to God, and our place in the body. I was thinking of Romans 12:2 when I said that: "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind". It seems to me that this exercise is connected with the renewal of the Holy Spirit; there begins to be a new character of thinking and we begin to be exercised as to the place God would have us fill in the body; that comes in in a practical way.
C.A.C. That is how deliverance is found practically. First you have your gold mine, now you have to work it, so that the wealth may be utilised in a practical way. God has put you into a new position in the body of Christ, and deliverance is realised as we fill our place in the body. Renewal of the Holy Spirit leads to renewal of the mind, and we realise we are set here and have an appointed place to fill according to the mind of God.
Ques. This question leads to a transformation, does it not?
C.A.C. Yes; the apostle says, "I say ... to every one that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think, but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith" (Romans 12:3). Every one of us has faith to do something.
Ques. Not faith for everything?
C.A.C. No, it is a question of intelligent service, service connected with the renewed mind. It is interesting to see the different minds spoken of in Romans. First there is the reprobate mind -- one without moral discernment. If people do not like to retain God in their thoughts they get a reprobate mind judicially, they lose all power of moral discernment and do uncomely things (Romans 1:28 - 32). Suppose the converse is true, I shall get an exercised mind, as in chapter 7. The mind there has little knowledge of God as "our Saviour God", he has not a renewed mind, but he has an exercised mind. He has not yet the knowledge of the kindness and love of a Saviour God; he knows the law and is striving to keep it, but has no power.
Ques. What is the deliverance at the end of the chapter (Romans 7)?
C.A.C. When I was a youngster, I used to think it was a shame the apostle did not say more about it. I used to wish he would tell us more plainly, I wished he had put in a few more verses to tell us how it came about, but he seems to get all tied up in a knot and then suddenly says, "I thank God". It is like touching a button and the whole thing is illumined and works. If God has come out in kindness and love through Jesus Christ, that very fact involves deliverance. To know God so as to thank Him is the solution to the whole question. A man then has a new way of thinking -- he is now thinking down from what God is, and is on the line and current of the Spirit, and in that current there is liberty and happiness, and so he is moved on a stage further. What marks the renewed mind is faith. God has dealt to every one a measure of faith. One of the things God gives faith for is to show mercy with cheerfulness; if you have faith for that, do it. What we
have faith for we can be with God about, and what we can be with God about, He can be with us about.
Ques. Why does it go on to say, "We should become heirs"?
C.A.C. I think the renewal of the Holy Spirit prompts us to enter into all that God has before Him, "that, having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life", in view of the inheritance.
Rem. I should like to have a thought of what that involves, because it would tend to deliver us from things here.
C.A.C. You get filled with new expectations; they are expanded into all the breadth and blessedness of God's world -- eternal life. The renewal of the Holy Spirit works in this way, brings us into spiritual expectations and delivers us from this world as an object in our pathway here; so that frees us to let the heart go out in spiritual expectations.
Ques. What are we taught to look forward to?
C.A.C. That coming world where Christ is the Centre and Sun; that is the world we belong to, and in heart and spirit we are to be moving that way. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal" (John 3:16). God loved the world in view of eternal life; I would say reverently, God coveted that His creature man should have eternal life; that was ever before the heart of God.
In John 7 the Spirit is like a fountain of water springing up to eternal life, so that the desires are the same as those of God. We are so apt to waste ourselves like the woman in chapter 4 who had many objects, and her affections scattered; the water the Lord would give us would unify the affections, gather them up, and centre them in view of eternal life, and then we move in spiritual liberty.
Titus 3:5, 6; Romans 5:5; John 4:13 - 15; John 7:37 - 40
These are familiar scriptures, but one feels the importance of having present with us the thought of the abundance connected with the Spirit. It was said of the Son of God, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit" (John 1:33).
We often get little practically because we look for little, so that one would desire to be encouraged to look for much. The first scripture we read speaks of the Spirit being poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. On the divine side it is the outcome of the kindness and philanthropy of our Saviour God. The manner of His salvation, the character of it, consists on the positive side in the pouring out on us richly of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Saviour. He is the blessed Channel of communication. There is a river, a mighty river, of divine fulness, and it finds in Jesus Christ our Saviour an adequate Channel to bring it to us. So that the wonderful wealth of it is immeasurable; it is only measured by the kindness and love to man of a Saviour God, and the ability and competence of Christ to be a Channel to us of all that is in the thought of God; and all is included in the gift of the Holy Spirit. It gives one a great thought of the character of the renewing which God would bring about.
It is said here to be "poured out", showing the immensity, the volume of it. It is not here the reception of the Spirit, or the Spirit indwelling, but the marvellous abundance of what is poured out on us. There are many different thoughts as to the Spirit which are very suggestive. In Titus it is the thought of the abundance -- the pouring out on us. That is not exactly Pentecost, but it is the character of the actings of a Saviour God in His kindness and love to man, that He would pour out
this immense flood of divine power. He pours it out for the complete deliverance from everything we were under formerly. It is we ourselves (verse 3), not somebody else. He tells us what we ourselves were; every word of it is true, but then the kindness and love to man of a Saviour God have appeared with this flood tide of heavenly power poured out on us.
Then the Lord is introduced as baptising with the Holy Spirit (John 1:33), taking up those who believe on Him and immersing them in the Spirit. It views the Spirit as an ocean of divine blessedness and power, and the Son of God is competent to take us up and immerse us in the fulness of it. People think of the Spirit as something that comes in and gets a tiny corner in one's heart, so that oftentimes it is a question with believers whether they have the Spirit or not. I think that shows how little the abundance is known. If the abundance connected with the Spirit were consciously known, no one would have any question about having the Spirit. God would encourage us to think of the abundance of the gift from His side so that we would cry out, 'O Lord, enlarge our scanty thought'. If we could get a sense of the abundance of the pouring out it would prepare us to be filled. There is such an abundance, enough to fill and overflow every vessel under it. We are placed under this abundance like a thimble put under Niagara. We feel we are too small to contemplate it, and that is the proper feeling for christian blessing. It leads to a great cry and exercise for enlargement so as to be able to receive it.
When Paul speaks of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts, it is a pouring out; not a few drops or a trickling stream. I have been thinking of the abundance of what lies in the Spirit, so that in the believer there is a fountain of water springing up to eternal life; it is an abundant flow. It was never God's thought that believers should have the Spirit in such a way that they hardly know whether they have or not. Many a believer hardly knows whether he has the Spirit or not, and only concludes that he has from statements of Scripture. That is not God's thought. If I have to conclude I have received the
Spirit because of what Scripture says, I have not much of the abundance. The wonderful wealth and abundance that lie in the Spirit would fill the soul so that things would be known consciously, and not supposed because of certain statements in Scripture. One admits them and they are divinely true, but the Spirit of God in the soul is a divine presence, not a statement or theory. There are wealth and abundance and divine power coming in which give everything a new character. So there is the renewing of the Holy Spirit, everything getting a new character; instead of what marked us once, there are these new characteristics connected with the pouring out on us richly of the Holy Spirit.
The washing of regeneration comes in to deal with all that former state of things. The death of Christ is brought in to cleanse from all that was there formerly; so that exercises in relation to God may take the place of all the lusts of the flesh; then there comes in the wealth of the Spirit in answer to those exercises.
I think the renewing of the Holy Spirit reviews the matter from the divine side; it is all what God does. There is also the renewing of the mind by which the saint is transformed; it involves exercises on the part of the saints. Being transformed by the renewing of the mind follows exercise of soul. One has to learn to distinguish between what is of God and what is not of God; we have to go through the moral exercise of having our senses exercised to distinguish between good and evil, and to learn to love righteousness and hate lawlessness. In that way the mind is renewed, it is the result of exercise. The mind is not renewed in five minutes; it is the result of moral exercises which have the effect of transforming the believer, so that, instead of carrying the impression of the present age, he carries the impression of God, he comes out as having the seal of God.
I thought it might be good for us to suggest the thought of the abundance, not so much as a matter of information, we all know it well, but so that we might be stirred up to more
earnest prayer and diligence in regard to what is available. I think we reach things practically on the line of the mind being renewed. As having the Spirit, there is great capability for discernment, so that there is intelligent discernment of the things of God. It is a great thing that the mind should be morally educated; as having the Spirit we become capable of moral education. The fear of God becomes effective in the soul and we begin to be exercised in distinguishing good and evil, and refusing what is evil. You find certain things have an injurious effect on you, and you learn to judge them as not being favourable to what is spiritual. All this produces exercise and, as we are faithful in pursuing it, there is a getting rid of things that hinder -- all that hinders the abundance being experimentally known. We cannot have real experimental knowledge of things apart from serious exercises in a practical sense. Then the soul becomes capable of taking its place intelligently in the assembly, and being engaged with what is of God, what is connected with divine Persons and Their activities, so that all the wealth of the Spirit is available in the assembly. In the assembly we expect to find a quantity of water. We see in Leviticus 11:36 that a quantity of water is immune from defiling things. So in the assembly there is a quantity of water -- the abundance of the Spirit is normally known there -- and there is a power to keep out defiling things.
We have to be exercised as to how we stand personally in reference to the Spirit as having bodies which are the temples of the Holy Spirit; we have to mind the associations into which we allow our bodies to come.
Then we have to be careful over our relations with the brethren; because it is in unworthy relations with the brethren that the Spirit is continually grieved. If the Spirit has formed certain links with the brethren, whatever is contrary to those links is a great grief to the Spirit. If the Spirit has set us together as one body in Christ, we must be careful not to violate the bond. We all feel how dreadful it is to violate a natural bond, as the marriage bond; but there is a greater bond than that. The bond
of the Spirit exists, and whatever is inconsistent with that bond is a violation to it. If there is a bad feeling between saints, it is a violation of the bond. No amount of wrong done by a saint is any excuse for a bad feeling. We often make excuses for bad feeling because of the bad behaviour of a person, but it is no excuse and altogether out of place to have a bad feeling towards a person because he has done wrong; if a feeling is allowed the Spirit is grieved. If my brother is doing wrong there is no excuse for bad feeling on my part. I should take him to the Lord in prayer; there is no reason why I should have a bad feeling, least of all because he has done something against me! These things hinder the Spirit practically on our side, and therefore the abundance is not enjoyed or manifested. Perhaps, instead of finding a full flow of the Spirit, we find restraint and limitations. These things occur because of moral conditions. The sense of the abundance of the Spirit should lead to great exercise. The more sense we have of the abundance which lies in the Spirit, the more exercised we should be with regard to anything that would check the flow of the Spirit.
I think we should look for great development of holy sensibilities. The saints as found as the body of Christ are a very sensitive organism; there is nothing in the world so sensitive as the body of Christ, sensitive of every breath of evil and every movement that is unholy and untrue.
Offering is clearly priestly work, but note that in the types the offerer and the priest are distinguished.
"Having made by himself the purification of sins" is not exactly priestly but what lies in the greatness of Christ's Person.
Is the Sanctifier a priestly thought? It would seem to bring Him to our side, as He and the sanctified are "all of one". We are the brethren of the Sanctifier.
Being "a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God" includes making propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:17). "Every high priest taken from amongst men is established for men in things relating to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins; ... on account of this infirmity, he ought, even as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins" (Hebrews 5:1, 3). "Who has not day by day need, as the high priests, first to offer up sacrifices for his own sins, then for those of the people; for this he did once for all in having offered up himself" (Hebrews 7:27). "For every high priest is constituted for the offering both of gifts and sacrifices; whence it is needful that this one also should have something which he may offer" (Hebrews 8:3).
The offering up for sins was done once for all before He set Himself down on the right hand. It is as being seated there that He is Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle. The offering for sins does not enter into the present priestly service.
But then it remains a fact that "every high priest is constituted for the offering both of gifts and sacrifices", so that this High Priest must have an offering service. But it is quite different from the offering of gifts according to the law. That was done by certain persons amongst whom Christ could never have been. As living on earth He would not even be a priest. Others had that office, but it was only serving the
representation and shadow of heavenly things. But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry; this linking on with "minister" in chapter 8: 2.
Gifts and sacrifices unable to perfect as to conscience him that worshipped were offered. But Christ, "by his own blood, has entered in once for all into the holy of holies, having found an eternal redemption ... . how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God, purify your conscience from dead works to worship the living God?" (Hebrews 9:12, 14). Offering is essential to the whole system which stands connected with Christ as High Priest. But it is the perfect offering of Christ for sin. His whole ministry as Priest is bound up with the mediatorship of a better covenant established on the footing of better promises (Hebrews 8:6).
The subject of salvation, as spoken of in Hebrews, is an interesting consideration. The Lord is giving a general desire to know more of salvation as a present reality. It has been too much thought of in connection with what is future, but really it is in the present time that salvation is needed. This present world is the scene of the enemy's power and of all those evil things in which the flesh finds its life, but which are not of God. Salvation is connected with the passage of the Red Sea -- that by which the people got quite outside Egypt and into a new place (Exodus 14:13, 15: 2).
In Hebrews we are viewed as "those who shall inherit salvation". That is, salvation is looked upon as the birthright of the saints. Those who despise it are profane persons -- like Esau -- who have no real appreciation of what is of God, and who think more of the gratification of their natural tastes than of all the blessed things in God's world.
One does not wonder that the question is asked, "How shall we escape if we have been negligent of [made light of] so great salvation ... ?" This question is meant to produce exercise in the hearts of all who take christian ground. The great salvation began to be spoken of by the Lord. He brought in deliverance from all that was evil here, and He spoke of a new and blessed place for men in the circle of God's favour -- outside the range of sin and death (Luke 14, 15).
Salvation in Hebrews 2 is to bring us out of the scene of death. The Lord Jesus has been into death and has annulled him who had the power of death, and He is now the Leader of salvation to draw our hearts after Himself to that bright and blessed scene of glory where He is, and to which He will soon bring us actually.
Then in chapter 5 He is Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him. This seems to be salvation from the action of will. All the breakdown in the wilderness was through
the action of will. The erring heart, the evil (or wicked) heart and the hardened heart (see chapters 3, 4) were all the result of unjudged will. The people had never learnt to hearken in the spirit of obedience to the word of God. In coming under obedience to Christ we find salvation from our own will.
In chapter 7: 25, infirmity is more in view. We are constantly liable, through infirmity, to fall under the influence of things connected with this life -- cares, trials, bodily weakness, and so on. For all this there is the unfailing intercession of the Priest, so that we may not be hindered by these things from enjoying our privilege of approach to God.
Chapter 9: 28 gives the consummation of salvation, when the saints will be taken altogether out of the circumstances and condition where the power of evil has had place. But ere that moment comes, God would have us to be inwardly apart from all that is not of Himself, and thus in the good of soul salvation (chapter 10: 39). Christ is the wisdom and power of God to bring all this about. May He be daily more precious to our hearts!
Hebrews 1:1 - 14
This epistle opens abruptly without introduction or prelude. The usual style of Paul's epistles (and I do not doubt that he wrote the book) is absent, and for a beautiful reason. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ", would have been out of place in an epistle in which Jesus Christ Himself is presented as the Apostle. The writer of the book is out of sight; its subject is at once and gloriously prominent. The statement that God has spoken in the Person of the Son leads at once to a sevenfold declaration of the greatness of the Son. The past, the present, the future, creation, providence, redemption, the glory of God, and the sins of His people are all brought in, not because of what they are in themselves, but on account of His relation to them all. They all proclaim the greatness of the Son, and for that purpose they are introduced.
The universe is mentioned, but it is to state that God has established the Son "heir of all things". Thus, at the very outset, God's object in all the actings of His grace and power is set before us. We shall never understand the actings of God until we know His motive and His object. His motive is love -- His own blessed nature -- and His object is the glory of the Son. Nothing outside Himself could furnish a motive for God; He acts because of what He is. His own nature is His motive. And His Object is ever the Son, as we have it in the parable, "The kingdom of the heavens has become like a king who made a wedding feast for his son" (Matthew 22:2). The universe itself would never have existed but as the scene of the glory of the Son. All things were created "for him" (Colossians 1:16). He is thus presented to us as the blessed and worthy Object of all the actings of God.
We learn first that the Son is the Object of all the Father's counsels, and then we find that He is the Accomplisher of them all. And this even as to the very existence of the created
universe. "By whom also he made the worlds". By the Son of the Father's love "were created all things, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities, or authorities: all things have been created by him and for him" (Colossians l: 16). The universe exists by the creative power of the Son; it is through Him that it has its being. In having become "heir of all things" He is to take possession of that which owes its very existence to Himself. It will all be put under His hand, and He will acquire the glory of it all in a public way. And this, let us remember, will be in manhood. As Man He is "heir of all things". He will acquire in manhood the glory of all that has been wrought in the power of His Person, even as to creation. He will be invested before the universe with the full glory of everything that He has accomplished. All will return to Him; not a ray of glory that rightly belongs to Him will be lost. He is "heir of all things".
But if He created the universe, and is to inherit it, He created it and will inherit it in order to fill it with the glory of God. I apprehend that the expression, "the effulgence of his glory", refers to the place which the Son will take in the universe. He is going to be the Centre and Sun of a universe of bliss which He will fill with the glory of God. The glory of God will come into full and blessed display for the whole universe in the Person of the Son.
The Son is also "the expression of his substance". In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, but it dwells in Him to be expressed. He is "the Word" -- the expression of all that is in the divine mind -- the full and blessed revelation of God. Until the incarnation God was unexpressed, and therefore unknown, for "no one has seen God at any time"; but, "the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18). God is in the light; everything that pertains to His nature and character is perfectly disclosed in the Person of the Son.
The Son is also the Upholder of "all things by the word of
his power". He maintains the universe which He has created. All the laws and principles of nature are maintained in action by the word of the Son's power. "All things subsist together by him" (Colossians 1:17). Men of science can tell us something of the vastness and beauty of the principles which operate in nature, and they freely confess that they can only traverse the outer fringe of the wonders of the universe. But how little do they think, in most cases, that everything subsists together by the Son. There is not a bit of creation that is not upheld by the word of His power. God would have us to ponder this -- to consider it in all its magnitude -- and thus to contemplate the greatness of the Son.
It is this great and wondrous Person who has "made by himself the purification of sins". Other scriptures bring the work of the cross before us as accomplished in weakness and humiliation, done, too, in matchless divine love; but here, in keeping with the context, it is the infinite greatness of that work which is brought before us. None but a divine Person could take up the question of sins, and of all that was due to the glory of God in respect of them. No creature, however exalted, could be equal to this stupendous work. None but the Son was competent for it, and by Himself He has accomplished it. He has glorified God; that is, He has brought the glory of God into full and everlasting display while making purification of sins, so that God can take up those who were sinners, and can bring them into infinite blessing, yea, into the knowledge of Himself in grace and love, according to His own counsels. And all this, and the universe of bliss in which it will be displayed for ever, based in righteousness upon that wondrous work wherein the Son has made "purification of sins".
Having accomplished all this according to the greatness of His Person, the Son has "set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high, taking a place by so much better than the angels, as he inherits a name more excellent than they". It is not here that God exalts Him, but in His own personal greatness as the Son He takes the place that is due to Him at the
right hand of the greatness on high. It was His rightful place as the Son; no other place was suited to His greatness. May God enable us to contemplate with adoring hearts the greatness of this blessed Person!
In setting Himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high, the Son has manifestly taken a place much better than the angels. In the days of His flesh He was, as to manifestation, "made some little inferior to angels", and this humiliation of matchless grace had been the occasion of His rejection by His people. The Holy Spirit presents Him now to the Hebrews in the place of manifested greatness at the right hand of the majesty on high, but, while thus presenting Him, the Spirit calls attention to the fact that He inherited "a name more excellent than they". And what this inherited name is we may learn from the citations of Scripture which follow. The moment the Son came into manhood, He inherited, as the "offspring of David", all the titles and honours of the Messiah. And amongst the dignities and glories of the Messiah, as presented in the Old Testament Scriptures, was "a name more excellent" than could attach to any creature. Angels were well known to the Hebrews as a higher order in creation than man. Psalm 148 gives us the whole scope of creation, with angels at the top and creeping things at the bottom; but the Son inherits a name of greater dignity than could attach to any creature.
"For to which of the angels said he ever, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee?" As born in time, the Messiah is addressed as Son of God. He may be rejected by "the kings of the earth ... and the princes" (see Psalm 2), but He is acknowledged by Jehovah as His Son.
"And again, I will be to him for father, and he shall be to me for son". Here He is seen as the true Solomon -- the seed of David -- the One who will set up God's house in its proper glory, and of whose kingdom God will establish the throne for ever (2 Samuel 7:13, 14). And God says, "He shall be to me for son". Of no creature could this be said. How could any creature, however blessed, be to God all that is expressed in the
name of Son? He alone who infinitely transcends all creatures could present to God in manhood that which called forth all the affections of the heart of God, and which was an adequate object for those affections, and He alone could give to God a response suited to those affections of which He was the blessed and worthy object. He alone could be to God "for son".
"And again, when he brings in the firstborn into the habitable world, he says, And let all God's angels worship him". When God introduces the Son to this world in glory, He calls upon the most exalted creatures to pay Him homage. Great as may be the dignity and strength of these mighty beings, they are but creatures. "As to the angels, he says, Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire". He has made them what they are in His creative wisdom and power. But as to the Son, He uses very different language. "Thy throne, O God, is to the age of the age". The Son is saluted in His own proper and personal greatness. He is above all creatures, and He is the One to whom the universal homage of all God's intelligent creatures is due, and to whom it will yet be rendered. One feels instinctively that such a scripture as this calls for holy contemplation and adoration rather than for exposition.
"Thy throne, O God, is to the age of the age, and a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hast hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with oil of gladness above thy companions". Not until the Son takes it will the kingdom be established; but when He takes it, "a king shall reign in righteousness" (Isaiah 32:1). His kingdom is characterised, as it has been well said, by the perfect discrimination between good and evil -- the absolute appreciation of the one and the absolute rejection of the other. Everything will be put right for God and administered for God's pleasure by One competent to do it. The Son alone could bring into manhood everything that was suitable to God, and establish it all in the gracious power of His kingdom. And how unspeakably
precious it is to know that He who can be thus addressed by God has "companions". The One who loves righteousness and hates lawlessness has a company who derive from Him morally, a company of those kindred to Himself, because deriving from Himself in new creation according to that wonderful verse in the next chapter, "For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren". And it is blessed to note that what here characterises the Son and those brought into association with Him is "oil of gladness". It conveys to me the thought not only that there has there been the perfect discrimination between good and evil, but that good has triumphed over evil, and has found a way of glorifying itself in removing evil and all its effects, so that the Son can bring into the very place where sin was the blessed knowledge of God and of all that is suitable to God. And not only this, but there can be a sanctified company brought into association with Him outside all the desolation and sorrow of the sphere of sin -- brought where there is nothing to intrude upon divine joy. If the whole question of sin is removed out of the way, and the glory of God is fully expressed in the way this has been done, there is nothing to hinder those, who are in the knowledge and good of this stupendous fact, from entering with joy of heart into the blessedness of good as it is found in God Himself. And it is to form us for the appreciation of all this, and to lead us into it, that the Holy Spirit has been given. In His own proper character He is "oil of gladness".
"And, Thou in the beginning, Lord, hast founded the earth, and works of thy hands are the heavens. They shall perish, but thou continuest still; and they all shall grow old as a garment, and as a covering shalt thou roll them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the Same, and thy years shall not fail". It would be difficult to find any scripture which gives more striking testimony to the greatness of the Son than the one which is here presented to us. For if we turn to the psalm from which it is quoted, we shall find that these words are Jehovah's answer to
the prayer of the afflicted Christ in the day of His trouble. He had said in an earlier verse of the psalm, "My days are like a lengthened-out shadow, and I, I am withered like grass"; and He had turned to Jehovah to say, "But thou, Jehovah, abidest for ever, and thy memorial from generation to generation" (Psalm 102:11, 12). But when, further on, He goes on to say, "He weakened my strength in the way, he shortened my days. I said, My God, take me not away in the midst of my days!" Jehovah answers Him in the words quoted in Hebrews 2, words which set Him before our adoring hearts as the Man that is Jehovah's Fellow. Yes, the holy Sufferer of Gethsemane is addressed by Jehovah in that hour of solitude and sorrow as the Creator, and as the abiding and unchanging One. Though found in the condition and circumstances of creature man, and brought -- in view of His cutting off and having nothing as Messiah here, and of all that was involved in drinking the cup of God's holy judgment upon sin -- into an exceeding sorrow which can never be fathomed, and but very feebly apprehended by creature hearts, the Spirit of God does not allow us to dissociate from that unparalleled scene the divine greatness of the Holy One who bowed there in that agony of prayer. Well may we wonder and adore as we contemplate "the Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever" (Romans 9:5) thus stooping in the humiliation of matchless grace to bring the testimony of divine love into the very place of sin and death.
Finally we read, "But as to which of the angels said he ever, Sit at my right hand until I put thine enemies as footstool of thy feet?" Here we come to the point which, it seems to me, the Spirit has had in view all through the chapter. In verse 3 it was that He "set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high, taking a place by so much better than the angels, as he inherits a name more excellent than they". The place He has taken, according to His own greatness as Son, corresponds with the place in which He is set by God as Messiah. As to the first, He takes a place above all creatures; as to the second, He inherits the excelling name and honours of the Messiah. And
that particular feature of Messiah's glory which belongs to the present time is that He is called to sit at God's right hand until God shall put His enemies as the footstool of His feet. That is, Messiah's greatness and glory are in mystery, not in manifestation. It was much for the Hebrew believer, with all his previous history and education, to apprehend this, for it meant a clean break with the earth and all that was reputable and religious here. It meant the bringing home to their hearts, and not less to our own, of the tremendous fact that the One in whom God has spoken -- the One who has told all that can be told of God -- has been rejected in a way that has left a final breach between God and the whole course of things which obtains here. He sits at God's right hand until victorious and all-subduing judgment shall place His foes as footstool of His feet. The greatness of the One who has been rejected leaves the world without excuse, and accentuates its guilt to a degree which no human words could adequately express. Hence the intense solemnity of the inquiry, "How shall we escape, if we have been negligent of so great salvation, which, having had its commencement in being spoken of by the Lord ... ?" And hence, too, the solemn nature of the warnings which occur again and again in this epistle as to the fearful consequences of apostasy. All turns upon the greatness of the One in whom God has spoken. As it has been justly said, none can speak after the Son, and woe be to those who neglect or turn away from that which He speaks.
But to press the solemnity of this was not my present object, but rather to bring before your hearts the greatness of the Son as that which gives character to christianity. The whole system of blessing, if I may be allowed to speak of it thus, takes character from the Son. It is to emphasise this that we have such a marvellous unfolding of His personal greatness and glory as this chapter affords. Who could measure the greatness of a system of blessing inaugurated by the Son? The more we contemplate His greatness, the more our hearts must be impressed by the blessedness of what is spoken in such a
Person. If the Son speaks, it must be to make known the Father's name and nature -- to declare the Father's grace and love as unfolded in His own counsels of blessing -- and all this revealed according to the measure of the Son, if indeed we may be permitted to speak of measure where all is infinite. The prophets were "holy men of God", and they "spake under the power of the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21); but they could not be adequate to the revelation of infinite grace and love -- in short, of the Father. The Son alone was adequate to this, and He has declared the Father. The whole revelation, in the light of which God has set His saints, takes its character and its measure from the fact that it has come out in the Son.
And, on the other hand, the Son has taken a place in which He has become the Object of divine affections and counsels in manhood. It is to a Man that God has said, "Thou art my Son"; it is of a Man that God has said, "He shall be to me for son". In becoming thus the Object of divine affections in manhood, the Son has taken a place in which He can be the "firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29). On the ground of His death, and in virtue of new creation, He can have a sanctified company of brethren "all of one" with Himself -- His "companions" in the blessedness and joy of the Father's presence. Thus on the one hand He gives character to the revelation but on the other He gives character to the whole company of those who are in the light of the revelation. It is a company of "many sons". The relationship to which all are called is that which is set forth in Him. So that "he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises". He takes His place with His saints, identifying them with Himself, and with His own praise to God. In short, He puts them in the place and blessing of sons. Soon we shall be in the Father's house as sons like Him, and with Him for His eternal glory, who has after such a fashion brought us home to the Father, and for the eternal satisfaction of the Father's heart And even here God would have our hearts to enter into something of the
blessedness of this. He would have us to apprehend that we are called to the blessing of sonship -- to know that we are loved as the Son is loved, according to those wonderful words, "That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them". We have the Holy Spirit in this special and distinctive character as the 'Spirit of sonship'. "Because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6).
In short, the whole system of blessing to which we are called by infinite grace takes its character from the Son. Of what vast importance is it, then, that we should have Him before our hearts in all His greatness, so that, on the one hand, our hearts may have a true measure of the greatness and blessedness of the revelation of God, and, on the other, we may know the character of the blessing to which we are called, so as to enter into it and respond to the love that has called us into it, that thus we may be to the Father's pleasure and to the glory and satisfaction of the Son.
Hebrews 2:1 - 18
We have already seen that in the first chapter of this epistle the Son of God is set before us in the greatness of His Person, and in all the excellence of His inherited name as come into manhood. He is set before us in a personal glory which excels that of the most exalted creatures. And His greatness is that which gives character to the revelation which God has made of Himself in the Person of the Son, and it also gives character to the whole system of blessing which He has inaugurated; that is, to christianity in the fulness of its blessings according to God.
In the second chapter, which is now before us, we find the same blessed Person presented in three positions: in humiliation, in supremacy, and in exaltation. We get now the history, if we may so say, of how the counsels of God can be brought into effect in the accomplishment of all His thoughts of blessing, so that in result Christ may be supreme in a universe of bliss when all things -- the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth -- shall be headed up in Him. We see, too, the ground on which that blessed One can be found in the position of "leader of their salvation" in reference to a company of "many sons" given to Him by God that He may bring them to glory. And we also learn the full privilege of the assembly as introduced by the Son to the knowledge of the Father's name, and we see the place which Christ takes with His brethren as the Singer of praises in their midst. And, finally, He is presented to us as the Deliverer of His saints; delivering them first by power -- power which annuls "him who has the might of death, that is, the devil", and which sets free "all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage" -- and then delivering them by His priestly grace and succour from what would otherwise be the crushing
effect of the innumerable trials and pressures which are incidental to the path of faith and to our present condition of creature weakness.
The very greatness and blessedness of all this would discourage us from making any attempt to set it forth, if we did not know that it is the will of God to have His saints in the light and conscious blessing of His own great and holy thoughts. This gives us strong confidence that His gracious help will not be withheld, as we seek to look a little more in detail at these precious things.
In the first place we learn that it is the pleasure of God that the Son of man should be supreme over all His works (verse 7). Adam was a figure of this, for he was placed at the head of creation to exercise dominion, God thus setting forth at the very beginning the great thought of His own mind. But Adam was quickly cast down from his excellency, for he proved him self to be unable to stand against the power of evil. Evil could and did touch him, and he fell, we might say, at the first touch. But if the figure has thus broken down, it is that it may give place to the substance -- to that which cannot break down, to that which was in the mind of God when He created the figure. For I apprehend it would not be going too far to say that man in innocence was not morally suited to be set over the works of God's hands, and to have all things put under his feet. It was not suited to God that the universe should be set in order without every moral question having its perfect solution. With an innocent man at the head of creation the whole question of good and evil was necessarily in abeyance. Under such circumstances neither righteousness nor holiness could be displayed; the moral ordering of the universe would have been wanting in most essential particulars.
But it was in the wisdom of God to bring all these moral questions into connection with man, and eventually to solve them in the most perfect way, so that man might be set over the works of His hands. That is, God will set the Son of man in supremacy, that there may be in the universe the most perfect
and blessed ordering of everything according to all that God is in His nature and moral character. Everything will be subjugated to the One in whom God has been glorified. If God undertakes to set the universe in order, we may be sure that there will not only be the ascendency of power, but the perfect setting forth of everything that is morally suited to God. It is evident that man in innocence (however blessed might be his state in itself) was not competent to take such a place as this, for as yet he knew not good and evil. And certainly it was impossible for man as fallen under the power of evil to be set in such a position. In short, for man to be set in supremacy over the works of God's hands involved the solution of the whole question of good and evil, and for this it was necessary that the One who was above all creatures should be "made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death".
There is infinite moral glory in the humiliation of Christ. The more we ponder it, the more will the greatness, the grace and the moral glory of it astonish our hearts. The One who is above all creatures has been "made some little inferior to angels" to give expression to the wondrous grace of God, and to prove that that grace is greater than sin. Adam aspired to that which was above the measure of a creature, and went down in apostasy from the beauty of innocence to the dust of death. Now the Son in all the competency of His blessed Person has undertaken to bring divine grace and love into the very place of the creature's ruin; He has come into the place of sin and death to glorify God there. And in taking that place, and sustaining all that was involved in His so doing, the Son of man has been glorified. All the perfection of His blessed Person has disclosed itself, it has come out upon a platform where it can be viewed by all God's intelligent creatures. He has descended that He might maintain everything for God, and all His perfection has been manifested in the way that this has been accomplished. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13:31).
Every moral question has been fully raised and finally settled. Evil has been exhibited in its full measure, and judgment executed upon it according to the holiness and righteousness of God. But in connection with this the infinite perfection of Christ has been brought into display, and all the goodness, grace, and love of God revealed. So that we know divine perfections, and the blessed nature of God, not as abstractions, but as things which subsist through Jesus Christ, and which have come into contact with evil, and have triumphed over it in such a way that God is free to give effect to all His own purposes of grace and glory. It is evident that the One in and by whom all this has been brought about must be the Centre of God's moral universe. He must fill all things. Nothing else would be suitable to God but that He should be supreme over all the works of God's hands, and have all things put under His feet.
"But now we see not yet all things subjected to him, but we see Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour". The Lord Jesus has not yet exercised the power with which He is invested to subdue all things to Himself, He is not yet in manifested supremacy. But He is in the highest heavenly exaltation -- accepted, honoured, and glorified by God. This is the great secret of christianity, if one may so express it. The Son of man is not glorified as yet in any public way; He is glorified in God (John 13:32). Hence everything connected with Him is of the nature of mystery; that is, it is hidden from public view and known only by the initiated. We -- believers having the Spirit -- see Jesus "crowned with glory and honour", but He is hidden from the eyes of men.
It is in the apprehension of Christ as crowned with glory and honour at the right hand of God that we arrive at the true starting-point of christianity. It carries us entirely outside the range of seen things -- outside man's world and thoughts altogether -- and it introduces us to an entirely new and heavenly order of things. For it is not only that Christ is there personally,
but that He is there as the 'Leader of a chosen race'. "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings". It is the great thought of God to bring a company of "many sons" to glory, and Christ is the Leader of that company. Any company takes character from its leader, and the christian company of "holy brethren" takes character from Christ, the Leader of their salvation. This makes very evident that ours is a "heavenly calling", for a heavenly Christ is the Leader of our salvation. We apprehend the true nature of our calling as we consider Him, and in spirit follow Him in that new place on high. He is to be, according to God's wondrous purpose, the "firstborn among many brethren". The whole company of "many sons" will take character from Him, and be conformed to His image.
When it was a question of the type set forth in an earthly people, Joshua was the leader of their salvation. He led them into the pleasant land of God's promise and purpose, but they had to follow him, and it is not less so with ourselves. The very thought of a leader implies followers, and we shall not take possession of our inheritance unless in spirit we follow our Leader to the glory which He has entered. And I may say here that we should have had no title nor capacity to follow Him there, neither would God have been able to bring us there in righteousness, if the Leader of our salvation had not been made "perfect through sufferings". How could the Son take the place of Leader of a company of sinners? He could not lead a company of sinners into glory. And, inasmuch as we were under sin and death, there was necessity that He should remove according to divine righteousness everything that attached to us as in the flesh, so that we might be brought to glory in an entirely new state and character -- even as "many sons". He could not be the Leader of our salvation -- He would not be perfect in this character -- apart from those "sufferings" in which He has brought to an end our old state by bearing the condemnation that justly attached to it. It was suitable to God
that He should accomplish this blessed work, which involved "sufferings" entirely beyond our comprehension, before He took the place of Leader of salvation to a company of "many sons". He has been made perfect in this character.
And this brings us to a further point. "For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren". To sanctify is to set apart for God. The more profound our sense of the holiness of God, and the more we realise the true nature of the flesh, the more conscious we shall be of the immensity and blessedness of the fact that Christ is the Sanctifier of His saints. He has under taken in love to set them apart according to the holiness of God from everything which would not suit that holiness, and to accomplish this He has gone into death. The death of Christ gives one an infinite thought of sanctification. It is impossible to measure it, or to express the completeness of it by going into any detail. The death of Christ is the absolute removal in judgment of all that we are as in the flesh. Having said this, we have said everything that needs to be said on that side, and there can be no doubt that this is the truth set forth in the cross.
But there is much more to be said on the other side. Christianity is not in any wise a system of mere negations; it is a holy system of divine affections and blessings. If the flesh is judged and ended, it is that there may be a company "all of one" with the Sanctifier; that is, a company in association with Christ as the risen One. "Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). And it is important that we should apprehend this as something which is effected by Christ according to the Father's purpose and pleasure. Christ sanctifies His company of "brethren"; Christ bears much fruit; all is of Himself, and is the outcome of His death; all is entirely outside the history and failure of the responsible man. Indeed, it must be so if the death of Christ is the source from whence everything springs.
Hence "he is not ashamed to call them brethren". He can view them now according to the sanctification which He has
Himself effected. He now appropriates His own wondrous character; He could say to Mary, "Go to my brethren". His death was only just accomplished. None of the disciples had, as yet, we may safely say, entered into its meaning and value. But He knew what had been effected; all was now for Him on an entirely new footing; and by His word to Mary He placed His disciples in this new and blessed association with Himself. His own thoughts concerning them were thus declared. And the one who loved Him was the one who received the communication of His thoughts. Yes, a woman who loved Him got light in advance of all the apostles. There is great encouragement in this. Many of us are very sensible that we are insignificant in gift and energy, but there is no reason why we should not excel in affection. Love will bring us near to the Lord, and then in intimacy with Him we shall learn what His saints are to Him.
"I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises". Christ has declared the Father's name. He could say, "I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known; that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them" (John 17:26). The great and blessed characteristic of christianity is that the Father's name is declared by the Son. All that God is in His nature -- in the activities of His holy love -- has been fully made known by the only-begotten Son to a company made competent through divine grace to appreciate that blessed revelation. And then, on the other hand, Christ takes His place in the midst of the assembly to sing God's praises. God dwells, and is known, in the praises of His saints. All the moral perfections and infinite blessedness of God take form in the praises of His saints, so that the universe may learn what God is through the praises of saints. This makes it essential that God's praise should be in divine perfection, and this is secured by Christ becoming the great Singer of praise in the midst of the assembly. I do not understand this to mean that He sings apart from the saints, but rather that His song finds its expression in the
saints. The music of God's praise is found in the assembly, so that in the midst of a groaning creation and of a world where all is discord, and where everything seems to compromise the righteousness, goodness and love of God, there is found a circle whence melodious praise ascends to Him -- the praise of all that He has wrought and the praise of all that He is in His attributes and nature. And it is Christ who sings in the hearts of His brethren. The song is such as only He could sing, but He sings in the midst of the assembly, and the saints become the mouthpiece of His wondrous song.
The consideration of this may well give our hearts an apprehension of the great privileges and dignity of the assembly. We are of the sanctified company, and as such are entirely divested of everything unsuited to divine love. We are privileged to know our place thus in the sanctuary, and by the Spirit and by the priestly grace of Christ to be abstracted from the world and the flesh, and all things which are connected with our responsible life on earth, so that we may be with Christ as His brethren before the Father's face, holy and without blame in love. Thus entering the holiest we reach a circle where divine love is in perfect rest, and where nothing is seen or heard but Christ -- Christ in His brethren, and His song issuing from their hearts. How blessed to realise that we are of such a circle as this! To find our hearts thrilling with Christ's song of praise to God! Thus to be in God's holy shrine, and before His face for the pleasure of His love!
Many believers miss this peculiar and wondrous privilege. They do not go beyond the thought of God's grace to them as sinners, and His goodness and mercy in their responsible life on earth. I trust we may all be more exercised as to how far we have entered upon the true privilege of the assembly. May God give us to pray about it! May every one of us be deeply and continually exercised as to entering in to the privilege which it has been God's pleasure to set before us!
Then, at the end of the chapter, Christ is presented as the Deliverer of His saints, first by His power and then by His
priestly grace. Through death He has annulled him that had the might of death, that is, the devil; and the consequence is that His saints are set free from the fear of death and all the terrible bondage which it entailed. Saints in the Old Testament times had not deliverance from the fear of death. Death was not known to them as the place of Christ's victory, and it was right and pious in them to have the fear of death. Life and incorruptibility were not yet brought to light through the gospel. But now all are in the light of that blessed victory, and are free. No fear of death and no bondage remain for the saint now.
Then Christ delivers His saints by His priestly grace and succour from what might be the crushing effect of the innumerable trials and pressures of the pathway here. He is "a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God", and "in that himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to help those that are being tempted". The worldly Christian does not understand the necessity for this succour; he finds himself able to get on without it. But not so the true saint. He finds himself going right against the stream; every influence here is against him; but, through grace, he is set to go on in the path of faith. He is very conscious that the help of Christ is indispensable to him, and he finds that it does not fail him. Christ Himself has suffered from every kind of opposition and trial: He knows exactly the help that is needed; and He does not fail to vouchsafe that help to His tried and feeble saints. In the path of faith you may be misunderstood and discouraged even by your brethren; but Christ will not fail you. He will stand by you, and succour, and strengthen, and encourage you to the end. How blessed to have such a present and gracious Deliverer!
May each one of us prove Him continually as our unfailing resource for each hour of need!
The epistle to the Hebrews contains, I believe, a greater number of direct references to the death of Christ than any other book of the New Testament. I have noticed twenty-eight distinct references. The immense importance of the subject justifies our attention being given to it continually. We shall have nothing more wonderful to engage our hearts in heaven.
The Son of man became such in order that He might die; He came into a condition in which He could die. The first aspect of the death of Christ to which the Spirit calls our attention in this epistle is how it stands in relation to the present place of the Son of man as crowned with glory and honour, and to His future place as set over all creation.
The great design of God with regard to Christ could only be carried out through His death. The object in view in His becoming Man was that He should suffer death, and take up all that was in God's purpose for Him on that ground. The present and eternal place and glory of the Son of man depend on His having suffered death. This should have a great place in our thoughts. "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:26). The Spirit introduces this aspect of Christ's death to our notice; it is the way by which He enters into His glory. It is not in Hebrews Messiah's glory only, but His widest and fullest glory as Son of man. He enters into it all as having suffered death. He has suffered the sentence passed upon the disobedient creature so that the honour and glory with which He is crowned are the result of His having undergone in grace what had come on the creature as characterised by sin. It is something like Revelation 5:11 - 14. It is His worthiness as having redeemed in verses 9, 10; but in verses 11 - 14 it is what He is worthy to receive as having
The Son of man is a title which belongs to Christ as becoming Man to take up all that was in God's thought for man, but when He came in, men were under death, and, on the way to taking up God's glorious thoughts, He entered on God's part into what was on the race of man by sin, thus bringing out how God's heart was towards the fallen man. "What is man, that thou rememberest him ... ?" (Hebrews 2:6); 'An active recollection, because the object is cared for' (see note c, Darby Translation). Death is a dreadful thing, for it is the evidence of God's displeasure on account of sin, but Jesus has tasted death for every thing so that the whole universe may see how favourable God is to His creatures even when they have come under death. The death of Jesus has a universal bearing. His death is the great expression of the favour of God to every man or thing. The point is to show that God's favour is greater than sin or death; whatever has come under death through the sin of man, Jesus has tasted death for. So that the sin of man, and the sentence pronounced on it, has given occasion for the favour of God to be expressed in this wonderful way. And the crowning with glory and honour is God's manifestation of His delight in the One who has thus expressed His favour to men as fallen. God will have that to be known; He will have the universe to admire it; He will place everything in subjection to the One who has by suffering death expressed His grace to all that was under death. In this new and glorious way will God be known throughout eternity.
But then there is another thing, connected with the purpose of God's love. God in His supremacy is the One for whom are all things and by whom are all things, and He has formed a purpose in His love to bring many sons to glory. The fact that He will have sons shows that His purpose is a purpose of love, and glory is the consummation of all that such a Being can propose for His own satisfaction. In doing this wondrous thing it was becoming to God to do it in a
certain way. He would do it by providing a Leader for this company of many sons, and He would make that Leader perfect through sufferings. The divine thought of sonship included that men should be in God's presence on the ground of God being glorified in love and holiness as to sin. It is not apart from the thought of divine righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). Sonship involves perfect suitability to the holy love of God notwithstanding all that men had been in their former history. They are all to be conformed to the image of His Son; that is, to the image of One glorified after glorifying God here by suffering death. This brings all the value of God being glorified into the place and relationship of the many sons. They are all expressive, and will be eternally, of the holy triumph of God in love where sin had been. What is expressed in Jesus glorified will be expressed in them; it is a position reached by Him after suffering death.
The sufferings of Christ have conferred upon Him complete competency to bring about the great purpose of God's love. God, in bringing many sons to glory, is doing it by making Christ perfect through sufferings, so as to lead them out of all that they were in before and to put them as sons in glory. He is invested with full competency to do this. The point here is that it is done in a holy way, as is implied in the words "sanctifies" and "sanctified" (verse 11). God in purposing to have sons in glory has in mind that Christ shall have the honour of bringing it about -- that He should be made perfect, or 'consecrated', to fill that great and wondrous office. So that when the sons are all in glory, they will be there as witnesses to the competency of Christ to lead them there. He was consecrated by the sufferings of the cross so as to be qualified to carry through this great purpose of love in a holy way. God is entitled to have the full satisfaction of His love, and He is able to bring it about, but He has done it in a holy way by making Christ perfect through sufferings, so that He is seen to be supremely glorious as the One who suffered so that He might carry all through.
Every one of the many sons will be an eternal tribute to His glory.
Until Christ had suffered He could not hold the holy office of being the Sanctifier. But He is now with God on the ground that He has glorified God in death about sin, so that He is entitled to set men apart from sin altogether in the holy value of His sufferings. Sanctification in Hebrews is always sacrificial (see chapters 10: 10, 29; 13: 12). But along with this goes the wondrous thought that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are "all of one". This involves a work of God in the sanctified ones, so that, morally speaking, they have a common origin with Christ, and He is not ashamed to call them His brethren. The thought of "the children" as a special class -- "the seed of Abraham" -- is distinctly brought before us in this chapter. These are men viewed as objects of the call and work of God, so that they are suited in nature and moral character to be associated with Christ on the wondrous and divinely perfect ground of His own sufferings. The resurrection and glory of Christ are the answer to what He was personally, but the place and glory of the many sons are the answer to His sufferings. He leads into that place as qualified to do so through sufferings. So that while sonship is the gift of sovereign love it is also the precious and eternal fruit of the sufferings of Christ. He leads out all that is here into the blessedness of what is there as consecrated to do so through sufferings. He goes first into that scene of glory in sonship as One whose sufferings have given Him title to lead us there. God brings us into sonship in a way that is morally suitable to Himself.
The place we have in sonship is based upon God being glorified in relation to sin and death. "He has chosen us in
him before the world's foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:4 - 6). This purpose was formed in sovereign love before sin or death or even the creation of the world, but God could only bring us into it in a way suitable to Himself through redemption wrought in the suffering of death. This makes evident that when we consider sonship in the light of how we come into it, we must think of it as the precious result of redemption (see Galatians 4:4, 5; Ephesians 1:7; Romans 8:23). In this last scripture, sonship is defined as "the redemption of our body". "The anxious looking out of the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God": all creation will then be set free from the bondage of corruption. The revelation of the sons is their coming out, but as Leader, Christ leads them in. In being the Leader, He is presented to us as the One in whom God's great thought is first set out. He was not in that position until He had suffered, but He is now the Pattern of the whole company of many sons.
The children partake of blood and flesh, and as such, they are subject to death, and the devil has the might of death and would keep in bondage by the fear of death if Christ had not become the Liberator. This brings out another great aspect of His death. "He also, in like manner, took part in the same, that through death he might annul him who has the might of death". He came into the condition of blood and flesh, but He has passed out of it through death. Whatever claim or power Satan might have in regard to men in blood and flesh has been annulled by Christ coming into death as having identified Himself with the children. The devil is annulled so completely that the power of liberation from the fear of death is vested in Christ. He is entitled to liberate the children because He has gone through death on
their behalf, though personally exempt from it. He is able to set free all to whom the fear of death brings bondage. This is part of the great liberation which divine grace and love have secured for us in Christ and through His death.
Hebrews 2:11, 12
Christ singing praise in the midst of the assembly is consequent upon the sin-offering in Psalm 22. He is answered from the horns of the buffaloes. In Hebrews 2 He is the Sanctifier; He has taken up that service; everything essential to the setting apart of the many sons whom God is bringing to glory is found in Him. He is fully qualified for that office, we might say, consecrated to fill it for the pleasure of God. But He exercises that office for certain persons who are sanctified by Him; He does all, and they have the character of "sanctified" entirely on account of what He does as the Sanctifier, so that they cannot be detached from Him or viewed apart from Him in regard to this matter. They are "all of one" or 'all out of one'; what the saints are as "sanctified" is entirely the work of the Sanctifier; therefore there is no flaw in it. (It is, as it were, one piece with Christ, as the cherubim were one piece with the mercy-seat, or Eve one piece with Adam.)
He is the Sanctifier by setting His saints before God in the sanctification effected by His own death. It was God's purpose to bring many sons to glory; so Christ was to taste death for every thing by the grace of God, and He was to be perfected as the Leader of the saints' salvation through sufferings. The Leader is made perfect, or consecrated; He is made fit to be installed in that office, as having gone through the sufferings of death. But then those whom He leads must be sanctified; they must be apart from sins, apart from sin in the flesh. It supposes men of the seed of Abraham; that is, men called of God, men in whom there is divine working. The Hebrews would understand that men must be sanctified in order to have anything to say to holy things. But Christ is the Sanctifier. He has this honour from God, and He and those sanctified by Him are all of one. As before
God, Christ and the saints are indissolubly "all of one"; it is a remarkable expression, only found here. He does not say they are one because it is Christ and His brethren. It is not the individual believer joined to the Lord and one Spirit, nor is it the body with Christ as its Head. It is Christ and the sanctified company all of one as being in a perfectly identical suitability to God in His holiness. That could only be as the company is sanctified by Christ. It supposes a work in them, but it is not the work in them that sanctifies them but what Christ does for them. By what He does as "he that sanctifies" they are apart from sin and they partake of His suitability for the holy presence of God. (This links on with being "wholly clean" in John 13, though it is not exactly the same thought. That directs us to a moral cleansing of individuals.) But this sanctifying brings before us what is effected by Christ for a company of persons so that they are made suitable for God in holiness by what is done for them. They are so "all of one" with Christ that there is no disparity between Him and them as regards suitability to God. How this magnifies Him as the Sanctifier! And we may be perfectly certain that He regards the saints as those whom He has sanctified: "For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren". That is, it is a question of how Christ regards them. The Hebrews had probably entered very little into this, but he is speaking here of Christ and of how He regards His saints. If He was ashamed to call them brethren He would be ashamed of His own work! So that it is as the sanctified company that we are the brethren of Christ, and He can declare God's name to us. It is on the ground that we are sanctified by what Christ has done as the Sanctifier. So that now our hearts can open freely and in perfect liberty to His declaration of God's name. It is a wonderful name, for it covers all that in which He would be known by men; His name is really Himself in revelation.
And this leads to Christ taking a wondrous place Godward: "In the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises". WeNOTES OF A READING 1 THESSALONIANS 4:1 - 18
CONCERNING THEM THAT ARE FALLEN ASLEEP
EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY
THE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN A DAY OF RUIN
THE MYSTERY OF PIETY
THE TESTIMONY
FROM C.A.C.'S NOTES 2 TIMOTHY 1:6 - 12
NOTES OF A READING 2 TIMOTHY 2:14 - 26
NOTES OF A READING 2 TIMOTHY 2:22 - 26; 2 TIMOTHY 3:1 - 17
NOTES OF A READING 2 TIMOTHY 2:23 - 26; 2 TIMOTHY 3:1 - 9
NOTES OF A READING 2 TIMOTHY 3:16, 17; 2 TIMOTHY 4:1 - 8
"THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST"
NOTES OF A READING 2 TIMOTHY 4:9 - 22
NOTES OF A READING 2 TIMOTHY 4:16 - 22
EPISTLE TO TITUS
NOTES OF A READING TITUS 3:3 - 7
SPIRITUAL ABUNDANCE
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
SALVATION IN HEBREWS
THE GREATNESS OF THE SON
THE HUMILIATION, EXALTATION AND SUPREMACY OF CHRIST
'The Lord is risen; our triumph-shout shall be,
"Thou hast prevailed! Thy people, Lord, are free!"'THE SUFFERING OF DEATH
'There glory bright and fair
Shines with celestial beam;
For He who suffered once is there,
Its centre and its theme'. (Hymn 225)CHRIST SINGING IN THE MIDST