Isaiah 49:1 - 11; Luke 2:25 - 32

It is not a very difficult matter to spell out christianity from the Old Testament, though we could not do this if God had not given to us of His Spirit; but by the Spirit it is not difficult to see in Scripture that God had from the outset all His ways before Him. Nothing comes unexpectedly to Him. There was no question with God as to what He was going to do right through. No plan of God is affected by what men do. He knows perfectly what they are going to do. The prophet Isaiah made known that Israel would reject Christ when He came to them. I have turned to this particular scripture as showing that although the Old Testament is not dealing with christianity, but with things on earth and the people of God -- Israel, and all connected with them, yet undoubtedly by the Spirit you can see that God had other things in His mind connected with Christ when the Spirit of God indited it. This particular chapter speaks of what Christ is at the present time. The apostle Paul takes it up in Acts 13 to the people at Antioch in Pisidia. He found the Jews perverse and opposed to all he had to say, then he turned to the gentiles to present Christ to them, and for justification in what he did he takes up the verse in this chapter, "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth". And so elsewhere the apostle says, "I heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee". He quotes that in the second epistle to the Corinthians and gives it a present application, he says, "behold now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation". Now it is certain that what is spoken in this chapter in Isaiah had no reference to any then living. The circumstances predicted had not

come to pass, when Isaiah wrote, and the chapter could have no reference to Isaiah. Isaiah was never set for a light to the gentiles or to give salvation to the ends of the earth. He was never employed of God to raise up the dispersed of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. He was employed to speak beforehand of the One who would do it. He predicted what would come to pass, and a vast deal of the prophecy of Isaiah has reference to Christ. There is scarcely any prophet that speaks so much of Christ as Isaiah. All the prophets in some way have testified to Christ, but none are so full of the history of Christ as Isaiah. This part of the book particularly foresaw the great controversy which God would have with His people Israel in regard to Christ. The Spirit of God foresaw in Isaiah as in Simeon, that Christ would be presented to the people and be rejected, and so we have the controversy between God and Israel in regard to Christ taken up. I am speaking, supposing that what we get here is prophetic, and refers not to the prophet nor to anybody short of Christ; that is, that God had Christ in view. We get in the chapter a kind of dialogue. On the one hand Christ is Himself pleading certain things, and has the answer of Jehovah. Christ says, "And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me, And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified". Again in verse 4, "Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgement is with the Lord, and my work with my God". Then again in verse 5, "And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength".

It is a very terrible thing that the Lord should have had to say that He had spent His strength for nought and in vain. Outwardly there was little result from the ministry

of the Lord when He was here, and yet He could retire on this, that His judgement was with Jehovah and His work with His God; that is, He left everything in the hand and judgement of His God. I suppose all here are more or less familiar with what is recorded in the gospels, that is the ministry of Christ; and so you can understand the language which the Lord employs here as to the outward results of His work. Men in general, in regard to their work, want to see some great and apparent result. Man wants something to show, perfectly natural. Very few of us would like it otherwise. You do get many people content to labour on diligently and not concerned as to what will be the apparent result. The thought of reputation undoubtedly has a great place with men. While men are sometimes content not to get much result in the present, yet they look for reputation. But we do not find the Lord labouring for reputation. He was labouring not only for the benefit of man, but for the will of God, and yet, in regard to that, He had to say, "I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain".

Now I will speak a little of the answer that He gets, "And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength". We know that Israel was not gathered, but scattered; when the Lord was about to suffer He took up a word from Zechariah, "smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered". That came to pass. The shepherd was smitten and the sheep scattered, and if the sheep were scattered, in due time the nation was scattered. God did not intend the sheep to be scattered and the nation gathered. There was a little gathering, I admit, but it was not the gathering of Israel. It was the gathering of a few who were brought into a new association, that is into the church. We find that in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles -- a little company that the Lord had attracted to Himself -- the Spirit descended on them, for Christ had become

glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. Christ was at the right hand of God. When Scripture speaks of the right hand of God it means something. In a kingdom who is at the right hand of the king? The queen sits usually at the right hand of the king, because it is the most distinguished place of honour and glory. Now Christ sits at the right hand of God, and He is glorious, whatever He may be in the eyes of man, and certainly He is not glorious in the eyes of man now. The world is a place of free opinion, and men have very different ideas in regard of Christ, but whatever men may think, yet He is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and His God is His confidence. The Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost to report the glory of Christ. Now if He is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, He is the true Israel. The fact is that when the Lord Jesus was here upon earth He represented Israel under the eye of God. When He was born He had to go down to Egypt in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, "Out of Egypt have I called my son". He represented Israel in the eye of God, and hence if Christ be glorious in the eye of God it involves the ultimate restoration of Israel. It is a great point that He should be glorious, though Israel was not gathered, in the eye of God. Israel was really hid in Christ, and the work which Christ has accomplished holds good for Israel. He took up the liabilities under which Israel was, and met them, and, as we read in Romans 11, all Israel shall be saved; really hanging on the fact that Christ is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah.

I think it very important that the church should be distinct in maintaining the hope of Israel. The Jews are all over the face of the earth, but to a very large extent have given up their hope, they are content to accept things as they are in the world, and to make the best of them; but their hope is maintained by the Spirit of God in christians, that is in those who know that Christ is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. No greater mistake has been made than for any nation upon earth to assume to be

a particularly favoured people with God. There is no particular people with God nationally at the present time, except the church. There may be the claiming of the position of Israel, but I do not think God will allow the claim. It is not according to truth. If you look at verse 6, "And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth"; you will see that the early part of this verse is confirmatory of what I have said, viz., that the ultimate restoration of Israel is dependent on Christ being glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. The tribes are to be raised and preserved, and Simeon takes that up in Luke 2, when he held the child Jesus in his arms and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel". He was content to depart when he had seen Jehovah's Christ. The very fact of Christ being glorious is the pledge of the restoration of Israel, and the One who will be employed of God to bring that about will be Christ Himself. It is a great thing to hold by this, and to entirely abandon any false position. If it was the purpose of God to recognise Israel as His people upon earth, God will hold to His purpose, and will most infallibly bring it to pass by Christ.

But we get another thing coming in; God says, I have set Thee a light to the nations, that is, the nations in contrast to Israel, "that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth". Simeon takes up that thought in Luke 2. He says, "a light for revelation of the Gentiles". The apostle also takes it up, as we have seen, in Acts 13. It would be a terrible thing if one could not see the restoration of Israel. It would be as though God had taken up something, and that something had failed. We may be quite sure that what God has taken up He will

certainly bring to result and that although it may be clouded for a moment, yet God will not be baffled in anything which He has contemplated. Only one word more in regard to it: in the tabernacle, if you remember, there was the golden table and on the table twelve loaves; those twelve loaves represented the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve loaves were borne on the golden table, and what does that mean? It means that instead of Christ being borne by the twelve tribes, the twelve tribes were borne by Christ. The high priest in Israel bore the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on the breastplate which covered his heart. All that involves restoration. But in the meantime Christ is a light to the gentiles and God's salvation to the ends of the earth. I present these two thoughts because they are extremely important to us. One great property of light is to bring things into view. In the darkness of the night you do not see anything, but when the sun rises everything comes into view. So it was in regard to the gentiles. The gentiles in a sense had got out of the sight of God. They were lost in idolatry and darkness, degradation and debasement. But Christ was a light of the gentiles. That is, the gentiles were to be brought into the view of God. It is in that sense that I understand that Christ is a light of the gentiles. Simeon says, "a light for revelation of the Gentiles" that is to bring the gentiles into view. We get mercy for us poor gentiles.

Now another point is, Christ is salvation to the ends of the earth. Light stands in contrast to darkness, and salvation in contrast to bondage, and God could present Christ as salvation to the nations because in Christ is an outlet from the bondage in which man is found. I want to make that point plain. If there were no bondage there would be no occasion for salvation, but there is bondage and hence there arises the necessity for salvation. We have an illustration of it in the case of Israel. They were in bondage in Egypt to Pharaoh and his taskmasters, and because they were in bondage there was necessity for

salvation. Hence it was that God came out in the character of a Saviour to Israel, to save them from their bondage. Now in regard to the gentiles, there were three things that marked them. One was lawlessness, a second was hatred, and a third darkness. That is where man really abode. It was true in regard of Israel when the Lord came. He found Israel lawless, hateful and hating one another and in moral darkness. They had not taken advantage of the opportunities God had given them. But when Christ was here there was an outlet from the bondage and that outlet was Himself, and persons here and there found it. Zacchaeus found it, the disciples found it, and others, too. In the company of Christ they ceased to be lawless, they ceased to be hateful and hating, and were not in darkness for they came into the light of the revelation of God. The same became true in regard to the gentiles. The Greeks and the barbarians were lawless. Their minds were blinded; they were idolators; they had no real ideal of a moral being; their gods conveyed immoral ideas; they had no idea of a living God or of righteousness or holiness. They were sunk in degradation, each nation doing its own will, and debased by idolatry. It has been said very often that idolatry was a deification of the lusts to which men are prone, and men got religious sanction for the lusts of the human heart, and it had a most fearful effect in regard of man. Men certainly did not love one another very much. There was no love to spare in the darkness of idolatry. In that state of things you might have found traces of natural affection, but in the general relations between men, they were hateful and hating one another, being morally in darkness because they had no light in regard to God. What has now come to pass is that Christ is light. The gentiles have come into the view of God and Christ is salvation to the gentiles. The judgement of God is held back in consequence of Christ having come in. When Christ came and was rejected, judgement might well have come in when the condition of man was taken into account;

but instead of that, what has come to pass is that Christ is salvation. Judgement is stayed and, in the place of the judgement of God, what marks the present moment is an acceptable time and a day of salvation. And the reason of it is that Christ at the present time stands to the gentiles in the position of a light to bring them into the view of God, and there is salvation to them so that they may escape from the bondage in which men are, as the result of lawlessness having come into the world.

Now what is the gain of it to us? We have to get everything by Christ. It is only by Christ that the gentiles have come into the view of God. Had it not been for Christ we had all been idolators to this day. Whatever course the world might have taken I could not say, but, apart from Christ, as far as we can conjecture, we would be abiding in the darkness. We would have been hid away from God in the darkness of idolatry. Judaism never dispersed the darkness, nor philosophy; and my impression is that if christianity had not came in, there would not have been science, for science is an outcome of the liberation of the mind by the light of christianity. Judgement is stayed and the hand of God held back by the fact of Christ having come in. Christ is the head of every man. The present moment is a remarkable moment, an accepted time, a day of salvation, because Christ is an escape from the conditions which are prevalent in the world. Now I put it to you. How far have we escaped? How far are you free from lawlessness? I will tell you what righteousness means; it means to be bound to Christ, or, to use a scriptural figure, to be married to Christ. If you are married to Christ, you are no longer lawless but in righteousness, and the proof of that is that you practise righteousness. We have no proof whatever of anyone being joined to Christ except in that they practise righteousness. A true wife shows that she is a true wife by doing the works which please her husband. If she does not, she does not give much proof that she is a true wife; and so in regard of us we prove that we are married

to Christ by the practice of God's will and not our own will, in this world. God has left us here to that end. You will remember the admonition to the Romans in chapter 12, to yield their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which was their reasonable service; then it adds, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God". I have a question for all here. Have you been exercised to find out what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? You can find it out if you desire. God will certainly enlighten you if you wish to be enlightened. Now we have to prove that will. It is no good talking or speculating about it. The thing is to prove it. If it were not possible to know it we could not prove it, but if it be possible to know it we can prove it, and are left here to that end, and in proving it we find that we are no longer lawless but joined to Christ.

Then Christ is salvation from the hatred that is in the world, for if you come under the influence of Christ the effect will be that you will find yourself in fellowship with other christians and will come into an atmosphere not of hatred, but of love. The Lord enjoined the disciples that they were to love one another as He had loved them. He left a little company on earth for that. Love was the atmosphere of that circle, and when others entered into that circle they found themselves in salvation, that is from the hatred that prevailed in the world; and so too in regard to the other point to which I have alluded. In coming where the Spirit of God was, that is to the circle which Christ formed, they came into the light of God, for if the Spirit of God were there, the light must be there. They came into the house of God, and were saved out of darkness, so that Christ had become salvation to the gentiles; salvation from lawlessness, from hatred and from darkness. It is an accepted time and a day of salvation, and it is a great thing for us if we have found Christ to be all that. Each one must enter into

it for himself. Each one must of necessity have his own particular apprehension of Christ. You cannot alter Christ being light to the Gentiles and salvation, but of course, the fact of Christ being salvation will not affect you and me except as we apprehend what Christ is.

May God give us to understand better what it is to apprehend Christ as God's salvation.

READING ON EXODUS 15

Exodus 15:1 - 19

F.E.R. If I recollect aright we had this chapter four years ago. Still there are not many here who were present then. It gives a very comprehensive view of things, in a typical way. "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning". Hence while all these dealings of God with the children of Israel were literal, the record of them is for us. "That we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope". Now one thing I would like to touch on is, that God begins with testimony, and the purpose of that testimony is to set people in movement. Then it is movement all along, that is the truth of things. You have no quiet time.

W.M. You mean movement in the sense of exercise of soul.

F.E.R. Quite so. There is no moment when you are not in movement morally.

W.M. That is the effect of the testimony.

F.E.R. Yes. Do you know what the testimony was, in the case of the children of Israel, that set them in movement?

L.P.T. The ark of the covenant.

F.E.R. No, that came in afterwards. I think it was the blood and the passover lamb that set them in movement. The blood was the witness that God had come out in mercy, and intended to overthrow the world system that held His people in bondage. You can see it more distinctly in the antitype, that is, in Christ. He is the witness of God's mercy, and that God intends to overthrow the world's system. You can understand that if the world had been what it ought to have been according to God, there would not have been need for God to come out in testimony. He comes out in testimony because

the world is not according to God, but then the testimony involves that God is going to overthrow the world system; but the blood is the witness on the part of God to redemption.

J.P. And in the type it very soon occurred.

F.E.R. That is the truth we have to look at in Christ. When I speak of 'the world', of course I mean the world in its principle and organisation, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life". The things in which men live, Christ is the wisdom and the power of God to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.

W.M. Do you mean that the blood is the witness of the total unsuitability of the world to God? It hardly appears on the surface that the blood is the witness of the setting aside of the world system.

F.E.R. But if Christ comes as light into the world, it puts the world to the test, and will the world bear the test? The Lord Jesus said, "I am come a light into the world". John 3:16 - 21, makes it clear enough that the coming of Christ into the world of necessity involved the overthrow of the world. When God intervenes, and the Son of God comes in, you must have the overthrow of what is not of God.

J.S.A. You mean that in the type the blood of the passover is God coming out in mercy in connection with the announced judgement on all Egypt.

F.E.R. It involved the judgement of the Egyptians, that is my point in regard to it.

W.M. The entire rejection of Christ involved the setting aside of the world system, but that is not what you mean.

F.E.R. No. It is the fact of God coming out in that kind of testimony. If Egypt and the world system had been according to God, God would not have come in by the blood. His coming in by the blood shows that the world is not according to God and the blood does not set the world right.

W.M. He would not have come in by death.

F.E.R. No.

G.W.H. I suppose the world is viewed as a moral system there, and the divine thought was that in setting this aside a moral system according to God might be introduced.

F.E.R. Exactly. Hence the intervention of God in Christ involves a new beginning.

W.M. I suppose on the other hand if the world had been according to God Christ would have come in as the crown of man.

F.E.R. But then He would not, I suppose, have come into it at all.

W.M. No, quite so; He came by water and blood.

F.E.R. Yes, and in that very passage all is in connection with overcoming the world.

J.S.A. You get a fresh start very clearly in chapter 12, "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months".

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. Would you say that the blood was not only the testimony to the love of God but to the end of man?

F.E.R. I think so, and to the end of the world. Christ appeared once, in the end of the world to put away sin by His own sacrifice. The testimony of God was to set the people in movement, and that is the case in regard of us. If we are not in movement we are not christians, because the effect of God's testimony is to set us in movement. You get that idea in the Pilgrim's Progress. We do not like being set in movement. The greater part of people would be content to remain where they are. The blood set the children of Israel in movement.

J.P. That is very evident.

W.M. They began to move that very night.

F.E.R. Why? Because Egypt was not according to God. It was a world of lust and pride. Israel had to leave it because it was obnoxious to God.

W.M. It became a city of destruction.

F.E.R. Because the world was obnoxious to God. The point was to leave Egypt.

J.S.A. I suppose you get an illustration in the case of Lot and his family of how reluctant people are to leave the city. Lot was a just man.

F.E.R. He was reluctant to leave the world. Sodom was a city of destruction, and Lot was reluctant to leave it, and so are people now. They want to fit christianity in with this world and have succeeded in doing it very much; but as I said before, the testimony of God in the case of Israel set the people in movement. They were not to remain in Egypt, but to remove out of it.

W.M. Is that set forth in the expression in Galatians, He "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world"?

F.E.R. Exactly, that is, to set us in movement.

G.W.H. The testimony Moses was to give to Pharaoh was, "Let my people go, that they may serve me".

F.E.R. God would not be served by the people while they were in bondage.

J.A. His would not be the acknowledged superior power if they were in bondage.

F.E.R. No. Now another point is this, that people may raise the question, if we are going to lose this world what are we going to get? I think I can understand that question. God answered the question in dividing the Red Sea. He said you are going to get a way through death, not to judgement, but to life. Then in connection with that the power of the enemy is destroyed, for the moment I see a way through death to life, the power of death is broken, "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage".

W.M. It is very remarkable that the two types though so close together are kept separate, the blood and the Red Sea.

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. You look upon the blood as the testimony that set them in movement, and the Red Sea as deliverance from the enemy.

F.E.R. Quite so. The truth is that God has come out in the rights of mercy. The world is obnoxious to God and God has come out to bring redemption to man, but that man may leave the world which is obnoxious to God.

J.S.A. When you are speaking of leaving this world to enter upon another you are not speaking of dying literally, but the present experience of the soul in this life.

F.E.R. Quite so, that is what is set forth in this chapter. You get no type of going to heaven. The chapter refers to what takes place here, only it is a great thing for us to apprehend that the death of Christ has broken the power of death, that a way has been made through death; not to judgement, but to life. That is what has come to pass by the power of God in the resurrection of Christ. Christ entered into death to destroy him that had the power of death. The Red Sea has been smitten and the waters divided, and we apprehend a way through the sea, not to judgement but to life.

W.M. When you say life, are you looking at the whole purpose of God right through to Canaan, for that was embraced in their song?

F.E.R. Yes.

L.C.B. In the case of Abraham would it not be his calling that began his movement? What difference do you make between the blood here and his calling?

F.E.R. Abraham's case was a more real thing morally than that of Israel in Egypt; the people felt the pressure of Egypt and in a sense were glad to leave it; but the call of Abraham involved a good deal, that is, the break with country, kindred and father's house. It comes to that with us all really.

J.A. It is like a second movement. The first movement sets you in motion.

F.E.R. It is deeper in a way. The appeal to Abraham went deeper than in the case of Israel.

G.W.H. Scripture hardly contemplates a christian going on with the world and God at the same time.

F.E.R. If he does, it means that the testimony of God has produced no moral effect upon him. The testimony of God would undoubtedly set a man in movement where it is accepted in faith, but then it was not like a leap in the dark, because when the Red Sea was divided there was an end of all their distress. So in regard to us, when we apprehend the import of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, there is an end to distress, we see a way through. Man is not blocked by death now, because by the death of Christ there is a way through.

W.M. Because He is through.

F.E.R. Christ is risen. But we do not pass through in a literal way like Christ; we go through figuratively in baptism, and the meaning and force of it is that a person leaves the world, but he leaves it to find himself with God, with a good conscience. "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ", I think that is right.

J.P. I think so, indeed. I was mindful of that passage in Peter. Death which was in a certain sense so naturally terrible to man has really become salvation to us; that is, baptism if accepted in the meaning of it is a very real thing, but it is to find yourself with God and a good conscience by the resurrection of Christ.

W.M. I suppose the significance of that was very plain to a Jew in the early days, when he left everything by it.

F.E.R. I think so. He found himself with God with a good conscience.

W.M. He had left the world.

F.E.R. Yes, but to find God, that is by death, as we had this morning. When a person gets forgiveness it is that he may accept death and that is by baptism.

W.M. Would you think that was involved in what

Ananias said to Paul, "arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins"? He had thus a good conscience before God.

F.E.R. He was to get it by baptism. Now we get the first great thought in the divine purpose in verse 13, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation".

W.M. How could that be said when they were only in the wilderness?

F.E.R. It is interesting that the people were redeemed in Egypt, the blood was there, and it was the blood of redemption. But there is another step looked at in reference to them, that is, "Thou ... hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed", the testimony of redemption had put the people in movement. The people had so far responded to it, and God had led forth the people, and further had brought them by His strength unto the abode of His holiness. It says, "holy habitation", but it is really the abode of His holiness. That is where they had come to through the Red Sea.

W.M. They were brought to God.

F.E.R. Exactly, but where the holiness of God abides.

Rem. That was not the wilderness, properly speaking.

F.E.R. Not the wilderness exactly, and yet it was the wilderness; it was the abode of His holiness. It is made good with us by the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. I understand the abode of God's holiness to be His love. God has brought us there.

W.M. Because there is no holiness apart from love.

F.E.R. No, evidently the holiness of God abides in His nature, and the love of God is shed abroad in out hearts by the Holy Spirit. Hence it is we are brought to the abode of His holiness.

J.P. It shows the importance of taking up these expressions in their moral bearings. We are apt to be hindered by material thoughts.

F.E.R. We have been set in movement by the testimony of mercy and the end is to be brought to the love of God.

J.P. That is, the first thing is that the rights of God are established in redemption; then the testimony of it reaches us, and it sets us in motion, and that answers to 'Thou hast led them forth'.

F.E.R. You cannot remain in the world of nature, that is, Egypt, because the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are wholly and entirely opposed to all that God is revealed to be. There is nothing of grace or of mercy or of truth or of love in them. You are affected by the testimony of God in order to leave the world which is obnoxious to God, and which God intends in result to bring to nought. Then God shows me that He has appointed a way through death into life. I am brought face to face to God with a good conscience, and God brings me to the abode of His holiness.

W.M. And in principle that is an eternal abiding place.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.S.A. I suppose that passage in Peter is on the same line, "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God".

F.E.R. I think that is the first great step in our experience; God has led forth the people whom He has redeemed and brought them by His strength to the abode of His holiness. I do not think that in a sense we have to stop there. What took place when Israel was brought into the wilderness was that God set up His dwelling place among them, but after that they were still to be in movement, but guided by the ark of the covenant. We are brought to the abode of His holiness. But then we enter upon another character of exercise: it is all movement, depend upon it, and there is no rest.

J.S.A. I think there is something interesting in that, very like God's announcement of His purpose in chapter 6, "I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I

will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgements: and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God". There is a point reached; but then it goes on to say, "And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage". That is a further step.

F.E.R. We get that brought out here in verse 17, "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance".

W.M. Would you say the one state of experience brings them from Egypt across the Red Sea, and the other through the wilderness to Canaan?

F.E.R. Yes. The first great thing is to bring them to God, that is the most important part of it. It is immensely important to us because we are brought to God that we may learn God. That is the object of our being left here. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us". We are left here to pass through a good many things, circumstances, trials, etc., but that we may learn God and have confidence in Him. He brings us to the abode of His holiness to that end.

L.D.T. What do you mean by the abode of His holiness?

F.E.R. I was saying it is His nature.

J.P. I think the other day, with regard to the expression in Hebrews 12, "that we might be partakers of his holiness", you spoke of God's holiness there as connected with His nature.

F.E.R. Evidently the abode of His holiness is His nature. You cannot separate the holiness of God from His nature. It says the "love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit". Hence it is holy love. We are brought to the abode of His holiness, in being brought to the knowledge of His love.

J.P. That we may come under divine teaching.

F.E.R. The object is that He may be so known to us that we have confidence in Him. It is not such an easy matter to confide in God when everything is going crooked.

W.M. I suppose confidence will spring not from faith exactly, but from the knowledge of God.

F.E.R. Yes, confidence is begotten by love. We have often had that before us. Nothing but love will beget confidence.

W.M. Is this knowledge of God essential in order to go through the wilderness?

F.E.R. Well, I think it is essential to enter into what is beyond. How are you going to be qualified for heaven?

W.M. By entering into heavenly things now.

F.E.R. Our qualification for heaven is the knowledge of God. You will never enter into what is beyond except by the knowledge of God.

W.M. So you look on the wilderness as being incidental.

F.E.R. Yes, incidental; very important, but incidental; it is the training ground. God's love is begotten in our hearts so that we may be prepared to go beyond. The notion is in people's minds that they go to heaven at the end of their path here as a matter of course, but the question I would ask is this, what qualification have you for heaven? What are you going to do when you get there? I think that is a matter which people would do well to take into account, What suitability have you for heaven?

W.M. I suppose that was in Mr. Darby's mind when he wrote 'There no stranger God shall meet thee'. You must know God here.

J.S.A. And there is another thing which our materialistic minds are forgetting and that is that God is a Spirit and that our knowledge of Him can only be in a moral way.

J.A. People think of meeting their friends and relatives in heaven. There is no knowledge of God in that.

P.A. So there is room for trying our confidence in God, in the wilderness.

F.E.R. Yes. Abraham was tried over and over again, so God allows room for the trial of our faith. "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ". God allows us trial, but the point is that it should result in confidence in God, and the knowledge of God's love is that which begets confidence. It is so in a house; it is the love of the parents that begets confidence in the children. They reciprocate what they get in the parents. If the parents are suspicious of the children, the children will be suspicious.

P.A. It is all in view of the glory.

F.E.R. It is all a part of our education and the first principle of education is that we should know the love of God, so as to have confidence in God; and when confidence is begotten we are prepared to go a step further; we leave our own side and begin to enter into God's side, that is, the side of His glory. We begin with His grace and that leads us on to the knowledge of His love and that gives confidence in Himself, and then we are prepared to go on and contemplate His glory. Christ is the centre of His glory, and His glory is bound up with Christ and you are prepared to contemplate that, when your heart is established in confidence. Until then God cannot make known to you all His things, so it is in a man's house. If I did not feel that my children had confidence in me I would not be prepared to make known to them all my mind, but if I feel I have their confidence I make known to them in due time my purposes, and that is what God does. That is what is meant here, "Thou shalt bring them in", into the land of His purpose; that is what God is bent on. "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in". Where is God to dwell?

W.M. Does He not dwell in the love of His people?

F.E.R. No, in the universe, what was prefigured by the tabernacle. The tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them. The universe will be the house of God, but the universe under Christ. That is the idea of God's dwelling place. The whole universe is to become a sanctuary. If God has the confidence of our hearts He will bring us into the sense of our relation to that order of things, into the land of promise; that is, into all the things in which God is going to be glorified, and we are kept in movement to that end.

J.P. So that at the end of verse 13 really He gains our confidence, and then in verse 17 we go over to His side, His glory. I was struck as we read it. It says, "which thou hast made (not for us to dwell in, but) for thee to dwell in".

F.E.R. It shows the great divine thought of which we often speak, the universe of bliss. The universe of bliss is the dwelling place of God; it is the place God has made to dwell in.

J.P. So the Scriptures do not close until they bring it before us?

F.E.R. No, and we apprehend now the place which the church has in connection with that system. "The fulness of him that filleth all in all". Christ has ascended up far above all heavens to fill all things. He has a name above every name; connected with the purpose of God to head up all things in Christ, and the church is His body. The church does not belong to this world, but to the world of which Christ is the head.

P.A.E.S. Would you say Moses was a sample of a man in movement, when after seeing the ways of God he wanted to advance to the glory in Exodus 33?

F.E.R. I think he was. He says, "shew me thy glory".

G.W.H. I suppose the function of priest is to set the people free from all wilderness experiences so that they may enter on to the ground of divine counsel.

F.E.R. I think so.

W.M. What you were saying is illustrated in Hebrews 8. In that chapter you get the new covenant, the idea of God's disposition, and then you are encouraged to come in the tenth chapter to what is set forth in the holiest.

F.E.R. Yes, in chapter 8 you get the new covenant, in chapter 9 purgation, in chapter 10 the holiest. What do you come to the holiest for? The holiest is not the land of promise. You come to the holiest to contemplate the ark of the covenant. Then it is you can apprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height. You cannot traverse the land until you have arrived at the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant was to guide the people into the land. The ark of the covenant went before the people to lead them into it. Getting to the ark of the covenant is having Christ dwelling in the heart by faith; then it is you have the key to everything; that is, you can apprehend with all saints the breadth and length and depth and height.

W.M. Everything grows out of that.

F.E.R. Yes. We enter the holiest to learn what Christ is on the part of God. We have acquaintance in the wilderness of what Christ is on our part, but in the holiest you learn what Christ is on God's part, and when you have that you can understand the breadth and length and depth and height, but you could not otherwise, any more than the children of Israel could take possession of the land without the ark of the covenant. They would have been swallowed up by the Canaanites if it had not been for the ark.

W.M. Everything is involved in the ark of the covenant.

F.E.R. Yes. I think it is most remarkable that you should have in type and figure in the things that occurred to the children of Israel, such a remarkable and distinct setting forth of God's ways now. Anybody not interested in them I pity. People will read ridiculous stories, and find interest in them, and yet in such a wonderful unfolding of divine ways as in the case of the children of

Israel they do not seem to have a bit of interest. It is a great thing to have the heart established in grace with confidence in God, and then you know that God is your friend, like He was to Abraham. He was a friend of God, but then he knew that God was his friend. When you know that, then you want to know what is in His mind. What is that? Christ and the whole system and order of things of which Christ is the gathering centre, and that is what the Spirit of God would keep us occupied with.

P.A. It is by His having come out to us that we are able to enter into His side.

F.E.R. That is it, so that we might have desire to enter into His things; that is what God has purposed for His glory. I think christians make a very poor show who do not go on.

J.P. I see too from what you say there is plenty of room for movement.

F.E.R. Because when you are brought in a way to one point, to the holy abode of God, that at once sets you in movement for another.

J.P. It is no small thing to be brought there.

F.E.R. Then when you get to the land it is all fighting.

G.W.H. I suppose that corresponds to Ephesians 6.

F.E.R. It is all fighting; you have to stand your ground now.

J.P. You cannot have lying down and going to sleep when you get to the land.

F.E.R. No, it is fighting.

G.W.H. But you have mighty good armour.

F.E.R. Yes, you are not badly off, the sword of the Spirit and the whole panoply of God. There is a sort of exhilaration in fighting when you know you are not likely to be defeated.

J.A. Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.

J.P. I see, too, how completely all this would deliver us from every kind of thing here.

F.E.R. I think so; and what a witness God has left in

the world of it all. Look at the Jew; he is a standing witness that God has left to the truth of things. You have the Jew scattered beyond Babylon. God swore in the wilderness that He would carry them away beyond Damascus, that is, beyond Babylon really.

W.M. It remains true that the wrath of God is come upon them to the uttermost.

F.E.R. Yes. Well, I think we ought to be in exercise. I do not think that God cares to go on with indifferent people. "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth".

P.A. We ought to be stirred up.

F.E.R. I think so. People want to be in movement. It is a great thing to go on, not to be content to remain where you are.

G.W.H. We are very diligent about our own things, but we are slow about the Lord's things.

F.E.R. I think so. I am convinced that we have only touched the fringe of things. We have a very poor apprehension of divine things. Who can tell us much about the breadth and length and depth and height? It carries us back a little in thought to Abraham. After he was parted from Lot he was told to lift his eyes and see the length and breadth of the land. We are to apprehend not only the length and breadth but the depth and height, which is the universe.

J.P. It was after all a surface measure with Abraham.

F.E.R. Because it was a literal land. When you come to the universe of bliss it is the breadth and length and depth and height.

THE MEANS BY WHICH WE ARE KEPT

Hebrews 4:11 - 16; 1 John 2:1 - 5; Numbers 16:48; Numbers 17:1 - 13

My purpose is to bring before you two thoughts, that is the word of God and the priesthood of Christ in their practical value to us, for there is no doubt that we are kept by their means down here. If we were not kept, undoubtedly we should turn away. We are "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation". Divine things would lose their power in our souls and the world and the flesh would prove too strong for us. There used to be taught the doctrine of final perseverance. That may be all well. It is a good thing to keep on to the end, but final perseverance is not enough, it depends too much on human effort, and, as against all that we have to meet, human effort is not enough; we are kept, and every christian is conscious of being kept, and I am conscious that if I were not kept I should not continue in the faith.

Now, what God uses are the two things spoken of in the latter part of Hebrews 4, that is, the word of God and the priesthood of Christ. I want to bring before you the practical bearing of each to every one of us. In 1 John 2, we get the thought of His word, "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected". Then it adds, "hereby know we that we are in him"; priesthood is available to us because we are in Him. If we were not in Him, it would not be so. In the epistle to the Hebrews Christ is presented to us in a twofold light, that is, as apostle and as high priest, fulfilling the type of Moses and Aaron. In the calling and profession of Israel, Moses was the apostle and Aaron the high priest. God did not let Moses be both, but He chose a brother of Moses, the next distinguished man -- Aaron -- to be high priest, and there were the two, the apostle and the high priest. Now, both offices are combined in Christ. When

they were distinct, the high priest was not equal to the apostle; Aaron was not equal to Moses. Aaron broke down sadly in making the golden calf; and Moses was faithful in all God's house. When we come to the antitype, to Christ, the priest is equal to the apostle, for both offices are combined in one person; that is the truth in the epistle to the Hebrews.

In regard to the apostle, the point is that God speaks by him; on the other hand the idea of priest is that he represents the people before God. This was true in the case of Aaron. In the passage I read in Numbers we read that he stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stayed. He made intercession on behalf of the people. Now, in regard to the apostle, whatever God speaks by him has reference to all men. Christ is Apostle, and what God speaks by Him has reference to all men, but I could not say that Christ is high priest for all men. God has set forth Jesus to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness toward all. God addresses Himself now to all men. He "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth", but the application of priesthood is more limited; Christ represents us in the presence of God. I could not say that Christ is high priest for all, for He is priest for those who are in Him. I think priesthood is near akin to the truth in Romans 7, we are "married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God". The One to whom we are married is priest on our behalf in the presence of God, and we get the good of His priesthood.

I will speak first in regard to the word of God. What I understand by the word of Christ in 1 John 2 is the revelation of God. We get the word of Christ put in contrast to the word of Moses in the gospel of John. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ", it goes on to say. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him". The word

of Christ is the declaration of God, and hence it says "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected".

Now in Hebrews 4:11 - 13, we have the admonition, "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do". Here we get the word of God, that is the revelation of Himself. I take it that in the highest sense Christ is the word of God, but the word of God is in the believer by the Spirit. The word of God is presented as testimony to all men, but in the believer the word of God is living. I do not understand the word of God to be living except in the believer. When it comes into contact with man prepared for it by the work of God, that is, born again, then the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Nothing can be more vitally important to us than the word of God in us, because it is the revelation of God in His mind in regard to us, and therefore the effect is to put everything in place in us, and you cannot get things put in place in any one except by the word of God. To begin with, the word of God makes God known to us in His grace, and, therefore, God has a right in regard to us that we should be here for His will. Then the word of God makes Christ known to us as Head, so that we should be guided by Christ who is wisdom to us. You get that thought in the last verses of 1 Corinthians 1, "who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption". Christ is to us wisdom, that we should be guided by Him. My point is that when the word of God is living in the believer, the effect is that everything is regulated by it; then there is

the apprehension of every relationship which God has established, and we seek to walk according to the mind of God; hence one can understand the expression we have in John's epistle, "in him verily is the love of God perfected", that is that everything is put in place in the heart of the believer by the word of God, and the love of God is perfected there; so if the word of God regulates everything in me I love God, and I love Christ, and I love fellow christians, and I love my wife and my children, and am in that way faithful in every relationship in which God has been pleased to put me. That is a very great point.

I venture to say in any man's mind in whom the word of God is not, things are more or less in confusion. There is something which has not a proper place with that man; for it is the revelation of God and of His mind that puts everything in order in the heart of man.

There is another effect of the word of God; it discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart; you will find you will be often put sorely to the proof by the word of God. I can understand it because we are surrounded by many things which are subtle. Very often there is a tendency to give undue importance to something which is not of great importance. That is why the apostle says at the end of John's epistle, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols". A child may be an idol or a house or furniture or a business. If they come in to maintain any sort of supremacy in the heart and to displace what is due to God they become idols and we are admonished to keep ourselves from idols. We are to look to it that everything is regulated by the word of God, and what is not according to God is detected by His word. If a man is getting on in business there is a danger of business becoming an idol to him. If a man gets his family too much before him there is a danger of his family becoming an idol to him. Idols may be found in every direction, and they are detected by the word of God. It will detect in you all that is contrary to God and His will, and the point is so to

give heed to it as that everything in us may be regulated according to God's mind. I believe that to be a point of primary importance. "The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow". It makes a subtle distinction, "and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do". The word of God would be ineffective in us except by the Spirit of God. He maintains the word in its power in us, and the word of God is the eye of God upon us, so that we walk here under His eye. I think we ought to be prepared for that, to be conscious as far as one can be, that we do not cherish anything which would contravene any obligation under which God has seen fit to place us.

I pass on to speak of the other means. It says, "Seeing then, that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession". It is evident that the object of priesthood is that we may hold fast our profession. The Spirit of God assumes that we may and will be exposed to one thing and another down here which will test us, and in spite of all, we are to hold fast our profession. I will give you an instance. Peter professed Christ, but under pressure he denied Christ, and yet in spite of his failure Peter was to hold fast his profession, and to that end the Lord prayed for him, and the intercession of the Lord on behalf of Peter was efficacious. Now, the same thing holds good in regard to us. It has been said that the object of priesthood is that we should not sin; I am speaking of sin in the extreme way, which is turning away from Christ; that is sin in Hebrews. The word of God would not make so much of sin in the detail of life. It is a wonderful thing that we are in Christ; we are represented in the presence of God; we have a great high priest that is passed through the heavens. Where do you think the

high priest has gone to? He has gone in to represent His people in the presence of God, just as Aaron bore the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on his shoulders and his heart, so Christ has gone in to God to represent His people before God. We in England think it might be a great matter to be represented at Court. A hackneyed expression is, 'A friend at Court', but the christian is represented at Court, he has a Friend at Court, who has passed through the heavens, gone right in to God to represent His people there. We were speaking some time ago of the great gain of being married to Him that we might bring forth fruit unto God; if it be true that we are in Him by the Spirit, His Word is in us, and He is our High Priest. He has gone into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us, and as I said before, you have a representative in the very highest place. Every christian has the right to claim Christ as his representative. But in the world I might have a representative at Court in some great person who would patronise me but had never entered into the circumstances, difficulties and trials to which I am exposed. That might very likely be; a man in comparatively humble position might have a friend at Court, but it is unlikely that friend could enter into the circumstances which surround the humble man in the world. Now in regard to Christ it says, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin". The fact is, that great as is our representative, and He could not be greater, because He is Jesus the Son of God, He has been in the very humble circumstances in which we are found here; hence He can sympathise with our infirmities having been exposed to the very trials to which we are. You will find the Lord when here continually suffering; it says, "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses". He healed people of every kind of sickness and infirmity, but He was Himself suffering all the time. We find the Lord weeping at the grave of Lazarus in

seeing the power that death had over the spirit of man. He entered into the circumstances in which we are found, hence when you think of Christ at the right hand of God you think of One who is capable of sympathising with our infirmities. Infirmities are not exactly sins. If you have a sick relative, a sick mother, or a sick child, or a sick husband, you come into infirmity; you feel yourself weak. Then when people find themselves in adverse circumstances in the world infirmity comes out; and I might speak in regard to other things, for we are exposed in the world to tribulation; the Lord said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation", but He who is now at the right hand of God is not exposed to these things, but He has passed through them, and gained experience of the circumstances in which we are, and hence we have a high priest at the right hand of God who can sympathise with our infirmities.

A strong word is used in regard of the Lord, He "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin". I have thought that every miracle the Lord did was a trial to Him. If you had power to work a miracle it would not be a trial to you. When He put His hand on the leper and healed him, it was a trial to Him, because He felt what the leper was under; so too when He raised the dead. He had power to do it, but He felt what it was for man to be under the pressure of death. So too He entered into the humble circumstances in which we are found that He might be able to sympathise with us, while we are still exposed to trial. So that he can sympathise with our infirmities. Now, at the right hand of God, in spite of the greatness of His position and of Himself, His heart can be sympathetic with His people down here. If I am a husband, my heart is sympathetic with my wife. Every true husband is. We are said to be married to another, to Him that is raised from the dead, so the heart of Christ is sympathetic with those who are in Him, and that is an immense point. The practical bearing of it comes out in the admonition that follows, "Let us therefore come

boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need". This means that there is some point in the universe where grace is on the throne. I think one's own heart has to find where that is. Grace is in the ascendant, it is on the throne. We find in the Old Testament the thought of the throne of iniquity. That is, there will be a point in the world where iniquity will be on the throne; but there is a point in the universe where grace is on the throne. As the apostle says in Romans 5, "that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign", and grace is reigning. Now we need not to search about for it, but to have the truth in the heart; when that is the case you have not much difficulty in finding the throne of grace. It is largely connected with the position of Christ at the right hand of God, interceding there for us. The throne of grace subsists and I come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. That is the proof of the sympathy and intercession of Christ at the right hand of God. You do not get turned away from the throne of grace. You do not get your petitions rejected. Your petition may not be answered at the moment and in the way you expect, and the reason is that God is wiser than we are; but in coming to the throne of grace you are not rejected but obtain mercy, that is consideration of your weakness and of the circumstances in which you are, and find "grace to help in time of need".

May God give us to know the value of the two things; the word of God, which is the practical link with Christ, and the intercession of Christ, which is the proof and evidence of the love which He has to us, so that we hold fast our profession.

READING ON HEBREWS

Hebrews 10:1 - 18

F.E.R. The thought in my mind is that there is one and the same way in which we enter into every blessing. There are many things presented to us in Scripture as blessings, for instance, forgiveness, salvation, reconciliation, eternal life, sonship, but we enter into them all in the same way. There are three steps marked out in this chapter; if you want to enter into any blessing the first thing is to find that it is in the mind of God; and the second is to see where it is established; the third is the witness of it. This must be invariably true. No blessing could reach us except it be in God's mind; there must be a point where it is established, else it would be unreal, unsubstantial; and in the existing state of things we must have the witness of it, for you enter into the blessing and possess it practically by the witness. These three are quite intelligible principles. They appear in the early part of this chapter where we get the will of God, the work of Christ, and not only His work, but Himself sitting at the right hand of God; and the witness of the Spirit. I mention that to give you an idea of what was in my mind. If we claim to have a blessing, say sonship or eternal life, or anything else, we should be able to give an account of it. Where does it lie? How does it come to us? Where is it established? and how do we get the good of it? These are pertinent questions to raise in regard to anything.

J.P. It is not only then that we need to be intelligent about these things, but in the way you put it really you could not have them without intelligence.

F.E.R. No. The first thing in regard to anything and everything is to know that it lies in God's will because it would be fruitless to talk about any blessing if we did not know that it lay in the mind of God.

J.P. And you think that is the thought of the expression, "The will of God". It means all that lies in the mind of God for man.

F.E.R. That is it. We could have no title if we did not know that it lay in God's mind for man.

W.M. And did Christ come to establish what was in God's mind for man?

F.E.R. Exactly, that is the second great point. That there might be a point in which it is established; and being established we now get the witness of it, so that we can come into every blessing by the witness of the Spirit.

J.S.A. It is quite certain that "every good gift ... is from above", as James says.

F.E.R. Yes, "from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning".

W.M. Do you look upon it that no blessing can be possessed apart from the Spirit?

F.E.R. I think I would go as far as that. Test anything of which we are accustomed to speak and you will find what we have said will apply. Take the simplest possible truth, righteousness. The first principle in regard to forgiveness is that it lies in God's mind. There it is that faith comes in, because faith apprehends what lies in the mind of God. You may take up any blessing, say reconciliation or eternal life, the first thing is the apprehension that that blessing lies in the mind of God.

J.P. So that it was a wonderful prayer on the part of the apostle, that the saints might be filled with the knowledge of God's will.

F.E.R. Quite so, in all wisdom. In christianity we do not get material blessings, all are spiritual; and if they are such the point is that they lie in the mind of God, and we cannot say that we have them until we have the witness of them. The object of the gospel is to make known to man what is in the mind of God toward man; to open men's eyes, that is, to undeceive people, "that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of

Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me". That was the commission which the Lord gave to Saul. It was making known that forgiveness of sins and inheritance were in the mind of God towards man, that is what the preacher does. He himself has an entrance into the mind of God and he can proclaim to anybody and everybody what is there.

W.M. What a man believes is true for everybody.

F.E.R. Quite so.

J.P. When you speak of what lies in the mind of God for man, you are not speaking of any particular class of people, it is man as such.

F.E.R. For man in the widest sense.

J.P. Supposing I mention reconciliation to you, what would you produce in the Scriptures?

F.E.R. Very well, reconciliation is in God's mind for man. The apostle went about beseeching men to be reconciled to God, preaching the word of reconciliation; because reconciliation lay in the mind of God the apostle could preach it. I take a stronger case, viz., sonship; it was the point of the apostle's preaching to the gentiles. God revealed His Son in him that he might preach Him as glad tidings among the gentiles. What the apostle made known to the gentiles was that sonship was in the mind of God with regard to men.

J.P. If he preached the Son of God, that involves sonship, does it not?

F.E.R. Yes. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (sonship)". That is what the apostle had proclaimed in Galatia, that is, to gentiles. Take salvation, "God ... will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth". Salvation is in the mind of God toward man everywhere.

W.M. Suppose you take eternal life.

F.E.R. Yes. "For God so loved the world, that he

gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life".

J.P. That is big enough.

F.E.R. Exactly. You could not produce anything, but the first principle of it is that it lies in God's mind for all men.

G.W.H. And is the second point, that it is all established in Christ?

F.E.R. That is of vital moment, all would be indefinite if there were not some point at which all these blessings were established. In Old Testament times now and again God gave glimpses of what lay in His mind, not very clear, for there was no point at which anything was established; that was what marked Old Testament times.

J.P. It makes a very wonderful thing of incarnation.

F.E.R. Very. Now we come to the will of God, and there is a point at which every blessing in God's mind is established.

J.S.A. And that point is necessarily a man if it is to be available for man.

F.E.R. Quite so.

W.M. Do you mean that every blessing in the mind of God is for all men?

F.E.R. Quite so. "God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth".

J.P. And the point of disclosure is the point of establishment. It is all come out in Christ and it is all established in Christ. It is really very wonderful to me because it is brought within the range of our apprehension.

F.E.R. All is definite and substantial. That is the force of the expression, "I come to do thy will, O God". It is virtually saying, I am coming to be the point where everything in the will of God is to be established, and the close of the passage is, that He is at the right hand of God, "From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool".

G.W.H. This was all secured in His death, I suppose.

F.E.R. Everything had to be secured through His death, but the point is that it is secured in Himself; that is, He is the point where everything is established and secured.

J.S.A. It was really all there in Him before His death, but His death was necessary to make it available for us.

F.E.R. Exactly.

W.M. Therefore you speak of all blessings as being in Christ.

F.E.R. Every blessing must be in God's mind, else you have no title, but then it is in God's mind for any man; the christian has no more title in that sense than anybody else. I do not think people quite understand that. Christians think they have a kind of exclusive title. There is a good deal of Calvinism abroad. I do not accept it. I do not think the christian has any more title than any other man.

L.T.D. Would you say it was accessible for all men?

F.E.R. For all men, because God has only one mind in regard of men.

L.T.D. And would you say it was consequent on Christ having done the will of God?

F.E.R. Yes, but also on Christ having become man; He is the head of every man, and whatever is secured and established in Christ is available and accessible to every man.

G.W.H. The difference being that the christian has availed himself of it and the man of the world has not.

J.S.A. He was not a christian until he had availed himself of it, until then he was on the same ground as everybody else.

W.M. He only apprehended what was in the mind of God for every man.

J.P. If that were not so you would be mightily cramped in trying to preach the gospel.

F.E.R. To my mind it is a wonderful thing that the mind of God in regard to man is disclosed, and as Mr. P. was saying it is made known at the very point where it is

established, and established at the very point where it is made known.

J.P. The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.

W.M. What do you mean by saying it is established at the very point where it was made known?

F.E.R. That is, in Christ.

W.M. It is all established by redemption.

F.E.R. Through that, it is a very great point to remember that all these things are established in Christ, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus".

J.S.A. I think it is important to see that it is established before it is available.

F.E.R. Yes; for instance, you could not get such a thing as sonship simply through redemption. You might get forgiveness, but not sonship. You could not understand it.

J.P. Because redemption has to say to the liabilities under which men were, but sonship lies outside of that.

F.E.R. Exactly, so too salvation. Salvation must be in a Man. I cannot understand it otherwise. I could not understand sonship apart from Christ. How do you know anything at all about sonship to God except in Christ? So too eternal life, how can you understand it except in Christ? Everything would be vague and indefinite if it were not established in Christ. "I come to do thy will, O God". "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second". The point is the will of God.

J.P. No wonder we have been in a fog. We have tried to see it in ourselves or in feelings or experiences.

F.E.R. Or resting on the letter; I do not believe that has helped people.

J.P. Trying to see it in passages of Scripture instead of seeing it in Christ, as you said, in a Man, that one Man.

F.E.R. Whether we had Scripture or not the mind of God would be there. The gospel was preached before they had the Scriptures.

J.P. I can certainly see a great deal of difference between what is in Scripture and the person of Christ.

F.E.R. Exactly. God did not make anything known inconsistent with the Old Testament Scriptures, but what we stand upon is the New Testament Scriptures, and Christ was preached before the New Testament Scriptures were written.

J.P. The word of God grew and multiplied before there was a line of the New Testament written.

F.E.R. Exactly. The importance is that people should connect the blessing which they have received with God's mind; there is a living God, and certain things in His mind in regard to man, and these things are made known, and not only made known, but one and all established in a Man.

W.M. The taking of that in is called faith.

F.E.R. Yes, so the Lord Jesus said, "ye believe in God, believe also in me". That is the point now. Old Testament saints believed in God, but now it is, "believe also in me".

J.P. I suppose it was the point in the apostles' preaching in Antioch of Pisidia, "Through this man".

F.E.R. "Is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins", because it is in Him. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins". It belongs to Him and to the universe of which He is head. It does not belong to this world.

W.M. What does not?

F.E.R. Forgiveness of sins, righteousness. The Spirit of God convicts this world concerning righteousness. You do not expect to find it in the world; the point is you will find it in Christ, but for the moment He is with the Father, but it belongs to the world of which Christ is the beginning and the head. Man is no better off in this world for having forgiveness; he often comes into trouble in this world. It does not make a man prosperous in this world, but he has that blessing "in Christ", in connection with another world of which Christ is the beginning and

centre. Israel will be brought into that world, and it is in that way they will have forgiveness of sins; they will never have it in this world.

J.P. So that "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable".

L.D.T. You made a remark yesterday morning about there only being one Man under the eye of God, and the great thing was to be in relation to that one Man. Now would you please say how we come into relation with that one Man.

F.E.R. I think the first thing is to apprehend what is in the mind of God, for whatever is in the mind of God is established in that one Man. We get into the blessings by being brought into attachment to that one Man. Then you get what is spoken of here, the witness of the Spirit. What marks the believer off from the rest of the world is that he has two things, faith and the Spirit.

W.M. So the Spirit is the bond that puts him in relation to Christ.

F.E.R. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit".

W.M. You do not mean attachment in the sense of affection.

F.E.R. No, a woman married is brought into attachment to a man.

J.P. That is, you use the word in its proper sense.

F.E.R. Not in a conventional sense.

J.S.A. You get the idea distinctly conveyed in 2 Corinthians 1, "Now he which stablisheth (firmly attaches) us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God".

W.M. So it is necessary before we do one bit of practical righteousness ourselves to be set in relation to Christ by the Spirit.

F.E.R. John says that distinctly, "he that doeth righteousness is righteous", but how are you righteous? by being brought into attachment to Christ. That man alone is righteous who is in relation to Christ. Every other man is lawless.

J.P. He might be religious but lawless all the same.

W.M. So the earth is righteous in regard to the sun.

F.E.R. Exactly. It does not move of its own will; it moves in its appointed orbit in relation to the sun; that is the effect of attachment; and the same thing is true in regard to Christ. We are attached to Christ by the Spirit, and instead of being lawless we move in the orbit of God's will.

J.S.A. As the apostle expresses it, "legitimately subject to Christ".

W.M. But there is nothing really possessed outside of that bond.

F.E.R. Nothing. It is wonderful that every blessing first lies in the mind of God and is of His pleasure. It is not that God is against man and Christ for man, which used to be a common thought; but every blessing which man can possess is really of God's pleasure, "I come to do thy will, O God". Then comes another point, that is, that the point of faith for us is Christ, and there it is that every blessing is established, so that you know what the character of the blessing is.

G.W.H. And when were those blessings available; when Christ ascended on high?

F.E.R. Yes, "When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men". He sent the promise of the Father that we might have a witness of every blessing. The Spirit bears witness to us of every blessing.

G.W.H. And in Acts 2, the Spirit brought report of divine favour toward man, not simply toward the little company there.

F.E.R. No; one result of it all is that you have to look outside yourself to learn anything. You learn everything in Christ. How do you know what a son of God is? No one knows except as it is apprehended in Christ. He is the Son of God. So too in regard to eternal life; Christ is eternal life. You must apprehend Christ if you would apprehend eternal life. So too reconciliation is in Christ.

You cannot understand divine complacency in man except in Christ. So with salvation, you cannot understand it except in Christ. Every one of us is naturally in bondage to things here. Who is out of it all? Christ. In Him there is salvation and nowhere else.

G.W.H. So the fact that Christ as man is in the presence of God is proof that God is toward man.

F.E.R. Exactly, but then the proof that God is toward man is in Christ saying, "I come to do thy will, O God".

W.M. That proves what you were saying this morning, that God is in mind the same as Christ; there is no divergence.

F.E.R. Yes, He came to do God's will. Christ came out to make known the mind of God and to be the point where everything should be established. Therefore when Christ is displayed in glory everything will be displayed; in the meantime all is established in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the witness of it. We thus get witness of every blessing, and by the Spirit are conformed to Christ. It is in that way that we come into the enjoyment of blessings.

J.P. It gives a good deal of meaning to the gospel of the glory of Christ.

F.E.R. Exactly, "we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord".

J.S.A. So that there is One in us to give effect to the mind of God for us.

F.E.R. To give effect to the mind of God which is set forth and established in Christ, so that Christ is the object of faith. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me".

J.P. So that we might say that Christ in glory is the proof that all that ever will be in the mind of God for man is established for man in a Man.

F.E.R. It is a tremendous advance on all that went before. The point is Christ is the testimony. The apostle preached Christ as glad tidings.

W.M. So that God's world-wide testimony is Christ.

F.E.R. Yes, the apostle Paul was taken up to that end. The twelve limited their ministry to the Jews, but Paul was taken up with a world-wide mission corresponding very much to the sun in heaven. It is a universal witness. "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof". And the apostle was called to present Christ in that way, "in the whole creation which is under heaven". "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus". He preached Christ; so Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ unto them.

W.M. When you come to the Spirit you come to something more limited.

F.E.R. Yes, because the Spirit is evidently only given to those that believe. God could not give the Spirit to a man who is perfectly indifferent to His mind. When a man accepts what is in the mind of God, that is, in faith, then it is the Spirit is given; but the point in the giving of the Spirit is to attach us to Christ.

W.M. Like the law of attraction, which keeps the earth in its place, that it may get the benefit of the sun.

F.E.R. Yes, the Spirit is given to bring a man into attachment to the centre of the whole divine system.

J.P. Only in that way could you understand that passage, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God". Because they are given to us in Christ.

F.E.R. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His. That is a point of vital moment. The Spirit is not given to us simply that we may understand things, but that we may be brought into attachment, and by being brought to attachment it is that we understand everything. I do not think a wife understands a man's interests until she is married to him. When she is married then his interests are her interests, not until then.

J.P. The secret of understanding is really attachment. I am sure of that.

F.E.R. It is in the fact of being attached to Christ that we enter into all that is of Christ. I think it is wonderful to see not only that there are great blessings in the mind of God for man, but that there is a perfect setting forth of them in Christ, be they what they may.

J.P. There is not another thing to be disclosed.

F.E.R. Who is the one man free from death? I am not free from death literally. You can only understand this in Christ. How can you understand reconciliation? Only in Christ, because only in Christ there is complacency.

J.P. Who could be caught up into the third heaven but a man in Christ?

F.E.R. Exactly. You may depend upon it, preaching the gospel may be limited to a word of six letters and that word, "Christ". Christ is the gospel. There is another point to my mind, and that is that Christ is the preacher. It is not you or I that is the preacher; Christ is the preacher and the gospel.

J.S.A. And as you said in reference to ministry, if He is to minister there is nothing He can minister but Himself.

F.E.R. I think so.

L.P.T. And having Him you have everything.

F.E.R. Exactly. You can understand nothing except in Christ. You could not understand any term in Scripture except as in Christ. The dictionary will not help you. Human words can never explain divine things. If you take the dictionary meaning of any expression like reconciliation, you will not get any idea of the thing. There is not a blessing spoken of as being in the mind of God for man that you can appreciate except in Christ, and therefore the importance for us to learn by the witness all that is set forth in Christ and thus become more and more like Christ.

W.M. So that Christ is the result of the preaching, too.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.P. So the ultimatum of the whole thing will be we shall all be like Christ.

F.E.R. That is the truth of it.

J.S.A. That He may be all in all.

P.A.E.S. And would you say the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple?

F.E.R. You will get many a proof of that. Mary of Bethany is an instance. She was made wise by the testimony of the Lord.

P.A.E.S. That was Christ, was it not?

F.E.R. That was Christ. But the fact is, Christ is everything. Take any of the expressions in Psalm 19. They are realised in Christ. To begin with, Christ is the true sun in the heavens. It says, "In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun". Then in the latter part of the Psalm it says, "the law of the Lord". What is the law of the Lord to us? Christ. The apostle said to the Galatians, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ". Christ is law to us. "The testimony of the Lord is sure". What is the testimony of the Lord? Christ. "The commandment of the Lord is pure". What is the commandment of the Lord? Christ. "The statutes of the Lord are right". What are the statutes of the Lord to us? Christ. And so on.

W.M. Christ is everything and in all.

F.E.R. And no one can understand anything which is in the mind of God except as it is apprehended in Christ.

J.P. It seems to me very interesting to notice in the chapter we have read that the first thing which Christ has come out to do is the will of God, and if you go on, it is evident He has accomplished it. It goes on to say by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.

F.E.R. Exactly. Christ is sanctification to us. You cannot understand it except in Christ. If it were not so you would get the flesh sanctified. God does not sanctify that. Christ is sanctification to us, as He is redemption to us. God will not allow us to glory in ourselves.

W.M. So that our sanctification is spiritual.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.S.A. And if it is a question of entering into sonship it says, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts". There is no other way in which you can enter into it.

F.E.R. You get everything by the witness of the Spirit; the Spirit shows how everything is bound up in Christ, and as we apprehend that, we become more like Christ, because you cannot have Christ before you without becoming more like Him. The reason people do not become like Christ is because they have something else before them. The Spirit would fix our affection on Christ and show how the will of God is set on Christ.

W.M. Do you think the Spirit sometimes has to depart from that and do what is not His normal work?

F.E.R. Yes, He has to rebuke us and set Himself against the flesh very often.

L.T.D. In Ephesians 1:14, it speaks of the Spirit as the "earnest of our inheritance". What is the inheritance?

F.E.R. I think it is all that Christ inherits as Man. It only proves what I have been dwelling upon. You cannot understand inheritance except in Christ. We have obtained an inheritance in Him, and it is in Him we understand what the inheritance is, and then it goes on to say in whom He has sealed us "until the redemption of the purchased possession".

J.P. So we are spoken of as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

F.E.R. Abraham was in a way the heir of the world, but Christ is the true heir of all things. All things are put under His feet.

W.M. I think you were remarking that is the foundation of the Lord's prayer, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven", because "all things are delivered unto me of my Father".

F.E.R. Exactly.

G.W.H. And all things are headed up in Christ.

F.E.R. Yes. "All things that the Father hath are mine:" the Lord said, "therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you". He is referring to the Spirit.

G.W.H. When it says in Ephesians 1, "Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ", does it mean that they are in Christ and apart from the present course of things, not of this world?

F.E.R. Yes, and they belong to heaven. I suppose there are certain blessings which belong to heaven.

G.W.H. You were saying at the beginning that these blessings were not a part of this world.

F.E.R. They come into view when this world has failed, when man has become sinful and lawless. You get glimpses of good things in the Old Testament, but they do not come out clearly because there was no point at which they were established; but when there was such a point then they come clearly into view.

W.M. So once in the end of the world Christ appeared.

F.E.R. Yes. You get all almost in a moment, the revelation of the blessings, their establishment and the witness. It did not take long to bring to pass. So God will set forth a world in a day. He prepares everything beforehand and all will be displayed in a day.

J.P. The figures show that. Take the Sun of righteousness rising with healing in His wings. It does not take the sun long to rise. You wake up in the morning when it is dark and in a few moments it is quite light.

F.E.R. People may glory in this world, but it is Babylon in the eye of God, and God will smash up Babylon, so that there will not be a shred remaining. "The haughtiness of men shall be brought low; and Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day". The silver and gold will not deliver in the day of Jehovah's wrath. He will utterly abolish the idols.

P.A.E.S. Do you say He is preparing for that now? In what sense?

F.E.R. In a sense all is prepared. You have the spirits

of just men made perfect, and the church is there. Israel will be born in a day, and the nations brought into subjugation. Everything will be effected in a day.

P.A.E.S. Then I understand that verse, "whatsoever God doeth it, shall be for ever", is in view of the world to come?

F.E.R. I think so.

J.S.A. And He has taken our souls in charge and that is for ever. So that we might begin now to enter more into what He has for us in Christ, for our blessings will all come out in that world.

READING ON FIRST TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 2:1 - 15; 1 Timothy 3:1 - 16

F.E.R. If a man is to know how to act in difficult times he must be imbued with what is right. The ability to judge of things that are wrong is the knowledge of what is right. If you do not know what is right you have not a standard. Therefore we want the first of these epistles before we can take up the second.

J.M.D. Do we find things in their perfect order in the first epistle?

F.E.R. I think you get the idea of the house of God in order.

J.P. I suppose the knowledge of what is right would have to begin with the attitude in which God presents Himself to all men.

F.E.R. I think so. The epistles are addressed to an individual, and therefore are not doctrinal. They do not unfold the work or counsels of God. The subject of them is God's testimony, and the place, and the vessel of it; it is that which gives importance to the house of God; the house of God is the pillar and ground of the truth. It is the depository of the testimony. In time past the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat were connected with God's house, so now the house of God is the depository of the gospel; and the gospel is God's testimony to man.

J.P. So that in order to know how we ought to behave ourselves in the house of God we have to be intelligent as to the testimony of God.

F.E.R. I think so. In the first chapter you get the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God which is the standard of everything; and then in chapter two the saints are, so to speak, affected by it, in communion with it; then in chapter three, we have the order of God's house, and in the remaining part of the epistle the

principle of piety as an antidote to evil principles that were coming in, that is, asceticism, a sort of human sanctity, and the influence of money, or worldly advantage. All these are come in, and have captured the church. The apostle saw the germs then, and brings to light the antidote to them.

J.P. So that in that way the first epistle to Timothy is of immense value to us because it furnishes us with a standard.

F.E.R. And at the same time with an antidote to principles that are sure to come in, for it is true that history repeats itself. What came in at the beginning is likely enough to come in now.

J.P. In fact, as you have said, not only likely but they have come in.

F.E.R. I think the first great thought in God's house is that God has been pleased to place Himself near to men in blessing. God has established Himself near to man in that way.

F.L. Is that always the idea connected with God dwelling among His people?

F.E.R. He dwells in His people for the good of man.

J.P. Because the house of God has that place, the point of contact between God and man.

F.E.R. Exactly.

J.P. Hence the Lord said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations". So in the second chapter we are to pray God on behalf of all men according to the manner in which God has placed Himself in contact with all men for blessing.

F.E.R. That is the character of the present moment.

W.M. That makes it very important that we should learn how to behave ourselves in the house of God.

F.E.R. You do not want to falsify the moment or the spirit and character in which God has brought Himself close to man. The first chapter opens with the glad tidings of the blessed God with which Paul was entrusted. Many people read such expressions and do not know very

much what they mean. Expressions have no particular significance in their minds. I wonder what people think of this expression.

J.T. I was going to ask you yesterday what it meant.

F.E.R. I think the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God is the moral effulgence of God; that is that God has shone out; He has shone out in testimony.

J.T. Has it not reference to the place the Lord has now?

F.E.R. I would connect it more with the death of Christ.

W.M. You mean God was effulgent in Christ's death.

F.E.R. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him". You get the effulgence in the death of Christ.

J.P. I remember in one of the meetings we have had you distinguished between the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and the glory of Christ. I think if you would kindly state the distinction it might be helpful at this moment.

F.E.R. The glory of Christ is, I judge, His position as last Adam, so that God is glorified in Him. But the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is the shining out of God in Christ. You get two things in Christ: one is the shining out in Him of God, and the other the position of Christ Himself as last Adam, a life-giving spirit, who communicates the Spirit to man. You have to put the two things together.

J.T. You get the expression, the glad tidings of the glory of Christ also.

F.E.R. The glory of Christ is His place as last Adam.

J.P. I remember you illustrated it, the glory of any king is the position he occupies as king, and so the glory of Christ is the position in which He is now placed.

F.E.R. I think so, for it immediately adds, "who is the image of God". It is His place in relation to man, in contrast to this world. "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest

the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them".

E.W. In what way is that glad tidings?

F.E.R. It is truly glad tidings that there is One who has established righteousness on man's behalf and so can communicate the Spirit to man. He is a life-giving spirit in virtue of accomplished righteousness. I think that is pretty good glad tidings.

W.M. That is, in Him as last Adam, so that He is the Head in that way.

F.E.R. Yes, the last Adam is a life-giving spirit, and that is the truth of the gospel at the present time. "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely". The water of life is available to every man. That is the effect of Christ being the last Adam. But then there is another thing connected with Christ, and that is, He is the effulgence of God. That is what I understand by the glory of God.

G.R. I think in one of the meetings you said, every attribute of God was manifest in Christ.

F.E.R. That is what we see in the cross. Everything shines out in the death of Christ.

F.C. So that the expression, the glory of Christ, would be what He is officially more than personally.

F.E.R. His place as last Adam. Everything comes out in the death of Christ. The glory of God is His effulgence. Nothing can add to the glory of God. What could add glory to God? 'Glory all belongs to God'. And the glory of God must be the effulgence of God. In a certain sense glory could be given to Christ, because Christ had come into manhood and humiliation, but glory cannot be added to God.

J.T. Has not the accomplishment of His counsels come in?

F.E.R. But that is only shining out. It adds nothing to God. It is all of Himself. Of Him and to Him are all things.

J.T. But where does that principle come in the death of Christ in relation to the purposes of God?

F.E.R. Christ's death is the shining out of God morally, and the counsels are the shining out of His wisdom. The moral effulgence of God is in the death of Christ. His wisdom comes out in His counsels. I think any thoughtful person would allow it is impossible that glory can be added to God, because all glory must be of God.

W.M. Christ came into the place of humiliation where He could be glorified.

F.E.R. It is as man that He is glorified. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him".

W.M. The house of God is not looked at here in the higher way of being the sanctuary, it is more external.

F.E.R. It is in connection with God's testimony. What you get in the first chapter is the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God entrusted to the apostle, and in the second chapter the saints are in sympathy with the apostle, the church is the depository of the gospel. The gospel was not given in the first instance to the church, it was entrusted to the apostle, but the apostle makes the house the depository of the gospel. We get that in 1 Corinthians 15. He makes known to the assembly the gospel which he preached and the church becomes the depository of it. That is the ground of the exhortation in the second chapter.

W.M. It is the pillar and base of the truth.

F.E.R. The pretension of Rome is that the truth was committed to the church, but the truth was committed to the apostle, and the apostle put it in the church.

J.S.A. And that is why those who form the house of God should have an adequate sense in their souls of what the testimony of God is.

F.E.R. We sometimes find evangelists disposed to think that the gospel is a kind of specialty to them. It is an assumption that ought to be resisted in every way. The gospel belongs to the church.

J.T. And the saints are characteristically evangelical.

F.E.R. The gospel is of universal interest and anyone not interested in the gospel is very low down.

J.P. The principle of any knot of men setting up to have any special interest in the gospel is the principle that is in full bloom in Rome.

F.E.R. I think so. The gospel is the common interest of saints. That comes out clearly in the next chapter; hence the apostle is expecting the men and the women to be concerned in the testimony. He exhorts that prayer and supplication be made not on the part of a select few, but on the part of the saints generally; men and women.

J.P. And the men are to pray everywhere. You do not have to take a journey somewhere to pray.

F.E.R. And the women have a part in it. They are supposed to be interested in the glad tidings with which Paul had been entrusted.

J.T. Timothy was evidently at Ephesus and the apostle had communicated to them the whole counsel of God. It was all there.

F.E.R. Quite so.

Ques. And in what place do the special gifts of the body come in as mentioned in Ephesians?

F.E.R. The light is in the church and the gifts set the light in vibration.

G.W.H. So an evangelist is one that bears a message to others.

F.E.R. Quite so. He is to set the light in vibration so that it will reach men. That is the idea connected with a gift.

J.T. He does not assume to have it all to himself.

F.E.R. Nor will he bind himself with other evangelists. There is a disposition to this, and I believe the idea that the gospel or anything else is a special bond of interest is highly objectionable. There is no special interest among us.

J.P. It would be practically impossible to have anything put in a wider way than the Spirit of God puts

it in the opening part of the second chapter of Timothy and in that the whole house of God is involved.

F.E.R. It is based on the essential truth that God dwells here and has brought Himself near to man in blessing; everybody ought to be affected by that. We may not all be able to preach, but we ought to be sensible of the fact that God has brought Himself close to man in blessing.

J.P. And if we were all in the communion of it what little gift is amongst us would be a great deal more effectual.

F.E.R. I think it would. But the effort of all would be to bring home to men the thought that God has brought Himself close to man in blessing in virtue of redemption.

G.R. You get the word in Revelation, "let him that heareth say, Come", so that everyone is an evangelist in that way.

W.M. But in the house of God all is matter of fellowship; there are no special interests.

J.T. I am thankful that you have spoken as you have, because we are facing a real difficulty.

F.E.R. I think so. If you take up the subject of the gospel and how the truth of the gospel may remain with us, that is a common interest. I could not recognise that as being peculiarly the interest of preachers; it is the interest of everybody.

Ques. Is it proper for us to attempt to discern those that are teachers or evangelists or pastors among us?

F.E.R. I think they are readily discerned. Any gift proves itself.

Rem. What you object to is the classification of gifts and the combination of those so classified into bodies.

F.E.R. If a man has a gift let him go and prove his own gift. Not confer with other preachers or other evangelists. Let him prove his own gift. Paul did not trouble himself about Peter or Peter about Paul. They worked in fellowship and unity, but each one to the Lord.

J.T. The grace that was effectual in Peter to the

circumcision was also effectual in Paul to the uncircumcision.

W.M. But when Peter appeared to compromise the testimony he was taken to task for it.

F.E.R. Yes, Paul reproves him.

W.M. Then Paul had to go to Jerusalem to explain his position as to the gentiles.

F.E.R. All service involves individual responsibility. To bind servants together in a special class of service is wrong and should be resisted.

J.S.A. And although Paul did rebuke Peter, yet Peter speaks very highly of Paul, "our beloved brother Paul".

F.E.R. Such grace of the Spirit was among them. They accepted reproof. Now things are different, and rather than give up reputation a man will divide brethren over matters that most can have nothing at all to say to.

J.P. I think of the illustration in the Lord's answer to Peter in John 21. The Lord said to Peter, "what is that to thee? follow thou me", and there is another where Paul wanted Apollos to go to Corinth, and he was not minded to go at all.

F.E.R. It has been said that there was an expression of grace on the part of Apollos. He would not interfere with the effect on Paul's epistle.

J.T. Apollos would represent the independent action of the Spirit. He had come from Alexandria.

F.E.R. I think so, and the apostle accepted it. He did not interfere with Apollos, on the contrary he seeks an opening for Apollos, that no hindrance might be thrown in his way.

G.R. Would you say a meeting like this is just as much the work of the gospel as the meeting we had last night -- preaching?

F.E.R. Of course there is the preaching.

G.R. Well, we have no other interest but the work of the gospel.

F.E.R. The gospel is the common interest of the house

of God, and it is taken up in that way in this second chapter. You pray for kings and all in authority. God has come near to man in blessing, and the mind of God toward all men is that they should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. The point in the preaching is to bring that to the attention of men, to bring before men what is really existing.

J.T. You connect that with the house of God, I understand.

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. Do you think the form in which this command is put indicates that all nationality has disappeared?

F.E.R. It is in view of God's testimony. God's testimony has no regard for nationality. You will find that in the gift of tongues, every man was met in his own tongue. The difficulty of nationality was overcome in the power of the Spirit; God addressed every man in his own tongue.

W.M. So that christians are not called upon to pray specially for the particular king in the country where they live.

F.E.R. That is not the point. God "will have all men to be saved"; so the apostle charges that prayer should "be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority". He does not say for kings and all that are in authority, and for all men, but "for all men; for kings and for all that are in authority".

G.W.H. What we get in Acts is an indication of God's disposition toward all men.

F.E.R. I think so.

J.T. Everybody was to hear.

F.E.R. Quite so.

G.R. I was looking at a verse in Acts 26, Paul's commission, where it says, "Taking thee out from among the people, and the nations". He did not go as a Jew or gentile, but was taken out from both.

F.E.R. Then it says, "to whom I send thee".

J.S.A. But the idea of the house of God involves the

setting aside of distinction, "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit".

F.E.R. Quite so.

W.M. Why do you make the point that "all men" are spoken of before "kings"?

F.E.R. Evidently the thought in the mind of the apostle was "all men". All men are to come into our account because they are in the account of God.

J.P. And "kings and ... all that are in authority" have more to do with the ordered state of things down here, so it is connected with "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty".

F.E.R. Yes. But the principle is that all men have come into the view of God. God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. It is the gracious principle pervading the saints that has all men in view. There is nothing antagonistic in the mind toward any kind of man, black or white. God's mind is favourable to all men. That is a great thing to take account of.

J.P. The beginning of this chapter is morally very beautiful, because of the response in the saints down here to the disposition and attitude that God has taken up toward all men. It shows the saints in moral accord with God.

F.E.R. That is exactly it. The first chapter is the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God. The second chapter, that the saints are in accord with it.

J.S.A. And the final outcome is that the tabernacle of God will be with men.

J.T. It was a wonderful thing that it should be brought to pass here.

F.E.R. In such a world as this, where things are morally unchanged. It is an expression of great wisdom on the part of God.

Rem. Do not we see in the beginning of Acts, so to speak, a total reversal of God's attitude from that at Babel? There He came down to see the building of men

and confounded their language and dispersed them, and now his attitude in Acts 2 is the reversal of that.

F.E.R. Yes.

G.W.H. You get God's thought of dwelling with men from the beginning.

F.E.R. But that points on to what is future. God looks on to a moment when He can be complacent in everything. When everything will be according to His mind, and God will be all in all.

G.W.H. That looks on to the eternal state.

F.E.R. It looks on to what is beyond time and dispensation. The tabernacle of God will be with men, and God will be their God and they will be His people; the former things will have passed away. I think the present moment is a moment of the deepest interest. From the way in which things have been presented, the truth has not been apprehended, for there is no truth that has been so slowly recovered as that of the house of God. That comes within my recollection. Thirty or forty years ago the thought of the house of God was hardly apprehended at all. I could almost number on my fingers the brothers at that time who had any real sense of the house of God. It is a curious thing in the recovery of things that the truth of the body was got hold of much earlier than that of the house; the house of God was very poorly understood when I came into fellowship.

W.M. It is remarkable, because the house of God was the first idea in the Acts.

F.E.R. It was the last to be recovered.

Ques. Have you any reason to give for that?

F.E.R. I only know the fact.

J.T. We have a very poor sense in preaching of being here in accord with God.

F.E.R. Yes. I think the great truth is that God is here, and has brought Himself close to man, not in judgement, but in blessing. That is a profound thought to my mind.

J.T. What do you mean by that, is it that He is here by the Spirit in the saints

F.E.R. He dwells in the house, He has brought Himself close to man.

G.W.H. Why do you attach such great importance to the present moment?

F.E.R. It is evidently a great moment in the ways of God. The moment is not final, but provisional. It really would not be so important if it were final, but in the fact of its being provisional, it is so important, because men are being tested by it.

J.S.A. By the present moment do you mean the whole period of christianity or just now?

F.E.R. The whole period of christianity.

G.W.H. Would you also say this is an important moment for us, in the closing days of christianity?

F.E.R. Yes, because the first principles have been more or less revived. You go outside of brethren and find any single person that knows anything about the house of God! Their idea of the house of God is a building with a steeple, or something of that sort.

G.W.H. I suppose the truth is that we are being tested as to how far we answer to it.

F.E.R. I think so.

W.M. Is the idea that in the house of God people should be seen to be well conducted?

F.E.R. There is an important point to be remembered and that is the house of God is no part of this world. Christendom has made christianity part of this world. That is, in other words, the world has captured christianity; christianity has got to Babylon. The Lord predicted it. "Woe unto the world because of offences!" The offence did come and the church was caught. You find that in popery. It was imperial. That is the reason it is called Babylon. It assumed to rule over the kings of the earth. The Pope gave his law to the nations and the nations had to accept the ruling of the Pope. That has been broken in upon to a certain extent, but the next thing is state churches; that is, that christianity is captured by the state, and the head of the state is the head

of the church, as in Germany and England. Then you get the breaking off from the state churches in the way of dissenting bodies, but then dissenting systems are as worldly and as active and eager to get influence in the world as anybody else. They are professedly christian systems, but worldly and political, so that christianity has become completely interwoven in the order of the world. But when you come to the truth of the house of God you have to remember that though the house of God is beneficent toward the world yet it is no part of the world. You cannot mix oil and water; the house of God was characterised by the Spirit of God, and you cannot mix the Spirit of God with the flesh. So the house of God was separate from the world and the course of it. God brought Himself close to man, but the house of God was never intended to form any part of the world.

J.S.A. I think it might be that the beginning of recovery began with the body, because it is clear the body had nothing to do with the world though the house has an aspect toward the world.

F.E.R. It has an aspect, but it could have nothing to do with the world because it is a spiritual house.

W.M. It is established in the way of testimony.

J.P. Hence, externally people can only get into it by that which is a figure of the death of Christ.

J.T. The difficulty is now to locate it.

F.E.R. It is submerged in the mass of profession and therefore it is difficult to locate it.

Ques. What are you to do? Individually discern its characteristics?

F.E.R. It is a great thing, having an apprehension of it. I am not going to connect myself with anything contrary to it. If I have to stand alone I must stand alone, but I will not connect myself with anything contrary to the truth of the house of God.

J.T. But you would connect yourself with what is according to it.

F.E.R. I only look to myself. Personally and individually

I would seek to walk in the light of it. If others walk in the light of it I walk with them or they with me, but you and I seek to walk individually in the light of it. As to Brethrenism and that kind of thing I do not care for it.

J.P. Is it not the wisdom of God that this should come out in an epistle addressed to an individual?

F.E.R. Extremely important, and the second epistle in the same way. In church troubles I have seen that if people wanted to know where God was they had to look at individuals. I know what answer I would get to that, as to looking to men, etc., but you have often to find your way by looking at individuals.

W.M. I suppose the principle comes out in Paul, "be ye followers of me".

F.E.R. Quite so.

Ques. If you have to walk alone how could you behave yourself in the house of God?

F.E.R. At all events I would not behave myself contrary to the house of God.

J.P. But every christian is in or of the house of God.

F.E.R. But they are largely submerged.

J.T. But they are not all hidden from view.

F.E.R. All hidden from view except myself.

F.C. From your view.

F.E.R. My view. I have nothing to do with anybody else save to walk with them.

J.T. What about those who are walking?

F.E.R. You and I are walking together today, but we may be apart tonight. I hope not.

J.T. In the same epistle you are to follow with certain ones. Are they hidden from view?

F.E.R. I maybe following righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with some today and not tomorrow.

J.T. But if you are following it today you are following it with others who are following it.

F.E.R. It is a question of walk. It is not a question of

anything fixed or determined. It is simply walking with those with whom you can walk.

J.T. But they must be in view if you can walk with them.

F.E.R. They have come into their own view and in a sense into my view.

W.M. But so far as anything vital is concerned, "The Lord knoweth them that are his".

Ques. Is that the point of Hebrews, "whose house are we, if we hold fast"?

F.E.R. I think so.

Ques. How about Paul and Barnabas preaching together?

F.E.R. I contend against Brethrenism. Any true position at the present time is essentially individual, and anything outside of that is false.

G.R. I was thinking of the word, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine".

F.C. Would you say it is in view of the present day that we get the epistle to Timothy?

F.E.R. I think so.

G.W.H. Are we to go on without pretension, and individually, without any idea of a company?

F.E.R. Quite so.

W.M. I suppose the only company you recognise is the church of God, and that is submerged.

E.W-e. If we find half a dozen going on in the light of God we are very apt to find them together.

F.E.R. I would look for people who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. You want to follow with real christians, who call on the Lord out of a pure heart, that is the kind of people.

J.S.A. That certainly involves that you have to look at persons.

Ques. You said some time ago, when we were on a certain line of things, that the company was the great thing. Now I quite go with what you have been saying, but I do not know that it is very clear that it is the

individual thing we have to get before us. How would you reconcile that with what a few years ago we had a good deal of, about the company?

F.E.R. Those who are walking in the truth must gravitate toward each other. That is bound to keep us.

J.M.D. We would manifest that we were still members one of another.

F.E.R. It is a very important part of the truth that we are members one of another.

J.S.A. Do you not think that what was quoted by Mr. L. as having been said previously really meant to include the whole company, only it degenerated in our application of it to the company of brethren?

F.E.R. I think so. In the third chapter you get the order of the house of God, and the point is that a man may know how to behave himself in the house of God. The latter part of the epistle is different. It gives warnings against certain things which would come in, and furnishes the antidote to them.

J.S.A. I have been struck with that in connection with the last part, that there are positive evil influences at work, seducing spirits, etc.

F.E.R. They are principles which tend in a way to give importance to man; man may obtain importance in the church in two ways, by assumption of superior sanctity, as in asceticism, etc., or another principle may come in, that is the importance of money. In chapter four it is asceticism, and in chapter six it is riches. You get the high church and the dissenting principle.

W.M. Have you any thought as to the fifth chapter?

F.E.R. It is detail, but the great thread that runs through all the latter part of the epistle is piety.

J.M.D. And piety must be individual.

F.E.R. Yes. I judge of things by piety. Asceticism and celibacy and abstaining from meats, are not piety. On the other hand, attaching importance to worldly advantage and money is not piety. Piety is the antidote to what would come into the church.

G.W.H. And the man of God is to flee all these things.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.S.A. What do you understand by "the mystery of piety"?

F.E.R. It is what is known to piety, but not yet manifest otherwise.

W.M. It is what piety apprehends, the power of piety.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.S.A. Piety gives you the apprehension of those things that are not seen.

F.E.R. But it refuses a great deal that has a reputation in the world. Piety avails itself of every mercy that God has been pleased to place within your reach. If God has been pleased to place marriage within your reach you avail yourself of God's mercy. So, too, with meats. They are God's mercies. They are received with thanksgiving of them that believe and know the truth.

W.M. The same epistle tells Timothy to take a little wine.

F.E.R. That is a principle of piety. On the other hand, piety refuses to recognise the importance of money. Money is a great power in the church. Man is measured by his worldly importance and piety refuses to recognise that.

J.P. The statement was made lately by a very prominent man, 'Brethren, the kingdom of God is to be advanced by money'.

F.E.R. That is, that gain is godliness.

J.T. This is a great country for temperance.

F.E.R. I think piety is an antidote to all; if you get benefits from God you will never abuse them if you are pious.

W.M. Piety will never make you intemperate.

F.E.R. You would not abuse anything for which you give thanks.

G.W.H. Is there not a real connection between the

testimony of God toward all men and piety? I was thinking of that verse in Titus, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly".

F.E.R. Piety is the character which is to prevail in the house of God.

J.T. What would you say piety is?

F.E.R. I think the spring of it is confidence in God. "Therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe".

J.P. I think I have heard you say that piety was bringing God into everything.

F.E.R. I think it is, but it follows on the early part of the epistle, that is the fact that God is dwelling here, so that you bring God into everything and accept God's benefits. It is a poor thing to refuse God's benefits. I accept them because they are given to be received with thanksgiving of those who believe and know the truth.

J.P. Because after all piety is the great moral safeguard.

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. Do you think verse 16 indicates that God has been fully manifested and that God has gone up to heaven again?

F.E.R. I think so.

W.M. So that unseen things are a power in the christian.

F.E.R. It is unseen things because the Spirit is here.

W.M. "God was manifest", and then it ends, "received up".

F.E.R. That is Christ; but the Spirit is here; then it goes on in the next chapter to say, "the Spirit speaketh expressly". The Spirit was dwelling here in the house and warning of what was coming in; undoubtedly that is one great gain of the Spirit dwelling here, that the Spirit advertises us of the dangers likely to arise.

J.P. The Spirit is not silent.

F.E.R. It is in the house He speaks.

W.M. So the good of all the manifestation of God is still here by the Spirit.

Ques. Do you not think one great value of piety is that it leaves us free to peacefully hear what the Spirit says?

F.E.R. Yes, but the Spirit brings forward piety as an antidote to certain principles that were coming in.

J.S.A. In the next epistle you get the "form of godliness (or piety), but denying the power thereof".

F.E.R. In Scotland a great deal that the old Covenanters held remains. You may see that amongst those in fellowship. It is largely legality and hardness, not the grateful enjoyment of the benefits which God has given to men.

J.T. Very often legal people pass for being pious, but really true piety is not legality but liberty.

F.E.R. What I understand by piety is the thankful reception of the benefits which God has been pleased to give me down here, and that principle is the corrective to the importance of wealth; "piety with contentment is great gain. For we have brought nothing into the world: it is manifest that neither can we carry anything out. But having sustenance and covering, we will be content with these". A pious man would never seek to be rich.

J.P. No, he would be like Cornelius. He was pious and he gave much alms to the people.

W.M. He prayed to God also.

F.E.R. I like piety, but not the affectation of piety that I see in the world. You get a straight up and down man with a long face and he gets a reputation for being a pious man.

J.T. Such men have influence in the world while the truly pious man would come into reproach.

F.E.R. That is what the apostle said of himself, "we both labour and suffer reproach".

F.C. Is that why we get the exhortation in John's epistle, "believe not every spirit"?

F.E.R. That is more a question of the truth. Untrue spirits have gone abroad. They were to be tested.

W.M. It seems that what should mark people in God's house is to be nourished and content.

F.E.R. I think so, "nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine".

READING ON SECOND TIMOTHY

2 Timothy 2:1 - 26

F.E.R. Anybody must be struck with the difference between these two epistles; though the first epistle is addressed to Timothy, yet the point in it is the ordering of the house of God, while in the second it is the ordering of himself. I may have understanding as to the house of God, but the point at the present time is that I have to look to myself.

J.T. That is to say what is coming out now in view of the fact that the house is submerged.

F.E.R. Quite so; everything hangs on the servant. I think we ought to take individuality much more to heart. Individually to be apart from everything that is accredited in christendom; and if we have taken our place apart from these things, we should not set to work to construct anything else. The point is to stand apart in individuality and not to lose the sense of that. There is in us a strong disposition to build something up. Many would like brethren as a body to be ordered on scriptural forms, to have their gospel meetings and Sunday schools, etc.; that is the natural tendency, but in that we are simply building a sect.

G.R. And so it is a day when the man of God comes into the scene.

F.E.R. Yes. The man of God through Scripture was essentially individual.

W.M. It is the individual who is to follow "righteousness, faith, love, peace".

F.C. If we were not in the good of the house of God we would not be very intelligent individuals.

F.E.R. The first epistle is given to us that we may know what the house of God is, but you must hold that abstractly, for you cannot get it in the concrete form.

There are very few things that we do not have now to hold abstractly.

H.F. I do not think it was quite clear to us what you said about Sunday schools, etc. You say they are not a collective, but an individual thing. Is that the thought?

F.E.R. No. I was saying we might be possibly building up a system on what we think to be scriptural lines, having our Sunday schools and gospel services, etc., but it would be as complete a sect as any. That is not the line on which I am.

H.F. You mean the system would be wrong.

F.E.R. Gospel work is all right, but it is individual, and you must be intensely individual where you stand aside from everything that is accredited in christendom.

H.F. Still there is the other side. Everything must be done decently and in order.

F.E.R. But that is addressed to the church when the church was in order.

H.F. Does it not apply to the church today?

F.E.R. I would try individually to do everything decently and in order. I would be sorry for anybody to have the opportunity of accusing me of disorder.

H.F. Would you not be sorry to have the assembly accused of being disorderly?

F.E.R. You cannot get the assembly in Plainfield or New York.

H.F. The saints in a meeting, they come together to remember the Lord.

F.E.R. But they are simply two or three who are seeking to walk in the light of the assembly; they are not the assembly.

H.F. No, I do not think we have the assembly.

G.R. I think there is a great point in the opening of this chapter, "Thou therefore, my son". The individual is very prominent.

F.E.R. And the point before the mind of the apostle was really the passing on of the testimony.

G.R. I have been greatly struck for many years with

Ezra, when he found that things had gotten into confusion he did not call a prayer meeting, but he got down himself and he very soon found others coming with him.

H.F. I am sure we are all clear about what you say, but for instance, in such a case as discipline could you not speak of dealing with a man as an assembly action; would it be an individual action?

F.E.R. It may be all right in that case to act in the light of the church, but discipline means to me that if a person has become a subject for discipline, I am not going to walk with that person any longer. If he won't leave us I am going to leave him.

H.F. But must not the saints as a body take action in such a case, not the individual?

F.E.R. The ground that I would take would be to follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart, if a man does not go on with righteousness, I would not go on with him.

H.F. Then you think there is no such thing as assembly action at this time?

F.E.R. I do not think saints are wrong in acting in the light of the church, but I am only saying how it strikes my mind.

Rem. I would like to ask in reference to what Mr. F. was saying. Suppose any action is taken, we take action in the light of the assembly though we cannot see the assembly.

F.E.R. Discipline is a very serious matter, for if you act in discipline, you avow that a man put away is not only disqualified for your company but for the company of any christian on earth.

Rem. That is, if he is put away as a wicked person.

F.E.R. Yes.

Rem. But there is action sometimes taken that does not involve that.

F.E.R. The question in these days is difficult, but what it comes to is this, that a certain person has gone on in such a course that you cannot walk with that person.

H.F. What seems to be my difficulty today would be this, supposing there would be such a breach with some one in fellowship that he had to be rebuked for instance; the assembly, or whatever you like to call it, would have to do that. One could not do that rightly.

F.E.R. I think if it is not done by some one person it ought not to be done at all.

H.F. Not individually, but for the saints.

F.E.R. No, I do not think so. It is for himself.

Rem. Here in Timothy it is addressed to an individual, "Them that sin rebuke before all".

F.E.R. And he was to do it on his own account. It must be done by somebody who has moral weight to administer the rebuke.

H.F. Do you not think Timothy was different in a way; he had authority from the apostle, and was different from what an ordinary individual would be?

F.E.R. I think Timothy is typical of the servant that continues to the end, to the coming of the Lord.

Rem. You judge that from the second verse of this chapter.

F.E.R. Yes. Paul looks on to the coming of the Lord. But I think we are getting away, for our point is the testimony in this epistle. The apostle commits it to Timothy. When everything has failed, and the house of God is no longer seen, then the thing which rallies you properly is the testimony.

Rem. Before going into the chapter I wish you would give us in a few words the scope of the different chapters in the epistle.

F.E.R. I think the epistle is divided into two parts; the first two chapters and the second two chapters; the first part gives us the testimony, and in the second part the perilous times come and the apostle brings in to meet that not only what Timothy had heard from himself but the Holy Scriptures. All that comes in to meet the perilous times. In the first part it is the testimony of our Lord and Paul His prisoner.

Rem. So it contemplates the passing away of the living witnesses and the coming in of the Holy Scriptures.

F.E.R. There are the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, but not only that, the Holy Scriptures. You want every safeguard in perilous times.

J.T. That would be the Old Testament.

F.E.R. Everything that has the character of being holy writings. Every scripture is inspired of God. That becomes your safeguard.

H.F. Would you excuse me, I want to ask one more question. Can we not act on the authority of Corinthians, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to put such a one away?

F.E.R. I do not think we can act on the authority, but in the light of it; because you have not the assembly.

J.T. The authority would be to commit such a one unto Satan.

F.E.R. But the apostle is addressing himself to the conscience of the entire assembly at Corinth, and you can hardly act on the authority unless you can get the assembly in any given place. I suppose we can act in the light of it.

J.T. Does not the obligation remain to put away from amongst ourselves a wicked person?

F.E.R. That means I am not going on any longer with that person.

H.F. And you consider that an individual thing now?

F.E.R. It becomes every individual now. I do not object to the way brethren act; they seek to act in the light of the truth, and I would go with them in it.

W.L.P. Would you look for the others in the gathering following the same line?

F.E.R. I think they would, brethren are simple in that way, and while they are acting in the light of the church, we would all go together.

J.T. The difficulty is why we could not regard that as a collective act.

F.E.R. I have difficulty in regard to the collective

action in the existing state of things, because I am so afraid lest in it we are arrogating to ourselves a position that does not belong to us. If things are taken up simply and it is a question of acting in the light of Scripture, well and good; but if it comes practically to this, that we are arrogating to ourselves what properly belongs to the assembly of God, I would not care to go on with it at all; it is not recognising the present condition.

W.M. And that is why you say the action is taken in the light of the assembly.

F.E.R. Because you cannot get the assembly.

J.T. What would you say about, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"?

F.E.R. That is in connection with prayer, "If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven, for where two or three are gathered together to My name there am I in the midst of them". I do not think that is exactly the assembly.

W.M. That was not written in view of a day of ruin and confusion.

F.E.R. Evidently not; but to come back to the testimony, that is the point, and the care of the testimony. In the state of things which exists around us, the great thing is the testimony, and I have no doubt that the testimony is the rallying point.

W.M. What do you mean by the testimony?

F.E.R. It is Christ.

J.P. In a certain sense it is all that is left; it is all you can go back to now.

F.E.R. "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God". The testimony, depend upon it, is now the rallying point, "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given

us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest". The saving and calling in Christ Jesus are now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel. It is the rallying point now, for it is where you get away from formal christianity to Christ Jesus; that is the point for the moment.

J.S.A. That is the point that links the units together if they are to be linked, and nothing formal or ecclesiastical.

F.E.R. All is in Christ Jesus. In the next chapter the apostle says, "Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus". And at the close of the third chapter, "that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus". You have salvation in Christ Jesus, and the point is to reach that. The house of God is to a large extent submerged. You cannot see it. You can only take account of it abstractly. What remains? Christ Jesus.

W.M. Would you say that in the beginning these things were seen in the saints?

F.E.R. Yes, the house of God was a security for things as long as the Holy Spirit ruled in the church. But what you contemplate in this second epistle is no longer the rule of the Holy Spirit, but the rule of man. Man has got into the place of authority in the church. It has become a great house, which means man is in authority. It has no longer the true character of the house of God but is the scene of man's rule.

J.T. It would not be difficult to see the blessed effect of coming into the christian company in the beginning of the Acts; what an advantage it would be. There would be security there for them.

F.E.R. I think so.

H.F. Can you trace how far the Holy Spirit had His place in the church?

F.E.R. I think all the epistles give you the idea of the power and the rule of the Spirit, and it was maintained as long as the apostles remained down here. I have no doubt the decline came in after the time of the apostles. Paul leads us to expect it and undoubtedly it came to pass. Peter and John and Jude give us the same idea.

H.F. You say Paul was looking ahead in this epistle, writing to Timothy.

F.E.R. I think so. He says, "in the last days perilous times shall come". He contemplates something worse than had already come in. Things were pretty bad in the first two chapters, but he expects worse.

J.T. You think the testimony then was to be maintained by individuals.

F.E.R. Timothy was to commit what he had heard from the apostle to faithful men who would be able to teach others also. The point is the testimony, and that is the rallying point.

J.T. As a matter of fact it is not difficult to see historically that whatever has been maintained has been maintained by individuals.

F.E.R. For instance, in what has occurred in the last century, the testimony was the rallying point.

Ques. Would you say that verse is the rallying point, "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel"?

F.E.R. Yes, and the apostle immediately adds, "Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory". The great point now is to maintain and testify of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. It is outside of this world. It goes on, "For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us". We must insist on the great reality of salvation in Christ Jesus

outside of the course of this world because we have to die and suffer with Christ.

J.S.A. And as power to enter into these things is wholly by the Spirit, the great thing is to go back to what is of the Spirit and nothing else.

J.T. The apostle says, "Keep, by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit". Do you think the testimony is equivalent to the gospel of the glory in the first epistle?

F.E.R. Not exactly. The testimony here is the testimony of our Lord. It is more personal of Christ. It refers to the place He has in the great divine system. "Who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings". If He has done that, of necessity He is the great head and centre of the moral universe. Therefore it is the salvation in Christ Jesus.

H.F. What is the principle spoken of there? Is it the incarnation?

F.E.R. Yes, I think so. It is made manifest by the appearing. He has come in upon the scene, so to speak. Hence it goes on to add, He "has annulled death", etc.

Ques. What is the foundation of God spoken of, that standeth sure?

F.E.R. I suppose God's foundation is His testimony.

J.P. That is what I thought. I was going to put that very point.

F.E.R. It is the testimony of God on which you can rely. God will stand true to His testimony.

J.P. It is what remains steady in the midst of all that has come in. People get their faith overthrown, but the firm foundation of God stands steady.

F.E.R. And you may depend upon it in regard to ourselves in separating from all that is around, the point is to come to the testimony, not simply to come out to a more scriptural order of meeting.

Rem. Coming out to the testimony and to be a testimony.

F.E.R. Yes.

H.F. Would that be equivalent to going outside the camp?

F.E.R. Yes. I do not believe people will be right till they get an apprehension of Christ as the head and centre of the moral universe. That universe will shortly be displayed and will displace the whole existing system of this world.

J.T. Coming out to that testimony involves that you have the light of the thing. I fancy we present pretty much as complicated a position as any of the sects. We have a form of things which is very attractive and people can go on with the existing state of things and be comfortable. The difficulties of the path are not accepted.

W.M. I suppose coming out to the testimony involves leaving the world.

F.E.R. Because it is so evident, if you apprehend Christ, who has annulled death and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel, you apprehend Him as the head and centre of the whole divine system.

J.P. And "in Christ Jesus" always views Him on the other side of death. That is, all has been brought to pass by God in Christ Jesus, and the testimony is the presentation of that, and the Holy Spirit is here the power of it.

F.E.R. Yes. There is to be a world in which death will not dominate. I apprehend that world will be characterised by life and incorruptibility. All that is to be brought to pass in Christ. But now it is brought to light.

Ques. "If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him". Is that present?

F.E.R. I think so. It is always the principle.

J.T. About the foundation. Do you think it refers to what is here or to what God is going to establish?

F.E.R. I do not know what better to say than that the foundation is God's testimony, on which you can rely. It has its seal, it stands sure.

J.T. Then you rest in this, that God will effectuate His testimony.

F.E.R. Quite so. People have the vaguest idea of

testimony. Testimony is the witness beforehand of that which God is going to display. God displays nothing till He has set it forward in testimony. You get that principle in the Old Testament; the Lord would do nothing but He would show it to His servants the prophets. We have the testimony in Christ of the world which God is going to set forth in His glory.

J.P. That is why the apostle by the Spirit says in Hebrews, "Ye are come".

F.E.R. Quite so. God has given testimony of it beforehand. Now we are in the light of the testimony.

W.M. I suppose there is a good illustration of that in the case of Joseph. His exaltation was first testified of and then it came as a matter of fact.

J.P. One of the simplest instances of it is the flood.

F.E.R. Exactly. Israel never went into captivity to Assyria, nor Judah to Babylon till God had given abundant testimony. So, too, of their being restored from Babylon, God had given testimony. Christ never came till after testimony. And now the testimony of Christ has come in as the prelude to God making manifest Christ and the world of which Christ is the beginning and centre.

Rem. The testimony begets the power of holding on as it were.

F.E.R. Yes, and hence it is "the darkness is passing and the true light already shines".

J.T. That is evidently a great point when things are gone to the bad, that saints should get into the light of what God is going to effect.

F.E.R. Exactly, for you cannot go back to the past. God will not restore the church. God never restores anything that has failed on the ground of responsibility, but the Spirit of God leads you on to that which is coming.

H.F. Would it be a correct definition to say that testimony was the revelation of God's purpose?

F.E.R. Testimony is more than that now, because it

not only reveals God's purpose, but it shows that in principle that purpose is effectuated in Christ.

J.T. Hence it is the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

J.S. He brings nothing to pass unawares.

F.E.R. Exactly. In principle everything is effectuated in Christ. The church, the Old Testament saints and Israel, are all effectuated in Christ.

J.S.A. You get the statement, "Who has annulled death", it is effectuated.

F.E.R. Exactly. Not yet made manifest, but effectuated.

J.P. So it is the principle of that statement in the Hebrews, "We see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus".

W.L.P. That is where the christian finds rest.

J.T. He is the Yea and Amen.

F.E.R. Yes. All the promises of God are established in Him and it is "for glory to God by us", all these things are brought into view and are for glory to God by us, because we have come into the light of them all established in Christ.

G.W.H. It is a most encouraging thing in the midst of all the darkness and failure and evil to see the light of that which God has established in Christ, and which He is going to bring in.

F.E.R. And another thing, the moment you get into the light of that, you get salvation, but it is the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.

G.W.H. That is the security for the believer today.

F.E.R. It is only in Christ Jesus you can escape from the course of things down here.

G.W.H. I suppose that is why the apostle says, "be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus".

F.E.R. Quite so, and the Scriptures can make us wise unto salvation in Christ Jesus.

W.M. Christ Jesus is the centre of another world.

F.E.R. Israel could not apprehend salvation as long as

they remained in Egypt. There was redemption there, but they could not realise salvation but on the other side of the Red Sea.

J.S. And we should be in the light of another world.

F.E.R. Or rather in the light of the Head of it. The departure has been in connecting Christ in some way with the course of this world, and failing to recognise the necessity that Christ must be the beginning of another.

W.M. I suppose when Barnabas got entangled he gave up the testimony for the time being.

F.E.R. He got a film or something over his eyes.

J.T. You think the testimony involves entering the holiest.

F.E.R. I think so.

H.F. Will you explain that? It seems involved to me.

F.E.R. Until a person has entered the holiest he has no apprehension of what Christ is for God, only the apprehension of what Christ is for us. In the holiest you get the apprehension of what Christ is for God, and that is an immense advance in apprehension.

W.M. You apprehend Christ as the ark of the covenant.

F.E.R. And the mercy-seat. That is not what Christ is for us, but for God, because it is in the mercy-seat God speaks and the covenant is God's covenant.

J.T. So the prayers of David are ended then.

H.F. So one can enter the holiest in an individual way.

F.E.R. Yes, there is the exhortation to enter the holiest. God has encouraged saints to draw near in order that they may get an apprehension of what Christ is on God's part, and for God. It is a great point to get this; you begin to apprehend Christ as the beginning and centre of the moral universe, the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat.

J.A.C. Is there any difference in thought between the mercy-seat and the throne?

F.E.R. I do not look upon the mercy-seat as being the throne. The mercy-seat is the mercy-seat; it is not

spoken of as being the throne. I think the throne of God is Jerusalem, that is the city of the great king.

G.W.H. Would you say the proof of one having entered the holiest is that he is intelligent in what God has reached in Christ?

F.E.R. I think there are two points into which we ought as christians to enter: one is the holiest, and the other the land. You first want to apprehend what Christ is as the One by whom God is able to carry out all the purposes of His love, and according to His love; but then when you apprehend Christ in that point of view you can apprehend what is the breadth, and length and depth and height of those purposes.

J.T. It seems to me that the greatest favour the Lord has conferred on His people is that He has made clear the thought of another world for them.

F.E.R. The Lord says, "the beginning of the creation of God". He is not the end, but the beginning of the creation of God. He is the end in the sense of being the crown of all, but He is the beginning because everything is to take its character from Him morally. God never improves on the beginning. Adam was not improved upon. I do not believe in evolution, because I think it is wrong morally. It could not be according to God to begin at the bottom. I do not think there is a germ working up to a man. God sets forth at the outset what is to be. There never was a man like Adam and never will be.

J.P. But wonderful as Adam was he was only the figure of Him that was to come.

F.E.R. There never was a man to compare with Adam. You could not improve on Adam.

W.M. All was very good.

F.E.R. As good as God could make it of its kind and character. But then the Lord comes in and says, I am the beginning of the creation of God. It has been said that the foundation involves the roof. You make a foundation, but the ultimate purpose of the foundation is to support a roof.

Rem. It is another order of man and a new creation that we have before us.

F.E.R. It is Christ, as I was attempting to point out yesterday. It is important to see that God has maintained a link between this scene and what He intends to bring in. Christ has come into the existing order of things, with resurrection inherent in Him, so that God can construct out of the wreck and ruin of this world a world that is according to Himself. That is what God is doing.

Rem. The apprehension of that is really salvation in Christ Jesus.

F.E.R. I think so.

W.M. It is not absolutely a new creation, but the construction of a world out of the present world.

F.E.R. That is what you get in Ephesians. All is seen in death, even Christ is in death. Nothing but death under the eye of God. Then it is that God begins in the resurrection of Christ, and the church is brought out. That is the beginning of things in that way.

J.P. And then as you said just now, if Christ is the beginning of the creation of God, then of necessity that whole creation must take its character from Christ.

F.E.R. The apprehension of Christ in that light is wonderful to my mind.

J.P. Then we can understand how God will be complacent and delight in all.

F.E.R. Exactly. It is the point of reconciliation, that God may have complacency in all.

J.S.A. Some of us were saying yesterday that we did not know much about it though we have been singing about it for a good many years, 'Of the vast universe of bliss, the centre thou and Sun'.

H.F. I am not quite clear about this present creation.

J.P. I was going to say that we fail if we attempt to improve on the language of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit says, "the beginning of the creation of God".

W.M. It might be understood to be absolutely a new

creation and not the present order of things, the present earth.

J.S. Christ was the root of David as well as the offspring.

F.E.R. Yes, He is the bright and morning Star in anticipation of the Sun of righteousness, the Sun of righteousness comes in that sense. It is a prophetic declaration, "unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise".

W.M. If Adam was only a figure, the true head is to come yet.

F.E.R. Exactly.

J.T. And indeed the very scene where Adam was everything was created for God's pleasure.

Ques. Is that why in John's gospel it speaks of Christ giving His life for the world?

F.E.R. Yes, the principle of John's writings is that Christ claims the world for God and the world is taken up in the only begotten Son. Christ not only came down from heaven, but He comes down from heaven to give life to the world.

Ques. Do you mean that covers the future?

F.E.R. Undoubtedly. He takes away the sin of the world. "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world". The devil is not going to have everything his own way.

J.T. And the christian is not prepared to allow the claim put forward of proprietorship.

F.E.R. No. It was pointed out as long as I have been in fellowship that the writings of John and the writings of Paul are in contrast. John brings God into the world and Paul carries the church up to heaven.

G.R. This morning what was very clearly brought before us was that all men were in view, but here it is the elect. Why is that difference in the two epistles?

F.E.R. Because christianity had come in and had been corrupted. There is another point, that while the testimony of God has its bearing to all men, yet after all, the

gospel is that by which God effectuates His purpose in regard to the elect. Christ buys the field, but He buys it for the sake of the treasure; the gospel is the testimony of God in regard of all men, but it is the testimony by which God brings the elect to light.

G.R. Then you think in 2 Timothy the treasure is more in view and the epistle is on that line, that the elect may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.

F.E.R. I think so. Christianity had come into the gentile world and had become corrupted.

J.T. Is there not a strong analogy between 2 Timothy and the gospel of John?

F.E.R. There is between that and the epistle of John.

J.T. I thought the gospel came in later.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.P. In speaking of the elect it is a question of obtaining here, that is the other side as you tried to point out, and we must not mix the two sides.

F.E.R. Yes, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.

J.P. It is always the elect that obtain it, "The election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded".

F.E.R. There are two principles with God which He undoubtedly maintains; that is, on the one hand, responsibility, and on the other hand, sovereignty; and they are both morally necessary. God cannot give up responsibility. If all men were born again, God would give up responsibility, but if God gave up responsibility it would bring in confusion in regard of angels, so, too, in regard of those who were drowned in the flood; responsibility must be maintained, else God would appear unrighteous. God will maintain responsibility, but if God only maintained responsibility, there would not be one single soul saved. Therefore sovereignty comes in. People may try and reconcile the two, but the two great principles are an absolute necessity morally for God.

J.S.A. And the testimony of God presented to man is

on the line of responsibility, whilst the work of God in man is on the line of sovereignty.

F.E.R. Therefore you get the elect coming in.

Ques. The exhortation here; is that put in as preserving against lawlessness and looseness in a day when individual faithfulness is called for, "follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart"?

F.E.R. I think that passage is misunderstood. I think it is those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart that have to look for you.

J.S.A. That is, you have to follow righteousness.

F.E.R. That is in the lead, and those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart are to follow with you, but the great point is that righteousness is to be the leader. If you follow anything what you follow is the leader, and that is righteousness, then faith, love, and peace. You have not to look out for other people, but for yourself, and see that you follow your leader.

W.M. You do not follow people, but you follow these principles.

F.E.R. Because they are in the van. If other people are coming along too so much the better.

Rem. That is the preservative against lawlessness.

F.E.R. Quite so. "Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart".

J.P. I am afraid you are going to do away with our joining the brethren.

F.E.R. I am sure I am not going to follow the brethren, but I hope I will follow righteousness.

E.W. The company is already formed.

F.E.R. I know no company except the church.

E.W. The church as a whole?

F.E.R. Yes.

J.T. You get in Malachi, they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord took account of them.

F.E.R. Yes, but then you must remember this, that those who feared the Lord and spake often one to another were the remnant of Israel, there was not much beside them. Now you find the majority of those in the unity of the Spirit not following the line laid down in Timothy. You cannot run the remnant principle too hard, else you will put out a good many who are in the unity of the Spirit.

J.S. Have you any thought of the remnant today?

F.E.R. It gives me an unpleasant feeling when I hear any talk about it; we cannot compare ourselves with the remnant of Israel, because they were the only faithful ones. Now in the present day there are a great many people who are not walking according to 2 Timothy, who are nevertheless in the unity of the Spirit.

J.T. You mean the analogy between the company in Malachi and our position is not very great.

F.E.R. You cannot run it too hard.

G.W.H. So you could hardly say we were a remnant company.

F.E.R. I do not like it.

J.T. What do you make of Philadelphia?

F.E.R. Whatever the Lord might see in Philadelphia was morally representative of the whole church; that is the value of it in the eye of the Lord. He says, "I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee". I do not believe the Lord loves the brethren especially, but the whole church.

J.T. Do you not think certain conditions gave rise to the Lord speaking in that way?

F.E.R. If you answer to Philadelphia, the first thing would be that you would jealously guard the whole church in your mind.

Ques. Then you do not know of any company of Christians that represents the assembly as such?

F.E.R. No.

Ques. Nor any company that represents Philadelphia as such?

F.E.R. No.

J.T. All that you have been saying involves faith on the part of saints.

F.E.R. There are many who are going on outwardly with us, and I do not want to exclude them, who have no faith for the place. We carry them, and they come to the meetings, knowing that a certain kind of meeting will be carried on at a particular time; they may be orderly in walk and character, and yet they have no faith for the place, and it makes a great difficulty in the present time. I feel this, they do not gain much and they contribute nothing.

J.S. You mean to have faith for the path like Moses?

F.E.R. It is no light thing to take a stand outside of all that has credit as christianity, to go forth outside the camp bearing His reproach is a poor thing if you have not faith for it. If you do it because others do it, you will get unhappy and dissatisfied.

J.S. So you think there are a great many among us who have no faith for the path?

F.E.R. I am sure there are. In our coming together in assembly there is nothing there but what we bring. You do not find anything there. Whatever comes into the assembly in its normal character has to be brought there.

J.T. I am afraid a great many of our brethren come expecting a ready-made service there.

J.S. So we are really living in perilous times.

F.E.R. Very difficult times, but after all the Lord is above all, and if we are simple we will get the support of the Lord. How we are to go on without the support of the Lord I cannot tell; and you cannot look two days ahead. You do not want to know. There is grace enough in the Lord for the moment.

J.T. I think the fourth chapter is a wonderful comfort, because you get a unit in Paul and he says, "the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me".

F.E.R. There is the testimony, "that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might

hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion". The confidence of the apostle is, "the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom". Every one forsook him, but he says, "Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me". You may depend upon it, the Lord will stand by those who stand by the testimony.

G.R. There was evidently faith there.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.T. Well, I have no difficulties about it; I believe the Lord will support His people at the present time.

F.E.R. The great thing is to stand by the testimony. Understand first what the testimony means and then stand by it. Do not attempt to stand by Brethrenism, but by the testimony.

C.A. And you can only do that individually.

F.E.R. But then others may be seeking to do it as well as you and you follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

W.M. You cannot speak of an individual or collective testimony. The testimony is Christ.

F.E.R. Yes.

G.W.H. After all we have a great deal to encourage us, have we not?

C.A. I suppose the apostle Paul did not feel any reason to be discouraged.

F.E.R. No.

THE BRETHREN OF CHRIST

Mark 3:1 - 35

I have thought that one never really understands the import of anything the Lord Jesus did in His ministry on earth except in the light of His death. That is what I understand the Lord Jesus to have meant in saying to the disciples, do this, that is referring to the Supper, in remembrance of Me. By His death they were to call Him to mind in His life. There are two principles to be seen in the death of Christ. One is the bringing in of God; that is the first and the greatest by far. The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. God was brought out in light. But then there is another principle, and that is the termination of man as after the flesh. It has been said that the man that was under judgement was removed in judgement. Christ took all that lay on man by the judgement of God, and in doing so, on the part of God, He removed that man. So we get such expressions in Scripture as "our old man is crucified with him". That man was ended for God in the fact that the judgement that lay upon him was borne.

I want you to bear these two thoughts in mind, because you will get the key to everything the Lord Jesus did. If you attentively follow the miracles and discourses of the Lord, there were always two things in view; one was to bring God in, and the other to shut man out. The Lord gave no place to man morally, and wherever man set up any kind of pretension the Lord dealt unsparingly with the pretension. One principle that prevailed throughout the entire ministry of the Lord was the exclusion of man and man's pretensions; but on the other hand what ruled in the discourses and in the miracles of the Lord was the expressing of the rights of God in mercy. God had visited man in mercy. He had the right

to do it, and availed Himself of the right; the Lord was constantly going about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. His ministry had that character; healing the sick, cleansing the leper, giving sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf. All was the expression of the mercy of God. If we see the import of the death of Christ, then we understand the character of all the Lord's service and ministry. I make that remark because I think it will help in that which I have to bring before you.

The chapter shows us a complete change in regard of everything; it is to that I want to draw your attention. The Lord revealed Himself in a new position; that is, as a centre of gathering, and that is what He came to be. He came here not simply to minister to man in mercy, but He became man that He might become the centre to which everything of and for God should be gathered. That is one great thought in connection with the Lord which comes out in this chapter. Now I want to enlarge a little on how different classes of people were affected by it. There are three classes of people that come before us in the early part of the chapter. The first is the friends of Christ; another class is the scribes from Jerusalem, and a third is His brethren. Everything is dependent on the position the Lord assumes in the early part of the chapter, that is, as a centre of gathering. What immediately led to it was the Pharisees and Herodians taking counsel to destroy Him. Evidently that had an effect on the mind of the Lord; consequent on that we have the Lord revealing Himself in a position which He did not assume in the beginning of His ministry. He was occupied in the two previous chapters with giving testimony. Do not suppose that the Lord came here to be a climax of or crown to anything that existed. He came truly according to the promises of God, of the seed of David and of Abraham; but He was a great deal more than that, He was the Son of God in whom God was revealed, the last Adam. And if He was the last Adam, then of necessity He was the Head

and centre and point to which everything for God must be gathered. We find that brought out abundantly in the epistles; for instance, in Ephesians 1, we are told that God has made known to us the mystery of His will to gather up in one all things in Christ. That involves that Christ is the gathering point, and is to a large extent the accomplishment of the truth which comes out in Psalm 8, that is, all things put under the feet of the Son of man.

Now I call your attention to two verses, 13 and 14, "And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach". You get two distinct things in the verses. The first is, that the Lord reveals Himself as a gathering point. What the Pharisees and Herodians did becomes the occasion for revealing the real purpose for which Christ came. I think many have very inadequate thoughts of Christ. They have the idea that He was the Messiah of the Jews and came to sit on David's throne; but to get an adequate thought of Christ as man, you must go back to the beginning, for Adam was a figure. Adam was in position far greater than Abraham or David, but he was only a figure. The One to come having now come and being the Head of every man, must be the point to which God would gather everything that was for Himself; and that begins to come out here in the place the Lord takes on the mountain. He leaves the multitude and calls unto Him whom He would and they came to Him. There was a point of irresistible power and influence in Christ.

But we get another point in the next verse, that is, He chose twelve who were to be the vessels of His administration. There is the principle of administration in Scripture, and it was to be carried out through the twelve. They were to be with Him, that is, to come morally under His influence and that He might send them forth to preach. They were to preach under His administration. That is the position which comes out in this chapter and

it is important to apprehend it. It was premonitory of what has come to pass now, for at the present time, at the right hand of God, Christ is constituted the point of gathering. Everything is to be gathered to Christ; the church, the Old Testament saints, Israel, the nations, everything will be gathered to Christ. He is the great point of gathering, not now on the mountain, for He has gone up a great way above the mountain to the right hand of God; a power of attraction was in Him; He called unto Him whom He would; there was sovereignty in that way, and they came unto Him. We can throw now the light of Christ's death upon His life, and see how every act of His life was in view of His death. One point I may say in regard to that is, that for the Lord to take up such a position as the point of gathering for man, necessitated redemption, because man was under liabilities by the judgement of God, and it would have been impossible for the Lord to gather to Himself those who were under liabilities, save in view of redemption. The Lord had everything before Himself, and it could only be in view of that the Lord could take up such a position on the mountain, just as now redemption is accomplished, and Christ at the right hand of God. What is being effected is that men are being gathered to Him by divine power, and they come to Him.

Now I want to speak of the three classes I have referred to. There are in fact four classes, the multitude is one. "And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread"; the multitude, His friends, the scribes and His brethren.

It is remarkable that everybody would entertain their own opinion in regard to Christ, as in the present day people all entertain their idea of christianity. You may say there are the friends and the enemies of Christ; the scribes were the enemies of Christ. They wanted to discredit all that He did, and therefore put His work down to the agency of Beelzebub. Then there is the multitude. The multitude had no particular opinion.

They were prepared in a way to be swayed one way or the other, like people in the present day. The great mass have no judgement of their own. Then the fourth class comes in, that is His brethren, "whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister and mother".

I want to give a present application to these things, not simply to dwell on what took place then. We have not Christ on the mountain but at the right hand of God, the blessed point of gathering. Every person converted in the present day is really gathered to Christ, that is what the Holy Spirit is come down for. He is the point of gathering for individuals. Hereafter He will be the point of gathering for companies. All will be gathered to Christ. Well, now you get His friends coming in, and I think I see the class of His friends in christianity. You get those who assume to be His friends at the present day, those who would claim Christ for man after the flesh. One of the greatest dangers is an effort to claim Christ for humanity. The great truth in regard of Christ is that He is for God. He died the just for the unjust to bring men to God. He never came to be an ornament for humanity. In the same way great preachers are claimed for humanity just as Shakespeare and great minds are regarded as a credit to humanity. The truth is that Christ came to die that by His death He might open a door to God, and every one who comes to God has to come in by the door that Christ has opened. There is no way to God except by the death of Christ. When people were converted in the early days of the Acts of the Apostles they were baptised, and baptism meant burial. They were buried with Christ, that is, they died to the world and were buried, but at the same time they emerged, so to speak, on the other side, were brought to God. That is the purpose for which Christ came, that man might accept death, because man was under death, but that he might rise in the power of the Spirit, and in that way be brought to God. That was the reason for the coming of Christ,

to bring us to God on the other side of death. Baptism is the figure of that. Christ Himself is risen, and we are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God who raised Him from the dead. It is on the ground of resurrection that people are brought to God in the present time through the death of Christ. But then, the friends of Christ claim Christ as an ornament for humanity. Many in the present day do not entirely deny Christ, but they do not think Him much more than a great prophet. They have no idea of what He came to be, that is, the centre and point to which everything for God was to be gathered; and they regard Christ as come for the benefit of humanity, and to put sanction upon man. A common idea on the part of certain christians is that baptism and the Lord's Supper are an extension of the incarnation, that is, that Christ has come to amend and build up man as he is after the flesh. It is an error largely abroad.

But then there is another class, that is, the enemies of Christ. They were at work. Here it was in the attributing His miracles to the agency of Beelzebub. There are plenty of miracles in the world at the present time. It is quite a mistake to suppose this is not an age of miracles. Miracles may be of a different character, but just as real miracles as ever the Lord wrought when He was here upon earth. I see a man converted as the effect of the preaching of Christ; that is as great a miracle as any miracle the Lord wrought. You could not have a greater miracle or proof of power than that you were converted to God. All of us here are witnesses to it, for I suppose all of us have been converted. We are all miracles, and in that way witnesses to Christ; but then the enemies of Christ attribute that to some other agency, to enthusiasm, or I know not what; the effort is to discredit Christ, and the exercise of divine power here in the world. What men will have in the present day is all that comes within the range of man's observation, and anything outside of that they refuse. There are enemies of Christ that will account by some other agency for what are really mighty miracles. I have

found that there is no power in the world so great as grace. Men who never would be touched by anything else are brought down under the influence of grace, and that takes place here in the world. It is a real miracle. But the effort on the part of the enemies of Christ is to attribute the work to other agency. The multitude is ready to be swayed by anything. One day they would follow the Lord, and the next they would seek to crucify Him. The mass of people are as unthinking and as fickle as can be, led by one thing one day and another the next. They are not to be trusted. I come to another class, and that is the brethren of Christ, and that is a much more interesting class. At the close of the chapter, when the Lord's mother and brethren put forth their claim on Christ, the Lord refused their claim. He did not come to put a sanction on humanity, to ennoble His mother and brethren; to make the Jew great. The fact is the Jew became very small by the coming of Christ. Their perverseness and lawlessness came out, and the kindred of Christ after the flesh became very small. They stumbled over Christ, and the Lord makes nothing of them. The Jew would have been well pleased if Christ had come to be an ornament to them as they were, but it was not for that purpose that He came. He came here for the will of God. We get that in Psalm 40, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart". I do not know whether you remember the circumstance at the close of Luke 2, of His parents going to Jerusalem, when the Lord was twelve years of age, and losing sight of Him, finding Him in the temple sitting with the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. Do you remember the answer the Lord gave to His parents when they chid with Him, "wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" He came to accomplish the will of God, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work". We have to take that into account if we would understand anything at all about the Lord Jesus. That is; the end and purpose on which He was bent here was to give place to

the will of God. The time will come when everything in which God has pleasure will come into view, when Christ is manifested in glory. He will bring all God's will into view. He did not come to do man's will, but to accomplish God's will. My impression is that all the will of God is accomplished in principle, redemption has been accomplished and Christ, at the right hand of God, is the great gathering point in whom everything is established; so the will of God has been brought to pass in Christ; but another thing remains, and that is that all shall be brought into view in the universe. That is what Christ comes the second time to bring to pass. He says, "Who is my mother or my brethren?" "For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother".

Now I dwell on that point because it brings out a beautiful thought, that is, association with Christ. If we come into the place of the brethren of Christ we are brought into the closest possible relation with Him. The Lord on the one hand disowns His kindred; they sought to establish a claim on Him, and the Lord disallowed their claim; but on the other hand, a new bond is established between Christ and those who sat about Him, and that is, the will of God. Now I take it that all here would be found in the position of sitting about Him. Of course I am only taking up what occurred in the chapter as figurative. Morally we are sitting about Christ. That is the real ground of our being here. We have Jesus as centre, and are sitting about Him. It is no good sitting about Jesus if you are not prepared to do the will of God. His true brethren are marked by this. You cannot be doing right if you are not doing the will of God, because there cannot be any other will that is right except the will of God. The terrible thing in the world is, that there are as many wills as people. It is a lawless world, where every man does his own will. Now how do you do the will of God? What I understand is that Christ has been pleased to draw us to Himself. That is the first principle of doing the will of God. The Lord went up into the mountain

and called unto Him whom He would, and they came unto Him. Christ is the point of attraction, and has drawn us to Himself, because He has revealed to us the mind of God toward man. That is the power of attraction in Christ The Lord said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me". I look upon His being lifted up from the earth as the great testimony of divine love. Divine love came out there, Christ is the expression to us of the mind of God toward man. It is a very wonderful thing that we cannot have any doubt or hesitation as to what is in the mind of God toward man, for Christ has come and died that He might make it known; that is the power of attraction that subsists in Christ. All of us have felt the power of it.

Now I go a point further. It is not simply that He has attracted us, but has attached us to Himself. I use the word "attached" in a sense which is strictly right, but not in the conventional sense. We use it often in the sense of affection. I use it in the sense of a bond, as the earth is bound to the sun, or a wife to her husband. Our attachment to Christ is a great point, it is in order that we might be recovered from lawlessness. If the earth were to get out of attachment it would become lawless. Every man who is not in attachment to Christ is lawless because God has appointed Christ to be the centre and sun of the moral universe. Everybody ought to allow that. Lawlessness is the ruin of this world, the existing system. It is on account of lawlessness that God will set aside and judge it, for lawlessness is intolerable to God. You may have man moral and intelligent and refined, but none of these will subdue lawlessness. Nothing can set aside lawlessness except the fact of our being in attachment to God's centre, and that is Christ. He attaches us to Himself by the Spirit. The Spirit is the bond between Christ and the believer, so that we are recovered from lawlessness.

But now we come to a further point. We are brought into attachment that we may come under influence. I take up my illustration again. The earth is in attachment

to the sun. It is held to the sun by laws which God has been pleased to appoint, and the effect is that the earth travels in its appointed orbit in relation to the sun; the earth comes under the influence of the sun with the result that the earth is fertile and brings forth fruit. Now the same principle holds good as to the believer. He is brought into attachment to Christ, that being recovered from lawlessness he may come under the influence of Christ, and be fruitful toward God. We get that brought out in Romans 7. Now our sitting about Christ is the proof that we are brought into attachment. Christ gave Himself that He might deliver us from all lawlessness, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works, a people that should be recovered from lawlessness by being brought into attachment to Himself, and should sit about Him, so that they should be zealous of good works. What are good works? Doing the will of God. A man may do works of benevolence on his own account, but they may not be good works as regards God. There cannot be any good works properly, except they be of the will of God. The Lord did not do works of beneficence according to man, giving millions of money to this and that; the fact is, He had no money to give; and so, too, afterwards Peter had to say, "silver and gold have I none". But He could say to a lame man, rise up and walk. The apostles were full of good works, and we are to be full of mercy and good works, but your good works must be the expressions of God's will to be good works. Some one might say, how am I to do the will of God? You will do it as you are under the influence of Christ. Every law of nature is subtle, you cannot trace it out, so the influence of Christ is subtle; but at the same time it is extremely real, and the heart of the believer is affected by it, as the apostle Paul said, "and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me". We need to appropriate and in a sense to individualise Christ and His love to ourselves, and under the influence of His love we do

the will of God. I have seen people pay a great deal of attention to ministry and be diligent at meetings, but I do not think they are helped so much by meetings or ministry as they think. I do not undervalue ministry, which is like rain, but what people want is sunshine. Rain would be no good without sunshine. If there were no sunshine there would be no rain, because the rain is dependent on sunshine; it is everything for us to get into the sunshine; that is, to get our hearts under the influence of the love of Christ. And Christ has brought us into attachment to Himself that we may come under the influence of His love and be zealous of good works. Good works are what Christ did. He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. And he that doeth righteousness is righteous as He is righteous. He stands in relation to Christ, and practises righteousness, that is what is right. People have all sorts of theological ideas about righteousness. Righteousness is what is right, and what is right is determined by the light of God. Whatever Christ did was right; He was doing righteousness, and we want to travel in His path, as the apostle puts it, "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked"; doing good as God gives us opportunity; our influence is for God; we want to bring God in and to give no room for the pretension of man. If I disallow flesh in myself I will not tolerate it in other people. That would not be consistent or logical; my reason for disallowing the flesh is that there may be room for the Spirit of God, and so that there may be fruit for God. It says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law". Now may God give to us to understand the purpose of His grace, that we might be really sitting about Jesus. It is a great thing to recognise Him as the divinely -- appointed centre. He is not a self-constituted centre. There will be one hereafter in this world; that is, the man of sin.

It is a great thing to be in this world denying lawlessness, and refusing to be controlled by your own will, but doing the will of God; then it is you are brother and sister and mother of Christ. That is our position, so that we should be with Him in the day of His glory; we shall be around Him then. We shall sit with Him at His table in His kingdom and the light will shine out through us. The church is to be the great vessel of light in the moral universe. The kings of the earth bring their honour and glory unto it; it is the moral luminary, but in the meantime we are left here that we might be bringing forth fruit unto God. As the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, He has ordained them that they should go and bring forth fruit and that their fruit should remain.

RIGHTEOUSNESS AND SALVATION

Isaiah 51:1 - 11

Ques. In what do you connect, in moral order, righteousness and salvation?

F.E.R. We have to look at the past and to the future. We read here, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?" That is the past. Then the future is, "Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away". We have to look both at the past and to the future, to see what righteousness and salvation mean. The promise is, "The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody". Then in the fifth verse, "My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust". Then in verse 6, "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished". Then in verse 8, "For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to

generation". Evidently righteousness and salvation have been set forth in the past, and they are spoken of in regard to the future, and the effect of God bringing them in is seen. If you want to understand principles, the great thing is to see them in the light of all God's ways.

J.S.A. If they are really divine principles they will hold good through all.

F.E.R. Change of dispensation can never alter principles. Moral principles must remain. What is of God must remain, simply because God is the same, through every change of dispensation.

Rem. The references to righteousness and salvation here reach back to Israel in the beginning and refer to Israel in a coming day.

F.E.R. Not only to Israel, but to the universe; it is the world. You cannot limit these things to Israel. You get, "the isles shall wait upon me and on mine arm shall they trust". I think our vision has been limited, as to the future, too much to Israel. Israel comes into prominence as the light of the earth, but the point before God is not simply the establishment of Israel, but the establishment of the universe; you cannot limit Christ to Israel. Christ is Head over all things, and it is the universe which is set in the light of God of which Christ is head. Israel has its place, just as the church has its place in the universe, but they are only items in it.

J.P. I see then the principles that will obtain in that universe are the principles that obtain now.

F.E.R. Exactly, because that universe is already brought into existence as far as we are concerned. I mean we apprehend it. It is established. It is not displayed yet, but everything is established. God's righteousness is brought near; His salvation has come to pass. It is not yet displayed, but it is established in Christ.

W.M. I suppose this is a period of light.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.T. When God took up Abraham, it was not for his own seed, but in connection with the whole race.

F.E.R. Yes, "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed". The moment promise came in, it had reference to all the nations of the earth.

J.P. I see where we have failed; we have not had the full scope of God's ways before us.

F.E.R. We have taken up this detail and that, and not got the whole.

J.P. We have rushed ourselves a little too much to the front, and if not ourselves it has been Israel.

F.E.R. Exactly.

H.F. Does it not go back further even than that, to the woman in the garden, where it speaks about the One who would bruise the serpent's head? Was it not brought out long before Abraham?

F.E.R. Yes, I think so, and really it goes back further than that, for Christ comes in to meet the whole principle of sin. "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself". The Lord goes back to the outset. There was an outset of sin, and I think Christ came to deal with it. He takes a place which affects things, not only on earth but in heaven. Christ has taken up the question of sin, not only in the world, but in the whole extent of it, and hence it is He is the Head and centre of the entire system. Angels are put under Him. Jesus said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven"; in the fact of Man going up to heaven, in the person of Christ, Satan falls as lightning from heaven, and Satan is the outset of sin; the outset of sin was not with man. "By one man sin entered into the world", but the devil sins from the outset. I think Christ has come in to meet sin in all the extent of it, and hence as Son of man He is put over all the works of God's hands, angels not excepted. He has come in to establish everlasting righteousness.

P.C.R. Was sin there before man was corrupted?

F.E.R. How would man have been tempted if there had not been sin there? It was by one man sin entered into the world, but the fact of man being tempted proves

that sin was there. So the Lord says in chapter 8 of John that the devil sins from the outset.

J.S.A. Do I understand you to say we shall not understand these things today in their application to ourselves unless we apprehend them in all the ways of God?

F.E.R. I think not. We have made the mistake of looking at principles too much in their application to ourselves, and not seeing them in the light of all God's ways. The chapter here goes forward to the future prophetically and it goes back to the past, and the principles that have come out are God's righteousness and salvation. They are near; prophetically near.

J.T. What do you mean by the past?

F.E.R. It says, "Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?" Then again in verse 9, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" There was God's salvation in redemption. The ransomed of the Lord passed through the Red Sea and the arm of the Lord smote Rahab. There was God's salvation and righteousness on behalf of Israel, and it goes on prophetically to the future in connection with Christ. "My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust".

J.S.A. It is rather interesting in that connection that when we go on to the passage where righteousness is used in Romans 10, it is introduced in connection with Israel.

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. I suppose righteousness is a principle that abides eternally outside all dispensations.

F.E.R. Quite so; righteousness is what one might call the rule or law of the moral universe. It is in contrast to lawlessness. Righteousness stands in that way in connection with Christ Himself. "Thou hast loved righteousness

and hast hated lawlessness". Lawlessness has come in, and brought confusion and disorder, just as it would in any universe, the physical universe for instance. Whatever is lawless goes to destruction. Righteousness is the principle even of the physical universe, in contrast to lawlessness. It is that which made the psalmist say, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork". When you look at the heavens you see order, not confusion, there is no lawlessness. The only time you see lawlessness is probably in a shooting star, and what is lawless goes to destruction.

The earth sets forth the lawlessness of man, and the heavens declare the glory of God. The glory of God, like the righteousness of God, stands in contrast to the lawlessness of man.

J.T. Do you mean He had to look to heaven because it could not be found here?

F.E.R. Yes. 'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile'; that is what the earth speaks of. The greatest thing upon earth is vile. There is nothing to compare with man upon earth, and he is vile.

H.F. So I suppose there is no righteousness but divine righteousness.

F.E.R. There can be none.

J.T. But righteousness has been taken up too much as a doctrine. The thing has not been practical.

F.E.R. I think so. As though it were something substantive, etc. We have talked about people being righteous in nature. All that doctrinal view of things is poor. Volumes have been written on it. and they have only obscured the matter.

J.T. The necessity for righteousness would arise when things went wrong, I suppose.

F.E.R. No; the point is that righteousness was there with God, and that sin came in to invade righteousness.

J.T. I mean the question of it; the question had to be raised.

F.E.R. I think it made it necessary for God to do what

He had not done before, that is, to assert His rights. Lawlessness made that necessary.

J.T. That is what I meant. For instance, in the law.

F.E.R. Righteousness was with God, but God did not assert His righteousness till lawlessness came in. Then you get the assertion of God's rights.

H.F. You give a definition of righteousness to be God's rights.

F.E.R. I think so. The best definition is 'what is right', and that is God's rights. If God be God, and man God's creature, and you do not admit God's rights, there can be nothing right.

J.T. Then the first thing would be evidently that God should have His place with men.

F.E.R. Evidently, and that is what God asserted in the law; His rights; the law was not arbitrary in that way. They were what I may call the proper rights of God in regard to intelligent creatures.

J.T. He had a perfect right to claim the affection of His creature.

F.E.R. Yes, of an intelligent creature, capable of affection; it was only right that man should love God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself. Man is capable of affection, and the God who created man has a claim to the first place in man's affection; man should love Him with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself.

W.M. It is a remarkable thing that those are the two points at which man departed from God.

F.E.R. Yes. Lawlessness came in and the next thing was murder. Adam became lawless. He ceased to be under the influence of God; then Cain comes in with the necessary consequence of that, that is hatred and murder. That is the beginning of evil coming into the world; lawlessness, and then hatred and murder.

J.P. That is always the order. You see them in that verse in Titus 3, describing man; of the first words is "disobedient", that is lawless, and then the last words are "hateful, and hating one another".

F.E.R. Yes, never was such a picture of the world delineated as that. It was not only the world of the apostle's day among the Cretans but the world of today. It is the world on this side of the water and the world on our side of the water. They may cover it up by rank and honour and glory, and all that kind of thing, but that is only veneer. Put all that aside and what describes the world is "disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another".

J.A.C. Is the idea of Adam manufacturing his clothing of fig-leaves an illustration of man seeking to clothe himself in his own righteousness?

F.E.R. I think man wants to keep up appearances. Man lives in appearances and the world is dependent on appearances. Suppose we all appeared to one another as we are actually, and our hearts were apparent to one another, the world would be a pandemonium. The existence of the world depends on the maintenance of appearances.

H.F. You were saying a moment ago about God having a righteous demand on our affections. We do not often connect affection and righteousness.

F.E.R. The right of God is the issue and outcome of His love.

H.F. I was thinking of it in connection with His love, that it was the revelation of His love that really drew out the affection.

F.E.R. I think it is, but the rights of God are the rights of His love, because God is love, and love is of God; and when love is connected with sovereignty it has certain rights, and the rights of God were that He should be loved. Whether man love Him or not, He had a right to be loved.

H.F. I think so, but I was thinking of it in connection with this; do you think that ever the affection of a child of God was drawn out to God in the way it is since love was revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ?

F.E.R. No, I will tell you why. It is because God asserted His rights in the law, if God had never been love He could not have commanded people to love Him. But it obtained no answer. It was evidently on account of man's state. Then it is that God comes out with another right of love, and that is the right of mercy. Love has the right of mercy; then it is God obtains an answer. That is, through redemption God obtains an answer on the part of man.

H.F. That is what I was thinking, till that moment when the Lord revealed God in love.

F.E.R. That did not alter the fact that "God is love". He has the right to beloved, because He is love, and God maintains that still; even in regard to us the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, but you have the Spirit through the mercy of God; God has come in in the rights of mercy in redemption, and imparted the Spirit; now you get the original right of God fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. All depended on God coming out in grace.

J.T. Hence God does not need to have the testimony of His rights sealed in a box.

F.E.R. No, Christ has come as the ark of the covenant.

Rem. Righteousness was never seen on earth till Christ was here manifesting it.

F.E.R. No, because when man is lawless, righteousness must be in the fact of man being brought into attachment. How is man going to be brought into attachment?

J.T. That is what we would like to know.

F.E.R. It can only be in one way, that is the way God has opened through redemption, taking up the liabilities under which man lay, and the establishment of a head. Christ has accomplished redemption and is the divinely appointed Head, and righteousness now consists in man being brought into attachment to Christ.

W.M. Just as everything in this material universe is kept in place by the sun, the head of the system.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.T. And would you say the testimony of righteousness came out livingly when Christ was here?

F.E.R. As long as He was here the Lord was doing everything in anticipation of the cross. So far as He was concerned personally there was His personal righteousness, but that would not avail for man. He is continually spoken of as the righteous One. He hated lawlessness and loved righteousness, but that would not be available for man.

H.F. Would you not say as well as being the revelation of God's love He was also the revelation of God's righteousness to us?

F.E.R. I do not think you get the revelation of righteousness, in regard of us, till you come to redemption. Redemption is the establishment of righteousness in regard to us.

Rem. Thus the thing could not be made manifest or made available till Christ is established as Head.

F.E.R. No, you can easily understand that. So far as man was concerned, he had come under liabilities, under the judgement of God, under curse and death. Those liabilities must be respected. If you take up a property with a mortgage on it you are compelled to respect the mortgage. You cannot take up the property and disregard the charges on it. Looking upon man as being the inheritance of God, the property was under liabilities, and those charges had to be respected; if God were to take up man in any way those liabilities had to be met, and of necessity must be met in man, because man was under them; and therefore the Son of God became Man in order that those liabilities should be discharged. That is where redemption comes in. But the man that has the power to take up those liabilities and discharge them, evidently becomes pre-eminent among men. I think anyone will understand that, and righteousness on our part is that we are brought into attachment to the Head. You are no longer lawless, but in attachment to the Head,

and the Head has met and discharged the liabilities under which we were, so we are not only justified, but brought into attachment.

J.T. In regard to the Lord's position before the cross, was there not the setting forth of the rights of God in a man there?

F.E.R. I think in this sense, as a perfect man He was the righteous One. I see the rights of God set forth every now and again in the ministry of the Lord Jesus, but you ought to look at the detail of the Lord's life in the light of His death. I do not think you can understand it otherwise.

H.F. So that the righteousness which was revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ was His own personal righteousness.

F.E.R. Yes. The way I see the righteousness of God coming out anticipatively when the Lord was here upon earth was in the forgiveness of sins. "Thy sins be forgiven thee"; it was the Lord intervening in mercy, and coming out in anticipation of His work, "that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house". It was the right of God in mercy.

J.P. That is to say it was not seen in what He was personally, it was rather in what He ministered to others on the part of God.

F.E.R. When He forgave the sinful woman, that was the right of God in mercy, but that involved redemption. He could only do that in view of redemption.

J.P. Did He not really state it on one occasion when He said, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice"?

F.E.R. Exactly; the rights of God in mercy. Forgiveness is that.

W.M. That is a very clear instance of the fact that His life must be interpreted by His death.

F.E.R. There are two things that come out in the death of Christ; one is the setting aside of man, that is

evident, "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh"; and the other is the introduction of God in mercy. You will find those two principles explain and interpret every act of the Lord here upon earth. He was always bringing in God in mercy on the one hand, and on the other hand He would not tolerate one single bit of fleshly profession.

H.F. In connection with speaking about mercy, did you not yesterday make some distinction between mercy and grace?

F.E.R. I think there is, but it is difficult to make a sharp dividing line. I think grace meets man where he is in responsibility, and mercy takes more account of the condition of man and provides salvation for him; but I would not like to draw a fine line between the two, so we come to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

J.T. In the epistle to Titus we get the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.

F.E.R. But in the next chapter, "according to his mercy he saved us", I think it lies this way, so far as one can attempt to put it. Grace is to the forefront. The attitude of God at the present time is evidently in grace, so the gospel is the glad tidings of the grace of God, but behind grace lies mercy, and behind mercy lies love. Of course grace and mercy are attributes of God, but love is His nature, and so love must lie behind all. Grace is beautiful because it is in that way God presents Himself to man. Instead of imputing trespasses God meets man in the grace of forgiveness; and behind that is mercy; the merciful consideration in which God has taken man into account with a view of delivering him from the hand of the enemy.

J.P. Ephesians 2 groups them all together in a very beautiful way, "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us ... For by grace are ye saved through faith".

F.E.R. Exactly.

H.F. You say behind grace is mercy and behind mercy is love. Behind that would God's glory be?

F.E.R. I think the effulgence of His love is His glory.

H.F. They seem to present a little different thought in my mind. I mean you can understand God so loved that He gave His Son, but then there seems to be a little different thought than that of God doing it for His own glory.

F.E.R. The glory of God is simply that He shines out. If sin had never come in there would not have been the same effulgence of God. God would not have been any different if sin had not come in, but He would not have shone out in the same way. Sin has become the occasion for the shining out of God and that is His glory.

H.F. I think that is true, but do you not think there is a different thought? For instance, if you were speaking of a king doing a thing for love, that is one thing; but if he does it for his own glory also, would not that be another thing?

F.E.R. I do not think so. His glory would be that he shines out in that way. He becomes effulgent in the eyes of the universe or the kingdom, that is a king's glory. His glory is the effulgence of himself.

W.M. God could not receive any glory.

F.E.R. Nothing can be added to God. All on the part of God is a question of effulgence, that is, He shines out. Every one says, Glory! If God had not shone out none would say glory, but now every one says, Glory! 'Glory all belongs to God'.

W.M. I suppose with Christ it was somewhat different because He, being a man, could be glorified.

F.E.R. Where was God glorified?

W.M. In the death of Christ.

F.E.R. Yes, it shone out in the cross, and the universe will have to learn that the death of Christ was the effulgence of God's glory.

G.W.H. What was the thought of the Lord in John 17,

"Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee"?

F.E.R. That is, He was to shine out in holy splendour by the Son. The Son was to be glorified that in the Son the glory of God might shine out; that is, His holy love might shine out in the Son. Where does the Son glorify Him? In the eyes of the universe, "As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him". The Son makes God effulgent in the presence of the universe. He does not add anything to God, but what God is shines out in splendour.

J.T. Hence the gospel is said to be the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.

Rem. The effulgence of His glory you get in Hebrews.

G.T. Who is God getting glory from now?

F.E.R. Only the church, I should say.

J.G. Would you say the heavenly host ascribed glory to God?

F.E.R. Yes, they meant, now God will be effulgent in the eyes of the universe. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men".

J.S.A. It is quite clear that God's glory existed in the time of Moses because Moses said, "show me thy glory".

H.F. Is it not necessary that those who are not for His glory should be condemned, and where does love come in there?

F.E.R. It is the necessity of His love that calls for it.

J.T. I think there is a disposition sometimes to make God something different to love.

F.E.R. But you cannot, because the statement that God is love is absolute. You cannot qualify it at all. You may depend upon it, whatever comes to pass, though we cannot understand, is a necessity of what God is, that is, the necessity of love.

H.F. Is not the statement just as unqualified and explicit, "God is light"?

F.E.R. It is not, it adds immediately, "and in him is no darkness at all". It is relative.

J.S.A. What it shows is we do not know what love is; we have a very human thought of love.

F.E.R. There are many things the human mind cannot compass, because man's mind is not like the mind of God. We cannot see things which God sees as necessary; people cannot understand eternity of punishment because they cannot judge of things as God judges. God only can judge as to what is according to Himself. But it is clear to me that by the very fact of God being what He is, that is, love absolutely, that whatever He does is in the necessity of His love.

H.F. So as to make it plain, would you give us a definition of what you understand by love as connected with God?

F.E.R. I could not undertake that. It would be beyond any creature.

H.F. The reason I ask is because I believe that God is righteous and God is love.

F.E.R. But you cannot put the two things in that way. Righteousness is an attribute of God, and every attribute of God is an attribute of His nature. The root of every attribute of God lies in His nature. Holiness is an attribute of God, but lies in His nature.

H.F. But holiness is involved in righteousness.

F.E.R. Holiness is a characteristic of God's love, and righteousness an attribute of God.

G.W.H. I suppose that nothing that God could do would ever be the violation of the fact that God is love.

F.E.R. On the contrary it is a necessity of love.

H.F. Of course we would not for a moment claim because we think that God is righteous that that would be a violation of the fact that God is love.

F.E.R. But His righteousness is the necessity of His love. I cannot understand how people can put righteousness distinct from love. Righteousness is the rights of love.

J.P. That is why you say that all God's attributes lie in His nature, and His righteousness is the right of His love. Holiness is the characteristic of His love.

W.M. So the demands of the law brought the two things together.

F.E.R. Yes.

H.F. I cannot see that there could be holiness without righteousness or righteousness without holiness.

F.E.R. There could not be in God. But the two are quite different ideas. Holiness is one thing and righteousness another. Holiness is the characteristic of God's love, and righteousness is the rights of God. The two ideas are different, but they lie in God's nature.

G.T. I find in Revelation 20, "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire". Is that an action of love?

F.E.R. That is consistent with God's love; I do not care who says 'No', and I think it bad to say 'No'. Whatever God does is consistent with His love and the necessity of His love, and if anybody were to deny it, it would only prove that he did not know God.

F.C. Would you say it is an adequate expression of His abhorrence of evil?

F.E.R. It is not only that. If God is going to rule the universe God will never tolerate lawlessness, Therefore lawlessness will be limited and fixed in its own place; but that is in love, because God takes in the good of the whole universe. It is for universal good. It is all the necessity of love, because to tolerate lawlessness would be inconsistent with love. God has to take the whole thing into account. We are such poor things we can only look at this little bit, or that little bit, but God is great and takes the whole universe into account.

J.G. Even with ourselves we see it brought out. We see the parent correcting the child for lawlessness and it is love which corrects the child.

F.E.R. God has almighty power, and the whole universe in view, and it would be inconsistent with divine

love to tolerate lawlessness. God may tolerate it for the moment, but in result He will limit it in the lake of fire.

Ques. What is the righteousness reckoned unto Abraham?

F.E.R. Abraham was looked at as righteous, as being morally in attachment. Man could not be attached to God; that would be too great a thought. Man has to be brought into attachment by the introduction of a head, that is Christ; and it is in Christ that God is made known to us and redemption exists.

W.M. In that way it would appear that the Old Testament must be interpreted in the light of the death of Christ.

F.E.R. "They are they which testify of me". That is what the Lord said about the Holy Scriptures. They were indited by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God had Christ in view.

H.F. So that Christ is the key to all God's word.

F.E.R. Yes.

Rem. The necessity of the lake of fire and of judgement is, that all that is not according to God must be removed out of sight.

F.E.R. But that is the necessity of love, because God has the whole universe in view.

C.H.B. Does attachment to the Head produce practical righteousness?

F.E.R. Yes. "He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous". He "that abideth in him sinneth not". The effect of being in attachment is that we practise righteousness.

P.A.E.S. Then it goes on to speak of love in the third chapter of John.

G.W.H. I think you said affection is consequent on attachment.

F.E.R. Yes, a husband and wife do not love each other as such till they are actually attached. Till the marriage they do not love each other as husband and wife. There is the attraction previously, but the real love of husband

and wife is when the tie is formed. You get that in Isaac and Rebecca. When Rebecca was brought to Isaac she was a comfort to Isaac. So it is usually, there is first the drawing together and when the tie is formed you get the real affection between the husband and wife. So it is in regard to us and Christ. When we are attached to Christ by the Spirit you get affection for Christ.

W.M. So the order is attraction, attachment, affection.

F.E.R. There are three steps. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me". There is the power of attraction in Christ. Then He attaches us to Himself by the Spirit, and then it is you get affection in the Spirit. "Love in the Spirit".

J.T. I think these things have a universal bearing as well as righteousness.

F.E.R. Everything has. That is why I proposed to take up this chapter, it looks back to the past and on to the future as to what Christ will bring into the universe. That is these principles of righteousness and salvation; salvation follows on righteousness, Christ is both.

P.A.E.S. Could you read verse 24 in Romans 3, 'Being justified freely by His righteousness'?

F.E.R. You see in the previous verse 22 that you can do so; it is His righteousness which is upon you, but you are justified freely in His grace.

F.F. It is by faith we take hold of these things.

F.E.R. We cannot understand anything whatever except by faith. It is the apprehension of things unseen. You must apprehend what Christ is as the Head and centre of the moral universe. You get Christ in view in that way, and everything becomes extremely simple. The defect with people is that they have not got Christ into view officially as the centre and Sun of God's universe. It is simple to understand that He attracts us to Himself in that way. He is the great luminary to rule the day as God appointed the sun at the outset, so Christ has become the great luminary in heaven to rule the day, and faith apprehends that; and the Spirit is given to the

believer to bring us into attachment to Him, as the earth is attached to the sun, so that we might come under His influence and in that way escape lawlessness.

J.T. These things are hidden for the present, but the gospel brings them into view for faith.

F.E.R. Yes, the glad tidings are the glad tidings of the Christ.

J.S.A. I think what you have referred to now is important, the difference between Christ personally and Christ officially.

F.E.R. Yes. The last Adam is what Christ is officially and the Sun of righteousness the same. It is intimately connected with what Christ is morally. You could not separate the two, but you must distinguish between what He is personally and officially.

W.M. When you speak of Christ officially do you mean that which He is in relation to everybody?

F.E.R. Yes; what He is by divine appointment in relation to all. God made two great lights. They did not make themselves. So God has made a great light, a divinely appointed light to rule the day. In the New Testament the Sun of righteousness is there, but not yet risen above the horizon of man's vision. Scripture says in regard to us that "the darkness is passing and the true light already shines". That is true of Christ and christians.

P.A.E.S. Would you say that in apprehending Christ as the centre there is no limit to your circle?

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. Christ was set in that official position apart from whether men receive blessing or not.

F.E.R. But it was in connection with God's purpose of grace that Christ has been set in that position; whether people like it or not, God did not consult man about it.

W.M. But He was set in that position before the gospel went out, that is what I mean.

F.E.R. Yes, or there could not have been the preaching. Salvation was found in Christ. What salvation in those days meant, salvation means in these days. That is,

escape from the world, and escape from the world can only be found in Christ. No one could find salvation in the present day except in Christ. There is no other outlet. A man may put himself into a monastery or shut himself up, but there is no escape from the world except in Christ, and therefore Christ is salvation.

P.A.E.S. And you can say no wonder the apostle Paul was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

F.E.R. It was the power of God unto salvation, because righteousness was revealed, that is, the rights of God in mercy; and it is available for man because evidently man can come on that ground; but then it is the power of God unto salvation.

J.S.A. And though faith apprehends it, yet it is really only by the Spirit that you enter into the appreciation of it.

F.E.R. It is by the Spirit you are brought into attachment, Faith brings light in, but it does not form the bond. The bond is formed by the Spirit, and then you find Christ to be salvation. I know for myself I have found an outlet from the power of things down here, where the god of this world works, by coming to Christ. Christ is salvation to me. I have salvation in Him, and it is no good saying I have not. Salvation will mean virtually the same thing when Christ comes into the world, the difference being that Christ will set aside the world system and bind the prince of it.

P.A.E.S. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness".

F.E.R. Quite so, 'in view of righteousness'. There ought not to be much difficulty in regard to salvation. What was salvation in the case of Israel? God had intervened as their Saviour. That is, His rights had been set forth in the blood typically, the people were delivered from the fear of death and brought to God and the power of the enemy was virtually broken. The Egyptian was dead on the seashore, and thus God saved Israel from

the hand of Pharaoh and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

R.J.R. In the incident at Philippi what was in the jailer's mind when he asked, "what must I do to be saved?"

F.E.R. I am sure I cannot tell, because the jailer had no knowledge of divine things at all. I have no doubt his conscience witnessed. His mind was filled with terror, and I do not suppose he could have told you himself; but he knew he was wrong anyway. The apostle says at once, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house". "And they spake unto him the word of the Lord".

Ques. Would you say we are not saved till we are delivered from this world?

F.E.R. I think we are saved in the apprehension of Christ, because Christ is salvation. Therefore the apostle says, "I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory". When you get to Christ Jesus you are delivered from the world. You are in salvation. You must find Christ down here for salvation. Salvation has no reference to heaven, but to the scene down here. You will find Christ where the early christians found Him. They found Christ in the christian circle. That is where they came into salvation.

R.J.R. Your thought would be that when the jailer was pointed to Christ it would be in order that he would get the Spirit.

F.E.R. He would get the Spirit, and by the Spirit and through baptism he would be brought into the christian circle, and that is salvation. "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us"; hence the value of baptism was that through it they came into the christian circle, and in the christian circle they found Christ and had salvation.

Rem. And it was really the lordship of Christ put before him.

F.E.R. As an object for faith.

Rem. But they spoke unto him the word of the Lord.

F.E.R. Yes, no doubt. They put the testimony before him, the testimony of our Lord.

G.T. Would you be free to say that people are saved now?

F.E.R. Salvation is in Christ, and Christ is in the christian circle, and if people find the reality of the christian circle they will find salvation.

G.T. Would you be free to say of yourself you were saved?

F.E.R. It is difficult today to find the christian circle. If we could find the christian circle then I could say we were in salvation.

J.T. That raises the question about the individual you were talking about yesterday.

F.E.R. Yes. God has abounded toward us in grace in giving us a little idea of the christian circle; and in the christian circle salvation is found, because there Christ is, and where Christ is there is salvation, and there is no salvation where Christ is not.

W.L.P. If you have the Spirit consequent on believing, you are secure.

F.E.R. Security all lies in righteousness. If you are in attachment that is security enough. The judgement of God only falls on lawlessness, and when lawlessness is rampant and defined, but if you are in attachment there is nothing to come upon you. How can anything wrong come on those in attachment? The earth stands in relation to the sun and gets all the benefit of the sun. Nothing comes under judgement but that which is lawless.

W.L.P. I would rather be in that position in my soul than to merely say I am saved.

F.E.R. But then salvation comes in, and in the christian circle where Christ is; you come out of Egypt, out of the world, and you come into what is of God, and that is where salvation is.

Rem. Salvation is not the same as forgiveness of sins.

F.E.R. That is righteousness; forgiveness of sins is not all. Forgiveness of sins is not attachment. There is no righteousness without attachment. You could not be in attachment without having forgiveness, when you are in attachment there is righteousness; but there is another point, that you may be brought into the christian circle where the love of Christ abides, and salvation is there and there only.

G.T. Is that being delivered from this present evil world?

F.E.R. Exactly.

H.F. Do you not think there is some misapprehension about it, because of the wrong idea of what salvation is? Take the children of Israel as a type, there were different stages in their salvation until they were quite clear. We have often spoken of a person being saved. It meant simply that they were saved so far as the soul's salvation was concerned. Now the salvation of which you were speaking and with which I entirely agree, is far beyond that and perhaps a good many have difficulty about it.

F.E.R. But I think they mix up salvation and righteousness. Righteousness is what people want and then they will soon come into salvation. What people call salvation is only righteousness.

J.A.C. Do you think the nine lepers of the ten were an example of attachment.

F.E.R. There was no attachment in the nine. The tenth was attracted and I have no doubt he became attached. The others got the benefit and went their way, but the tenth was attracted. I look upon the tenth leper as being God's tithe. He would have His tithe.

J.G. Would you say a man not walking under the influence of Christ would know little if anything about salvation?

F.E.R. He knows nothing about it. It is no good a man

telling me be is abiding in the Lord when he is independent of the christian circle. I judge of people by what they are doing, not by what they say. You cannot trust appearances. Very often people talk to keep up appearances. It is people's conduct and associations that show what they are.

LIGHT AND SHINING

Isaiah 60:1 - 3; Revelation 21:22 - 27; Revelation 22:1 - 7

F.E.R. It is important to apprehend that the church anticipates morally the coming of the Lord. The passage I read in Isaiah 60, refers to the coming of the Lord and the place of Israel, but the church anticipates that coming. You get another proof of that in the end of Isaiah and of Ephesians. The Lord takes up righteousness for a breastplate, and the helmet of salvation. He clothes Himself with zeal as a cloak, and the helmet and the breastplate characterise Him when He comes. Well, the admonition to us at the end of the epistle to the Ephesians is to take the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation. In that way we anticipate the coming of the Lord.

J.P. So that all that will come into display when the Lord comes is set forth now morally in the power of the Spirit in the church.

F.E.R. And in that way the church anticipates the coming of the Lord. The Lord will have to deal with enemies down here and that kind of thing. We have to meet in the meantime spiritual forms of the wickedness in the heavenly places, and we take up what properly is characteristic of Christ.

W.M. Do you think that is because the Ephesians are looked upon as in the full light of God?

F.E.R. I think so, and all is anticipative. You cannot very well understand that epistle unless you see it anticipates the coming of the Lord. For instance, we are said to be quickened together with Christ and raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. How can you understand that if you do not view it in the light of what is effected in the coming of the Lord?

W.M. That will be true actually in the coming of the Lord.

F.E.R. It is in some sense anticipated now because it speaks of it as having been done.

H.F. Is that not literally true of christians now, made to sit together in heavenly places?

F.E.R. No, you are sitting on that seat.

H.F. I am bodily.

F.E.R. Then it is not literally true.

H.F. You mean the full consummation of it will be future?

F.E.R. I mean it will be literally true then.

H.F. Is it not true spiritually now?

F.E.R. I was saying there is some sense in which it is true now. It is "in Christ Jesus"; it is put abstractly. It cannot be literally true now, else we would not be here this afternoon.

J.M.D. One can reach it in the apprehension of their soul.

F.E.R. It is not looked at in the way of apprehension, but of what God has wrought, He "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus". We have to view ourselves abstractly as in Christ Jesus in order to enter into it.

C.A. Would you say it is morally true now?

F.E.R. Yes, but it is looked at as what God has wrought. I think it refers to the place of the saints in the great scheme of His purpose. He has "made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ". It brings out the place God has given to the church in the scheme of His purpose. My only point in regard to it is, that it is anticipating what will take place at the coming of the Lord; the object of it is, "That in the ages to come (not now) he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus". It contemplates the church as the vessel in

which God will set forth in the universe the exceeding riches of His grace. That you get in the heavenly city. The nations of the earth walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth bring their honour and glory unto it. The glory of God is the light of it.

H.F. The heavenly city is the church, is it not?

F.E.R. I think so.

G.W.H. By the coming of the Lord do you refer to 1 Thessalonians 4?

F.E.R. Quite so. So, too, the Revelation, the last clause I read, "Behold, I come quickly".

J.T. Is that correct, Thessalonians?

F.E.R. Yes, "we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep".

J.T. Would, "Behold, I come quickly", be the same idea?

F.E.R. I think so.

H.F. What is the significance in the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness? Why the helmet of salvation and breastplate of righteousness?

F.E.R. I think the one hangs upon the other. I think Christ has established divine righteousness. Hence it is He brings salvation to His people, but the point is He is the salvation. Simeon said, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel". Christ is the salvation, so He has salvation as a helmet.

H.F. That is right, but what I meant was why is one the breastplate and the other the helmet?

F.E.R. Because I think by the one the breast is protected, and by the other the head. You could not apply that to Christ, because, of course, there is no protection needed in regard of Him. You must take up the figure in some way that allows it to be applicable to Christ.

W.M. And the connection is there between these passages and what we had before us this morning.

F.E.R. That is important. Well, suppose we have got so far, that is, we apprehend righteousness; God has brought in His righteousness, you are placed in attachment to Christ, and brought into the reality of salvation. What has come to pass then is that you are in divine light; the glory of the Lord has risen upon you, you are come into the light of glory, and you shine. That is what led me to read this passage, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee"; it is an appeal. "Arise, shine; ... For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising". Now, I would maintain that in some sense that must have been fulfilled. As to the actual application of the prophecy, it is what will be in connection with the coming of the Lord to Israel; but there is some sense in which it must have been fulfilled.

J.T. Why do you say so?

F.E.R. Because I think everything that God purposes in regard of Israel must have been fulfilled in some sense. Nothing of God has failed.

W.M. So the gentiles have been revealed?

F.E.R. Yes.

G.R. Do you mean it has come to pass in Christ?

F.E.R. It has come to pass in the church in some sense. That is, Israel, in whom this has come to pass in some sense.

J.P. If righteousness and salvation have come to pass, why not the rest?

F.E.R. That is exactly my point.

J.P. Do you not get in the New Testament, "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts"?

F.E.R. What for?

J.P. "To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ".

F.E.R. Yes. There are two things: "the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee", and "thy light is come". Then, "behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people". All that has come to pass. It was in such a state of things that the gospel first came in. The light of God arose in a sense upon Israel, that is there was something here upon earth upon which Jehovah arose, and on which His glory was seen. "And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising".

H.F. Do you think that was fulfilled before the incarnation?

F.E.R. I think it was fulfilled in the church.

H.F. You say there is some sense in which it is fulfilled in Israel.

F.E.R. I think it is in the true Israel.

J.M.D. That is, the children of faith.

F.E.R. The Israel of God; and it is continued now in the church.

W.M. Because God recognises a christian as being a Jew now in a spiritual sense.

F.E.R. If you go back to the church at the beginning there was no gentile there at all. It was a remnant of Israel, but the remnant stood for the true Israel, and what came to pass in the advent of the Holy Spirit was that the glory of the Lord had risen upon them, and the time had come for their light to shine. There was light in the world. The Lord speaks of the church in that way, a city set on a hill.

J.P. Would not this verse involve it, "That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ?" The "we" is the Jew.

F.E.R. Quite so, because the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee and the time has come for thy shining.

J.T. And "that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light".

F.E.R. There you get it, "ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;

that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy". All is come to pass in the true Israel; that is, they have come into righteousness and salvation. You will remember in the beginning of that chapter, "that by it ye may grow up to salvation". Now the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee and the time of thy shining is come.

J.T. There is an analogy between that and John 7, where the soul is in the light of Christ glorified, "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water".

F.E.R. There is an analogy, for that chapter contemplates the feast of tabernacles.

G.T. When does one get the full benefit of salvation?

F.E.R. As soon as ever you like. You do not get it in regard to your body, but you may get the full benefit of it as soon as the Spirit of God can give it to you.

J.T. I thought we had the fulness of salvation when our bodies were changed.

F.E.R. You wait for salvation, that is the redemption of the body. You do not get that yet, but you have it so far as the Spirit of God can give it to us, we have it in the christian circle.

J.T. Peter takes up the people and points out what they had now. Soul salvation was present to them, and there was to be an effect produced, and that is the virtues of Him that had called them out of darkness into His marvellous light were to be manifested in them here.

H.F. Would you not say there were two aspects of salvation in that sense, the salvation of the body and the other that you are speaking of now?

F.E.R. I think so. We are saved in hope because you are looking for the redemption of the body. That is what the apostle says in Romans 8, but then it is equally true that He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works.

J.T. I see the christian circle is a great point, but I think in the mind of many it might be thought to be the little circle that we are connected with.

F.E.R. If I speak of the christian circle I do not mean any little circle, but the entire christian circle. You must take up the idea abstractly. As things were at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles it was not at all difficult to apprehend the idea. The apostles were preaching the kingdom, that is, Christ, and the effect was that the word was believed, and those who believed the word received the Spirit, and were brought into righteousness and attachment; but then they were baptised and brought into the christian circle, and there it was they found salvation. There is no doubt about that. They were saved from that untoward generation by being brought into the circle where Christ was.

H.F. Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is in that circle, is he not?

F.E.R. Where can you find the circle?

H.F. I do not know.

F.E.R. Evidently it was a circle then known and apart from the world, but the difficulty is to find that now. The world has captured christianity and hence the christian circle is so completely obscured.

Rem. Nevertheless it exists.

F.E.R. That is a very great point.

A.S. Is not the church the christian circle?

F.E.R. Yes, I take up the thought from the epistle to the Colossians; it is the circle of the brethren. By this we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. Where can you find the brethren? You can find two or three of them, but where can you find them now in any given place?

W.L.P. You said this morning that the church was submerged. I suppose that would apply to the christian circle. Salvation in coming into the christian circle; is that as individuals?

F.E.R. I go back to what things were at the beginning,

because you cannot get any true apprehension of things now except in doing that. For instance, if we speak about the day of Pentecost, the point of attraction existed and the apostle preached, but at the same time the christian circle existed; they never went out preaching until the christian circle was there, because God intended that people should not only be brought into righteousness but into salvation. Therefore God provided the point of righteousness and the vessel of salvation before there was any preaching at all. Both were there on the day of Pentecost. Salvation meant in that day being brought out of Judaism and heathenism, and being baptised and brought into the christian circle.

J.P. It is simple enough because in verse 40 we get, "And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation", and then verse 41, "they that gladly received his word were baptised: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls". The hundred and twenty were the circle then.

F.E.R. They were the christian circle, but at the same time that one hundred and twenty was really the true Israel; and what had come to pass in the coming of the Spirit was that the glory of the Lord had risen upon them. The Spirit was the Spirit of glory, and the glory of the Lord had risen upon them, and the time of their shining had come, and shine they did.

J.G. "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved", would that bring it before us?

F.E.R. That applies to the saved remnant of Israel whom God provided for, and they were brought into the church.

J.T. And the prophets had spoken of the sufferings of Christ and the glory, but they had not ministered these things to themselves but to us, reported unto us by the Spirit of God come down from heaven.

F.E.R. Quite so, the Spirit has brought report of the glory of the Lord and hence the true Israel found

themselves in the light of the glory; the glory of the Lord had risen upon them.

J.T. And they shone, too.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.S.A. All that you are saying really gives a very exalted place to the church in the ways of God here, and we have rather lost the sense of it.

J.P. And if their shining got them into a little trouble they were encouraged by being told that the Spirit of glory and of God rested upon them.

F.E.R. Quite so.

J.G. Would you say we can look back to the formation of the circle in the Acts, and the fulness of it when the Lord comes to take it away?

F.E.R. But the christian circle will no longer subsist then. When the church is seen again (its light has been completely obscured here and the candlestick taken out of its place) it will be seen as the heavenly city. Not as the christian circle, but as the heavenly city having the glory of God and her light like unto a stone most precious.

G.W.H. I suppose in a day like this, one has to hold the idea of the circle abstractly, nevertheless to be in the power of it.

F.E.R. Quite so, else we set up to be the circle. The working of it is this, that if you apprehend the idea abstractly it controls you, and the effect is this, that you will not connect yourself with anything that is contrary to the circle. If I cannot get the circle I will not go on with what is not according to the circle, and that marks our position at the present time. We do not assume to be the circle.

G.W.H. So in Colossians 3, you see the thing there and seek to walk in the principles and power of it.

F.E.R. We walk in the light of it. We cannot expect to see the circle because the church has failed and never will be restored, but it is important to remember that the church will come out as the heavenly city, having the glory of God and her light like unto a stone most precious.

G.W.H. Now we seek to be conformed to these principles and refuse everything contrary to them.

F.E.R. Exactly. There is no book in Scripture which pictures the defection of the church in the same way as the Revelation does in the beginning, in the seven churches. You get the gradual defection and the ultimate ruin of the church depicted. It becomes a subject of judgement, and then you never read a word more in the Revelation about the church until it comes out as the heavenly city. Looked at as a vessel of light, the candlestick is taken away. It has failed as a witness, and yet at the end the heavenly city comes down from God, having the glory of God, and her light like unto a stone most precious.

J.S.A. The difficulties you were speaking of make it clear that it needs faith for people to walk in the light of that in a day like the present, and that is where the difficulty arises practically.

F.E.R. I wonder how we are going to get on without faith. The present day is a day that requires faith and courage in a peculiar way.

J.S.A. And that is possibly why attempts have been made to re-constitute a little circle, because there is a lack of faith.

F.E.R. All these attempts have ended in failure. You cannot constitute a circle.

F.C. I suppose the apostle Paul saw the breakdown of things, but at the close he can say, "I have kept the faith".

F.E.R. As we have seen on previous days, our path is intensely individual. You are glad to walk with anybody you can walk with, but that does not alter the fact that the path is intensely individual, and if people come into fellowship with us they have to look to it that they have faith for the path. It takes much more faith for the path than people think.

J.M.D. So because the christian circle cannot be found they were exhorted to be overcomers in that which professes to be it.

F.E.R. Yes.

W.C.R. If those come in that have not faith for the path, what happens?

F.E.R. They become discontented and go on discontented.

W.C.R. Are they any help?

F.E.R. We are no help to them, and they are no help to us.

G.T. Do you believe such come into fellowship?

F.E.R. They are there with us.

J.T. I like that idea immensely, "Arise, shine", that is a grand point.

F.E.R. That was the appeal fulfilled in the coming of the Spirit to the church, to the true Israel which was there at that moment, and the church in a way commanded the attention of the world. The world was turned upside down.

F.F. It is rather discouraging for young people to hear they have not faith for the whole pathway; they will get discouraged and drop off.

F.E.R. I have no hesitation in saying I would not try and induce anybody to come into the path.

F.F. I do not mean that; but for those who are in the path, they generally speak of young people as those who drift away.

F.E.R. What I find with young people is that their attitude is very unhappy sometimes toward those who are there. They are discontented and fault-finding and the ones they do not find fault with are themselves. I know that many read literature that does not profit them.

G.T. Why do you mention the young people?

F.E.R. I trust the old people are better.

W.L.P. What literature have you reference to?

F.E.R. Light reading. Do you think there is no light reading among us? I am certain light reading is sapping away everything with some of the young. When I came into fellowship I had no more light reading. I did not go on any more with music and the kind of things that

people are occupied with. I had done with it; but these things are gone on with, and they are sapping the moisture away from the young, and that is the cause of a great deal of weakness among us. If you are going on with Christ there is a necessity for some amount of self-denial. There must be prayer and fasting. It is useless to think you are going on with Christ outside of the camp without it.

G.W.H. It is not physical but moral fasting.

F.E.R. Moral; it is self-abnegation. The real question raised is, is there truth in things? People go on as though there were no truth in things; the effort is needed to bring under people's attention, not doctrine, but that Christianity is a reality and vitality. If it be vital, and christians be real, then undoubtedly to be with Christ and for Christ will demand a certain amount of self-abnegation, and people had better make up their minds to it.

G.W.H. If one is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ they have to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

F.E.R. Exactly.

W.L.P. Then there must be lawlessness among us.

F.E.R. I am afraid certain traces of it.

Ques. Do you say the first verse of Isaiah 60 applies to the saints today?

F.E.R. I suppose the Spirit of glory is still here.

J.P. Is it not the same as Philippians 2, "Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life"?

F.E.R. But how are you to shine?

J.P. Well, you cannot shine unless you are in the light.

F.E.R. You are as dark as night unless you are in the light. You only shine by reflected light, and if you do

shine it is a proof that the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

J.T. The fact that we get light from the moon shows the sun must be somewhere in the heavens.

W.C.R. Is it not a great thing to let the light shine upon us?

F.E.R. Yes, if you come into the shining of Christ you become luminous, you will not be luminous in any other way.

G.T. So the shining is individual?

F.E.R. I do not think so. It is "ye", the company he is writing to at Philippi.

H.F. Then the only way we can shine is as reflectors?

F.E.R. Yes, we have no light in ourselves.

G.R. So the heavenly city.

G.T. I am not clear as to the company shining if the individual does not shine.

F.E.R. But you must admit that the shining in this chapter in Isaiah is connected with the nation.

G.T. Would you mind allowing me to connect it with us now?

F.E.R. I was only connecting it with the church at the beginning, that is, there was the Israel of God at the beginning. The church in the Acts was shining. The shining was connected with that company.

J.T. That was like the glory of the former house. That never reappears.

F.E.R. No, but I think the church at the beginning was what God intended, a reflection of Christ. The glory of God was risen upon them. They were in the light of the revelation, and their shining was in their relation one to another. They were taken account of as a company. The company was there in the unity of the faith, and in that way Christ was reproduced and they shone as light.

W.L.P. That is not true now on account of the failure.

F.E.R. Quite so, that is why the Lord says to Ephesus, "thou hast left thy first love", and He threatens to remove their candlestick unless they repent.

J.T. When there is no hope of repentance then it is a question of the Lord's coming.

F.E.R. Quite so.

Ques. I suppose shining would be very much like, "Holding forth the word of life".

F.E.R. But there is something previous, "shine as lights in the world". Then "Holding forth the word of life". You must first get shining as lights in the world, and that must be a reflected light; but in shining as lights in the world you hold forth the word of life.

J.P. And that plainly involves the relationship one to another.

F.E.R. Evidently.

J.M.D. What is holding forth the word of life?

F.E.R. I do not know except what it says. I take it they were to hold forth the testimony of life. That brings in another very important point, and that is that in early days the saints were not simply in righteousness and salvation, but in life. Eternal life was understood and they were in the reality of it. The consequence was eternal life shone forth in them. They held forth the word of life in that way. They were in eternal life, and eternal life shone forth in them.

P.A.E.S. Would you say there can be no life apart from light?

F.E.R. No, of course not.

G.W.H. In the early days they were in the conditions you have spoken of previously; rule, atmosphere and light.

F.E.R. All the conditions were there and they abode in them. We have had two before us pretty much; that is, rule connected with righteousness, and atmosphere connected with the christian circle; and they had the third condition, which was light. And they abode in those conditions and those conditions abode in them. The consequence was, life shone forth in them. They were the witness of life like at the end of the epistle of John, "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son", and that is the witness.

C.H.B. Is it possible to have the company shining today?

F.E.R. But the point is you cannot get the company.

W.L.P. Are we responsible to be in the position at the present time as they were at the beginning?

F.E.R. I think that is what we desire. We want to get back to what was at the beginning. It is the only thing we can do. "Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father". We can only continue in that which we have heard from the beginning. We have no other resource but that, and if so we shall continue in the Son and in the Father. "And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life".

G.W.H. Would you say that what one has to do in a day like this is to be in the power of that which was at the beginning, and at the same time look on to what will be manifest again in the heavenly city?

F.E.R. I think so. You want to get back to what was at the beginning, but there is no hope of restoration as at the beginning, so your mind is carried on to what is coming.

G.R. And just in the measure in which these things are true there will be some little light shining out.

F.E.R. That is it. There will be no light in us if we have not in view what is coming.

G.R. So even in the heavenly city her light is like unto a stone most precious. Her light is all reflected there. There was no inherent light even in the precious stones.

F.E.R. No.

F.F. How can that state of things be brought about?

F.E.R. By getting back to first principles. There are three great principles which are essential to every christian, which we have had before us a good many times. The first rule, the second atmosphere, which we also had this morning, and the third light. You get into these three conditions and you will be like a luminous vessel.

G.W.H. The atmosphere is the circle pervaded by the love of Christ, and the light is of the love of God.

F.E.R. The light is the love of God in its application to us down here, not in heaven. You get into these conditions of rule, atmosphere and light, and you will be luminous. You will no longer be opaque.

J.P. That is why you have spoken of the light in connection with 1 John 4, because it is not heaven, but continues down here in our path of responsibility down to the day of judgement.

F.E.R. Exactly. It is down here you want rule, and the christian circle and the atmosphere, and the application of God's love to you in your pathway. You want the light of God's love bearing upon you, and the effect is that your body is no longer opaque, but luminous. You can understand the appeal, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee".

C.H.B. That is the individual being luminous.

F.E.R. It is, but then you cannot confine it to the individual. What we are as christians comes out only in relation to one another. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another". So, too, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren".

W.M. I suppose being in the good of these conditions we become witnesses to the fact that the Son of God is come.

F.E.R. Exactly.

W.M. It may be a feeble witness now, and is, but that is the point we are going in for.

F.E.R. Exactly.

Ques. Would it be right to say that those in that circle are under the influence of the One who formed the circle?

F.E.R. I think so.

J.S.A. Really it is impossible to walk rightly here, so to speak, in the light of God and pleasing to Him, unless you have some kind of apprehension of the circle.

F.E.R. I am sure it is entirely impossible. I think everybody who talks about eternal life, and it has been talked about pretty much, wants to know the necessary conditions. You cannot talk about life without conditions. There is no life existing in the universe apart from conditions, except the life of God. Every angel and man is dependent on conditions.

W.M. God alone is self-existent in that way.

F.E.R. Yes. God is independent of conditions because He is God. No other being that ever was created is independent of conditions. Our natural life, our spiritual life, is dependent on conditions; but God has appointed conditions, and the conditions are there, and if we exist in the conditions the conditions are maintained in us.

J.P. He has abolished death and brought life and incorruptibility to light.

F.E.R. Yes, by the gospel.

J.T. I suppose the shining in the future day in the heavenly city will not be much different from what it was at the beginning. I mean the quality and the kind of the thing is pretty much the same.

F.E.R. Morally it is the same. What has to come out in the heavenly city properly, the light and witness, ought to come out in the church now; but the church will be the great witness in that day of God's grace. The church will be the perfect expression of Christ morally in that day, so the church is to be the expression of Christ morally now.

J.T. I was thinking a moment ago when you were speaking of life that Zion is realised in the church because it is there the Lord commanded the blessing.

F.E.R. Quite so.

Ques. Has service anything to do with shining?

F.E.R. I do not think so. I think shining is that you are in the light. As sure as possible if you are in the light you will shine.

H.F. Have fruit beating and shining any connection?

F.E.R. I think fruit bearing is the consequence of rule. If we are not in rule there will not be fruit bearing, but if we are, fruit bearing is the result. You are married to another, even to Him that is raised from the dead, to bring forth fruit unto God. A wife is brought into rule. She never was in that rule before, but the moment she is married she is subject to the rule of her husband, and it is in subjection that fruit is borne.

J.T. Do you mean by rule, abiding in Christ?

F.E.R. Yes, abiding in Christ is that you are in rule, just as the earth is under rule. I was thinking of it in regard to coming under the influence of Christ. Take the influence of the law of gravity, it affects every part of your body. There is not an inch of your body that is not affected by law. Well, the influence of Christ affects us, but it will only affect that part of you that is of God. Therefore it is essential that you shall have Christ dwelling in your heart by faith, and if you have, you will be held entirely under the influence of Christ; but the influence of Christ will only touch in us that which is of Himself, and the point is that every part of us should be affected by it.

J.T. Do you mean even our bodies?

F.E.R. Yes, even our bodies.

W.L.P. Your whole spirit and soul and body preserved blameless.

F.E.R. Quite so, but the great thing is to be strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith. We want that and then the influence of Christ will touch us completely. There never ought to be a moment when Christ is not present to you. If you take a wife whose husband is absent, she has continually her husband dwelling in her heart. So it is in regard to a christian. Christ is absent but never absent from his heart.

W.C.R. You told us this morning no matter what we did, if it was not done under the influence of Christ it would not be right.

F.E.R. Exactly, but the point is how the influence of Christ is to affect you. It will never affect anything but what is of Christ. The flesh is not affected by Christ. The natural man will be only influenced by what is of himself. The law of gravity affects every part of the body because every part of the body is subject to that law. The influence of Christ will only affect in us that which is of Christ. Therefore it is essential that we should have Christ dwelling in the heart by faith.

W.M. The flesh is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be.

F.E.R. No.

J.M.D. Would you say a little about Revelation 22:5, "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light".

F.E.R. Natural light is not needed there.

J.M.D. Where does this speak about?

F.E.R. In the heavenly city, in the age to come, they have no need of natural light. There is no night there. The greatest luminaries of this world will not have place there. They will be eclipsed. One thing that will mark it will be there will be nothing but moral light.

J.T. The same thing as we get as regards the church.

F.E.R. I do not think the church wants the help of man's mind. The mind of man is in itself out of place in the church. That is what the apostle brings out in 1 Corinthians 3. The Spirit of God is there and the light that pervades the church is moral, the light of God.

G.R. So that the expression, "there shall be no night there", means there is no moral darkness?

F.E.R. Yes.

J.M.D. No ignorance of God.

W.L.P. The intelligence will be the intelligence of the Spirit.

F.E.R. Quite so.

W.M. Do you think man's mind is essentially unholy?

F.E.R. I think so, that is what I gather from

1 Corinthians 3; where the Holy Spirit of God is, there is no room for the mind of man.

G.W.H. So there will be two things that will characterise the heavenly city, that is intelligence and love.

F.E.R. And that characterises the church now. "To comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God". You cannot know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge unless you partake in it, because only love knows love. So you cannot know God if you do not love.

G.R. How does mind come in in 1 Corinthians 14?

F.E.R. It is the eye. In divine things when mind becomes anything more than the eye it is out of place.

G.R. So that it is really perception.

F.E.R. What I understand by 1 Corinthians 14 is that when you are speaking in the assembly you are not looking at the ceiling, but at those you are talking to, and are conscious that they apprehend what you are saying.

J.S. And if they do not, perhaps you had better stop.

G.R. Some of them take it in.

F.E.R. I have heard some people speaking as though they were going off into rhapsodies; that is not the way.

G.R. "Whether we be sober, it is for your cause".

F.E.R. It is not the mind of great natural power that discerns things. A man may be very illiterate, and very little informed in the things of this world, and yet, if he is spiritual, he may make great advance in divine things.

J.S.A. I suppose one cause of the corruption of things in christianity is that man's mind has been given a distinguished place.

F.E.R. The moment man's mind became active in divine things, and cast divine things into human forms, divine things were corrupted.

G.T. Is man's mind the enemy of Christ?

F.E.R. I do not know about that. I think the mind of

man is put out of court because man is defiled; it is not holy enough.

W.L.P. Are mind and will the same?

F.E.R. No, I would not say that exactly. The natural mind is more or less corrupt. The poorest person in the world has his mind more or less defiled. We want in divine things to take care that it is not the natural mind in activity, but the Spirit of God, because it is only by the Spirit of God that we can appreciate the holiness of God.

CHRIST AS WISDOM AND AS LORD

Acts 9:1 - 43

You will find that there are certain distinct landmarks in the ways of God. For instance, the dealings of God with Abraham were a landmark; so too the raising up of David was another landmark in the ways of God. The same is seen in the New Testament. There are certain things that come out which are landmarks in the ways of God, and what is seen in this chapter is one of them. The point at which it occurs was after the stoning of Stephen. The 7th chapter relates that, and in this chapter we get a new point of departure; it is a landmark. What marks it is that it is the first time, so far as I can see, that we get the Lord interfering from heaven in regard to what was going on down here. All that had been going on, as related in the previous eight chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, had been carried out according to the injunctions of the Lord, given to the apostles. They carried them out in the power of the Spirit come down from heaven. But this chapter is extremely important, for we find the Lord directing things from heaven. It is the first intervention, so far as I can see, of the Lord from heaven. In a sense the link between God and the Jew was broken by the stoning of Stephen. Stephen looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus, and witnessed of it and was stoned. The Jews said, "We will not have this man to reign over us"; they deliberately rejected the testimony to Christ, and they avowed their hostility to Him.

Now, in this chapter everything begins from the Lord in heaven, and it gives great light as to the activities of the Lord; the first is the subduing of Saul, the raising up of the one who was the special instrument of the Lord to the gentiles. Then, in the next chapter you get the

bringing in of a gentile. What I understand is that the first phase of the history of the church was passed, and things were to come out now in a new light. This is extremely important, in connection with the Lord in heaven, and is what I want to point out. If you look through the previous chapters of this book you will not find any instance of the intervention of the Lord, from heaven. Up to this point Jerusalem and the Jews had been recognised, but now everything in that connection was set aside; the link was broken, and the starting point of everything is the Lord from heaven. The first chapter of the church's history has come to an end, and things begin entirely anew from the Lord of glory, that is the Lord in heaven. The apostle of the gentiles is raised up, and gentiles are added, as in the next chapter; that is, the church entered on a new chapter, a chapter which has endured to the present day, for the light that we have from God has come to us through Paul. He was the appointed channel to the gentiles, and the administration of the mystery was committed to Paul; he was the instrument raised up here when the starting point is the Lord from glory. The end of it is the church is to be received up in glory. That is the working of things.

I want to speak a little now in regard of the Lord; a very important point; and what meaning the Lord has to us. We have spoken a great deal about Christ, but I take up now the thought of the Lord, and I want to put that in contrast to another light in which Christ is presented to us, and that is as wisdom. My impression is that every one knows Christ as wisdom, before they apprehend Him as Lord. I am not now talking exactly of what people believe. What people believe is one thing, and what they apprehend by the Spirit is another; and so far as I can understand Christ is first apprehended as wisdom, and then it is we are led on to know Him as Lord. All our strength is connected with Christ as Lord. We have to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might". He is a fountain of strength to His people, a

strong tower. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe".

I will speak a little first in regard to wisdom. It is a great point to apprehend Christ as wisdom and I would refer you as to it to a verse or two in Scripture: Luke 7:35; 1 Corinthians 1:30, 31; John 6:35, 51, 61 - 63. I dare say you will not at first see any particular connection between these passages, but I think I can show you a connection as it strikes my own mind. To begin with, Christ is God's wisdom. The force which I attach to wisdom is resource, and Christ is in that way the resource of God. He is spoken of, 1 Corinthians 1, as the wisdom of God and the power of God. He is the wisdom of God as being the means by which God could put Himself in contact with man in order that God might establish here what was according to His mind, and bring to naught all that existed. It was before the mind of God to establish what was according to Himself here. Christ is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, so that God might accomplish all His will. The will of God could not have been accomplished if God had not found a way to put Himself in contact with man; but at the same time Christ is the power of God for the setting aside of all that existed and held authority over the mind of man. Now in the same chapter we read that Christ is made wisdom to us, that is, He is resource to us, and it is an important point to apprehend how Christ is this. He is resource for man, not that we might accomplish the purposes of our will, because we have no right purpose to accomplish, but He is resource to us to lead us into the way of righteousness. The point for God was to accomplish His will because His will is good and perfect and acceptable; but on the other hand the point, in regard to man, was to guide him into the way of righteousness. You get a beautiful expression in Proverbs 8, "I lead in the way of righteousness", that is what wisdom says, "in the midst of the paths of judgement: That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their

treasures". If you follow me, you will see how the application of wisdom is very different for God to what it is for man. The point with God was to accomplish the purposes of His goodness, and Christ was His resource to that end; on the other hand, Christ is wisdom to man, because man being lawless and alienated from God, needed what would direct him into the way of righteousness, what would bring him into the recognition of Christ as Lord. Now if Christ is wisdom to us, then what appears to me is that He must be accessible to man and that at every step, that is, that He should come within the reach of our appropriation. If He were not accessible to us, He would not be within the reach of our appropriation. Now this has all come out in Christ down here, and gone up. There are three points at which Christ is available to us; the first is in incarnation, the second is in death, and the third is as ascended up where He was before; at every one of those points Christ is wisdom to us, for He is available to us at each, and He furnishes exactly that of which man stands in need. It would not be any particular wisdom to give man what man does not need. If a man were to bestow on me a million of money there would not be any wisdom in it, because I do not need it and it would not be any real benefit to me. Christ has become available to every kind of man to supply to man exactly that of which man stands in need, and therefore He is wisdom to man. Wisdom is available to us as we apprehend Him at every point, and you see the wonderful grace of God that has made Christ wisdom to us. The apostle says, God hath made Christ "unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption". The first point is wisdom because, as I said, the point of wisdom in regard to us is to lead us in the way of righteousness.

Now just a word in regard of these three points. The first point in which Christ is available to us is in that He has become man, to bring into the view of man all the grace that heaven could devise. That is, the grace that

Christ presents to you as become man, if your eyes are opened to apprehend Him as living bread from heaven. If I say 'all', there is nothing left out. There is no grace which heaven could devise in regard to man but was presented to man in the living bread come down from heaven; therefore the Lord Jesus said, "he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst". The manna that came down to the children of Israel in the wilderness was the expression of God's grace to them, but that was only figurative; the Lord says, "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world".

Men had the opportunity of seeing, when the Lord Jesus was here on earth, the disposition of God toward man. He was like the sun in heaven. He was the covenant of God, the witness to man of what the thought of God was toward him, and it was goodness and grace beyond all bound. You get that idea in the miracle with which John 6 opens, that is, the feeding of the multitude. The five loaves and two fishes sufficed not only for the feeding of the multitude, but there was an abundance over. Now we all know Christ in that light. I am sure every heart delights in the thought of incarnation, the living bread come down from heaven as witness to man of the grace of heaven. While man was as perverse and corrupt and contrary as he could be, serving lusts and pleasures, the Lord Jesus Christ became man that He might be available as food to man.

The next point is He gives His flesh for the life of the world. I have spoken of His being the expression of the grace of God because man needed grace. The law was no use to man, "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ". Man in the condition in which he was wanted grace, and that came by Christ. But man was also under liabilities by the judgement of God, and needed not only to get light as to the mind of God in

regard to him, but to be relieved of the liabilities under which he was; and therefore the Lord Jesus says, "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world". He was about to take up the liabilities under which man was, in order that man might be delivered, and that is the second point at which Christ is available to man. We eat His flesh and drink His blood, that is, we appropriate in that way the grace which is manifest in the death of Christ.

I go onto another point. What I have said did not meet the case entirely. There is another thing which man wanted, and that is, living water, the Spirit, that he might live. So we get the third point. The Lord Jesus said, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" Why does He go up where He was before? He adds immediately, "It is the Spirit which quickens". It was to give the Spirit to man, that man might be quickened. There is no good in the flesh, and Christ bore man's liabilities not to set man up again in the flesh, but that He might go on high to impart the Spirit to man. I trust you will be able to discern how perfectly Christ is wisdom to us. Read that verse in Luke 7, in which the Lord says, "wisdom is justified of all her children". The woman of the city who was a sinner was an example. Wisdom became available to her because Christ was there, was the expression of the grace of God, and she availed herself of wisdom, and was a child of wisdom. She availed herself of the resource that was there. Simon the Pharisee was not a child of wisdom. He began to entertain fears and misgivings in regard to the Lord. Christ was as accessible to him as to the woman, but Simon never availed himself of the wisdom that God placed within his reach.

Now we have all this knowledge of Christ incarnate, the living bread come down from heaven, to express to us the grace of heaven. We have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood; that is, we have appropriated the One who was offered to take up our liabilities that we might be

free from curse and death and wrath in the eye of God; and we have proof that He is gone up where He was before, in that He has imparted to us the Spirit, and by the Spirit we are quickened into life.

There is not one of these points that you can do without. They go to make up perfect wisdom. You could not do without an incarnate Christ because if you had not an incarnate Christ, you would not have the light of heaven. You could not do without the death of Christ because without it you will still be under liabilities; and you could not do without the Spirit, because without Him you would still be in moral death. Therefore in regard to each point at which I have attempted to present Christ He is an absolute necessity to us, but then He is available at each point, and we have all learned to appropriate Him in that way. Now I understand the object of it all is to bring us to the Lord.

And now I will speak a word or two about the Lord, as the end for which Christ is wisdom to us is to direct us to the Lord. We confess Christ as Lord with the mouth. Christ as Lord presents to us the thought of kingdom; that is, I take it, the idea connected with Him as Lord. As Lord He brings before us the authority of God. Now I am going to say a word or two about the kingdom. I dare say people in this country do not know very much about kingdom, but you may get kingdom under the name of a republic. Kingdom really means government. In a country where we have a kingdom we have a king. Where there is a republic they still have a government. The object of government is this: on the one hand, to provide security for life and property within, and on the other to protect from enemies without. Of course there may be other things that come within the function of government, but these are the two main objects in establishing kingdom. Now in the kingdom of God the same principles hold good. Christ is Lord at the present time, because there is a tender plant down here, and that plant has to be sheltered and secured from evils

within, and to be protected from enemies without. That is the object for which God has been pleased to establish His kingdom here.

I could not tell you how many times the expression "Lord" occurs in Acts 9. It is the Lord from beginning to end, and the Lord was providing for the security of His tender plant. He had it in view. In the beginning of the chapter we see the power of the Lord, that is, His subduing power; there are two things which mark Christ as Lord; that is, He supports and at the same time He subdues. Now I think you will find that in human kingdoms. Human kingdom really means support. There is support in any well-ordered kingdom for everything that is right. Kings are not a terror to doers of good, but a support to what is right; and another object in kingdom is to subdue enemies. Now these two things come out in the Lord: He subjugates and He supports. You get an instance of it in this chapter in regard to the apostle. Saul was a great enemy of the tender plant and would have rooted it up if he could. He hated it, and did all he could against it. He was the apostle of persecution. But the Lord did not intend that that plant should be rooted up. All that was here in the power of the Holy Spirit was very precious in the eye of the Lord, and the Lord protected it, and the way He took to protect it in this instance was in the subjugation of the greatest enemy. The power of the Lord comes out in subjugating Saul. The Lord speaks to him from glory and Saul is subdued in a moment. Very wonderful to think of the power of the Lord. There are many powers in the world that we regard as being wonderful. You get a great navy well equipped; it could do wonderful things in the way of destruction: ships sunk and thousands killed and men filled with wonder and admiration at the power that man has; but do you think all the armies or all the navies of the world would ever have subdued Saul? I do not think they would. He was a man fearless of death. But the Lord did in two or three words, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" There

was a power greater than all power and authority of man put together. But Saul had to be brought into the assembly and Ananias was the instrument through whom Saul was to be brought in, and Ananias did not like it. He had heard ill of Saul. Ananias had to be subdued, "Go thy way". Then at the end of the chapter you find other things. Aeneas is made whole and many believed on the Lord. Dorcas is raised up and so again others turn to the Lord. Through the chapter, from beginning to end, you get the mighty subjugating power of the Lord from glory. One way in which the Lord is presented to us, is as subduing. We get that thought in the epistle to the Philippians, "we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself". Now that is a wonderful working. The Lord is "able to subdue all things unto himself;" able to subdue a man like Saul, and many another as in this chapter.

Now I was saying the Lord is using the power and authority which belongs to Him to shelter the tender plant that has been planted here. If you will look at Acts 9:31, "Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit were multiplied". The Lord had allowed persecution to come in to a certain extent. There had been a great persecution in connection with Stephen, and it had been allowed to go on to a certain point, but persecution is limited. In speaking to the church at Smyrna the Lord says, "ye shall have tribulation ten days". Ten days meant a limited period; that is, there was a limitation to the period of persecution; and here the persecution was only allowed to go to a certain extent, and then the Lord comes in in a most extraordinary way to stop it by subduing the persecutor. You would hardly have thought the Lord would act in that way.

You would have thought Saul might have been taken away in judgement, but that is not the character of the dispensation. God does not interfere in judgement in regard of man, but works by taking up the instrument of persecution and making him the apostle of the church. Now that is a blessed thought. And the Lord watches over the plant. We are come to the end of the dispensation, but the plant is still here. It is not manifest in the same way that it was at the beginning, but it is still here under the eye of the Lord, and the Lord is still Lord and has still all authority and power; He watches over the plant and protects it, and this is great gain to us. We little understand how much we are sheltered by the good hand of the Lord. Where it is needed the hand of the Lord can come in that the plant may thrive and grow, that the assemblies might walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and be multiplied.

We all want the apprehension of the Lord in that way; and there is another point, and it is this, there is an application of the Lord to us individually. The Lord comes in, individually subjugating, because He will not tolerate anything in you and me that is contrary to Himself. The Lord's work is to subjugate every high thought in us, everything which resists Him. But then, we can be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might; He watches over and strengthens everything in us which is of Himself and we can confront everything down here in the power of the Lord. You have no reason whatever to be afraid of anything. There never was a man who was brought face to face with such difficulties as the apostle Paul. He had to stand in the most difficult and trying circumstances, to meet all the power of the world; at the end of his course he could say, "Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear". The Lord was here for the sake of the testimony and strengthened the apostle that by him the preaching might be fully known. The apostle

goes still further in regard to his confidence in the Lord and says, "And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom".

My conviction is this, that we are sheltered by the Lord, and not only sheltered but strengthened. He knows how, in the most unexpected way, to subjugate the power of evil, in our experience we have been brought face to face with the power of evil, I mean collectively, as seeking to walk together in the truth of the church, to difficulties which we could not surmount, and it has been remarkable how the Lord has interfered and has brought down difficulties which appeared to be sometimes insuperable. The Lord watches carefully over that which is for Himself down here.

I commend to you the study of the chapter. I think you will see the truth of what I said at the beginning. It is a point of departure, but a departure which has continued to the present time. The Lord presents Himself as the Lord of glory, and that is the way He is known to us. Jerusalem is gone out of view. But one word more: it is Christ as wisdom that has directed us to the Lord. It is a most blessed thing that Christ should have come in in that way on the part of God, not only as the wisdom and the power of God to establish all that is of God and to bring to nothing what is not of God, but that He should have become wisdom to us, and that at every step of His course.

READINGS ON EPHESIANS (1)

Ephesians 1:1 - 23

J.T. The idea of headship here would be more extended than simply that Christ is head of every man.

F.E.R. It is a different thought. One is what might be called necessity in a way, and the other is more counsel. Of necessity Christ is head of every man.

W.M. Do you think the idea of Christ being the head of the body is simply that saints have accepted His headship?

F.E.R. No. He is the divinely appointed head.

W.M. But being the divinely appointed head they have come into the good of His headship.

F.E.R. Yes.

W.M. It is not that He is head only to the saints?

F.E.R. No. His headship of every man involves the responsibility of man. His place as head of the body does not involve responsibility on the part of man generally.

J.P. Here I suppose it is more position in relation to the vast scheme of God's counsels.

F.E.R. I think so. That is the connection in which the headship of the body comes in.

G.R. Is that the thought of head over all things to the church?

F.E.R. Yes, it is the accomplishment of Psalm 8. Headship evidently refers to all things being put under Christ; that is, everything being gathered up in one in Christ. That makes Him head over all things; His being head of every man is a necessary consequence of His having become man.

G.R. Does the thought of headship in Ephesians go further than in Psalm 8?

F.E.R. It brings in the additional thought of the church.

G.R. Things in heaven?

F.E.R. It says, He "gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all". It evidently brings in a thought additional to Psalm 8.

J.P. Of course, one can hardly say the church is in Psalm 8.

F.E.R. No, it is being head over all things according to Psalm 8, but it is as head over all things that He is head to the church; "Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all". Psalm 8 contemplated the Son of man, but not His body.

F.C. I suppose we get the thought of it in Adam and Eve. Adam was head over all things and head to Eve.

F.E.R. Yes, it is set forth there figuratively. He was head over the inferior creation, and then it was he was made head to his wife.

J.P. Her head was the one who was head over all things.

F.E.R. Yes, the effect of that was that it associated Eve with him in his headship over all things, and the same is true in regard to the church. It is associated with Christ in His headship over all things.

J.P. But the seeing the position of the church is in apprehending the position of the head.

F.E.R. Yes.

Ques. What is the point of difference between headship in Ephesians and Colossians?

F.E.R. I should not think much difference. It does not take up so much in Colossians, the thought of head there is more the head of the body, the church.

Ques. Then it goes on, that He is the first-born?

F.E.R. Yes, "The beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence".

W.M. Do you not think Colossians gives us a higher view of the glory of Christ than Ephesians?

F.E.R. It presents Him more personally. It is not so much what He is appointed. Colossians does not speak of His being made this or that; He is it.

W.M. Would you think the association of the saints with Christ in Colossians would be at a higher point of view?

F.E.R. No, I would not think so.

J.P. It could hardly be so because we are marked out beforehand for sonship here, and you could not get anything higher than that.

W.M. The only reason I was thinking so is that Christ is presented as man in Ephesians, and as a divine person in Colossians.

F.E.R. But it has been said that our place in relation to God is greater than our place in relation to Christ.

W.M. I see, sonship.

F.E.R. We are brought into sonship by Jesus Christ to Himself. That is what the apostle begins with. Our relation to Christ, as man, is secondary to that. In our relation to God, in a way, we are with Christ; that is, He is the first-born among many brethren. We are sons with Him who is above; but our relation to Christ is as His body. It is not that you are with Him, but of Him, "Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all". You could not conceive anything greater than being the sons of God. He has predestinated us to be that before God.

Ques. When Christ delivers up the kingdom according to 1 Corinthians 15, what will remain so far as we are concerned, except sonship?

F.E.R. I suppose it will never alter our relationship to Christ.

F.C. You mean as brethren or as the bride?

F.E.R. I think as the church, because even beyond the millennium, the heavenly Jerusalem, the bride the Lamb's wife, comes down from God out of heaven.

J.P. The opening of Revelation 21.

F.E.R. Yes.

J.P. That is after the kingdom is delivered up.

F.E.R. Yes. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;

and there was no more sea. And I John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband".

G.R. Is not the same thought in the end of Ephesians 3, "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages"?

F.E.R. I think so.

J.P. It would be impossible to have a larger scope than in Ephesians, as everything is set in the light of God's counsels.

J.T. Do you think the first chapter gives you the thought of the holiest of all?

F.E.R. What I think is, that if you had not some idea of the holiest of all you could not understand this chapter. If you had not some apprehension of what Christ is for God you could not understand the heading up in one of all things in Christ. The one depends upon the other.

G.W.H. In that respect is there any connection between this chapter and Hebrews 10?

F.E.R. I do not think there is any particular connection. In Hebrews 10 you go in, and in Ephesians it is the coming out to survey "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height". There is a certain line of truth undoubtedly which tends to lead you in, but then the point is that, having gone in, you should come out.

G.W.H. This chapter is a sort of moral consequence.

F.E.R. It is a consequence of the holiest, you could not understand this chapter unless you apprehended what is in the holiest.

J.T. Do you not think what we get here is pretty much what is to be apprehended there?

F.E.R. It is rather what is apprehended if you have been into the holiest. But then it is outside of the holiest. For instance, as to the heading up in one of all things; the all things do not belong to the holiest, but you belong to the holiest and you look at them from the holiest.

J.T. I understood the testimony regarding all these things now was necessary in order to apprehend it.

F.E.R. They are not displayed, but entering the holiest is the qualification to understand everything on the part of a christian. So far as I understand it, entering the holiest is the qualification for the service of God, and then in that way it is our qualification for testimony. I do not think any one can carry things out according to God except as coming from the holiest.

G.W.H. Do you get the two things, the holiest and the land, in this chapter?

F.E.R. I think the "all things" refer more to the land of promise, the heading up in one of all things, but the great thing is to know the One who is the head.

J.P. You mean by the holiest, the apprehension of Christ in what He is to God.

F.E.R. Yes, to God and for God; according to God. I think the point is to apprehend Christ as the One by whom God can accomplish all the counsels of His will according to His glory.

J.T. But that includes all that which will be brought in for God.

F.E.R. You must apprehend that, but all things do not have their place in the holiest. God must look at them from the holiest, and so, too, Christ, but they are not all included in the idea of the holiest.

J.T. What is included in the holiest?

F.E.R. Well, I see the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat.

E.W. Do you see the glory there?

F.E.R. It is all glory; there is that to be said, we see the effulgence of God there.

E.W. I mean the two things in the holiest typically, the ark and the cloud of glory resting on it.

F.E.R. There is the effulgence of God in the holiest. You get something of the idea on the mount of transfiguration. Christ was there and there was the excellent glory. The apostles in a way entered the holiest when they were on the mount; they saw Christ when "he received from God the Father honour and glory, when

there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory". That gives you an idea of the holiest.

J.T. Does the holiest not convey the thought of the testimony of God as to everything whilst things are not yet displayed?

F.E.R. It is the testimony of God in the sense of Christ as the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat. What I apprehend in the ark of the covenant, is that Christ is not only the covenant but that in which it is held; and it is on that that the mercy-seat is founded, by the ark of the covenant God is able to put Himself in communication with man. That is what I think is set forth in the holiest.

C.A. I suppose it is that, in order that men may apprehend what God is for them.

F.E.R. I think it is more that we may apprehend what Christ is for God, that is the great point in regard to the holiest.

E.W. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, is that the holiest?

F.E.R. I think so, the glory of the Lord. He is the ark of the covenant, and the mercy-seat.

J.T. When the apostle says here, "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will", do you not think that, there, it is not yet manifest, but to be known and apprehended?

F.E.R. It is to be known, but the point of entering the holiest is that you may apprehend the One in whom all that is to be carried out. You contemplate Christ according to the glory of God. I only judge that because that was what was found in the holiest.

J.T. That is all that the eye could rest upon, not that there were not other things there.

F.E.R. I think so, but what was there? The great point was to ascertain how God was going to make righteousness the rule of the moral universe.

J.T. The testimony of the rights of God was there.

F.E.R. I think so.

W.M. I suppose the tables of stone set forth typically that Christ would give law to the universe.

F.E.R. Yes, the law was in the heart of Christ, that He might make the law of God be the law of the universe, "The isles shall wait for his law".

J.T. When they went over Jordan the testimony was, the ark of the covenant of the God of all the earth.

F.E.R. Quite so.

G.W.H. When you apprehend Christ, what He is for God, do you not apprehend Him as the One in whom God has effectuated all His counsels and thoughts, and they will soon be manifested?

F.E.R. You apprehend Christ as the One by whom God will put Himself in connection with everything.

G.W.H. Would you say that was the testimony which Mr. T. was referring to?

F.E.R. The testimony was the ark; the ark is the testimony, and that is typical of Christ. Christ says, "Thy law is within my heart". I have no doubt Christ is the testimony, He is the ark of the covenant.

G.R. Is not that intimated in that the tables were put into the ark after the first tables were broken, that is, God could not put Himself into touch with man as man?

F.E.R. And therefore He had to put Himself in touch with man in another Man; he puts Himself in touch with man by Christ in order that the law of God might be the law of the universe.

G.R. I was thinking of David as a sad contrast, "Although my house be not so with God". He could not do it.

F.E.R. Quite so. Israel failed and then comes in the ark, and the ark of the covenant is placed in the holiest.

G.R. God will put Himself in touch with man.

F.E.R. And not only so, but you get the ark of the covenant. All is founded on the ark of the covenant, the righteousness of God is established in the ark of the covenant. Hence it is that man may be brought into the

covenant. The ark of the covenant would not mean much if man were not brought into the covenant.

W.M. I suppose in the meantime the holiest is a kind of education for saints before the time of manifestation and display.

F.E.R. It is that we should get the apprehension of Christ before Christ is manifested in glory; you can get acquaintance with Christ before Christ comes out; when He comes out we shall come out with Him; and it would not be very much good coming out with Him if we had not acquaintance with Him now.

W.M. So I suppose in a sense there will be no holiest in the world to come.

F.E.R. I think there will be. You get this expression, the Lord prays, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me". They are to be with Him to behold His glory. I take it that is the holiest.

G.R. Is that expressed in verses 9 to 12 of this chapter, "the mystery of his will"?