I want to give you one thought -- namely, that that by which men are enlightened becomes law to them; it is a principle which all can take in -- it is not a difficult sentence. You see it with people of the world; if a man has been enlightened by philosophy it becomes law to him, or if by science it is the same thing, the principle is true.
I want first to say what the light is and then to show how it becomes law. If that by which we have been enlightened does not become law to us it proves that the light has not been very bright. The brighter the light the greater the law.
In the series of Psalms up to Psalm 16 you find weakness in the experience of saints, for till you get to Psalm 16 you have not got a Man. But when you come to Psalm 16 you have a Man who of necessity must go to the right hand of God; He was so divinely perfect, earth could not hold Him. Man was made for earth and earth was good enough for him as so made; but what has come to pass in the ways of God is that a Man has been manifested here on earth whom earth could not contain. He must go to the right hand of God: "at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore". I allow that Christ went there, too, on the ground of redemption, so that He might carry others with Him to heaven, which could not have been the case had He gone in only on the ground of His personal perfection. He came from heaven and went back to heaven -- that is the Man of Psalm 16. In Psalm 17 His sentence comes forth from the presence of God. There were two men,
+Lecture at Calne.
the man of the earth and the Man of Psalm 16, and God had to determine between the two. You get the same thought in John 17:25, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me". The righteous Father had to determine between the world and Christ.
Then in Psalm 18 you get the exercises and history of Israel taken up in Christ and carried on to the ultimate glory. But when we come to Psalm 19 our mind is carried from earth to heaven. The thought hid in it is a very great one indeed. I look at it morally, for if Scripture speaks of phenomena or of what is apparent, it always has a moral thought in view. It is most important to read Scripture in that light. Even as to historical occurrences related, they are not related as history, but for the moral point in them. The earth declares the glory of man -- a very poor glory, a Babylonish glory, but man is content with it. But earth also declares the dishonour of God: if you look abroad you see moral confusion -- good and evil entangled; God is not the author of confusion but of peace. The coming in of Christ meant peace, but you never get it established till you get the disentanglement of good and evil. The works of the devil are seen in the confusion of good and evil, and the Son of God was manifested that He might undo the works of the devil; when that is accomplished there will be peace, not confusion. Man is content to have his glory in a scene of confusion. This is true of many a king since Nebuchadnezzar. Man is not at all particular about moral confusion; in fact, he does not detect it very much, he is so much at home in it. But if you look up, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows His handiwork. God's glory is that in which He is effulgent; no one can carry glory to God; His glory must be the effulgence of Himself. If I look at the work of God upon earth I see confusion;
but if I look up to heaven, there is no confusion there. The more men know of astronomy, the more they see the perfect order there: the heavens declare His glory. But my point is to look at the thing morally, not simply as a question of God's handiwork. The heavens declare His glory, and why? Because you find there the answer to Psalm 16. In Psalm 16 you have glory down here, but in Psalm 19 Christ is set in the heavens, and so the heavens declare God's glory. God's glory is the moral effulgence that shines out in Christ: we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What we see in Christ is every right of God maintained, and yet light and salvation to men. I want you to take that in. Christ in glory appeared to Paul; He was light and salvation for Paul as He is for every one on earth. The grace of God has appeared -- where? In Christ: the practical result is that grace reigns through righteousness for the glory of God. We can understand that; the sun is a figure of it -- it is a light set in heaven to enlighten men on earth, "In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun". Paul was a remarkable exemplification of this, and so, too, the Philippian jailor. I do not doubt that Paul put before the latter how every right of God was secured in Christ so that He might be salvation to men. The light becomes law to us. What is the light we get by Christ? The light of grace: He has opened to us the heart of God. I take it no one here is a remarkable person in this world; but in another way we are remarkable, for we know what is in the heart of God towards men. How did we know the forgiveness of sins? Because we learned that forgiveness was in the heart of God towards men. How do we know grace? Because grace is in His heart; Christ has made it plain and it shines now in Christ. In His name repentance and remission of sins are preached. Where were repentance and remission to be known? In the heart of God
towards men. If I apprehend that, I am not one bit afraid of God. I see the same as to eternal life -- that it is in the heart of God towards men; so in our weakness and poverty we are rich, for you cannot have greater riches than to know what is in the heart of God for men; every right of God maintained that Christ might be for salvation to the ends of the earth.
Now I will illustrate the principle I speak of: Christ enlightened Paul: he saw a light greater than the sun and he was enlightened by one word from Christ, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" He knew then very well that there was nothing in the heart of God against him. But then he says, "To me to live is Christ"; the One who was light to him became his law. Again, in John 9 the blind man knew who had enlightened him and he did Him homage. And again, the two blind men to whom Christ gave sight followed Jesus in the way; they might not have been able to tell why they followed Him, but He had become law to them. In the parable of the good Samaritan (though the lawyer did not follow it out) the lawyer had answered, "He that shewed mercy" was the neighbour, and the Lord said, "Go, and do thou likewise". If he had had his eyes opened to the apprehension of Christ he would then have done likewise. You have to look at what you are enlightened by. Some people think they are enlightened by works of fiction, and if so what they read will be law to them It is a very important thing to be enlightened by true light, for then it becomes law to you. I will refer now to the latter part of the psalm (verses 4, 5, 6). "In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof". I will show the reference of that expression to Christ in Romans 10:6 - 8. The report there
referred to is that which the Holy Spirit has brought down from heaven. A great moral light has been set in heaven -- that is the report. I trust all here have been enlightened; it is a great thing to walk in the light of God. We need naturally to be in the light of the sun, the light of this world. But the light of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ; it is only there you get it, and I cannot conceive anything more blessed than to walk in the light of God's heart towards me, or rather towards men. I can understand a timid believer hesitating to appropriate it to himself, but God has no two thoughts in regard to men; Christ is His mind towards all men.
I take up the details of the second part of the psalm -- the law of Jehovah. You come here to a more limited circle bringing in the thought of relationship, as is evident from the name employed. It converts the soul; that is the first effect of the law. If you have not law you are lawless. We have not now the ten commandments but we have law; it is a great thing to have Christ as law. All of us have been enlightened by Christ and He is law to us; the effect is that it converts the soul. If you can think of a woman married to a perfect husband he would of necessity become law to her. He is not law to her till they are married; there may be attachment before, but there is no true affection of husband and wife till they are married. Then every thought in her mind is revolutionised, every interest of hers is subordinated to the new interest of her husband. The law of the Lord is perfect. No woman has a perfect husband, though she may think it, as every wife does; but our being married to Christ ought to work a perfect revolution in us. I surrender my own interests and am governed now by the interests of Christ. That is the revolution that takes place in every one who is married to Christ; then you bring forth fruit to God.
"The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple". I will illustrate this from Luke 10:21, 22, 38 - 42. Christ was revealing the Father; that was His testimony, and Mary sat at His feet and heard His testimony; she had chosen the good part; He Himself was the testimony to her. It was beautiful to see her sitting at His feet, and what held her was what He was; it made her wise. She was simple, but she became wise. You remember how the Lord vindicated her; she was the one person who did the right thing -- the testimony of the Lord made her wise. She was not at the grave; she knew that Christ would rise again; the testimony of the Lord was sure, and her conduct was the evidence of her wisdom.
"The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart". If you look at Luke 24:46 - 53, you will see what were the statutes of the Lord ordained to the disciples. His name was the statutes; repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name: the statutes were right, rejoicing their hearts, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy.
Another thought -- "The commandment of the Lord is pure". The commandment is Christ Himself; you will never carry out His commandment except as you have Christ Himself commanding the heart. "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you". We are to love one another with a pure heart fervently, and the effect of that is you get enlightened. Christians are often not very intelligent because Christ is not commandment to them. I refer to Colossians 2. The first thing here is to be knit together in love; it is about the one thing in the world that is pure, and then not only are you knit together, but you advance to all riches of the full assurance of understanding.
"The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether". We read in 2 Corinthians 5:10: "For
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad". The 'terror' of the Lord should be read 'fear'. What was the fear of the Lord to Paul? Christ, and the right that Christ had to judge. He was not afraid of Christ; he would not be judged of man's day, but he recognised the right and title that Christ had to judge of his conduct down here. And what is the effect? It is clean; we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God, we cannot cherish an unclean, unworthy motive.
"The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether". To illustrate this I refer you to John 7:17, 18. You see there that Christ answers morally to the judgments of the Lord, He tests everything by Himself. You get the idea of His judgment in Revelation 1, "feet like to fine brass": the seven churches are tested and judged by Christ Himself, He is true and altogether righteous. You can understand that whether it is fear, or statutes, or law, or judgments, all is presented to us in Christ, and He is all these things to us. It is a great thing to have Him for law. He says, "Come unto me ... take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ... and ye shall find rest unto your souls". To take His yoke is to engage in the service of love. The apostle said virtually to the Galatians, you are desirous of law, why do you not fulfil Christ's law and bear one another's burdens?
Mary found the testimonies of the Lord sure, making wise the simple; she surpassed the disciples in intelligence. The thief on the cross was intelligent above all; he recognised what he was himself, but also what Christ was. We have all to be tested by Christ. Let Christ be law to you; love one another with a pure heart fervently and you will get your eyes greatly enlightened. The fear of the Lord is clean. It kept
the apostle clean, he was never governed, as far as we know, by unworthy motives.
"The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold ... sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb". People run after gold and after honey -- what is sweet and pleasant in this world; but these things of which God speaks are more to be desired, and in keeping of them there is great reward. There is great reward in being married to Christ.
The longer I live the more I appreciate Scripture, not simply the detail, but that from beginning to end you have a living, powerful voice speaking in strong moral accents -- a voice which is the expression of feeling, the voice of One who is affected by what is passing down here.
We may well echo what we get at the end of the Psalm, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer".
You may depend upon the truth of the principle that that by which we are enlightened must of necessity become law to us.
1 John
The idea in Scripture connected with children seems to be always that of a company -- 'we' and 'us'. It is not the idea of the privilege of an individual; it is the common privilege of a company, because the Spirit that bears witness that we are children of God is one Spirit -- the same Spirit in all, and the effect of it is this -- it of necessity leads to the assembly. It compels saints to come together. I cannot understand a person choosing isolation and talking of what he gets from the Lord at home. I am certain that person never enters into the privilege of being a child, because if he did, the craving of his soul would be to get into the company of the children, for the children are all one band. It is "one flock, and one shepherd". The children are one band, and stand thus in Christ. 'In Him we stand, a heavenly band'. Therefore if you want to realise the privilege of the children of God, you must get into the circle of the children, you must really get into the assembly, for it is in the assembly that we realise the privileges that are proper to the children of God. They stand there on the ground of sovereign love as the children of God, and it is their privilege to worship the Father. You have got thus what failure cannot touch. You have the Father and the children (the Father has sought such to worship Him), and you have Christ in the midst leading their praises. I do not believe that anyone learns the truth of what belongs to the children of God except in the assembly. You are brought into it individually, but you can hardly individualise the children because it is one Spirit in them all, and that very fact arouses the craving for the assembly, because the assembly is the band. Now nothing can deprive
us of this; even in the ruin of the church there is a fellowship (those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart). Whatever may be the ruin, you cannot displace the children. One may be very sorry that the whole company does not come together, and we ought to mourn for that more than we do; but still we can come together in assembly, and if we do, it is as children, nothing less, because that is the calling, the privilege that the Father has bestowed on us. I am sure we do not sufficiently see how the instinct of the scriptures which apply directly to Christians is unity. And though the structure, which Paul the architect raised, has broken down and is in ruin, John gives us what is essential, what is vital, and that is privilege, and the tendency of this must be toward the assembly.
The privilege belongs to every Christian, but it is one thing to have a privilege belonging to me, and another thing for me to have entered into the truth and reality of the privilege. It is in the realisation of our privilege that we more fully understand the true character of the assembly, and you can enter into that apart from any kind of ecclesiastical pretension. The point is to have the great reality of it in our souls, to accept the privilege, and to be in the light and joy of it, to be found in company with the other children, that is, in the assembly. If you do not understand the proper privilege of the assembly, and the great blessing which belongs to it, you will fail to present a testimony which is according to God. It is in the assembly that we properly learn our relationship with the Father and with one another. You may accept the light of it, but it is in the assembly that you enter into the reality of it. We all get set in our place in the assembly. The Lord's supper is the beginning of it, it sets us in our souls rightly in relation toward all; to the Father, to
Christ, and to one another. Then we come out of the assembly to be here as the vessel in which God is displayed in the world. You must apprehend things
in the order in which they are unfolded in the epistle (John's). Souls are bound to learn them in that order; first fellowship, then privilege, which places us in the Father and the Son, and then testimony. God is displayed in the heavenly band, which stands in Christ. That is the divine order. Precisely the same order is found in Paul. You could not enter into Colossians if you did not first understand Corinthians. In Corinthians you get fellowship and the privilege of the assembly, but in Colossians you get the other side of it, that is, the life of Christ coming out in the assembly; the divine nature as in Christ expressed in the Christian company.
All this is suitable to the day of ruin in which we are. I pray God to grant for myself and for us all that we may be more prepared in spirit to come under the sense of the ruin, and to take our share in it. May God keep us from attempting to construct anything, from setting up any kind of imitation of the church, but may we recognise that the church is still here, both vitally and responsibly; and though the house is in ruin, it ought to be a very great encouragement for us that all that is essential abides. There is a true bond of fellowship in which saints can be together here, and true privilege which belongs to them, and which none can deny them, which is made good to them vitally by the Spirit of God. And if we enter into our privilege, I believe that though the company may be very restricted, there will be a real expression of God in that little company, and thus a testimony for Him.
Notes of Address
Mark 16:19, 20; 2 Timothy 1:8; 2 Timothy 2:19; 2 Timothy 4:7, 8, 17, 18
"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following", Mark 16:19, 20.
"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", 2 Timothy 1:8.
"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity", chapter 2: 19.
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing", chapter 4: 7, 8.
"Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, ... And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen" (verses 17, 18).
I have read these scriptures because of the striking way in which they bring "the Lord" before us, and my desire is to speak to you about the Lord. We get our direction from the Lord as we walk in His light, but we must first of all get to the Lord. Many believe on the Lord who have never yet reached the Lord, and you cannot reach the Lord unless you depart from unrighteousness. We read in the Acts of some that "they clave to the Lord", of others that "they gave
themselves to the Lord". The Lord is the great resource in the day of evil, and specially so in the time of the ruin of the church. One great service of the Lord is to direct His people into the will of God, but we must first of all reach the Lord, and for that you must, as I have said, be apart from unrighteousness. In 2 Timothy, we have three things brought before us in connection with the Lord. First, "the testimony of our Lord". Second, 'the Lord as our resource', and third, the Lord as "the righteous judge", the One who gives the crown of righteousness. Now the gospel is our Lord's testimony -- it is from Him and concerning Him. In Mark 16 the Lord commits the testimony to the eleven, and, as from the right hand of God, He wrought with them in it. He will use all the power which He has, as at the right hand of God, in the interests of His testimony. The testimony of the Lord brings the Lord Himself before men. Paul said to the Corinthians, "We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake". We make, as a rule, too much of the vessel. Paul brought the Lord before men, and where the Lord is received He confirms the word by the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is a mistake to make too much of the instrument; the instrument is our bondman, and the Lord should be the great reality to us, both as the source and subject of the testimony.
My second point is the Lord as our resource in the day of the church's ruin. In the first epistle to Timothy we read of "the house of God", but in the second epistle of "a great house" in which are vessels, some to honour and some to dishonour. Many of us have not found the great religious systems which exist today a satisfactory foundation. They have not approved themselves to us as being God's foundation. We want the foundation which has God's seal upon it, that is, God's attestation that it is His, for the seal is the attestation. Now what is first of all in the seal is
this, "The Lord knoweth them that are his"; man may not know them, but the Lord knows them, and this is a great comfort to any one seeking God's foundation. The obverse of the seal is "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity". We want to be on God's foundation, and when we see what its attestation is, our eyes are opened to the ruined state of things: for we find the people of God completely swamped in a mass of profession, so that man does not know them, though the Lord knows them; and we are called upon to depart from unrighteousness. If you connect the name of the Lord with any religious system that accredits, or is accredited by the world, it is unrighteousness; because the Lord has been rejected by the world; and therefore we have to leave all such, if we would reach the Lord, who has been lifted up from the earth. Thus the faithful heart judges the world, for "Now is the judgment of this world"; the world is judged by the Christian, and thus he is delivered from it. The Lord draws all to Himself away from the world, "I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me". We are drawn to the Lord, and the Lord becomes a living reality to us, and then we are directed by Him into the will of God. He guides us into God's will, and we then learn what fellowship is, for it is as we are near to the Lord that we are drawn to one another. If we are truly drawn to the Lord we are prepared to stand alone, if need be; we are independent of man; but nevertheless, thankful to go on in fellowship with all who are drawn to Him -- to "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart". Scriptural principles are not of themselves a ground of fellowship, the Lord alone is sufficient for that, and therefore we must be drawn to the Lord apart from everything that is of man, and apart from unrighteousness, if we would have heavenly light and guidance
amidst the perplexities that are to be found in this world. Paul said to Timothy, "Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things". It is a great thing to get understanding as to all things from the Lord Himself; and though we cannot be what Paul was, for he was an apostle, we are privileged to be what Timothy was, a man of God, a servant; and he was a typical servant, one who was to continue till the Lord comes. He was a servant for the last days.
In chapter 4 the Lord is the righteous judge. Man is not the judge, but the Lord is the judge of my course. I do not look for man to approve my conduct, whoever he may be; we have got to receive from the Lord the result of what our conduct has been here, for "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ". All may forsake the servant, even those whom he has been used to help, but the Lord will not forsake him; "Nevertheless the Lord stood by me"; He was true to His servant, and the apostle had been true to Him, for he could say "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith". In the great perplexities and extremities in which the apostle had been placed the Lord had stood with him and delivered him. But the apostle was not soured because all men forsook him. If we get to the Lord we get our hearts enlarged. The Lord is "the righteous judge" but the apostle was not a bit afraid of Him! Whatever may be man's judgment of the servant, the day of the Lord will be the time of the Lord's vindication of him; all may misjudge him, but the Lord will vindicate him. Get to the Lord and your heart will not get withered whatever you may experience here.
I desire to point out a few landmarks in Luke's gospel. The apprehension of these landmarks will, I think, help in the understanding of this gospel. Each gospel has its own peculiar character. One characteristic of Luke's gospel is that it deals with us individually. There is nothing in it about the church or assembly, nor, as in John, about the family. Luke is individual.
Now there are four landmarks of great interest in the gospel, and no one of them appears in any other gospel. Two are parables, and two are facts. The first is found at the end of chapter 7 -- the woman of the city in the Pharisee's house. The second is in the latter part of chapter 10 -- the parable of the good Samaritan. The third in chapter 15 -- the parable of the prodigal son; and the closing mark is in chapter 23: 39 - 43, in the Lord's words to the repentant thief. There is, I judge, a progress in the exposition of the truth in these. If you read chapter 7: 1 - 42 you will find the beginning. It unfolds the thought of God in the mission of Christ, and is beautiful in that way. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses. In Christ here dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead, all that was necessary for the full display of God; and God's attitude was that of reconciling the world to Himself. It was God coming in grace, and finding men all alike, debtors with "nothing to pay". One might owe five hundred pence, and another fifty, as Simon thought of himself; but if both had "nothing to pay" they were in the same position; and in the eye of God the Pharisee no more than the woman had aught to pay. This was
man's state God-ward. And what was God's attitude towards man in the presence of Christ here? Free forgiveness: "He frankly forgave them both". This was the thought of God, and that which Christ came to present: "Thy sins are forgiven ... go in peace". Why? Because the sinner had accepted the light from the Lord. Faith is light in the soul from God. God's attitude towards the world in Christ is grace, and free forgiveness for those who have "nothing to pay", and who accept the light of grace.
We will now pass on to chapter 10: 33, etc. The parable of the good Samaritan brings into prominence, not the great thought of God in Christ's mission here, but the relation of Christ towards those who are the subjects of grace. It is in principle the declaration of the spirit of the new covenant, the terms on which God is with the believer. It presents the transition from law to grace. The priest and Levite passed by on the other side. The good Samaritan could declare to the soul the terms on which it is the pleasure of God to be with man. It is not simply forgiveness, but pouring in oil and wine; and more than that, the man set on his own beast, and brought to an inn and taken care of. This is how Christ comes to be known to us, declaring to us the terms on which God is pleased to be with us; and it is a great thing for the soul to learn it. He is at peace with us; and more, we are in favour. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, that we see declared what God is to the believer. He is the Head of the family. In Him we see man's place with God. "His own beast" refers to the gift of the Spirit. This is the first real link of the believer with Christ. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his". The soul is taught to look to the Lord Jesus Christ to learn in Him the terms on which God is with us. All the pleasure of God in regard to man is declared in Him. That which
is true in Himself He declares, and communicates the Holy Spirit, so that we may enter into it. The Holy Spirit is given that we may be helped and supported in every way, to enter into the good of the declaration made to us, and even to guide us in the exigencies of the way here.
The third landmark is in chapter 15. In the parable of the prodigal the feasting goes on in the house. It was when the elder brother drew nigh to the house that he heard the music and dancing. The good Samaritan declared the grace in which God is with us down here, but in the prodigal we get, not what God is to us as in the wilderness, but what we are for God's satisfaction before Himself. Two things are evident -- all distance is removed, and the prodigal is in the best robe for the Father's pleasure. I am reconciled, and in Christ before God; I can reckon myself dead unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus -- before God in the "best robe", and that is Christ. Why "the best"? Because there could be no better. Nothing could fit me more absolutely or completely for the eye of God than Christ. Nothing is for God's perfect satisfaction but Christ. The best robe is more than acceptance; it is the consciousness of acceptance. The Father had come out to the prodigal and kissed him; and He fits him to be with Him in common delight for His own satisfaction, and so that the prodigal might feel at home in His house. This is a point which we are slow to reach. Many believers know the terms on which God is with them in grace; but it is much more to know that He has us before Himself to His own satisfaction. And more -- If the prodigal is inside with the Father, it is according to the way in which the Father came out to him. If God has set us before Himself, it is to enjoy Him as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Son. We go in to enjoy it. We reckon ourselves dead unto sin, and the Spirit is the One who leads us into the
enjoyment of the love of God. This is what is presented in type and pattern in this gospel, that which came out in the personal ministry of the Lord here. All leads up to that which was unfolded doctrinally by the apostle Paul afterwards.
For the last point we will look at chapter 23: 39, etc. There could be no greater contrast than between a crucified malefactor and paradise -- the extreme of misery and the greatest height of delights. Here we get the climax of grace. A malefactor crucified was "that day" to be with Christ in paradise. The thief confessed Christ as Lord, when all else had deserted Him, and he believed in His kingdom. His thought for himself did not go beyond being remembered by the Lord in the kingdom. Now the point of importance is the Lord's answer, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise". It is the height of grace to be Christ's companion in the place of supreme bliss. It was where Christ was going, and it was where the thief was to be with Him. Christ had come alone from heaven, and now He went into paradise as Man, but He did not go there alone: one went with Him -- a companion and a trophy! The thief certainly owed five hundred pence; but when he had "nothing to pay" God freely forgave. That was the first point we saw; chapter 7. We could not understand the three succeeding scenes if we did not understand the first. Then we learn what Christ is as the last Adam. We are under Him, justified since He is risen. We have the Holy Spirit, and are cared for in the path here. Thirdly, we learn that we are for the satisfaction of God. He has put us in Christ, and we reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God in Him, so that we may realise His love. And the climax of all is, that we are to be Christ's companions in paradise! The whole economy of grace is most marvellous. Who could have thought of such grace? We may wonder at the demand that God's love has made upon Him.
Think of a Being, infinite in love and power, working for the satisfaction of His own infinite love! Love is God's spring, God's standard, and God's end. All is to be for the satisfaction of the love of God. May He give us to understand the greatness of His love!
Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Colossians 1; Ephesians 1
I desire to bring under the attention of the readers of the Voice the teaching of the word in regard to the "one body", which I judge all will allow to be Christ's body. The thought of the body is referred to in four epistles, namely Romans (chapter 12), 1 Corinthians (chapter 12), Colossians (chapter 1), and Ephesians (chapter 1), though in the first two it is only just touched for certain purposes.
Before going into the subject in detail I must make one or two prefatory remarks; and at the outset I assume that the truth of the body is "the mystery of the gospel". Paul refers to this in Romans 16:25, 26, and in Ephesians 6:19, and no one can fail to see the great importance that the subject had in his mind, and the responsibility which he felt to make manifest the mystery. I do not think that I should go too far in saying that the body is the great end of God in the gospel, and that until our souls are in the truth of it we do not fully answer to the thought of God in regard of us. It appears to me that many of us stop short at the gospel, and never reach the clear knowledge of the mystery. And this is the more to be deplored because that while the gospel unfolds the whole extent of our blessing in Christ according to the purpose of God, the mystery shows us what the church is as a vessel for Christ, the body in which He was to be set forth in the world from which He had been personally rejected. The ministry of the mystery is evidently distinct from that of the gospel (see Colossians 1:23 - 26), but the mystery is the mystery of the gospel. And though we cannot understand the mystery by the gospel, yet it is evident that the mystery is
involved in the gospel. The importance of this is that it makes evident that all we receive from God we receive through the gospel, and that the ministry of the assembly as Christ's body adds nothing to the gifts of God, but leads our souls into the light of God's thought in the assembly, as I have said, into what the body was to be as the vessel in which Christ was to be portrayed here, Christ among the Gentiles the hope of glory.
I come now to the teaching of the epistles in detail; and I remark a distinction of importance between the four passages, namely, that in Romans and 1 Corinthians, though the truth of the one body is introduced, there is no allusion to the Head save that it may possibly be involved in the expression "the Christ" in 1 Corinthians 12:12. If we desire to find the Head we have to go to Colossians and Ephesians. Now it is evident that without knowing the Head no one can possibly have any intelligent apprehension of the body. And I do not think that such apprehension is supposed in 1 Corinthians or in Romans, for it appears to me that the statement of our being one body by the baptism of the Spirit is introduced in 1 Corinthians simply as a check to clericalism in the assembly. All the gifts were the working of the Spirit dividing severally to every one as He would, and hence one gift was not to be set against another; doing it would be an offence to the one Spirit; and the truth of the saints being one body by the Spirit is introduced to give force to this. Many results in the human body flow from that action of the heart, but these consequences are not discordant but harmonious. The source is one and the body one, requiring the co-operation of every member, and no member is redundant. Evidently clericalism is the opposite of this, and I imagine that it was to check the tendency to this that the light of the one body is brought into 1 Corinthians.
In Romans the truth of our being one body in
Christ, and every one members one of another, is introduced to give force to the exhortation that every man should think soberly as to himself according as God had dealt to every man the measure of faith. If the saints had, in the sovereignty of God's will, been constituted one body in Christ, it was evident that any right thought of themselves must be, not according to nature, but according to grace -- the first were last and the last first.
Thus the reference to the body in these two epistles may be said to be by the way. There is no mention of the Head, nor any unfolding of the divine thought in the body. The object is to set the saints in their right bearing both in the assembly and in their individual path.
But when we come to the Colossians we learn another truth of the greatest moment, namely, first that Christ is the Head of the body, the assembly, and consequent on this that the assembly is the vessel in which He is to be displayed among the Gentiles, the hope of glory. This is the mystery of the gospel. Evidently this display was to be moral in the saints, and thus the body was necessarily co-extensive with the work of the Spirit in them. But nothing could be more wonderful than that Christ, who had been rejected by the Jew, should be seen in the Gentiles in moral suitability to the scene in which the body is. Hence the anxiety of the apostle in his preaching of Christ that he might present every man full grown in Christ. It is in this epistle especially that the truth of the Head and the body are prominent, and the divine idea in the body is reached. In Ephesians we have the thought of the bride predominant, and in connection with this the truth of union, that is, the setting of the saints in Christ where He is in the heavenlies. But we have the additional truth as to the body that it is "the fulness of him that filleth all in all". Christ is set personally at God's right hand far above
all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but in that to come. All things are put under His feet (Psalm 8), and He is given as Head over all things to the assembly which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. In the divine counsel the body is sufficient for Christ even as filling all in all, and being His fulness not a trait of Christ is deficient. May God give us some estimation of the greatness of His thought, and use the above, though it be but a bare outline, to this end.
D.L.H. A suggestion has been made that we should read one of the gospels.
F.E.R. If we take a gospel, I would suggest that we take Matthew.
Ques. I suppose chapter 1 shows us Joseph's Son legally, though not actually?
Ques. Why do you suppose Matthew stands first in order? Luke begins earlier in one way, though not in another. I mean, Luke begins with a pious remnant. Matthew in the genealogy goes back to before that, and therefore in that sense earlier.
Rem. I think it was necessary in the first place to establish Christ's rights as Messiah -- heir to the throne.
Ques. Is it not the promised seed, and therefore he begins with Abraham?
Rem. A brother suggests an answer to the question of order: the Jew first, the Gentile afterwards.
F.E.R. I think the first great point is the connection with the past -- with the line of promise, in connection with the Old Testament. It was necessary that the line should be maintained.
Ques. Something after the manner in which in the epistle to the Hebrews the Spirit of God takes up what already existed?
F.E.R. Yes. After the presentation to the people of the vessel of promise, other things may come out, but that is the first thing. It is the fulfilment of prophecy. He was the One in whom the promises must be accomplished.
Ques. Do not we find that the title, Son of man, comes in with His rejection, so that we can hardly
begin with the gospel that sets forth the Lord under that title?
F.E.R. As to the order in which the gospels stand, it is only man's arrangement; at the same time I think it is right that the connection with what went before should come first. It does not matter in one way which comes first. I suppose it was felt to be well that this gospel should come first, but there is no significance beyond that. Really John stands at the head of all the gospels. There you get the truth of the Person, and everything must be subordinate to that.
F.E.R. Well, but in John He is as much man as in any other. Who He was must be before what He became, if Christ is to be presented to Israel, He must be presented according to the way in which God had spoken. The word had spoken of the coming of Christ. Otherwise it would have been outside of their responsibility -- Son of David, Son of Abraham.
Ques. Why do we get these three cycles of fourteen generations?
F.E.R. In the account of God there are certain generations in each period.
Rem. That is important, because as a matter of fact some generations are omitted.
F.E.R. One thing is very important, the birthright belongs to Joseph, but the genealogy is maintained in Judah. It is of the greatest moment for the future.
Ques. From thence is the Shepherd the Stone of Israel?
F.E.R. The blessing belongs to Israel, but the genealogy is in Judah. God has maintained a link with Abraham, etc.; that is in Christ. Israel in the future comes into blessing in Christ. If the birthright had been in Judah, Israel might have been shut out.
Ques. Do you mean that other tribes cannot maintain their genealogy in the future?
F.E.R. I mean, God has maintained it for them.
Ques. Is it from the God of Jacob or from Joseph the stone comes?
F.E.R. From the God of Jacob. I do not know why it is in connection with Joseph it comes in.
Rem. Joseph is peculiarly typical of Christ.
F.E.R. Yes; but you could scarcely say, "from thence", etc., on account of that.
Rem. No, I did not mean that, but that is why it is associated with him.
F.E.R. It is important that in Judah is the line of genealogy. I remember it being spoken of years ago in regard to 1 Chronicles 5:1, 2; I do not know that I took it in then, but I have thought about it since. Christ was Joseph's Son legally, and I suppose, too, in the account of God -- as regards earthly title -- "Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ". That title is taken up.
Rem. Christ really means the anointed Man. The actual anointing took place when the Holy Spirit came upon Him.
F.E.R. The Lord speaks of it in that way. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me", etc.
Ques. What is the significance of bringing in Rahab and Tamar?
F.E.R. It has been said, to cast a slur upon the house of David. It was that they should not boast in the flesh. The omissions are remarkable. It is a wonderful thing to get things as they are seen in the eye of God. If men had had the writing of this they would have left out all that tended to cast a slur upon the genealogy. The very way the Scriptures are written is a testimony to their being of God. In them you get things as God viewed them, not as man did.
Rem. That is why these things are spoken of as spiritually discerned.
Ques. Spiritually discerned. Would that be a
reflection upon any action of the mind in attempting to discern?
F.E.R. The passage is intended to show you how to discern. There is no other way. I can understand a man taking up divine things, but it is the spiritual man who discerns.
Ques. Spiritual discernment would be linked with the Holy Spirit?
F.E.R. It is a question of state; you could not speak of the Corinthians as being spiritual, although they had the Spirit. There is great danger with an active-minded person of trying to take in divine things, and this passage is a check. A spiritual man is a self-judged man, that is one thing. It is put in contrast with a natural man. The Spirit is the real living power in the believer, and you cannot separate the Spirit, who is the source of the state, from the state; but we are not, I think, on 1 Corinthians 2. There is no communication with Mary here, it is with Joseph. I think the Son of David is in view. "Joseph, thou son of David". It is not the seed of the woman but the seed of David that is in view.
F.E.R. Christ is Emmanuel, the vessel in whom God was set forth. Name means renown. God was with them. You get in Colossians, "In him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell".
Rem. The whole Godhead found its expression in the blessed Lord.
Ques. And that is maintained in this chapter?
F.E.R. Yes. He became the vessel in which God was to be set forth. Emmanuel is not exactly personal to Jesus, only there is one thing to remember, that though the vessel, yet He Himself was divine. What comes out in later chapters is the setting forth of God in the midst of His people.
Ques. You connect the name Emmanuel with the divine fulness dwelling in Him?
F.E.R. I think the Son became the vessel in order that God might be brought close to man in the midst of His people. It was not possible in the Old Testament.
Rem. So you get Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
F.E.R. Yes; all come out. You get two things: He is Christ, the vessel of promise, but at the same time He is the vessel in which God is perfectly set forth. You get the same now. He is the expression of the glory of God, all the divine pleasure, in a man; but all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him. If you would learn the pleasure of God in a man, you must learn it in Jesus, but it is the same Person in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells. I do not think the Jew entered into it, that is, that they identified the two. They had the two thoughts in Scripture.
Ques. Do you take that from the questions and answers of the disciples?
F.E.R. Yes, and from the Lord's question, "What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?"
Rem. There you get the truth of His Person lying at the root of it.
F.E.R. Yes, I cannot conceive any other way possible for God to dwell among men except in a divine Person come down among them. No other would be adequate even as a vessel.
Ques. How far does "save his people from their sins" go? Beyond breaking off the Roman yoke?
F.E.R. Yes; they were under Gentile oppression; but the great purpose of the coming of the Lord was to save them from their sins: everything is looked at from the eye of God, it was easy enough to save them from the bondage of the Romans.
Rem. You get the idea of that in the case of the man with the palsy.
F.E.R. They must get rid of their sins before they can rise up and walk.
Ques. Do you distinguish between saving from
their sins and saving from the consequences of them? Saving from the Roman yoke would be the consequences?
F.E.R. I suppose it practically comes to that, saving them from their sins would lead to saving them from the consequences.
Ques. Does it not go on to the future?
F.E.R. Yes, that is the covenant when God takes away their sins; but in some way the governmental wrath of God will come upon them.
Rem. In Isaiah 40 they receive double for their sins.
F.E.R. Yet ultimately God will save them from their sins, and I think the proof of it will be they will be relieved from the pressure of death. It carries you on to the quotation in 1 Corinthians 15, "death is swallowed up in victory".
Rem. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus". Was that in connection with Joseph personally? Lower down we get, "they shall call his name Emmanuel".
F.E.R. That is what the Jewish mind did not take in, not even the believing ones; the disciples were very slow to apprehend who Jesus was. They had the two thoughts, but I question whether they put them together.
Ques. Did not Peter receive it in chapter 16?
F.E.R. What you get coming in there is what you may call relative terms. I think Peter took very little of it in, for soon after he rebukes the Lord for thinking of death. It was a revelation beyond his state. It was a moment for a Jew to learn that something new was coming in. It was a direct revelation from the Father to Peter, not what Peter saw in the Lord. Well, it is a great thing to see His title to Israel. In spite of all the persecution of the prophets, the Lord came, the vessel of promise. It is striking, because they had broken the law and persecuted the prophets; but in the Person of Christ the promises are presented to them, but the One in whom the promises are presented
was Emmanuel, and "God with us" in that way was God with them in grace in chapter 8, according to Isaiah 53, and in chapter 9, according to Psalm 103.
F.E.R. I think it helps somewhat the understanding of the gospels to see that Matthew and Luke present the Lord to us in the way in which He is to be known on earth, that is, by Israel as in Matthew, and by man as in Luke. In John's gospel, on the other hand, He is presented to us, in a sense, as He is known in the Father's house. It is the same Person, but He will not be known upon earth as He is known in the Father's house. In John it is I know, and am known ... "as the Father knows me, and I know the Father". That is how He is known in the Father's house. That is how He is presented in John, not in Matthew. In the other gospels He is veiled, as it were.
Ques. Will you complete the circle and say what Mark is?
F.E.R. Well, Mark hardly comes in. He is there the spokesman of God.
Rem. In the John aspect He could only be known by those whose eyes were opened. In Matthew in His presentation is shown the state of Israel, that when He came they did not receive Him.
F.E.R. You will find that repentance and remission of sins to be preached among all nations is the close of the gospel of Luke. I quite admit that you may be carried farther if you take the parables -- the prodigal son, for example.
Rem. There is a touch of John in Matthew 11.
Rem. And there is the church in chapter 16.
F.E.R. Yes; but the Lord does not complete the instruction about it, but goes on to speak of the kingdom.
Rem. There is just enough in Matthew to show what God was going to do on the rejection of Christ.
F.E.R. What was coming in was completely outside the knowledge of man, you are shut up to the Son and the Father; chapter 11.
Ques. Do we come into the knowledge of the Father and the Son by the Spirit?
F.E.R. We come into it effectually by the divine nature, we cannot enter into it but by the divine nature.
Ques. Will it be right to say that in Matthew we have the accomplishment of promise, in Luke the accomplishment of purpose, and in John the revelation of God?
F.E.R. A very distinct feature of Matthew is the accomplishment of Scripture.
Ques. When you say 'purpose', what do you mean?
F.E.R. In Matthew Christ is viewed as the vessel of promise, in Luke as the vessel of grace. He came to relieve man of every pressure under which man lay, that is pretty much the character of Luke.
Ques. Would you say the scope of grace is wider than the promise?
F.E.R. Yes. The promises are fulfilled in Matthew, but in Luke humanity is considered. It is the woman's seed. I fancy it is all leading up to Paul's doctrine, the no difference doctrine.
Rem. The gospel is preached oftener from Luke than any other.
F.E.R. And it seems to me perfectly just. I think it is important to see the different views that are given in the four gospels; to remember that it is the same Person presented in different lights, but one single Person in all four.
Rem. You let everything go if you do not hold that.
F.E.R. If you let that go you have lost all. When you come to Matthew, chapter 1 gives us His name, in
the middle of chapter 4 He enters upon His ministry, what comes between is what was presented to the eye of God in connection with His birth, etc.
Ques. Is there anything in "seeing his star"?
F.E.R. It was something special. The fact is, God met those poor men where they were.
Ques. What do you connect with His name?
F.E.R. It is His renown, His renown was that He was Emmanuel. It refers to what was set forth in Him, not so much to what He was personally. He was not simply Christ and His pedigree traced from Abraham, but He was Emmanuel, God with them. Name is used to designate, it is renown. At the name (renown) of Jesus every knee shall bow. The sad thing is that the poor Gentiles were looking out for the King of the Jews, when there was no movement among the Jews.
Rem. The first intimation they had of His birth was from these wise men. And is it not very remarkable that not Herod only, but all Jerusalem was troubled. Why were they troubled?
F.E.R. Because they did not like disturbance, that is the reason people do not like conversion. They would sooner have a legion of devils than a man converted.
Rem. This is in keeping with the brightness of His rising among the Gentiles.
Rem. Some considerable time had elapsed between the birth and the announcement of it at Jerusalem, some two years. Pictures lead us astray, the wise men are seen in the stable. They mix up the shepherds and the wise men.
F.E.R. It was all used in the providence of God that the history of Israel might be taken up afresh. Israel in a certain sense is set aside, just as Jacob had to go down to Egypt so had Christ. It was the disturbance consequent upon the visit of the wise men that caused the going down. I saw it pointed out
somewhere that Christ identifies Himself with Israel's history in Psalm 18 right away from the outset, and that is the ground upon which they come into blessing in the future, not on the ground of their responsibility, but of their connection with Christ. Their history has been traced again in Christ. In Isaiah the remnant comes in in connection with Christ, and that is the great importance of seeing the history of Israel complete in Christ, so that God should be glorified in Him. Israel was forty years in the wilderness, Christ forty days. While in Israel it brought out failure, in Christ it brought out perfection.
Ques. Would that same principle hold good in Luke as to man?
F.E.R. Yes. The coming of these wise men brings out the condition of Israel. It is most painful to see how the Jews and the Gentiles were all mixed up in this matter. It was a kind of Satanic plot to cut off the line. It had been attempted before to cut off the royal line. The great red dragon of Revelation gives it to us, only there it was to swallow up the man child that was to rule all nations. The point of great beauty to me in this chapter is that if Israel is to be identified with Christ in blessing, He must be identified with them in suffering. He goes down into Egypt that He might be completely identified with what Israel had to pass through, that you get in detail in Psalm 18; He identifies Himself with the remnant at His baptism, but He had been into Egypt first.
Ques. You said just now that the first intimation the Jews had was the visit of the wise men, but were there not a few in Jerusalem who were in touch with God about these things before?
Rem. But there is nothing about that here.
F.E.R. The Spirit of God takes up every trace of piety in Luke, all the fruit and remains of piety that existed; but what you get in Matthew is the responsible side, the responsible people are presented.
Rem. In Luke He is separating the precious from the vile.
F.E.R. You can very well understand when you come to Matthew that the responsible people come more into view, the heads, they were the husbandmen, in that sense even Herod was responsible. I quite admit that Herod was an Edomite, he used his place, if he could, to cut off the true line of David, he usurped the kingdom, and to keep it would cut off the true line.
Rem. It is remarkable how the Lord here is in the completest sense in the place of man. Herod's effort is not met by divine power but by providence. It was not Mary but Joseph takes Him down to Egypt. Everything is natural.
F.E.R. It is exceedingly beautiful to see what was then under the eye of God in the young child.
Ques. You said the first thing was the name, what was the next?
F.E.R. What came in next under the eye of God was the perfection of the One who had taken Israel's place. He goes to the wilderness to be tested, but the testing only brings out the perfectness. I think it is an immense thing to recognise what has been under the eye of God upon this earth. We are very little acquainted with it.
Ques. I suppose Herod and Jerusalem knew who He was?
F.E.R. I think they had a sense of it. People know uncommonly well where the truth is, in the present day people know a great deal better than you think where the truth is; they would not allow it, but it makes very little account to me what they allow. Look at the way, for example, that they will not let Scripture alone. Men do not like the truth being brought home to them, because it means displacement for man. If you preach the truth you will not fill a room with a popular audience, but you may fill it with souls with whom God is working.
Rem. I do not think our empty rooms are because we have too much of Christ, but because we have not enough.
F.E.R. We get another remarkable thing at the close of the chapter, that is, His going to Nazareth. It was through Joseph's fear, but the voice of the prophets had to be fulfilled.
Ques. Do you read verse 22 as in spite of "being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee"?
F.E.R. I think it was in consequence of it; I suppose as far as that goes He would not have gone into the land at all otherwise. The Lord had to be identified with the Nazarene, it was the fulfilment, not of what any particular prophet had said, but the prophets.
Ques. I have never been able to find out where that is spoken?
F.E.R. It is not apparently a quotation from any particular prophet, it is a term of reproach as I understand it, and the prophets had spoken of this.
Ques. You do not connect it with the Nazarite?
Rem. There might be a connection with the Nazarite, as the root for Nazareth has the same meaning, separation.
Rem. It is another root really, though similar in pronunciation.
F.E.R. Term of reproach, I think it means.
Ques. What is the connection with Rachel weeping for her children?
F.E.R. I think they were indifferent to Christ, and had to weep for their own children.
Rem. Benoni is son of my sorrow.
F.E.R. Israel was God's son and stood in relation to Him, but only in anticipation of Christ. It gives place to Christ.
Ques. If the Jews had been in a right state would it have been necessary for Jesus to go into Egypt?
F.E.R. It is impossible for us to reason in that way. God always carries out His purpose through the evil of man.
Ques. Were the wise men true to the testimony God had given them in creation, while the Jews who had the law were unfaithful, Psalm 19? They had a link with God outside the Jewish order of things.
F.E.R. It was scarcely the heavens, they saw a meteor. They must have had the idea of the King in their minds in coming up to Jerusalem.
Rem. I thought it was from the prophecy of Balaam, God spoke of a star there, no doubt symbolically, but God met them with this star.
Rem. It seems remarkable that the Spirit of God should recognise them as wise men.
Rem. I should think they were wise men if they had taken heed to what God had said.
Rem. It is remarkable that they came from the place where the line of kings had disappeared. I have no doubt they came from Babylon.
Ques. Was not the hand of God in it in making known to the uttermost parts of the earth? They did not stay in Jerusalem but went back!
Rem. The point here is what they did, and not their private history.
F.E.R. The subject before us is the relation of Christ to Israel, the taking up again of Israel's history, in this chapter. It has been taken up afresh in Christ, it is the accomplishment of God's promise. You see the same thought in John 15, "I am the true vine". Israel in the future is to come in under Christ. They cannot come in under calling or promise after the flesh, but simply under Christ.
Rem. The thread of everything in which man has broken down, has been taken up in Christ, and in redemption a ground has been formed on which we can come in under Christ and be blessed.
F.E.R. Nothing is more important than that.
F.E.R. I think we see that chapter 1 is Christ's name, and it is a great thing to get hold of that; then in chapter 2 His identification with Israel from the outset, He goes down to Egypt that He might be called out of Egypt; and in the chapter before us we get a new departure in the ways of God. It is no longer recalling the people to law and prophets, but the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is a great thing to apprehend this, because it enables us to see how the Lord identified Himself with it at the close of the chapter.
Ques. Does it not emphasise what you are saying to see that the voice comes from the wilderness, setting aside all constituted things?
F.E.R. It is a voice, too, from the priestly tribe, John belonged to that, and yet, as you say, from the wilderness. Zacharias ministered in the temple; John, his son, preached in the wilderness, and Jordan was the place of his baptism. I suppose Jordan means death.
Ques. Is there any significance in the baptism being in the river by which they entered the land?
F.E.R. They have to come on to completely new ground.
Ques. Like what the Lord says, "Except ye be converted, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven"?
F.E.R. The same thing comes out here, "think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father".
Ques. In connection with baptism you always get some new thing or new start, do you not?
F.E.R. I think so; the great thought of baptism is dissociation from all you were connected with before.
Ques. I suppose by means of John's testimony the godly remnant was separated?
F.E.R. I think so. They were separated in view of the kingdom, but another point comes out -- judgment was imminent, "the axe is laid unto the root of the trees". It is always of great importance to seize the bearing of the moment, the mind of God at the particular crisis. At the present time I think it is "the Spirit and the bride say, Come"; so at that time it was most important to seize the bearing of the moment.
Rem. That is, there is no blessing for man except through death.
F.E.R. It must be so, if death is upon man then through death blessing must come.
F.E.R. The principle stands good through Scripture. In the Old Testament if a man came to God he had to come with the acknowledgement that death was upon him. Naaman had to go down into Jordan, he had to drown every pretension, and he felt it to be such. Every pretension I have as a man must go.
Ques. Why was the Lord baptised?
F.E.R. To fulfil righteousness. The people were baptised on the ground of repentance. There was no repentance in the Lord's case.
Rem. Fulfilling righteousness is the maintaining in the presence of evil what is right before God.
Rem. He could not have identified Himself with the remnant apart from it.
F.E.R. No; but it was no baptism of repentance for Him, though He is identified with them.
Rem. It has been said, Grace brought Him where sin brought us.
Ques. Did He own the righteous claim of death?
F.E.R. He owned it with regard to Israel. Every one acquainted with Scripture must notice how the
Lord identifies Himself with Israel and even with their sins in the Psalms.
Rem. This is in keeping with Psalm 16.
F.E.R. Yes; but now we get a wonderful thing coming out, He is owned as God's beloved Son.
Ques. What is the force of the kingdom of the heavens?
F.E.R. It is the sway on earth of what God has established in heaven. I think the idea is taken from the sun, the sun was set to rule the day, the sun is in the heavens. The kingdom of heaven was not set up until the Lord was in heaven. There are two parts in Matthew: one goes on the ground that the Lord is down here, and the other, from chapter 16, that He is exalted. I mean that this is seen in the parables of the king's son, etc., but not those in chapter 13, it has not come to that. He is the sower.
Rem. There is a remarkable expression in Luke after the transfiguration, "when the time was come that he should be received up".
F.E.R. That is a transitional part in Luke, in the next chapter Satan is seen to fall from heaven, and the disciples' names are written there. In our scripture I think it is wonderful to see wherever these poor people take a right step they have a great accession of light. The Lord was identified with them, and you get the full revelation of God as known in the economy of grace, not exactly Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet it is the Father and the Son and the Spirit; you will call that refining a bit, but it is "to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him". If you speak of Christ in eternity you would speak of Him as Son, not quite Son of God. That applies to Him as born into this world. He takes a place relatively lower, as become Man, and He is the Son of God, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee". "Son of the Father"
in 2 John, I think, refers to what was eternal. You cannot help seeing that in becoming Man He takes a place relatively lower; but then the moment He does that (Hebrews 1) He is constantly saluted as God. There is the most careful maintenance of His glory, His proper divine rights.
If people take a right step they get a great access of light. I do not think any one gets much until he does. You get light enough for the step, not much beyond until you have taken the step. People do not get much light about the church until they have left the systems of men. We are so accustomed to the terms of the revelation that we fail to see what an accession of light it must have been to them. I cannot conceive any more wonderful blessing for God to give to man than to make Himself known in what He is. I would give up everything else to keep that.
Rem. There can be nothing greater in eternity.
F.E.R. You come next to that wonderful scene -- the temptation. It is the Son of God tested.
Ques. Son of God as born into the world?
F.E.R. Yes; it is after the baptism and the Spirit had descended upon Him that He is tempted. I do not think the saints meet the temptation of Satan until they have the Spirit. Typically I do not think Israel did. It was after the giving of the water that Amalek came. I do not think God allows you to be exposed to the temptation of Satan until you have the Spirit. He providentially shields you. Now this truth comes out you do not need forty years to prove the flesh. Israel had forty years of being tested and humbled, and they needed it; but now it is seen that the moment you walk in the Spirit you are superior to evil. Satan is defeated at the very outset, you do not need forty years to learn yourself.
Rem. It is a great thing to see that we are to be in the power of the Spirit.
Rem. At the first God did not lead Israel through
the land of the Philistines lest they should be afraid and turn back.
F.E.R. But they were foolish enough afterwards to trust the flesh, and if we trust the flesh we might need forty years, but there is no need really.
Ques. Is the result of the temptation that the strong man was bound?
F.E.R. Yes. To me it is wonderful how the Lord meets Satan.
Rem. He takes the Lord up as Son of God, because He had just been owned as such.
F.E.R. Well, no, I do not think it was because of that, the devil always knew Him to be the Son of God; it is a curious thing that what men did not know the devils did. How they knew I could not tell; they are spiritual beings, and they knew.
Rem. There was a testimony here.
F.E.R. Well, I do not think it was because of that, they knew Him in some way apart from that.
Rem. But that distinguished Him, and I suppose these spiritual beings took note of it.
Ques. Was He not announced as Son of God at His birth?
F.E.R. Yes; but all that is to faith, not to wicked spirits. I do not think they were affected by such.
Rem. Angelic hosts proclaimed the glory of God at His birth.
F.E.R. Every part of the temptation is so wonderful to me, it all commends itself to me as so perfect; to begin with, you get One with all divine power at His disposal, and yet He will not use it to relieve Himself. Where could you conceive such a thing save in a divine Person, and to relieve Himself in what was perfectly right; it was perfectly right for man to want bread and to look for bread, but the Lord will not relieve Himself of hunger, because He will not take Himself out of the true place of man.
Rem. Had He done so it would have been no pattern to us, it is all as man.
F.E.R. He would not do anything at the bidding of Satan. He does not expose Satan until the last, although, of course, He knew him from the first. It is a great thing to know that Satan has met his match in man, you thus get the path, and you get the great principles marked out in the Lord for us.
Ques. In what way are we led into the wilderness?
F.E.R. The moment may come when a saint is exposed to peculiar assaults of the enemy. I think God allows a saint to be tested.
Rem. But then God will never do that without He fortifies you first.
F.E.R. That is the beautiful thing here, you first get the light, and then you are tested; you never get a great accession of light but you find yourself tested afterwards. You would be inclined otherwise to ride the high horse, and you have to find your bearings. It is the greatest possible comfort that the path has been marked out for us, we are not called to tread a path that has not been marked out. You see what a man is to be under the eye of God. You really are morally what you glory in; if a man glories in evil, that is what he is, if he glories in Christ that is what he is morally.
Ques. Do you think the great point is the lack of bread?
F.E.R. Yes; and to supply it people set to work and use human means. I am not left in the world for my own will, but for the will of God, and if so, I can count upon God for my bread. Christ was here for the will of God, and He will not use His power to alter His circumstances; the path of dependence is the only path for a man who is here for the will of God. Satan wants you to be here for your own will, and if you are here for your own will you are here for Satan's will. The second temptation is putting
God to the test; if you put God to the test, very likely He will not answer to it. God is not at my call. Finally, Satan exposes himself when he proposes himself as an object of homage, and gets rebuked: "Get thee hence, Satan".
Rem. The first temptations were what you call 'wiles'.
Ques. What do we get in the last temptation?
F.E.R. Satan will make a bold bid, it is wonderful how people are taken in by barefaced wantonness. He comes out boldly as Satan, he is under some restraint in the first two. Some who would stand the first well are taken in by the last.
Rem. It is like the last desperate throw, he risks everything.
Ques. Has "keep yourselves from idols" anything to do with it?
F.E.R. It is remarkable that you get that in the epistle that brings out Christian privilege in the highest development, where there is really the display of God morally in the saint, yet this warning against idolatry comes at the end.
Rem. And now angels come and minister to the Lord.
F.E.R. He had to do with evil spirits, and now with good ones. Angels are guardians of the heavenly city, and they are in attendance upon Christ. In Gethsemane we get angels again. If a saint is faithful he gets some mark of providential favour. Angels are sent forth as ministers for those who are heirs of salvation. It is in contrast with helping Himself.
Ques. What is the difference between the order here and in Luke?
F.E.R. They are, I suppose, in historical order in Matthew, in moral order in Luke; in Luke the first is the natural, and then the worldly. The words, "Get thee behind me, Satan", ought not to be in Luke, it is a spurious passage there. It looks as it
stands as though Satan did not go away when bidden.
Rem. Does not this in Matthew correspond to the failures of Israel in the wilderness? First, they murmured for bread; then tempted the Lord at Massah; and lastly, threw Him off in the golden calf.
F.E.R. I think that is of importance here. The great point is the way in which all was taken up in connection with Israel.
Ques. Does this correspond to "all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world", 1 John 2?
F.E.R. Well, I should expect to find that more in Luke.
F.E.R. In chapter 1 we had Christ's name; in chapter 2 His identification with Israel's history; in chapter 3 John Baptist's testimony and Jesus baptised and owned as God's beloved Son; and in the first part of chapter 4 the temptation, all a sort of moral sequence; now, in the latter part of the chapter, we have His entrance upon His ministry, John being put in prison being in a sense the signal.
Rem. With regard to John Baptist, does he not carry on Elijah's ministry, beginning at the place where Elijah left off -- the Jordan? Then it is carried on in the book of Revelation in the two witnesses. It is the continued testimony of Elijah. The temptations are arranged according to the structure of each gospel. Matthew gives Man, Messiah, and Son of man; Luke, Man, Son of man, Messiah. Matthew presenting Messiah, brings Messiah in second; Luke presenting Man, brings Son of man second.
F.E.R. It says of John that he should go in the spirit and power of Elijah.
Ques. Does the Lord expect His own rejection in thus going into Galilee?
F.E.R. I think He does. Galilee was the proper scene of His service; but there is another thing, prophecy was fulfilled.
Rem. In going into Galilee He identifies Himself with the despised few.
F.E.R. In a certain sense the prophecy stands by for the future. When the Assyrian came up in the past the people had not had a great light, when he comes up in the future they have had a great light, the darkness will not be as it was in the past. "The people which sat in darkness saw great light". That is in connection with Christ's presence. The light was connected with His own Person, He was the Light. It is very interesting to see the connection of a quotation, the quotation helps you greatly to see the meaning of its connection. Quotations are made in a very intelligent way.
Rem. But often they are made in a surprising way.
F.E.R. Yes, and they often throw a reflex light upon the passage from which they are taken. The service begins here, verse 17. It is the starting point. Jesus takes up John the baptist's testimony. You see a little lower down He went about all Galilee. It is not that all this took place just at that time, but it is the remarkable form His service took. It is repeated almost word for word at the close of chapter 9.
Rem. The kingdom here bears upon the kingdom in Daniel 2:44. That, of course, is the millennial kingdom.
F.E.R. I think the force of it in the mind of a Jew was pretty definite. The whole burden of the prophets led them to look for a good time to come.
Rem. Acts 1 shows that very clearly, asking the Lord whether He would restore the kingdom to Israel.
F.E.R. Everything portended it. Christ was to
sit upon David's throne, the promises of God had to be fulfilled.
Ques. Is that called the kingdom of heaven? It is not so called in the prophets.
F.E.R. I do not doubt that the idea is in Daniel. The king had to learn that the heavens rule.
Rem. And that does assume the rule of the heavenly kingdom.
F.E.R. It assumes the rule of what God has set in the heaven. I do not think it is the vague and indefinite idea of the rule of heaven, but of what God has set in heaven. The form in which it comes to us is the authority of the Lord, that is the kingdom of heaven to us practically. The Lord is set in heaven, the church is not set there yet. I quite admit that in the future it takes the definite form of the kingdom of the Son of man, but in that day you get the saints associated with Christ in rule, they reign with Him.
Ques. What are we to understand was before the mind of the Lord when He said, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"?
F.E.R. The general idea; you could not tell what form the kingdom would assume; what really came in were the mysteries of the kingdom, that is, the kingdom did not come out in a manifest form, mysteries are in contrast to what is manifested.
Ques. Would it be right to say that the kingdom was presented to the Jew as the responsible man?
F.E.R. Yes, only we must remember that the Lord said from the beginning, "Ye must be born again". You do not get the mysteries of the kingdom until the Lord takes the place of the sower. Repentance is in view of the kingdom.
Ques. I suppose you have the blessing of man on the earth in the Lord healing diseases?
F.E.R. I think you have the definite setting forth of what God was to Israel in the Lord's ministry. Up to this it is the perfect setting forth of man, now it is
the perfect setting forth of God in a Man, all that God was towards His people, preaching, teaching, healing, made up the service. The idea of preaching is heralding what was to come, teaching is more moral, and the healing sets forth the power of God superior to everything that man was subject to.
Rem. Miracles are called the power of the world to come.
F.E.R. Yes. God will show His power to relieve man from every evil by which man is afflicted. It is in the grace of God to do it. People scoff at miracles, but to scoff at miracles is to leave God out. It is in His power to relieve man of every evil by which he is afflicted, the only question involved is the righteousness of God because these things are the fruit of sin, scoffing at miracles only shows gross moral incapacity in those who do it.
Ques. Would you say these miracles were specially in connection with the new testimony that God was establishing?
F.E.R. You can look at miracles as vouchers of testimony, but then they were more than that, because they were the expression of God's goodness. It is important to see that the Lord becomes a centre. No prophet ever gathered to himself. No one but Christ could take such a place. He takes it before He enters upon service. It brings in such an important point, that is, association with Him. You do not get it fully here, of course. I think association with Christ is one of the great truths of Scripture. There is association with Christ in the church and also in the kingdom. In the Revelation you get the 144,000 on Mount Sion, they are in association with Christ. They are the only company, I think, in the Revelation to which a character is given. I fancy they answer pretty much to what is set forth in Matthew 5. They are not a heavenly company, but they sing the song, and no one could learn it but themselves. In Matthew 5
it is not Christianity exactly, it is so morally, of course, but it is characteristic of a people who are on earth.
F.E.R. Yes, that is the great point, the 144,000 never leave Him.
Rem. They are with Christ in earthly circumstances.
Rem. That is the actual remnant by-and-by.
F.E.R. Yes, but I think the 144,000 are a special company with special privileges.
Rem. It is interesting to see how God has determined to associate men with Himself.
F.E.R. I think that comes out here in the beginning, and at the close the Lord says, "Ye are they who have continued with me in my temptations". Eating and drinking imply the place in association with Christ and the apostles, each have their distinctive place, they sit on thrones.
Rem. You cannot identify in every respect the whole of this chapter 5 as belonging to us, the Lord's prayer for instance.
F.E.R. No, although you may get many things which morally apply to us. I do not think you find association in the Old Testament. It is the great thought of Christianity.
Rem. "Behold I and the children which God hath given me", was the beginning of that association.
Rem. In the gospel of Mark the Lord calls the disciples that they might be with Him.
Ques. Do you say there is association in the church and in the kingdom?
F.E.R. Yes. I see in Thessalonians, that although it does not unfold Christian privilege as in Ephesians, yet you are with Christ in the kingdom, you are waiting for and coming with the Lord.
Ques. Why are the Thessalonians addressed as in God the Father?
F.E.R. Because they were in the truth of it, the Father had been revealed to them and they stood in the truth of it.
Ques. Does the term, "kingdom of the Father", give the heavenly side and the kingdom of the Son of man the earthly?
F.E.R. It has been thought so, I do not know that I have tested it. One great principle is, that things are stated on broader ground in the gospels than in the epistles. The epistles are written more to Christians, and do not in general go beyond what applies to them and to the church. In the Revelation there is no distinction between the church and the Old Testament saints in the elders of chapter 5.
Ques. Would you say that with regard to the epistle to Romans?
Ques. Because in chapters 2 and 3 He takes up the Jew and the Gentiles, and eternal life comes in as a reward.
F.E.R. It is only the introduction, and refers not to blessing but the responsibility of man, but it is in view of Christian blessing.
Ques. Do you think the crowds were following the Lord in a natural way at the close of chapter 4, and He begins His sayings in chapter 5 to show to them the kind of people who were to go into the kingdom?
F.E.R. I think the going up into a mountain signified that His teaching was outside this world.
Rem. I have thought the mountain was the seat of authority, just as Moses had done before.
F.E.R. Well, I daresay it is that, too, but to me it is more the position the Lord took, more His place outside the world. It was a continual habit with Him to go up into a mountain. He is not here as a legislator, but as a teacher, I fancy.
Ques. Does not Hebrews 8 show that Moses was shown heavenly things on the mount?
F.E.R. Yes, I think so. If people are perfectly indifferent to the state of things here on earth they will get no instruction, if they are content to remain down here on the earth and do not go up after the Lord.
Rem. It does not say the crowds went up, but the disciples did.
Rem. The Lord draws a moral picture of Himself.
Rem. And shows the kind of people who were to go in to the kingdom. I think the people thought they were all right, that is what comes out in the question of Nicodemus.
Ques. Would you give us a little outline of these chapters 5, 6 and 7?
F.E.R. I think the principles that are found in Titus 2 come out in them. We are to live soberly, righteously and godly. Chapter 5 is righteousness. Chapter 6 brings in what has direct reference to God, piety; and chapter 7 is more sobriety. Chapter 5 is a wonderful chapter, you get the rebuking of the two great principles of evil, violence and corruption; and then we have "Love your enemies", that is the character of God coming out. At the first you get evil rebuked, but the positive thing is the character of God coming out. It is a most wonderful epitome of righteousness according to God.
Ques. Does James make any allusion to this in the royal law?
F.E.R. It is more than the royal law, it is the character of God: the royal law is the law written in the heart. Here it is the character of God, it is thus we are sons of the Father, not actually begotten, but we come out in that moral likeness. I do not think the Lord could propound any line of conduct inferior to His own.
F.E.R. Yes, and others were to be that, too. What you get is, "Ye are the salt", and then "Let your
light shine". It is a wonderful chapter. The springs of evil are judged and it is not a law written in your hearts, but love your enemies, the character of God comes out in practice, for when you come to faithfulness and not recompensing evil, it is what the Lord was here.
Rem. It is what gives power to testimony.
F.E.R. Yes, and we come up very poorly to it.
Rem. You are to be what Christ was in the world.
F.E.R. Yes, you may say it was impossible for Him to propound a line of conduct which was inferior to His own.
Rem. But then you would say it needs the Spirit to carry it out; you can hardly take up this chapter without that, or you would be making the people all legal.
F.E.R. Well, I think it is a great thing to set before people what they ought to be; when you come to the millennium, when everything is ordered according to God, a great deal of this will not apply, you will not have to love your enemies and no man will smite you on the cheek.
Rem. This is introductory to the establishment of the kingdom.
F.E.R. You prove yourselves to be children of the Father.
Rem. I think that is where the teaching touches us, because we are in circumstances where the opposition is not removed.
F.E.R. I think we show up poorly in all this, we know well how readily we resent any offence, as if God resented; it would be all up with us if He did.
Ques. What is the fulfilling of the law in verse 17?
F.E.R. As far as I understand it, it all depended upon the Lord; but He will not have a slight put upon it. He maintains the law, because it expressed the authority of God. All had to be fulfilled, nothing should pass away.
Rem. He was there to make everything good for God.
F.E.R. Yes, the law was to be vindicated; and not only that, but the transgressions which were under it were to be put away; but here it is not law, not even the spirituality of it, that He was insisting upon.
Rem. They might have thought He was making light of it because of this, and therefore He says this.
F.E.R. The Lord brings in something further than an eye for an eye; you are beyond that here, you are to love your enemies.
Rem. In these passages He is putting Himself in contrast to the law, "But I say unto you".
Ques. What is the righteousness of the law fulfilled in us? Similar to what we are reading here?
F.E.R. No, I do not think it comes up to it; the righteous requirement of the law was not loving your enemies, the righteousness which is of God is.
Ques. Does it stand restricted to that in Romans 8?
F.E.R. You may fulfil a great deal more, but the immediate point there is the fulfilment of the righteous requirement of the law by those who walk in the Spirit.
Rem. Being Son of the Father would carry us farther?
F.E.R. Yes, because we have the character of God there.
Ques. Do we see the Lord here as Prophet?
F.E.R. I think it is more as teacher. He is expounding the character which is according to God, suited for association with Himself.
Ques. What does Romans 13:10 mean, "Love is the fulfilling of the law"?
F.E.R. It is there the "fulness of the law", that is what is adequate for the full display of a thing, just as the church, the body, is the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. You have got what is adequate for the display of Christ in the body. So here, if you have
got love you have got what is adequate for the carrying of it out; if you have got love you may go beyond law, but you have got what is sufficient for the carrying out of its commands; but I think we understand righteousness very poorly because we have got a lot of legality hanging about us, and do not understand that our righteousness is that we must act as God has dealt with us. I say it is positively unrighteous in me to act differently from how I have been acted towards. If God loves me, I ought to love.
Rem. Our responsibility is to display what God is.
F.E.R. The church is to be here the expression of the grace of God.
Ques. That we might become the righteousness of God in Him?
Rem. But that is not practical.
F.E.R. No; but you cannot help being affected by what you are, and therefore it is not apart from what is practical in that way, nor do I think it will be in the future.
Rem. The full result is, that you come out like Christ. The moral effect in the soul now is, that you become like Him, you are on that line.
F.E.R. Yes, it is all a new creation.
Ques. You said last time that these three chapters take in the three things we get in Titus 2?
F.E.R. I think they do in a general way, I meant only in a general way -- soberly, righteously, and godly. The great thought here (chapter 6) is piety, and you get more of sobriety in chapter 7. The connection between chapters 5 and 6 is simple, at the end of chapter 5 you reach the Father -- morally reach Him -- and chapter 6 is that you follow what is suitable to Him, you seek Him in secret, and He rewards you openly.
Ques. How far do you get the Father known in Matthew?
F.E.R. I think it goes to the recognition of it by those on earth. There is an analogous passage in 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18. It is not the heavenly privilege, but refers to what they were to be here under the eye of their Father.
Rem. That is the cause of the expression, "heavenly Father".
F.E.R. I think what we may speak of as a heavenly privilege is a different thing.
Rem. Our practice would not be beneath the level of what is here if we were in the power of what is heavenly.
F.E.R. 2 Corinthians 6 is all taken from the Old Testament. Promises are in view, I do not think it gives you the new man.
Ques. Will you tell us what the new man is?
F.E.R. The new man is a new creation. I do not think this chapter goes to the extent of the new man.
Ques. And would you contemplate that when it says, "He that is born of God cannot sin"?
F.E.R. Yes; only John puts all those things as tests, the great principle with John is that he first takes you within, that is, he takes you in as children. All those things are tests of profession.
Ques. But does not John bring the thing down to you here?
F.E.R. Ah! yes; but I think he takes you in first that you may come out. I am speaking of "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God". Then in chapter 4, "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us", etc. You come out there.
Ques. Is it the Ephesian thought, children of light and love? John and Paul run together.
F.E.R. Well, John and Paul always do run together. Loving the brethren is a test. John takes
ground, like all the catholic epistles, that it is the last time, and there were many antichrists. In Matthew 5, it is not reaching the Father by the Spirit of sonship, but we reach the Father in practice, we are in accord with the Father. I think many people could approach the Father by the Spirit of sonship who do not approach in this way.
F.E.R. In a certain sense, but it is that you know yourself to be a son of the Father.
Ques. How is the relationship brought about?
F.E.R. Well, it is not exactly a relationship brought about, but you are morally like the Father.
Ques. It is not being born again?
F.E.R. No, you are manifestly the children (sons) of God because your practice is according to God.
Ques. But then you would say, you must have the new birth?
F.E.R. Oh, yes. It is a very high standard here, you are to love your enemies, etc., and "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect". The Father in Luke is the standard.
Rem. That ye may be children (sons). It is put conditionally.
F.E.R. Yes, quite so. I do not see how it is possible that the Lord could have given anything short of that standard when He was here upon earth.
Ques. Does not the chapter suppose that you have your place on earth? And in that way would it not rather be a contrast with a son now, not only to carry out these principles but to go far beyond them?
F.E.R. It really flows now from having the privilege of going in, you come out to manifest the character of the Father.
Rem. There will be a people here who will carry these principles.
F.E.R. Yes; but their heart will be in heaven.
Rem. You get the idea of laying up treasure in heaven, all in that line.
F.E.R. Because the principle is, "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also".
Rem. Quite a new thing to a Jew.
F.E.R. You cannot get practice beyond this, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect".
Rem. It was the Lord's own path down here.
F.E.R. I do not know that we quite apprehend the perfection of the communion that will exist between heaven and earth, I mean, in the millennium; I have not thought much about it, but I have got an idea of it. I think the heavenly company will have interests upon earth, and there will be saints on earth who will have interests in heaven. It is very evident to me that there is the establishment of a concord between heaven and earth. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel are in the gates of the city. It must mean something to Israel and the nations. There is a company on earth who learn the heavenly song. All that indicates a very intimate connection between heaven and earth.
Rem. And I suppose indicates relationships all the way up and down.
Ques. What would you say is the motive power for this moral life? In Christianity we have the power of the Spirit?
F.E.R. Well, I think the Father, in a certain sense, is the motive power. I should say the Spirit is the formative power, not the motive power. The revelation of God is.
Rem. The Spirit is the subjective power.
F.E.R. The Lord brought all the light of heaven to them, for the moment you may say, and that was the motive power. It was suitable to their practical association with the Lord in the light of the Father. I think there will be a company again in special privilege
and association with Him, and that this character will come out in them again.
Rem. All this for the moment was in view of the setting up of the kingdom.
F.E.R. Yes; but all that was doubtful. Then you get in chapter 6 almsgiving. There is no almsgiving in heaven, nor prayer nor fasting, are there?
F.E.R. And these are the three things taken up. If you have reached your Father in heaven you must have to say to Him, and whatever has that religious character on earth, must be in reference to your Father who seeth in secret. Any man who has the knowledge of God must long to be with God, he will not wish to be with men. I do not know any greater privilege down here than to be able to withdraw from even your most intimate circle to be with your Father who seeth in secret.
Ques. It was the reign of Christ they were to pray for. The Father's kingdom will be the kingdom in manifested power?
F.E.R. Yes; I think you get all the great principles that belong to it, "Thy kingdom come", etc. I do not think, as far as I can see, that a saint is at home -- free with the Father -- unless he is in conformity to the Father's nature. Crying "Abba, Father", is not the same thing. To be at home with the Father you must be partaker of the divine nature, that is more than crying, "Abba, Father". You want to be one in nature with Him to be at home with Him. You are partakers of the divine nature by being formed in the divine nature.
Ques. How are you formed in the divine nature?
F.E.R. By the Spirit the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, the saint is formed by the light that is presented to him.
Ques. Are you thinking of 2 Peter 1 when you say that?
F.E.R. I am thinking of the general run of Scripture.
Rem. It is more than being a child of God.
F.E.R. The moment you get into the light you have the place of child, but I think it is another thing to be formed by that place.
Ques. Do you get anything of what you are saying in Luke 15?
F.E.R. Yes, the father was at home with the prodigal when he kissed him; but the son had to be made at home with the father.
Rem. Luke 15 covers a great deal of ground.
F.E.R. Luke 10 gives you your side; but chapter 15 gives you the Father's side.
Ques. Would you say the good Samaritan in Luke 10 sets forth the riches of grace, and the prodigal son in Luke 15 the glory of the grace?
F.E.R. Pretty much so. There is perfect relief from the good Samaritan. That is grace, but it is our side. When you come to the prodigal, he is reconciled for the father's satisfaction, and that he may know he is for the father's satisfaction. It has been said that in chapter 14 you get the house, and in chapter 15 the guest. Until Christ completely governs the heart it is impossible to be at home in the Father's presence. It is the Holy Spirit's work. What it means is, Christ is now all to you, it is most utter and complete displacement of self.
Ques. Is not Romans 3 the best robe?
F.E.R. That is more the wedding garment.
Ques. Can you tell us how to put the best robe on?
F.E.R. I think we see it carried out in Paul, "whom we preach, warning every man", etc. He preached Christ, and it involved all that is beyond. I do not think there is anything for us but Christ. I believe a man is what his glory is. If a man's glory is in his shame, it describes his debasement; if Christ is your glory it describes what you are morally; a
man's glory is what his heart cherishes. Do you think so?
Answer. I think it is very good.
F.E.R. But it is very true. In this chapter 6 we have the Lord propounding something entirely different from all they had ever heard. I do not think they had the idea of doing everything for the Father before.
Ques. What does "reward you" refer to?
F.E.R. I think He would give you some public recognition in the present time, He will mark you with His approval. A man may go on through evil report and good report, but in some way you will get marked, I think. In the last part of the chapter a very important principle comes out in connection with God, it is practical confidence, dependence and confidence.
Ques. What does "mammon" refer to?
F.E.R. Always to the god of this world. A single eye is not pursuing two objects; if a man is scheming for his own advantage, and at the same time seeking to walk before God, he has not a single eye. My conviction is, that he has not learnt to what a wonderful extent a man may trust God. I do not mean a man is to lie down and do nothing, but if you seek His kingdom and righteousness you may depend upon it He will not neglect your needs.
Rem. The Lord says in another place, Not a hair of your heads shall perish, just after telling them of the dreadful things that should happen and the persecution they would be subject to.
F.E.R. Well, not a hair does perish, for God takes care of all. Man may take life, but that is all. There is a beautiful character of piety in the chapter. You have reached the Father, and that pervades everything, all your religious devotions and your character down here; you do not resort to worldly schemes and plans, but seek His glory, and all needed things are added. Then I think chapter 7 brings you outside more, you
get the contrarieties here, you have to meet all sorts of things in the world, you must beware of false prophets, not cast your pearls before swine, etc. I think it is an unvarying principle in Scripture that you must go in before you can come out.
Ques. What about verse 14, "few there be that find it"?
F.E.R. I am afraid it is too true; men do not want to be saved, it is that side. He puts it in contrast with, "broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat".
F.E.R. Well, it may be; but the idea it conveys to me is, that it lets in only what is of Christ.
Ques. "Narrow is the way", is it not death?
F.E.R. Yes, death to the flesh. There is everything congenial to the flesh on the broad road, I think a man has to do violence to himself naturally if he is to enter upon the narrow road.
Ques. Is it broad because a number go on it?
F.E.R. No; it is because it is congenial to men.
Rem. We are looking at the application rather than explanation.
F.E.R. The explanation is this, that the way of life is open, but in the very nature of things it must be a narrow way, it must be distinct and apart from all that is of nature.
Rem. And then the Lord introduces the false prophets who would divert you.
F.E.R. The way of life then was the path of the despised Christ; if the way had been after some distinguished person, men could have pursued it; but to go after a rejected Christ, to be in His company, men had to do violence to themselves.
Rem. It marked rather a narrow path when the Lord said, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple".
F.E.R. There is scarcely a single thing to which a man has not to do violence to follow Christ in this world. I do not mean that we should be without natural affection. My impression is that the way of life is as narrow as ever. I do not believe it is a bit easier to confess a glorified Christ than to follow a humbled Christ.
Ques. Do they not go inevitably together?
F.E.R. Yes. Violence must be done to the whole system of natural affection if something comes to which it has to give place.
Ques. What does casting pearls before swine mean?
F.E.R. You will meet with certain classes who are morally dogs and swine, you do not put your good things before them. It is a matter of spiritual discernment. It does not mean exactly man in his natural state. I do not think every man is a dog, it refers to special men. The apostle prays that he may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for faith is not the portion of all.
Ques. What is the reason we get the commission to the disciples here?
F.E.R. I think it was in consequence of the blasphemy of the Pharisees. They said He cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. His work was in a sense finished. When things have come to that pass it could no longer be a question of His personal service but of that which is committed to the disciples. Chapters 8, 9 and 10 are a complete section of the gospel. You get the Lord going forth to preach in chapter 11. He always does until the end, but you must take things up in their moral connection.
Rem. The testimony that is sent forth here is an interrupted testimony.
Rem. It comes out during the time of His absence.
F.E.R. I would rather say it is superseded by something else.
Rem. The disciples needed some preparation before they were commissioned. The Lord could scarcely have sent them out directly after their call.
F.E.R. We get the Servant in chapter 8, and the service in chapter 9. You must take things up as they are presented. The final test of Israel is the disciples. The rejection of this leads on to the judgment. It is all final in chapter 10. Chapter 8 to me is a lovely chapter, because it gives you a picture of Jehovah's Servant. It is all personal in chapter 8. He puts His hand on the leper, He disposes as to the centurion's servant, He touches Peter's wife's mother, He is in conflict with the winds and waves, and eventually comes in to solve the great question between God and the enemy. As J.N.D. has expressed it, 'He suffered in His spirit what He took away by His power'. It is all to set off the Servant. It was not simply One coming into the world doing wonderful works of power, but it was the way in which He did them that speaks. He is in touch with suffering humanity in every shape. They have to confess it in the day to come, "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses". There is nothing for Israel now in Christ after the flesh. They come from the east and the west, and the children of the kingdom are cast out into outer darkness, so hereafter what is said is, "Who hath believed our report"? (Isaiah 53:1.) It is Jehovah's Servant. I could not tell you what a chapter that is to me, it gives such a picture of what the Servant was.
Ques. Why do you say chapter 9 is service?
F.E.R. You see everything for Israel there. He brings life into the ruler's house, heals the woman. It is all for Israel.
Ques. Is the new wine coming under the new covenant?
F.E.R. Yes; chapter 9 takes up Psalm 103. It is the sovereignty of grace in spite of the perverseness of the people.
Ques. Take chapter 8: 11, in what way could we connect that with His Person?
F.E.R. They did not appreciate Him after the flesh, and therefore the children of the kingdom are cast out; but that does not hinder the sovereignty of grace. It is Jehovah who heals. Chapter 8 is intended to give you a picture of the Servant; but then you have to see the sovereignty of grace. It is He who brings in all the healing and everything for Israel.
Ques. You mean that the rejection did not shut up the virtue that was in Him?
F.E.R. Only they get nothing in connection with Christ after the flesh. Everything which they will get is in the sovereignty of divine grace. They will have to take up the confession of Isaiah 53.
Ques. Do you mean that they got nothing in Christ after the flesh, but in the future they will in connection with Christ in resurrection?
F.E.R. They get it with Christ, but Christ in resurrection. That is the beauty of Isaiah 53. All that section of Isaiah is occupied with Jehovah's servant. There are three sections in the latter part of Isaiah. First, Israel is the servant; then Christ is the Servant; and then the remnant. Chapter 53 comes in the middle section, and it is a confession of the remnant in the future: "We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed". It has very often been said that Matthew 8 is Christ according to Isaiah 53, and chapter 9 according to Psalm 103. Israel's conduct cannot alter the great
fact that He had authority on earth to forgive sins, the Son of man on earth had that authority. I think what comes out in chapter 10 is administrative. He sends out the apostles. Twelve is symbolic of administration. In reference to the ruler and his daughter, I think the time will come when Israel will come under the pressure of death; but it is plain enough that Christ will set death aside for them. They will have to go through the valley of the shadow of death first, but when He comes into the house He will set aside death for them.
Rem. And that in view of the kingdom.
Ques. Do you connect it with the great tribulation?
F.E.R. That may be a means to it. They will have to learn what you get in the end of Romans 7. They will have to come under the sentence of death. The moment we come under the sentence of death we see an outlet, for we see that Christ has died and risen.
Rem. And they will not see it until they see Christ.
F.E.R. He opens the eyes of the blind and causes the dumb to speak, the whole result is there, and the Pharisees say, "He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils". The perversity of man is perfectly amazing, when they cannot deny the miracles they discredit them. Perfect provision is made for the blessing of Israel in the future, but in the meantime it is all over and Christianity is brought in. That is what is so interesting in the gospel of Matthew. Matthew is not the Jewish gospel in the way that many think. The parables of the kingdom in the latter part are not pictures of the future. I mean such as the marriage supper and the ten virgins. They are pictures of the present time.
Rem. But then the Lord is presented to Israel as the Son of David, and rejected in that character.
F.E.R. Because His rejection makes room for Christianity. Matthew is the only gospel that brings in the church. Provision was made for the remnant by
bringing them into the church. Acts 2, "The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved". This chapter 10 has distinct reference to the future, no doubt there was a testing time literally by the twelve, their preaching was a testimony at the moment.
Rem. It has the character of a final testimony.
Rem. It is a limited service. "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (verses 5, 6).
F.E.R. How careful every gospel is to maintain everything for Israel! Look at this in the beginning of Luke and John. The first two chapters of Luke are wholly taken up with the links in Israel.
Ques. Does that mean that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, He does not change His mind?
F.E.R. Yes, in Romans the very point is the 'no difference' principle, but when you come to chapters 9, 10 and 11, you get the conciliation of the promises with this principle. Israel has to come in on the ground of mercy, as you get it in Matthew 9. "I will have mercy and not sacrifice".
Rem. They will come in precisely on the same ground as the Gentiles.
F.E.R. The only possible ground for blessing for them is resurrection; we often argue as though they could have received Christ after the flesh, but the great difficulty to me is how was death to be set aside. We speak of it hypothetically sometimes, as to what would have happened if they had received Him.
Ques. You mean receiving Him as on earth?
F.E.R. Yes. They were tested by it, but I do not see the possibility of Israel being blessed except on the ground of death and resurrection. Abel had to come to God through death. I do not see how any could, except through death.
Ques. What do you say as to "This do and thou shalt live"?
Rem. It was the way of life but it became death, we are expressly told it was the ministration of death.
Ques. Yes, but death being there and man generally lying under the sentence of death, how did the law come in and present death in any kind of way?
F.E.R. It all came in in the process of testing, in fact if a man could have kept the law it was the way of life. Life was in it.
Rem. Life was in it, for it says, "This do and thou shalt live".
Rem. Then the settlement of this great question of death and life was lying by until the Lord came and settled it.
F.E.R. And in the meantime the law came, which was a ministration of death.
Rem. Not death in the law, but death in the man that was under it.
F.E.R. It is one of the most difficult things to impress on a man that death is on him.
Rem. And yet you would think it most obvious.
Rem. It is difficult for a man to take it home to himself, the sentence is not speedily executed and he hardens himself against it.
F.E.R. He was so completely clear of death that he could go to heaven without dying. It was in anticipation. So Noah. Faith with him looked on to the world to come. It got some light, very little, it may be. The Jews had the promises but would not have the light that was here.
Rem. Whatever there might have been there was this concurrent thing, death was there.
F.E.R. Yes, death was upon man, his life was forfeited, his mind agreed to the law of God that it was good, but death was there and the law came in to
bring it home to a man's spirit. That is what we get at the end of Romans 7.
Ques. Was the judgment of death under the law something different from the death that was upon man by reason of the first man's sin?
F.E.R. No. I do not think so. If a man came to God under the law it was always by death, there was no coming apart from that, you could not have a greater evidence than that.
Ques. The life proposed does not go anything beyond life on earth?
F.E.R. No, but keeping the law would not annul death, and that is exactly what Christ has done. He removes death, and the law is written in their hearts. That is what I understand by the Lord's coming into the ruler's house. He comes to where death is and removes it and therefore life came. He went into death to remove it.
Rem. And that could only have been done by one who was free from it.
F.E.R. And it must be one in whom there was positive merit, a mere perfect man could not do it; as you get in Romans 5, "By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life" (verse 18). The value of His Person comes in. His work derives all its value from His Person. In chapter 9 you get two things, on the road the woman with the issue of blood gets healed, it is a picture of what the Lord does to the remnant when on the way to raise up Israel, when He comes to the house He removes death.
Rem. The blind men cry for mercy just as we find Israel coming in on the ground of mercy in Romans 11.
F.E.R. The way in which these circumstances are put together, not in chronological order I take it, but to form a complete picture, is wonderful. What a picture it is! If you take the end of it, it is death removed, the eyes of the blind opened and the dumb
made to speak, the devil being cast out. What a change! Then the Pharisees close it all up by saying, "He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils".
Ques. What is implied in, "freely ye have received, freely give"?
F.E.R. I do not think anyone could go and preach without having a sense of having received, else it would be legality. I think the heart of a servant must be in the sense of grace; there is an elevation about service, it comes from one who is in the sense of benefit received. After all I have received more than ever I can give.
Rem. If service is without a sense of having received, it is very dull and very dead.
Ques. Do you take it that after chapter 10: 16 the circumstances refer to the future?
F.E.R. There is a sort of transition from the present to the future. There was a testimony specially addressed to Israel in their land, Paul had no part in it, the twelve carried it on. The same testimony goes on at the end when Israel is in the land again, not perhaps with the same light but it is the same testimony, so that I see the future testimony from this testimony.
Ques. What about the commission in the end of Matthew?
F.E.R. That was dealing with the nations. "The nations" was an expression well understood among the Jews. I think it refers to nations connected with Israel.
Rem. In that case it would be those who are referred to in the Psalms in a similar way. The English translation obscures this somewhat.
Ques. Do you take it that the closing verses of Matthew do not refer to the present time?
F.E.R. Strictly they do not; I think the present service is taken from the end of Luke. In Mark it is
more personal, the apostles carried it out as it says, "They went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following". In Luke it is more general.
Ques. What is the everlasting gospel?
F.E.R. "Fear God and give glory to him", etc. It is not preaching Christ at all, but a testimony sent out to all nations to fear God as Creator. There is no very great demand made upon them.
Rem. It is the most elementary idea of the gospel you can think of.
Rem. It just suits them where they are.
F.E.R. Yes; but it is carried out in heavenly power, and they will respond to it. Judgment is imminent. Missionaries could not take it out to the heathen now, because judgment is not imminent in the same way. I suppose there will also be a testimony to the nations after the Lord has come, and the judgment of Matthew 25 takes that up.
Rem. The testimony of the twelve in chapter 10, or what corresponds to it at the end, is before He comes.
F.E.R. Yes; it is to Israel, and it is cut short by His coming. It is a question whether they will be able to endure to the end, the pressure will be so terrific with a view to pervert them.
Rem. To save them means to bring them into the kingdom.
Ques. Why is the mission of the seventy not brought in in Matthew?
F.E.R. Because it goes on heavenly ground, it is a testimony that is not limited to Israel like this is, it is on the ground of the glory of Christ. It is after the time had come that He should be received up that He sends out the seventy.
Ques. Can you tell from Scripture how it is that there arises a class of believers who can carry on this testimony?
F.E.R. In the book of Revelation you see certain companies that are illuminated. God begins to work among His ancient people, the Jews, and some are converted and some are martyred. I think the darkness in that day will be upon Christendom; if you notice, everything in the seven trumpets comes on the third part of the earth, which I suppose is Christendom. In Matthew 24 and Matthew 25 it is the whole arena of judgment, everything comes into judgment -- Israel, Christendom in the ten virgins, and the nations.
Ques. Did not Paul preach the kingdom of God?
F.E.R. Yes; and we preach the kingdom of God, and we ought to. It was the glad tidings of the kingdom the apostle preached.
Rem. It does not say that Paul preached the 'glad tidings' of the kingdom, but that he preached or proclaimed the kingdom; Acts 20:25; chapter 28: 31.
F.E.R. I think there is a passage in which the idea is contained in the word 'evangelising', announcing as glad tidings the kingdom of God, that is the meaning of the word; I do not think people are alive to the blessings of the kingdom.
Rem. The passage is in Acts 8:12, evangelising concerning the kingdom.
Rem. In Acts 20 and Acts 28 the word is "heralded" or "proclaimed".
F.E.R. The apostle heralded the kingdom because it had not been known before, his voice was the voice of a herald.
Rem. I thought there was a distinction between preaching the gospel or glad tidings of the kingdom and preaching or proclaiming the kingdom. Preaching the kingdom is pressing the claims of the kingdom. I shall be glad to be corrected if I have made a mistake.
F.E.R. We are not here to dogmatise, but as learners; but I do not think it is so much the claims of the kingdom as the blessings of the kingdom that
are in view. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit are great blessings. Paul heralded the kingdom of God because it was a new thing to the people he went among, he was the first to go forth with it among the Gentiles.
F.E.R. I think down to the end of chapter 10 there is nothing that goes beyond Israel: in chapter 8 it is the Servant, in chapter 9 the service, and in chapter 10 the administration, but nothing that goes beyond Israel, even when you come to chapter 11 there is nothing that goes beyond Israel for the moment, but the two great points of the chapter are, that the kingdom of heaven takes the place of John the baptist's ministry, and Christianity takes the place of the mighty works of the Son of man.
Rem. And in the next chapter He becomes the hope of the Gentiles, and breaks the link with Israel formed by His coming in the flesh.
Ques. Where do you see Christianity in this chapter?
F.E.R. In the revelation of the Father. This supersedes His mighty works. The Lord acknowledges the Baptist's ministry, but adds that the least in the kingdom was greater than he; that is, has greater privilege. Chapter 12 brings in the thought of the Gentiles in connection with that. He speaks of the trust of the Gentiles, and He breaks the covenant with Israel, and at the close of the chapter He says, "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?"
Ques. You refer to the sabbath?
F.E.R. I think that was the beginning of it. At the close of the chapter He brings it out plainly.
Rem. The Lord bears witness to Himself in chapter 11, instead of John bearing witness.
F.E.R. Yes; it was all for conviction to John.
Ques. I suppose John himself breaks down, does he not?
F.E.R. Yes; I think so. The Lord gives the largest place to John and his ministry, but another thing had come in, "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence", etc.
Ques. Is the violence the energy of faith?
Ques. Would you say the latter part of the chapter is like the gospel of John?
F.E.R. Well, it is part of Christianity. It is brought in to show what was coming in, the revelation of the Father.
Ques. Is the idea of the kingdom here association with the king during the period of His rejection? And it is a greater privilege to be in that than to deliver even John's testimony.
F.E.R. Yes, I think so, because what the kingdom means is power acting in grace. John the baptist was recalling the people, convicting them. The kingdom is power acting in grace.
Ques. John did not bring the people into anything, did he?
F.E.R. No; he told them what was coming.
Rem. John broke down in view of the complete rejection of the Messiah.
F.E.R. Yes; you would not naturally expect the forerunner of the Messiah to be in prison, the fact is everything that came out was consequent upon the state of Israel.
Rem. "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me" was a gracious message to John.
F.E.R. Yes; and couched in language that John probably understood, and no one else.
Ques. Does not chapter 11: 28 take in the Gentiles?
F.E.R. I do not think for the moment it did, it
was the labouring and heavy laden in Israel particularly in view.
Rem. I thought the moment He takes the place of Son the Gentiles come in.
Rem. The question is the interpretation of it in the chapter before us, no one would deny its application now to any who are heavy laden.
F.E.R. What strikes me and is interesting to me more than anything in the chapter is the wonderful resources the Lord had. He is not baffled by anything, John the baptist in prison, and His own mighty works rejected; but there are resources for Him, greater things come in, Christianity is greater than law. I have felt in reading the scripture that God is never baffled. Take the case of Babel, there was a sort of crisis in the history of the world, there might have been a fear that everything for God would be annulled, but God comes out with something new.
Ques. Do you mean resources in spite of Israel's state?
Ques. And John was not in the secret of those resources?
F.E.R. That is it exactly, apparently all had ended in nothing, but something far greater than John's testimony or the Lord's mighty works was to be brought in. It was the intervention of God. Take again Christ crucified, you might have thought that everything was over, what is God going to do now? Well, if He sets forward the testimony of Christ crucified it is to subvert the pretension of the Jew and the wisdom of the Greek. To me it is most wonderful, the princes of this world crucified Christ, they could not have done a worse thing for themselves, the cross is not the subverting of something in the future but something in the present, and the only way in which
Satan spoiled it was by perverting the testimony to it, that was the tactics of Satan.
Rem. And that is the wisdom of God in a mystery.
Rem. John was not in the secret of Isaiah 49.
F.E.R. No, I should not think he was.
Rem. But no one seems to have had the slightest apprehension of the rejection of the Messiah.
F.E.R. The disciples evidently did not understand it.
Ques. Do those two things of which you speak, the kingdom of heaven and Christianity, run on together?
F.E.R. Yes. Christianity is the inner and the kingdom is the outer. The kingdom of heaven is the light and rule of heaven, that is the much greater thing than the testimony of John the baptist. A man can be here in the light and rule of what God has established in heaven. The other thing is the knowledge of the Father.
Rem. As to the one there is no overthrow. When Peter confessed the Lord as Son of the living God it was declared that the gates of hell should not prevail against the assembly.
F.E.R. Nor is there as to the other, if we only knew it; people just turn anywhere and everywhere in their troubles but to where they ought to.
F.E.R. Heaven. People look to one another, just let anything come in amongst us and see how we look to one another.
Rem. A man who knows the resources for himself is able to help others.
F.E.R. I do not believe you will be able to help others unless you save yourself first. I think a true motto for servants is, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine", etc.
Rem. We really lack true independency of character in not thus looking to the Lord.
F.E.R. See how different things would be if when a difficulty comes along, we turned to the Lord instead of being swayed by this person and the other. People do not see that the kingdom of heaven is really the Lord. God has established nothing in heaven but the Lord, the church is not established in heaven though it will be.
Ques. I suppose we get a wider thing in John 7, "If any man thirst let him come unto me"?
F.E.R. It is the power of the Spirit the Lord is speaking of there, what should come in in the power of the Spirit. The kingdom of heaven is the sway of what God has been pleased to establish in heaven. You get it from Genesis 1. God sets in heaven what is to bear rule upon earth, He has set Christ in heaven to bear rule upon earth. I believe He will set the church in heaven by-and-by. If you have a sense of what God has established in heaven you do not look anywhere else.
Ques. Are we children of the kingdom as well as children of the Father?
F.E.R. I suppose so, although the expression is used of those who were the natural children. The thought of the kingdom is power, but power acting in grace.
Rem. But grace reigning through righteousness.
Rem. By-and-by there will be the purging out of the kingdom.
F.E.R. That is only for the more perfectly establishing of it. You do not root out the tares now.
Ques. I thought one great feature was righteousness?
F.E.R. No doubt you get that, too, coming out in the parable of the debtor; chapter 18. You have to act as you have been acted to. The sin of the servant was that he exacted from his fellow what his master had not exacted from him.
Rem. He had not the spirit of the kingdom.
F.E.R. Exactly, he had not the spirit of the kingdom. The Lord says in the same chapter, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven".
Ques. I suppose the kingdom began in Acts 2?
F.E.R. Yes, the moment the Lord was seated in heaven it began. I think the first part of Matthew goes on the ground of the presentation of Christ after the flesh, and the second part on the ground of Christ exalted. Evidently the application of all the parables of the latter part of the gospel is to the present time, the ten virgins, for instance, and the king that made a marriage feast. The division is about chapter 17. The Lord takes pains to detail what His coming again would mean to Israel, and Christendom and the nations.
Ques. What is the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the church?
F.E.R. In the kingdom we are individuals but in the church we are brought into the fellowship of the Spirit. You are brought into the kingdom by the word, that there may be a sphere where Christ is owned as Lord, but it contemplates saints in their individuality. By-and-by you will not be a subject in the kingdom, but will have part in the rule, the church will bear part in the rule.
Ques. I suppose a Quaker is not in the church?
F.E.R. He is not properly in the house because he has not gone through the act initiatory to it, and if he wanted to come into the fellowship we would not have him, at least not until he had.
Ques. What is the force of Jesus "answering"? Is it the answer His heart gave to the circumstances?
F.E.R. Yes, I think so, but there was not a single soul upon earth at that moment that took in what the Lord brought out, it is good for us today.
Rem. It was the comfort of His own heart.
Rem. I have heard that some rationalists consider
this passage (verses 25 - 27) as a piece of John's gospel put in here. It is so different to the rest of Matthew. They cannot understand it otherwise. They have perceived a difference.
F.E.R. They do not understand anything really, they have no weight with me with their way of handling Scripture, we can understand the difference for a spiritual reason. They say because the two parts of Isaiah are different, therefore it must be the work of two persons.
Rem. I think a great many Christians do not understand these differences, leaving out the rationalist.
F.E.R. The wonderful thing to me is that I can look up to heaven and be perfectly certain of getting light and guidance, that is the effect of the kingdom of heaven. If a man wants to walk he seeks to be in the light of the sun, and if he walks in the light of the sun he will not stumble. I see light and guidance for me, and in that light I am to go about.
Ques. If you baptise anyone do you do it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
F.E.R. Yes; you baptise people now in the light of the full revelation of God as He is.
Ques. In the Acts they baptised in the name of the Lord?
F.E.R. Yes; whosoever was baptised was committed to the lordship of Christ -- "One Lord, one faith, one baptism".
Ques. Why does the Lord speak in the past tense, "Wisdom has been justified by her children"?
F.E.R. I think the children of wisdom always justify her.
Rem. Whatever has been done by God has always been misunderstood by man, but it has always been justified by wisdom's children.
F.E.R. It is a general statement. The testimony of John the baptist might seem to be different from
Christ's. The one mourned, the other piped, but wisdom was in both.
Rem. But one of the first things a soul does when light breaks in is to justify God.
Ques. Was John the baptist one of wisdom's children?
F.E.R. I do not think that is quite the idea. God presented something by John, wisdom's children were those who apprehended what God had presented.
Rem. Everything is settled, whether for heaven or for earth.
F.E.R. God brings out His resources; when John the baptist's testimony and the Lord's mighty works were rejected you would have thought all was at a standstill, but the kingdom of heaven and Christianity come in. How wonderfully God answers men, it is one of the studies of Scripture.
Ques. How do you understand "more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment", etc.?
F.E.R. The people of Sodom had much less light, and judgment takes into account the light people have; privilege and opportunity form a large part of the ground taken in judgment.
Rem. It would not be righteous otherwise.
F.E.R. Judgment was governmental at Sodom, but it leads to what is final. Wrath from heaven is now revealed, God reveals His wrath contemporaneously with His righteousness. People now have an opportunity of learning His righteousness apart from judgment on them; if they will not learn it in that way there is nothing but judgment for them.
Rem. Both judgment and grace are perfectly righteous.
F.E.R. If God had cut man off it would have been perfectly righteous. The first principle of the gospel is that He makes known His righteousness and does not judge; the first idea is not that He justifies, but that He is righteous in grace.
Rem. The righteousness of God is the backbone of the gospel.
F.E.R. I believe it is the first great lesson anyone has to learn. The first thing that God must impress upon man is that He is righteous.
Ques. That He must deal with sin?
F.E.R. That He has dealt with it, the blood that witnesses that God is righteous witnesses that sin is put away.
Rem. Otherwise there would be no gospel.
Ques. Do you think it would be helpful if we preached righteousness more?
Ques. Does not one go forth to preach grace in the gospel?
F.E.R. Righteousness is made known in two ways, in judgment and in grace, you cannot avoid preaching grace if you preach righteousness. You go and tell people that the blood of Christ is the witness that God is righteous, and also the witness that sin has been dealt with, and you will profit souls, no one can doubt that.
Rem. You will never establish souls if you preach grace apart from righteousness.
Ques. What is the meaning of verse 27 of our chapter, "no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him"?
F.E.R. Divine Persons simply as divine Persons are unknowable save by divine Persons. It is true in Ephesians we have to come to the knowledge of the Son of God, but to think that we will know the Son as the Father knows Him would be to bring the Lord down to the level of the creature. Son of God is spoken of as a name inherited, but Son is a name of divine personality, it is a correlative term to Father; if you deny the Son, you deny the Father. I do not think we know the Father as the Son knows Him,
though the Son reveals Him to us. That has to be weighed. "Babes" of verse 25 are those who have no pretension to righteousness or strength.
Ques. Why is the Father spoken of as Lord of heaven and earth?
F.E.R. Because the Lord had taken the place of man on earth, and recognises the Father as such. You might in one sense say the Lord was Lord of heaven and earth, but it is all in connection with the place He had taken.
Rem. There is the thought, too, of heaven coming into prominence.
F.E.R. He reveals the Father. That is the great thing for me, if He reveals the Father to you, you are in company with the Son. He puts you in the presence of the Father's love. You are rejected on earth, but you are put in the presence of the Father's love.
Rem. I think harm has been done to souls by the way "Come unto me" has been used, severing it from its context, so that the real point of the passage is lost, and what is often presented is not in the scripture.
F.E.R. If there were any heavy laden ones in Israel, I think there was a deal for them in this invitation.
Rem. It is in view of the collapse of everything in Israel.
F.E.R. It is association with Christ.
Ques. And is it not connected with being in the secret of the resources?
F.E.R. Yes; I do not think you ought to expect fine times down here where Christ has been rejected. People want to get the best of everything, they are very cautious for fear of losing things here, very much afraid of losing any present advantage.
Rem. The knowledge of the Father was the resource the Lord had.
F.E.R. In John 17 He says, "that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them". I think you are uncommonly well off to be partners of Christ's rejection. God rests in love, and it is only in love you can rest.
Ques. What is "for I am meek and lowly"?
F.E.R. He was adapted to the necessities of saints down here, it is wonderful to me to see in the Lord what was essentially divine adapted to the circumstances of man down here in a scene of evil, in a kind of way it was not proper to Him as a divine Person.
Ques. Is there not the idea of no self-assertion, no asserting of your rights, in meekness?
F.E.R. Yes; and the title to inherit the earth is meekness, so we read, "Behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek", etc. The meek shall inherit the earth, not the proud and arrogant. We are to be all in lowliness in regard to God, and meekness in regard to men.
F.E.R. I think we saw last time a certain progress in these chapters. Chapter 11 does not in itself go beyond the Jew. It brings in the kingdom, as it were, in the place of John the baptist's testimony, and Christianity in place of the mighty works of Christ, but does not in itself go beyond the Jew. It is in this chapter that Christ becomes the hope of the Gentiles and breaks His covenant with Israel.
Ques. Does He give a sign of it by His action on the sabbath?
F.E.R. That gives the sign of it, but I think He breaks it at the end of the chapter.
Rem. Everything was 'common' in the days of David, because the Lord's anointed was in rejection.
F.E.R. This chapter goes further than the eleventh. That gives the rejection of Christ, but here we get the
unpardonable sin, they attribute the works of the Spirit to Beelzebub.
Rem. So you get the nation viewed as apostate, and then those in spiritual relationship with Christ, "whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother".
F.E.R. But to enter upon this new relationship, Christ breaks with His kindred after the flesh. The nation was an evil and adulterous generation, "a wicked generation". The early part of the chapter shows that He was entirely in the thought and mind of God, and He becomes the hope of the Gentiles: "in his name shall the Gentiles trust".
Ques. At what verse does the break come?
F.E.R. I think the Lord takes the ground of being rejected all through the chapter. He justifies what the disciples do by what David did. It is all paving the way for what comes out in the next chapter, that is, the form which the kingdom was to take. Until Christ had broken all association with Israel after the flesh, you could not have the kingdom as in the next chapter. The field is the world. There is no special place for the Jew.
Rem. After He has broken with them, He goes out and sits by the sea.
F.E.R. Yes; no doubt all is in anticipation. I think the blind and dumb man out of whom the devil was cast was a kind of crucial case. The people said, "Is not this the son of David?" but the Pharisees said it was by Beelzebub. Asking for a sign after that was like a man colour blind asking you to show him something blue.
Ques. Does not the sea represent the nations, and the Lord taking His place in the ship mean going out to them?
F.E.R. Well, I think He left all the order after the flesh, and presents Himself in a totally different
character; the point in the next chapter is, "the sower", and "the field is the world".
F.E.R. In a certain sense the old closes up. The great subject of Matthew is the kingdom of heaven. In chapter 13 the Lord begins de novo with the disciples. I think there was a special covenant made with Israel in Christ coming after the flesh; it was not the first covenant, it was a special covenant. They had lost everything under the law and the prophets, yet in spite of all that, Christ came; this is referred to in Zechariah, and that He breaks all association with Israel, He refuses all claim of His kindred. It was like beginning with them afresh, and now He breaks that covenant; but then I think it is all in view of the form which the kingdom was to take in the world irrespective of the Jew, it is a question of the children of the kingdom produced by sowing the word.
Rem. Both John the baptist and Christ had come, there had been the mourning and the piping, but there had been no response.
F.E.R. There is the complete refusal of the testimony of Christ and John, but this chapter goes further, the Pharisees conspire to take away the Lord's life. They were the responsible and moral heads of the people. The generation is doomed as an evil and adulterous generation.
Rem. And now the Lord rejects them.
Rem. After the demon was cast out, the people say, "Is not this the son of David?" They ought to have known, there was sufficient testimony.
Ques. Do you mean that Christ came in the time of mercy?
F.E.R. Yes; you cannot conceive anything more wonderful than that, after everything had been forfeited under law and prophets, Christ came to them.
Ques. What passage in Zechariah do you refer to?
F.E.R. Where He cuts asunder the staff Beauty, that He might break the covenant with the peoples; this is no new thought at all.
Rem. It is very important to see it, because otherwise you do not apprehend the blessed character of the Lord's coming.
F.E.R. The two essential points of the chapter are, that He becomes the object, the hope of the Gentiles, and the covenant of His connection with Israelis broken. Unless you see this, you have not room for the kingdom, as in the next chapter, to come in.
Rem. The Lord's action is inexplicable apart from this.
Ques. Does that passage, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice", show that the Lord came in the way of mercy?
F.E.R. I think it indicates that the Pharisees were not at all in the mind of God, but the Lord was. After all, a sabbath not characterised by mercy cannot be a sabbath according to God.
Rem. The nation really was in the state described by the ox or ass fallen into a pit.
F.E.R. Yes, and their own actions condemned them, for I imagine they were in the habit of showing mercy to the brute creation on the sabbath.
Rem. David speaks of things having become common because of his need.
F.E.R. The sabbath lost all its holy character when Christ was rejected.
Ques. How did the priests profane the sabbath?
F.E.R. By offering sacrifices; the service of God takes the first place, the temple service justified it, and here was One greater than the temple. Here all was premonitory to the break-up of the legal system; in a legal system the sabbath had a character in keeping with it, it had a legal character, but the way in which the Lord alludes to it shows that it was about to be broken up.
Rem. The leaders of the people had no conception of the state of things, morally all for Israel was gone, and to talk about keeping the sabbath was really ignoring the moral state of things.
F.E.R. And here they were rejecting the One greater than the temple.
Ques. Is the Lord seen here as the Shepherd about to lead the sheep out?
F.E.R. That really was the thought from the beginning, but it is the peculiarity of the gospel of John, that it does not take up the people on their responsibility; but it was the divine thought to lead the sheep out, Christ came for that, the divine purpose is shown in it. Here He goes into the fold and tests those who were there.
Ques. What is the force of verse 8, is that another ground?
F.E.R. I think it is that the sabbath was to have the character of grace, the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath.
Ques. Is that for justifying the disciples?
F.E.R. Yes; the Lord says, "if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day" (verses 7, 8). The legal system was put under angels, but the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath; it is a very important point to see that the system of grace is brought in by the Son of man; the world to come is subject to the Son of man and is brought in by Him; that is the teaching of Hebrews 2.
Ques. Were the disciples guiltless because He was rejected?
F.E.R. They were morally guiltless, it was a very different case from that of the man gathering sticks on the sabbath day, that was simply profanity; but here the disciples were hungry. I think the Lord
allowed it, for He did not stop them, to show what the state of things was.
Rem. Then the point is, that He had rights above the sabbath.
F.E.R. If the world to come is put under Him, the sabbath is, everything is put under Him. I think it is a terrible thing in a world of suffering and woe that men should condemn the doing of good. An institution like the sabbath could not stop the doing of good, it is right to do well; the sabbath took a legal character under law, but that could not stop God from doing good.
Rem. It was not much of a sabbath to the man with the withered hand.
Rem. It is the religious leaders who oppose Christ.
F.E.R. I think nothing can be more beautiful than to see Christ retiring into the good pleasure of Jehovah (verses 16 - 21). You see the Pharisees take counsel, but Jesus withdraws.
Rem. And there was no suspension of power in blessing all that came to Him.
Ques. Does the Lord justify the disciples on the ground that the true David was rejected, just as David and his men were justified when they ate the shewbread, being hungry?
F.E.R. It has often been said that when the anointed of God was hunted about like a partridge on the mountains, there was no value in the religious system; everything hangs on the anointed of God, in fact the nation stands or falls by the anointed, the idea of it is grace coming in in power.
Rem. And now the Lord no longer presses His rights, but goes on in His path of goodness.
F.E.R. Yes; but He has His compensation.
Ques. Do you mean in the pleasure of Jehovah?
F.E.R. Yes. "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen", etc. He is to show judgment to the Gentiles, and finally in His name the Gentiles trust.
Rem. That is introduced to show there was a change.
F.E.R. And to place Christ in relation to the Gentiles, to widen the field, the field is enlarged in that way.
Ques. What is the object of introducing this quotation here?
F.E.R. To show the Lord retiring from Israel into the good pleasure of Jehovah, but becoming an object of hope to the Gentiles.
Ques. What is the application of the bruised reed and the smoking flax?
F.E.R. I have been accustomed to think it represented the condition of Israel.
Rem. That is, He does not interfere with it, lets it go on.
F.E.R. "Till he send forth judgment unto victory". The powers of evil are not put down publicly yet, but God will bruise Satan under our feet shortly.
Rem. I thought the word 'till' showed that He would quench it by-and-by. He is waiting now.
Ques. "In his name shall the Gentiles trust" takes in present and future, I suppose?
F.E.R. An application in principle is sometimes given to Scripture when the direct application is not in view; the principle is brought in here. We are Gentiles and He is the object of our trust, but I do not think that He has shown judgment to the Gentiles yet.
Ques. What do you think that means?
F.E.R. When He comes again, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Ques. And glorify God for His mercy?
F.E.R. Yes; and yet that very passage is applied to the present time, such scriptures are quoted as having an application in the present time, though their fulfilment is future.
Rem. Verses 19 and 20 is a policy of non-interference until the Lord comes again.
F.E.R. Yes, I think so; and then we have the state of the leaders of Israel set forth in the possessed with the devil, blind and dumb. They were blind and dumb as far as the Lord was concerned. The Lord was there willing to heal. The man with the withered hand is connected with the sabbath question. I think that the Lord shows that mercy is to characterise the sabbath according to God. I do not think that in the millennium they will lose the sense of the mercy of God, it will characterise the sabbath then. He is Lord of the sabbath, and He disposes of the sabbath as He sees fit, that is in mercy. It is a principle that whenever you get a people in relationship with God they have the sabbath. There was the sabbath before the law was given. The manna was not to be gathered on the sabbath day, and that was before the law. What we as Christians have got is the first day of the week. They tried to do away with the sabbath at the French Revolution, but it would not work. In mercy to man God gave one day in seven. They wanted in the Revolution to break every sign of relationship with God, but it would not do. The sabbath was made for man, not for the Jew only. The Pharisees here raised the question of the power by which Christ wrought, and their answer brings out their complete apostasy, there is no forgiveness for it.
Rem. And then follows "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit".
F.E.R. They crown it by asking for a sign; they first prove that they are completely blind, and then ask for a sign.
Rem. And in face of that wickedness, mercy was
displayed before their eyes; the Lord was in the spirit of that verse, "I will have mercy". They were on the ground of sacrifice.
F.E.R. Yes; the Lord was in the spirit of all that. He was in the mind of God. The sacrifice is no pleasure to God, He delights in mercy. The sacrifice is something which a man thinks he can offer to God, the idea was that of Cain, that man could render something to God. When we offer the sacrifice of praise, we give back to God of His own.
Rem. So that they are seen not only breaking the law, losing everything on that ground, but they reject His mercy.
F.E.R. What more could be done for them when they attribute to Beelzebub the power by which Christ wrought, the only power which could deliver them from evil? It was impossible for God to go further with them. The sign of the prophet Jonas was a sign of death and resurrection, it closed all.
Rem. You get the cross and the glory brought together in that way in Jonah and the queen of the south.
F.E.R. But both the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south would rise up in judgment and condemn them. The Lord then goes on to show what the end of that generation would be, that is, that the spirit of idolatry would return with sevenfold power, and their last state be worse than the first. The last form of idolatry will be the worst that has ever been. The kingdom of God had come to them. It was the sway or power of God, that is, a power had come in in Christ superior to everything here. Generally it is the kingdom of heaven that is mentioned in Matthew, but three or four times we get the kingdom of God.
Rem. We get the judgment and the glory of God established in Jonas and Solomon.
F.E.R. The point for the Jew was that people with less light will rise up in judgment against them. The Lord was greater than Jonas as a prophet and greater than Solomon in wisdom.
Ques. Was the Son of man three days and three nights in the heart of the earth to be a sign to that generation?
Rem. The testimony of Jonas was given after he had been in the whale's belly.
F.E.R. Quite so, and so the death of Christ is presented to them in testimony after His death and resurrection.
Rem. But the sign is one thing and the testimony another.
F.E.R. The one who testifies is Himself the sign. That is what I understand by Christ being the power of God and the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians. To the Greeks it is foolishness and to the Jews a stumbling-block, but none the less Christ is the sign of God's intervention on man's behalf.
Ques. Will you say a word as to what the sin against the Holy Spirit was?
F.E.R. It is very simple to understand, it is when a man attributes to the evil one the very power of God by which alone he could be delivered from that evil one.
Ques. What is the application now? It is possible to commit such a sin now, is it not?
F.E.R. I think so; suppose you get people converted under the preaching of the word, and there is opposition, and opposers attribute the change to the power of Satan, it would be like it.
Rem. It must be a sin against light, a wilful sin, not mere ignorance.
Ques. This has never forgiveness. What about "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"?
F.E.R. I think that was against the Son of man and another opportunity was given them.
Ques. What is referred to by the words, "By whom do your children cast them out"?
F.E.R. I think there was some sort of exorcism going on.
Ques. Do you think they cast out demons?
Rem. Well, then it must have been by divine power.
F.E.R. Quite so, they did not attribute that to the devil, but Christ's casting out they did. Then comes the close of the chapter, and what is important to note there, as we saw, is that the Lord breaks with His kindred and establishes a relation between Himself and the disciples; the disciples now come into view; in the next chapter it is no longer a question of testimony to the nation, the disciples are the initiated.
Ques. What do you think the passage, "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof" means?
F.E.R. It is just that kind of profane, wanton word, a word of such a character as they had been speaking; it is not the sense of idle word as we often understand it, it is a strong expression, and refers, I think, to words like the words of the Pharisees.
Rem. You must read it in the light of its context, because everything they said was against the plainest testimony.
F.E.R. I do not suppose at the bottom of their heart they believed what they said.
Rem. Something like the story they invented about the resurrection, but the Lord shows the folly of it.
F.E.R. It is a remarkable thing in connection with the ministry of the Lord that everything was completely measured: here He says, "A house divided against itself shall not stand".
F.E.R. I do not think the Lord takes a new character here, but He reveals the character in which He had been acting all along.
F.E.R. Yes, as a sower, it was not stated before, but He had been a sower all along.
Ques. Will you say how far the section goes which begins with chapter 12?
F.E.R. My thought is to chapter 13: 52, when we begin again and go on to the end of chapter 18.
Ques. Will you say what characterises the section we are on
F.E.R. The Lord has broken the link, the covenant with Israel, and now we get the revelation of the real character in which He had been here, and the whole view is enlarged; you get the whole world brought into view, the field is the world, in contrast with Israel. I think we saw pretty well in chapter 11 that new things were coming in, I mean the kingdom and Christianity, that is, the knowledge of the Father and the Son. In chapter 12 the Lord shows that the link is with those who did the will of the Father, they took precedence. He breaks the link that was after the flesh with Israel, and that must be, if He is to make known what the kingdom is, that is in the form it takes now, where there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. The kingdom is not set up in power, but is the fruit of the word; when it is set up in power there will be a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile, but if it is a question of seed sowing a Gentile can receive the seed as well as a Jew.
Rem. There will be no mystery about the kingdom when it is set up in the millennium.
F.E.R. God will fulfil His promises to Israel and the Gentiles will have a subordinate place to Israel, but then that is all a question of God's ordering; I
cannot see that there can be any distinction between Jew and Gentile when it is a question of seed sowing, the seed produces the same effect in everybody, not one effect in the Jew and another in the Gentile.
Ques. Would the blindness of the Jew make any difference as to the reception of the word?
F.E.R. The Jews are really merged in the field; in consequence of their blindness they have lost the privileges peculiar to them. The seed sowing goes on in the world.
Rem. They are treated as the world in this chapter.
F.E.R. Yes, pretty much as in John's gospel. It is a great thing to see that the Lord had been preaching the word of the kingdom previously to this. What I understand by the word of the kingdom is the light of God's administration. The Lord had spoken of the Father's will. He was here to carry out the Father's will, you get complete light as to the administration of God, that is the word of the kingdom and that forms the kingdom.
Ques. How was the Lord a sower outside the Jews?
F.E.R. I would not quite say that, still the sower had relation to the world, what He was doing was preaching the word of the kingdom and in that there is great light.
Rem. He leaves the land and goes to the sea. Judaism had been tested and now the Lord goes to the Gentiles.
F.E.R. We get here a figure of sowing outside of the Jews, it is only a figure of it, I should suppose. It is not telling people something about the kingdom that forms the kingdom. It is important to see what the word of the kingdom is, because the kingdom is formed by the word.
Ques. Is it the preaching of grace and truth?
F.E.R. No; it is divine administration. You must remember that many things which are familiar to us were quite new to them.
Rem. It would be well to say a word about divine administration, as many might not be clear as to what you mean.
F.E.R. Well, for instance, in the Old Testament you do not get anything of that kind, anything of divine administration; the giving of promises was not administration, administration points to how God would effect anything.
Rem. And when you speak of administration you speak of the Person by whom God would administer.
F.E.R. And therefore the kingdom does not properly come in until the Lord is at the right hand of God. The Spirit of God is the power. The Jews would not have the word of the kingdom, for the Lord had been sowing the word of the kingdom, and the sin of the Jew was against the Holy Spirit.
F.E.R. Yes; people are brought into the kingdom by receiving the light of God's administration. Christ is the administrator now working from the right hand of God. I do not think getting into the kingdom is the same thing as being brought into peace. I think people are brought into the kingdom by getting light in their souls.
Rem. Then only those who are really converted are in the kingdom.
F.E.R. Matthew 18 makes it plain that only such are really in it. I quite admit there is a great system, but that shows how man has taken it up; it is not the divine thought, and I should not like to lose the divine thought in it. The administration supposes the revelation of God. The Father has revealed His will, the Son is effectuating His will, has become Man to carry it out, and the Holy Spirit is the power by which subjectively it is carried out. If you are in the power of the heavenly administration you are in heavenly light.
Ques. Would you say that the kingdom of heaven
does not extend so wide as the circle of profession?
F.E.R. You get two sides to the parables, one views the kingdom from man's side, and the other from God's side. I quite admit what is on man's side, but I should not like to lose sight of what is on God's side.
Rem. There is the real thing in the midst of the unreal.
Ques. Will you distinguish between the church and the kingdom?
F.E.R. The kingdom is individual; the church is the house of God, the dwelling place of God by the Spirit, you could not say the kingdom is the dwelling place of God. It has its application to us individually. Man's side in the kingdom is how man takes up the idea. In the introductory parable only one out of four is good ground, that is that brings forth fruit. Then you see another thing, that the field is the world and the enemy comes and sows tares; the servants want to root them out, they do not properly belong to the kingdom, they are not children of the kingdom, they are children of the wicked one, that is how the servants look at the tares. Then you get the mustard tree and the leaven, what the kingdom becomes in the hand of man.
Rem. The seed sowing then is preparatory, and after that we have six similitudes of the kingdom.
F.E.R. The first similitude, the wheat and the tares, first belongs to the one side and then to the other, the interpretation shows the divine side; in the parable the thought is of the servants, but in the interpretation the point is the Son of man, He will gather out of His kingdom; and it comes in as a prelude to the last three parables.
Rem. Sowing the seed is not a similitude of the kingdom, it produces the kingdom.
Rem. And that is not limited to the Lord's teaching.
F.E.R. It began with Him, He had been bringing
to light the administration of the kingdom. What is a kingdom but administration? If you bring to light the administration of heaven you bring to light the kingdom of heaven.
Rem. In chapter 4 He preaches the "gospel of the kingdom".
F.E.R. You get the divine administration in the millennium, it will connect itself with the presence of Christ and will be public; but even then everything will be effectuated subjectively by the Holy Spirit.
Ques. Why do the disciples ask the Lord about His speaking in parables, and then He tells them that the mysteries of the kingdom were only to be known to them?
F.E.R. Mystery is that which is concealed from the careless but made known to the initiated; so with regard to the kingdom, it is concealed from the indifferent, it is for those who have ears to hear. I do not believe that Christ as Lord has any connection with this scene, I do not expect to bring the Lord into my things, into my circumstances; the great point is to get outside my things and to be in the Lord's things, that is the point for the Christian.
Rem. As to our things, the Lord is absent and we have to suffer in consequence.
F.E.R. Yes; the Father has not been rejected in that sense and He holds His hand over everything and cares for His people; but the Lord has been rejected and has taken the place of administration to give effect to everything of the Father's will; if you are in the testimony you are with the Lord.
Rem. That is to say, if you are in the current of His mind.
Ques. Is that the way you would define the testimony -- being in the current of the Lord's mind?
F.E.R. You get the word in Timothy, "Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord",
Rem. But that embraces a great deal.
F.E.R. The context shows it is the gospel, but the gospel looked at not as meeting man's need, but as bringing life and incorruptibility to light. The gospel is the instrument to effectuate the will of God, and therefore it is the testimony of our Lord.
Ques. Why does James bring in the will of the Lord in everyday matters?
F.E.R. Because you are tested by it. If I think to leave G -- -- and go to live in P -- -- I am not to go there but in the Lord's will. Most people when they go from one place to another go for some reason of their own.
Ques. But it is buying and selling in the passage?
F.E.R. The Lord's will comes into everything, I do not do my business for my own gain. I believe we should often be diminished if we were here for the Lord's will, so that we might be less hampered, more free. The Lord breaks with His kindred after the flesh and takes up a new link with those who do the Father's will.
Ques. Is that what is meant by obedience to the faith?
F.E.R. What I understand by faith is the revelation of the will of God.
Rem. That is what you have to believe in.
F.E.R. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Faith opens up the Lord's will, baptism cuts me off from what is here which is not the will of God, I mean sin and the world. I think that a man would be so subdued by getting into the will of God, by all the blessed light of God, that he would feel he could only be here for the will of God. It is extraordinary that the most complete and full revelation of God is in connection with a man; the Lord was down here as a man doing the will of the Father, you cannot conceive anything more amazing.
Ques. Why is the kingdom compared to so small a seed as the mustard seed and yet it becomes so vast?
F.E.R. I suppose men saw that the light of the kingdom was better than anything they had had before, so they took it up and systematised it. They take it up now in a similar way. Judaism is an advance upon what went before, and Christianity is an advance upon Judaism. They approve of it. There is one thing I cannot understand about their reasonings, Christianity goes back to what was anterior to the law and the prophets, it goes back to the promises, so that the theory of progression breaks down.
Rem. It goes back before the fall.
Rem. Then again the idea of progression is limited to man, but in Christianity you get the will of God.
Ques. When do you think these parables became facts?
F.E.R. When the kingdom began to take shape in the hands of men. You get the sowing of the tares very early. I think the tares are heresies.
F.E.R. Doctrines would mean nothing at all if they did not characterise persons.
Rem. The good seed are persons formed by the word.
Rem. I suppose the common idea of imitation has arisen from the difficulty the servants had in discerning always between the wheat and the tares.
F.E.R. But the servants could discern.
Rem. Yes, they could discern that the tares were there. The danger of attempting to root up the tares was lest they should root up the wheat also; the idea is that persons would be sent out of the world.
F.E.R. Yes; so in popery, although there is a good bit of tares in popery, they attempted to pull up the tares, but they put out of the world a good deal of the wheat. I have been struck with this, that man has been successful in imitating everything on man's side. Take, for instance, the forgiveness of sins. They have their absolution and even the conferring of the Holy
Spirit; but on the divine side all imitation ceases, the instant you get life and incorruptibility all imitation is at an end. Take what has happened amongst ourselves during the last sixty years, those who have left have not gone back to the thing they came out of, but have set up an imitation; but all the imitation goes to the outside church system, and I believe in doing it they have lost the divine side.
Rem. The moral thing has been given up for the outward thing.
F.E.R. What is vital and on the divine side has been largely lost. I think the great thing is to be in the secret of the Lord, so that we may be in the testimony, and if we were in it and prepared for the consequences, we should be able to meet the imitation. Well, then we get the three last parables -- the treasure, the pearl, and the fishermen. It is a curious thing that in the interpretation of the wheat and tares the Lord does not say one word about the servants, in the parable itself He says a good deal about them (verses 27 - 29). It is all a dialogue with the servants.
Ques. With regard to the expression "kingdom of their Father", is that the administration again in millennial times?
F.E.R. Yes; I think it indicates the heavenly place for the righteous; the point is, they will shine in the kingdom.
Ques. Who are these righteous?
F.E.R. Christians from this point and onward. Then in the last three parables you have the real thing, you have the divine side, you see the kingdom from that point of view, and you get more light. You have the kingdom as the kingdom of the Son of man. You have not had that before. The present aspect of the house of God ceases when the Lord comes, but the kingdom goes on because it is the kingdom of the Son of man.
Ques. The tares go on to the end?
F.E.R. Yes, to the end of the age.
Ques. Do you connect them with the foolish virgins?
F.E.R. No; I think they are more heresies.
Ques. Are the righteous here the same as in chapter 25? The righteous go into life eternal?
F.E.R. They do, but I do not think you can put the two together. That is when Christ has come, and it is the righteous nations before Him. Here we have the righteous shine in the Father's kingdom. The same adjective may characterise both, but it does not follow that they are the same persons. There will be those in the kingdom of the Father, and others in the kingdom of the Son of man; but the point is, not being in the kingdom of the Father, but shining, that is, conspicuous. They will be displayed in heavenly glory, in the heavenly places. They will reign, there will be light from heaven in the heavenly city, the nations walk in the light of it. Then we get the purchase of the field for the sake of the treasure in it. The Lord is showing what the kingdom is in the divine thought; after all, the kingdom is entirely subordinate to the church, the administration at the present time is entirely for the latter.
Rem. The treasure is the church.
F.E.R. I think so, because it refers to the present time, the existence of the kingdom in its present form is in mystery. When you come to the pearl it is one pearl of great price, the treasure does not express the same idea; it is unique.
Ques. What is the hiding of it?
F.E.R. It is not out in manifestation. Then you get the last parable, the net cast into the sea. It has been going on all along, but the selection has not been going on. The net has been cast, and what is going on now at the end is the selection. The fishermen deal with the good and the angels with the bad, that is a little remarkable.
Rem. The application is somewhat diverse from the parable itself.
Rem. You get the same thing in the parable of the tares and the wheat.
F.E.R. It shows what the spiritual principle of these parables is, the thought of the kingdom in them does not go beyond the present time.
Rem. With "angels" there is the thought of providential dealing.
F.E.R. Yes; and I think we have to be thankful that we have to do with the good and not with the bad.
Ques. When does the kingdom terminate?
F.E.R. The kingdom is the kingdom of the Son of man. It never terminates until He gives it up to the Father, when the kingdom has done its work and all the administration has been carried out, then it is that the Son gives up the kingdom and there is no more kingdom; supremacy does not cease, but the kingdom ceases. After all, everything will accomplish the will of God.
Rem. I think that is the comfort of this chapter, that you see the Lord as administrator of the will of God, whatever man might do does not affect that at all.
F.E.R. Angels are at His disposal, everything is at His disposal. Well, I think it is a most wonderful thing, before the kingdom existed you have got the whole result laid out before you. It characterises the whole of Scripture that the end of a thing is always laid out at the beginning.
Rem. So that we never find God taken aback by anything.
Ques. What are the things new and old?
Answer. There were things in the parables not to be found in the Old Testament, and there were things in the Old Testament which had to be fulfilled.
Rem. And these last are the old things.
F.E.R. I think this is all one subject, and the whole passage brings out the completeness of the break with the existing state of things, and the new place which the Lord takes. You see, for instance, when He had finished the parables "he departed thence" (verse 53), then He goes into the "desert place apart" (chapter 14: 13), in the next chapter He goes into "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon" (verse 21), and in the following chapter (16: 4) "he left them, and departed". It is all indicative of the break with the existing order of things, and then in connection with Peter in chapter 14 we find the new place which the Lord has taken; it is really what marks the present time, and Peter has to go to where He is. All that has to come out in a certain sense before the Lord could speak of the new thing, that is, the church. We could not understand anything about the church if we did not see how complete the break was with the existing order of things, and the new place the Lord has taken. It is a little difficult to follow, in a certain way, because there is an overlapping; we get the Lord still ministering to the poor of the flock, and yet at the same time the circumstances indicate to anyone who has the least spiritual judgment the break which now existed with the established order of things.
Rem. But then it was no longer the nation, as such, but the poor of the flock.
F.E.R. Yes, they sought Him. It is what comes out in Zechariah. He breaks the covenant and feeds the poor of the flock. That is what He is doing in these two chapters. He proves the boundlessness of the resources that were there outside the existing order of things. As to Himself there are two great things, He goes up into a mountain to pray, and He walks on the water; both indicate the place which Christ has taken outside the Jewish order of things.
F.E.R. Yes, gone outside all human order, flesh cannot walk on the water.
Rem. And that is what He is doing now.
F.E.R. And that is where we have to find Him, we cannot find the Lord in the boat now. He will be found in the boat by-and-by. The boat is the Jewish order of things. Christendom, in a sense, has become the boat.
Rem. But you cannot get out of it.
F.E.R. Well, you can and you cannot; you can go forth without the camp though you cannot get out of it dispensationally; I quite admit, you cannot go out of the great house.
Rem. The boat is something that you can look to for support. Christendom is really a religious system in which a man can settle down as a Jew could in his.
F.E.R. It is all set up on the pattern of Judaism. Of course, you have to remember that there is this difference, that the Lord comes to the boat (to the Jewish remnant) by-and-by, and they own Him.
Rem. That is, He resumes connection with Israel.
F.E.R. Yes, and then they own Him as Son of God, but they do not walk on the water. It is as plain as possible to me that a Jew will neither go inside the veil nor outside the camp. Hebrews 10 and Hebrews 13 have no application to the Jew. If we come in as companions of Christ within the veil, our place is to go forth to Him without the camp; but the Jews will not have the same open to them.
Rem. The disciples in the boat really set forth the Jewish remnant.
F.E.R. Yes, the boat was the proper place for them; but the important point is that the Lord does not go with them, but up into the mountain. I suppose it is coincident with John 6. He goes up into a mountain there after feeding the multitude, only Peter does
not walk on the water, there is that difference. I think it is a pretty good proof of the break with the existing order of things. That is the reason Herod is brought in here. The Lord leaves things in that state, in the hands of the lawless Edomite. He goes out to the desert place, and ministers to the poor of the flock; but He shows to the disciples the new place which He was about to take. The important point about it is, that it is a place that the natural man has no power for at all, only the spiritual man can reach it. I think it is a great thing at the present time, for I do not know a greater lesson for any one of us to learn than to cease to bring the Lord into our things, but to leave our things and go to the Lord's. He came to the boat ultimately, He will come to man's things; but we have to leave the boat, and it is only faith that can do that.
Rem. It is a comfort to see that the Lord sustains all who are willing to go to Him.
F.E.R. I think there is a certain exhilaration about going outside the boat, that is, going where we are entirely cast upon the Lord. Peter began to sink; it was all a pattern; Peter could not walk on the water until the Spirit was given, until he was supported by the divine power. As long as the Lord was here He did in a way what the Spirit does now; for example, He was the expositor of Scripture; many things for which we are dependent upon the Spirit the Lord did when here.
Rem. And yet I suppose the Spirit does what the Lord did not do.
F.E.R. Oh, yes, quite so. All these scenes are more or less typical.
Ques. When you speak of leaving the boat and going on the water, do you mean people leaving the sects and systems and coming into fellowship?
F.E.R. No, I do not; I do not believe in that. I want people to leave their sects and systems and go
out to Christ. I have seen the bad effect of what you refer to.
Rem. They merely leave one boat for another.
F.E.R. It is poor work to leave one body of Christians for another, the point is to come to Christ. I know what it is, I had the errors of the Church of England exposed to me, and I was attracted to brethren; I think I had but a poor sense that I had to leave the boat and go to Christ.
Rem. You have learnt that since, and you leave others to learn it.
Rem. Still it is a great thing to start with it, and why should not we start with it?
F.E.R. Yes. It is to be found in 2 Timothy. You cannot read the epistle without seeing the prominent place the Lord has. "Let every one who names the name of the Lord". "The Lord knoweth them that are his". "The servant of the Lord must not strive". It is all the Lord. You must have a boat unless you have got the Lord. It is a great thing for those who have to do with people to put it before them rightly.
Rem. Else it is merely a question of getting out of an unsound boat into a sound one.
F.E.R. I think I felt that if I got among brethren I should get to where I would be supported; but if you would be supported by the Lord, you must leave the boat.
Rem. Otherwise you get nothing that will stand any test; if a test comes along you are on your beam ends.
Rem. What makes it difficult is that it is intensely individual.
F.E.R. Yes, for although the church is here, the church is in ruin, and things must be individual. You cannot have a church within a church, that is not the divine thought.
Rem. We look for support and encouragement
from the brethren rather than from the Lord. The time comes when the boat gets a good shaking.
F.E.R. Yes; but then in all the troubles the Lord has been somewhere.
Ques. I suppose it was affection for the Lord which animated Peter?
F.E.R. Yes; in 1 Corinthians 16 the apostle says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha".
Ques. What do you mean by a church within a church?
F.E.R. The idea might come into the mind of setting up a model of the church, then you would have a church within the church. Matthew 13 brings out the place the Lord had occupied here, from the outset really. Matthew 14 brings out the new place He was going to take, and in connection with the new place comes out the whole system of heavenly administration.
Ques. What do you understand by receiving the Lord into the boat?
F.E.R. He comes to the Jewish remnant by-and-by.
Rem. But is it not clear that the Lord has not come into the boat yet and does not it follow that the Lord is now supporting those whom He has called out?
F.E.R. Peter is a representative man here, he is not viewed as an apostle, he indicates the necessity of the moment if you are to be where the Lord is.
Ques. Did you say the Lord was supporting those whom He had called out?
Answer. Yes. He has called out the assembly while He is away, presently He is coming into the Jewish boat.
Ques. Do you mean He has called the assembly out of the boat?
F.E.R. Strictly it is the calling out of those who formed the remnant, but practically it includes the Gentiles.
Ques. Does it answer to the calling out of the Jewish fold as in John 10?
F.E.R. It is something like it, but the connection is different.
Rem. You get Peter's energy and affection, he says, "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water".
F.E.R. If you get the realisation of the Lord as is evident in Peter's question, you find that Peter got assurance of heart in taking the step.
Ques. Is Christendom a system like Judaism?
F.E.R. In Christendom they have gone back to the boat principle, that is a great system that supports people. We all confess the Lord, but I think there is a point beyond that, when the Lord is known individually to affection. You are not very effective unless you know the Lord in affection, so that you are prepared to leave everything and go to Him.
Rem. I suppose the character of Ephesus was that at the outset, first love.
Ques. We should all be prepared to admit that there are many with affection for the Lord in what we should call the boat?
F.E.R. Yes, but it is a pity they do not leave it and go out to the Lord, not to the brethren but to the Lord; surely we should be prepared to leave everything so as to get to Him.
Rem. It is important to notice that Peter has the Lord's word.
F.E.R. He would not have taken the step otherwise; the idea is first with Peter, and the Lord encouraged it saying, "Come". The Lord had gone up as the Priest and now He comes out as Lord, supreme in administration. We have to go out of our things to Him, but are not people very much disposed to bring the Lord into their things and not to go out of them to Him?
Rem. I think that is just the difference between
what we are talking about and the very true piety among the sects and systems.
F.E.R. I think that 'Lord' is the title of administration, and that the administration is wholly limited to the will of God. He does not administer in the things of this world, and what I argue from that is that you must leave your things to find Him. The will of God is the body of Christ, and if you are set on that you will be with the Lord and the Lord will be with you. I do not undervalue piety. I do not say it is not right to make your wants known, I most heartily go with all that, but the administration of the Lord is another matter. The will of God is to gather up all things in one in Christ, but at the same time is made known the mystery of His will, the body, that is what God is working for. The principle comes out in the parables of the kingdom, the field is bought for the sake of the treasure, and it is one pearl of great price. God's will was revealed in the Old Testament, Psalm 8; but now in addition to what was made known there we have the mystery of His will, that is the body. "That they who are of the nations should be joint heirs, and a joint body, and joint partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings". That is what has come to light now.
Ques. Is it that the great thought now is the body, and ultimately it will be the heading up of all things in Christ?
F.E.R. Yes, the body is Christ's fulness. God is forming the vessel which is to be perfectly expressive of Christ.
Rem. So that the will of God is expressive of what God is doing.
F.E.R. Yes, and it is in that sphere that the Lord administers. There is no novelty about the will of God, it was made known in Psalm 8; everything is to be under the Son of man, but now He has made known the mystery of His will.
Rem. And that is something that is known only to the initiated before the public display has come, and the great thing is to be in the truth of that.
F.E.R. The first great act of administration was the sending down of the Holy Spirit to form the body. He ascended up far above all the power of evil, above all heavens, and the first great act was the gifts to men, and these are all for the work of edifying the body.
Ques. What is the difference between Lordship and Headship?
F.E.R. Lordship is supremacy and administration. Headship is that He receives everything for the body so that the body is formed according to the Head. I should not say the body is formed according to the Lord but according to the Head.
Rem. The Lord, too, is individual, not so the Head.
F.E.R. I think the Lord will be known more as Head by us when in heaven.
Rem. But you have to bring the Lord into your things so as to do His will in them.
F.E.R. You are tested in your things, you have to consider whether you are acting for the Lord's will; for instance, do not take a house in a pleasanter place than the one you are living in or I shall doubt if you are doing His will; do not bring up your children to occupy a better position in society than yourself, or I shall not be disposed to think you are acting for the Lord's will.
Rem. Well, but that is bringing the Lord into your things.
F.E.R. All these things test you, they test where you are, you are to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Ques. What is the difference between doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and holding the Head?
F.E.R. They are two totally different things. Holding the Head is wholly in connection with the
body, the other enters into all my individual everyday things. I think the will of God has its own specific character.
Ques. Do you think the difficulty comes in because we do not recognise that we are here for the will of God?
F.E.R. Yes. Now is the judgment of this world; but the will of God is another thing; and I think everything comes in to test a man.
Ques. Is that what is meant by Lydia saying, "If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord"?
F.E.R. That refers, I suppose, to the baptism. I think that she put everything into death, not herself only, but all that belonged to her. If you have taken that place I cannot understand how you can be seeking great things for your children.
Rem. In the millennium blessing will be in connection with things down here, but now it is just the opposite.
F.E.R. Yes; now you have to leave the boat.
Rem. A good many seem to be surprised to hear that they have not reached the Lord, as such, at all.
Ques. Suppose they have only one bit of light, what would you do with them?
Rem. Well, that is a good thing.
F.E.R. The fact is, that if you have not much affection for the Lord you cannot do much. If we look at Matthew 15 the light has left the Jew and gone to the Gentile, and then in chapter 16 we have the sign of Jonas, it all marks very clearly what the moment was. The Lord says in regard to the scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem, "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind". Then the light goes to the Gentile woman, and she appeals to Him as the Son of David; the Lord would not listen to her until she took lower ground as to herself, then He answered her. To me it is a most solemn chapter,
whatever light there was had left the Jew, light was with the Gentiles. The Lord had exposed the fallacy of the whole system of the scribes and Pharisees, they were properly the custodians of the light, but they had turned the light into darkness. It was religion and false religion. The light goes to the Gentiles, it is outside of the scribes and Pharisees. In chapter 16 there is no sign but the sign of Jonas, and Christ leaves them and departs.
F.E.R. The Lord still goes on ministering to the poor of the flock who sought Him, but what becomes evident is that He is taking another place.
Ques. Is it the same as in Luke 14, there we find first those out of the streets and lanes are sought out, and then in the highways and hedges?
F.E.R. In Luke the point is the transition from law to grace, in Matthew it is the change of dispensation. Seeking a sign indicated terrible perverseness in reference to all that the Lord had done, you could not have a greater proof of wilful unbelief, it was an awful thing, the very worst thing in the eye of God. The sign of Jonas was a sign of judgment. Jonas goes to the Ninevites as a man that had been under the waves and billows, and tells them that judgment was coming upon them. The Lord condemns the generation as a wicked one. It strikes me as very beautiful to see the Lord going on ministering to the people. He does not cease, but still goes on, and yet makes evident how complete the break was with the existing order of things. I think it is wonderful to get in a few verses a showing forth of the place the Lord had.
Rem. We cannot understand the true force of the gospels unless we understand the epistles. They are the last part of scripture we can make much of.
F.E.R. Yes, because you find perfection there; the epistles often deal with the saints going on badly, and we can understand imperfection better than
perfection, because we are imperfect ourselves. Nothing is more marvellous than the gospels, you come there into the presence of perfection; of course, there was imperfection all around the Lord, but in the Lord Himself there was divine perfection in a man. I think it is interesting to see what has been before us tonight, that is, the completeness of the break with the existing order of things, and the new place the Lord takes, because it all leads on to the new thing, to what comes out in chapter 16, that is, the church.
F.E.R. There is a difference between Matthew and Peter. In Matthew the subject is Christ, in Peter it is Christian privilege. In Matthew Christ is the builder. It is His assembly. He says, "On this rock I will build my assembly". You want to get a sense not of what the stones are, but of what the assembly is. The great point in Peter is that the saints had in a spiritual way what Israel had had in a material way. Those to whom Peter wrote had lost everything in a material way but had gained everything in a spiritual way; but I think it is very much more interesting to see the place which the Lord takes consequent upon His withdrawal from Israel and all connected with Israel. You see (Matthew 16) that there was a nucleus, the disciples were the bread and the Lord makes known to them all that was coming in consequent upon His withdrawal from Israel. He withdraws from Israel for the time being but there was a nucleus. They began to question about the bread, but what the Lord virtually says is, "You are the bread". His fear was lest they should be leavened, they were to be an unleavened company, kept clear from the leaven of formalism -- the Pharisee -- and scepticism -- the Sadducee; if you are not clear from these things you will not get much
light about divine things. There are three things in the end of chapter 16: (1) He is the builder; (2) He is the administrator in the kingdom, and then (3) He comes again in glory. He is rejected here, but He comes again and sets up the kingdom in glory. It is wonderful to see the place the Lord takes. The kingdom of which He spoke to Peter is going on now. The Lord brings before them His sufferings, but the sufferings were to prepare for the kingdom in glory. The transfiguration is what Peter refers to in his second epistle. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of his majesty". The great point of the building is this, that it was the way by which Christ was going to secure that He would have a place here upon earth. That was the mystery to be solved, how He would have a place here upon earth, and that is solved by the assembly.
Ques. Do you think that takes the place of Israel?
F.E.R. I think it takes the place of Urim and Thummim. It is a most wonderful thing to conceive that the Lord should secure that He should have a place here upon earth where He could make known His mind. The point here is how it was to be brought about. I think that if we had the idea that there is actually a spot here upon earth where His mind is declared, our thoughts about things down here would be materially changed. I do not think we should care much about anything else. I do not think "my assembly", as far as I understand it, refers expressly to heaven, the expression "gates of hades" not prevailing, is a pretty good proof that it refers to something here upon earth. There is no chance of the "gates of hades" prevailing against anything in heaven.
Ques. Then the idea is a spiritual idea?
F.E.R. The whole thing hangs upon the divine nature; it rests on the apprehension of what Christ
is according to the divine nature, if one might use the expression, the divine generation. That is the rock and then you see Peter is of the rock, he is a fragment of the rock, he is of the same nature as the rock. We are formed in the divine nature by the Spirit. It is the divine nature which appreciates the presence of Christ, people think it is by the Spirit but I think that, if we are not in the divine nature we are not in touch with Christ. The gates of hades cannot prevail against that, whatever is formed in the divine nature cannot go. Faith and hope (1 Corinthians 13) will end, but love will abide. I think 1 Corinthians 13 greatly helps. Nothing but the divine nature can resist the power of evil. Peter's great point in his first epistle was to show the Jews who had believed in Christ that they had lost nothing. The word for stone in Peter is not the same as that employed here, the idea of the stone here is that it is a part of the rock, a chip of the rock. The Lord recognises Peter as being of that nature. The word in Peter's epistle might refer in a certain way to the same thing, but it is not the same idea. In Peter's epistle the point is a building, here it is the foundation. Peter personally was according to the foundation. The thought here is that Christ will build that which will give Him a place here in spite of breaking with Israel.
Ques. Supposing that a person has got in his mind some sort of ecclesiastical organisation? Rome has built up an ecclesiastical organisation upon this scripture.
F.E.R. An ecclesiastical organisation is not in the divine nature. There is not much of the divine nature about Rome.
Ques. Is this what Christ gets for what He has lost?
F.E.R. Yes, I think it is. When He breaks with Israel there is, "I and the children which God hath given me", and to them He makes known the steps
He would take. I think it is a great thing in the present moment to be in the secret of the Lord. You could not have a greater privilege.
Rem. The force of calling Peter by that name was to show that he was a chip of the rock.
F.E.R. People think that they are going to realise the Lord's presence by the Spirit, but it is in the divine nature that the Spirit works, it is affection that is the point; you are formed in it by the Spirit, and if you are not formed in it by the Spirit you will not realise the Lord's presence.
Ques. Then the idea of the assembly is the plurality of persons being together in this way?
F.E.R. Yes, perfectly in touch with Himself in nature, and such would secure His presence. What has made it plain to me is 1 Corinthians 13. There the whole subject of the assembly is brought out; chapters 12 - 14. The apostle breaks the thread of the subject to bring in the divine nature, you might have gift and prophecy and knowledge, but without love you are nothing, and certainly one cannot be less than nothing. The first thing that the Spirit will do for a man is to bring him into the light. He will not work until He has brought him into the light, and although I would not say that divine affections are only found with us, yet I say divine affections are in the light. A person whose eyes were opened would be bowed down with the sense of the state of things, he would not be disposed to think much of himself or his company, he would be far from attempting to set anything up. It is a wonderful thing to have your eyes opened. The Lord is then your resource; that which Christ builds is not touched, that which is connected with divine affection is lasting. I think the Lord gives a pretty good indication of what the assembly is, the assembly is where He is, and we must answer to Him. It is not because you are identified with a particular company that therefore you are there.
Ques. Are we justified in looking for the assembly now?
F.E.R. Yes; for the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The great thing is to see that Christ has not changed. We must be on a right line, and the right line is the recognition of what Christ is in the divine nature, not as the Son of Mary, nor the Son of Abraham and David, but the Son of the living God. He does not gather to Himself after the flesh at all, and it is only the divine nature that can touch Him; it is really the teaching of 1 Corinthians 13 that in the assembly, love is everything. What a wonderful thing it is to think of a company here in touch with Christ, and His presence really known by them. Peter had no function in regard to the assembly, he is simply a pattern; as to the kingdom, the Lord gives Peter a place, but not as to the assembly.
Rem. I think we ought to learn from Peter.
F.E.R. I think we ought to learn from the Father. I cannot describe it to anyone, but there is a moment when the Father speaks to the soul. A man believes the gospel and receives the Holy Spirit, but there is some moment in his history when the Father teaches him this.
Ques. That is, that he apprehends something about the Person of Christ?
F.E.R. Yes. You can only know God in the divine nature, "He that loveth not knoweth not God". Peter was really a converted man before the Father gave him this revelation, you do not speak of this as conversion. It would produce the greatest moral effect upon us. There is nothing here for God now but what is in the Spirit. We have to leave the camp, the established order of things here was the camp. The necessity is leaving the camp. There are thousands who are converted who do not know this, they have not left the camp. We do well to apply it to ourselves.
Ques. What about all those saints who lived through
the long centuries up to about seventy or eighty years ago?
F.E.R. They knew nothing about the church.
Ques. Did the Father touch them?
F.E.R. It is hard to say what the Father did, but it is certain they knew nothing about the church. They were real Christians and had the Holy Spirit, they surrendered their lives for Christ, gave up everything for Him; but they knew nothing about the church, as far as we can gather.
Ques. They belong to the assembly?
F.E.R. They will come out in the completeness of the assembly, I do not doubt at all, but the point is the assembly here.
Rem. Is it not to create a difficulty to look upon what is in a ruined state and argue from that, rather than go back to the architect's plan?
F.E.R. When things are in ruins you are compelled to look at truths in an abstract way.
Rem. And you have to judge what is contrary.
F.E.R. Yes, that is the first step.
Rem. I am glad you say you believe these Christians will come out in the completeness of the assembly, there is a strong party who say they do not belong to the assembly and will not come out in the assembly by-and-by.
F.E.R. That is just where I should disagree with them, "For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body". That must cover every saint, but then it is not merely being indwelt by the Holy Spirit; but being in the divine nature, you are a "Petros", and that comes about through the divine touch, the Father's revelation. To my mind Peter's confession is an expression of affection, it is affection's recognition of Christ. The Lord only speaks of these things to the disciples, they were the nucleus, He does not speak of them to the people. The disciples were the bread, and He warns them that they must be clear of formalism
and scepticism. These communications are made to a people separated from the Jews. He draws the confession from them, He asks first what the people thought of Him, and then what they thought of Him; and then Peter's confession comes to light, and the Lord says it is the Father's revelation to him. This is apprehended individually. Peter gets the revelation, I cannot say why, my impression is that he is here as a pattern. The confession involves the recognition of Christ entirely apart from the flesh. In the assembly He is the Head, in the kingdom He is the Lord. He does not give to Peter a place of administration in the church, but in the kingdom. Peter was to carry out the administration in the power of the Lord, in spiritual power; that is the meaning of the keys, it was administration committed to Peter in connection with the kingdom. I do not think that the keys have been given to anyone else but Peter. Peter used them in opening the door to Jews and Gentiles. It is when we come together that we realise the assembly. The first point then is to be in touch with the Lord, and with one another in the divine nature.
Rem. All are not in the truth of this who are on this ground.
F.E.R. Can you tell me of any meeting you know of in which everybody realises the holiest, yet I would not have one single person away from that meeting? They all get the benefit of what perhaps only two or three are in the truth of. I have no doubt that there are a good many who look upon the two or three who take part as virtually the priests; but priestly privilege belongs to all, both brothers and sisters.
Rem. We exercise priestly functions in the holiest.
F.E.R. You cannot have Israel's place, yet that is the place you must get when an established order has come to pass, then you are neither in the holiest nor outside the camp. The third great thing that comes out in the passage is the sufferings of Christ,
but it is only paving the way for the Lord coming in glory and power in the kingdom. He is supreme for He gives the keys of the kingdom to Peter, but then afterwards He comes out in His power and glory. What has been a great thought to me -- not that it is new, but it is important -- is, that when Christ was here He was here in testimony, when He comes again He comes in glory and not in testimony.
Rem. And we are connected now with the testimony part.
F.E.R. Yes, and all the testimony is comprised in one word -- "Christ". There is no testimony but Christ.
Rem. That which is the burden of testimony will be brought out in glory.
Ques. What is your thought of the kingdom of heaven now? How does it go on now?
F.E.R. Well, the Lord is in heaven, and if I look to Him for direction in the things that He administers -- not the things of the world, mind, but in the things that He administers -- then, at any rate, the kingdom of heaven is good for me. The kingdom applies individually, not corporately. In the kingdom of the Son of man the Son of man is the centre of all the glory, His own, the Father's, and the holy angels'.
Ques. In chapter 16 we had Peter's confession, "Son of the living God"; in chapter 17 we have the Father's voice, "Thou art my beloved Son". Is the same thought in both?
F.E.R. The first passage is the confession of Christ in what He was according to the divine generation, in the second passage it is honour and glory conferred upon Him, that is how Peter interprets it. The latter has to do with the kingdom.
Ques. Is it the same thought as chapter 11?
F.E.R. No, I do not think it is; in that sense He did not receive honour and glory.
Ques. I should like to ask, now that we are on the subject, what is the difference between Nathanael's confession (John 1) and the confession of Peter (Matthew 16); Nathanael says, "Son of God; ... King of Israel"? Peter says, "the Christ, the Son of the living God". In Peter's case it is said to be a revelation from the Father, but nothing of the kind is said in Nathanael's case?
F.E.R. Nathanael simply confessed Him according to a name inherited (see Psalm 2); in Peter's case it was according to what He is in divine generation. He was taught of the Father that He was of God, according to His divine nature.
F.E.R. Well, not exactly, though it all hung upon the truth of His Person; it was the divine relationship and nature, but as giving character to man that was taught to Peter, and however little he understood it, that was the purport of it; but as to Nathanael it was no more than Christ according to Psalm 2. That is a name inherited, the thought there is of authority over the nations, and you get this subsequently in the Scriptures, in the address to Thyatira and again at the close of Revelation in connection with Son of God.
Ques. And the revelation in Matthew 16, what you speak of as divine generation is the foundation of the heavenly order of things?
F.E.R. Yes, all hangs upon the divine relationship and nature brought into manhood. It hangs upon His Person, but if He had not taken a place in manhood it could not be available for us. Matthew 11 is not like chapter 16, a foundation upon which He can build. It is essentially as Son He speaks of Himself there, I know only one title that describes Him as to His Person, and that is "the Son".
Ques. Would you not say "the Word"?
F.E.R. That is designation, and it says, "we contemplated his glory"; that is, the glory of the Word is the only begotten of the Father, that is the Son.
Ques. In John 1 the Lord calls Simon Peter, has that any connection with Matthew 16?
F.E.R. You have to consider that in John's gospel the Jews are looked at as reprobate from the outset, thus you can understand why from the outset the Lord should designate Peter by the name by which he was to be known afterwards, and he gets the confirmation of it in Matthew 16. I do not think that Peter had the revelation in John 1. He was not much up to it then, and yet that was what was in the Lord's mind. I understand a name to indicate that which is to be set forth in a man.
Rem. He gives him the name anticipatively.
F.E.R. The force of it did not come out until the beginning of the Acts, when Peter received the Holy Spirit.
Rem. So then you may say there are three steps as to Peter, John 1, Matthew 16 and Acts 2.
F.E.R. The first in connection with Christ, the second with the church and the third with the Spirit, but you must have all three. What I think we saw last time in the previous chapter (16), was that the Lord had broken with the Jews and that He looked upon the disciples as the loaf; the bread; then subsequently to that He builds the church, He commits the keys of the kingdom to Peter, then unfolds what the path down here is to be, and then goes on to the kingdom in glory. The Lord brings out all the great principles that were to come in, the kingdom now, and the kingdom in glory and the dispossession of Satan down here. What we read tonight brings out in detail the great principles which carry us on to the future, you cannot go further in that direction than chapter 17;
what comes in after is detail, principles for the ordering of conduct and so on down here.
Rem. You do not get Satan falling from heaven in Matthew.
F.E.R. Because you do not get in Matthew the thought of man having a place in heaven, the thought of Satan being cast out is connected with man having a place there; Luke 10. Here it is a question of the world to come and Satan being cast out of it. The child is in picture the Jew, Christ comes down from the mount to cast Satan out of the child of the Jew. It is rather a large field to be brought out in a few verses. The building of the assembly, the kingdom in mystery, the pathway here in fellowship with His sufferings, the kingdom in glory and the dispossession of Satan are all here. Now at the end of chapter 17 and in chapter 18 we get the entering into and ordering of the kingdom, what you might call the economy of the kingdom, for the public outward thing down here was the kingdom and yet not exactly public because it was in mystery, but the conduct that men could see. In the end of chapter 17 there is One who is conscious of being the greatest, yet He will take the lowest place in order to avoid offence; there is a great contrast between what He reveals Himself to be and the place He takes. The first principle is that you are to avoid offences, but not to be offended yourself. You do not want to stumble anyone else, and you take care that you are not stumbled; it is all individual, the only time that I know of where anything collective comes into the chapter is in verse 17, where the church is just introduced, but that is the only allusion that I know of.
Ques. What is the difference between this and John 3?
F.E.R. There it is that a man must be born again, here it is the spirit and character in which a man is to enter the kingdom. It is in a certain sense the effect
of being born again. John looks at the work of God which is underneath. Matthew, like Mark and Luke, looks at things more outwardly, that is, what comes to pass in the experience of people.
Rem. I suppose you might say that the kingdom of God is moral and the kingdom of heaven administration.
F.E.R. Yes, to a certain extent; what the Lord brought out here was the kingdom of heaven, and yet it is moral; for though we get the parables of the leaven and of the mustard seed, yet what you find is that a man has to be converted and become as a little child to enter into it; evidently it is looking at the kingdom in a moral aspect; no doubt in the aspect of a mustard tree there is a vast number of people in it who are not morally in the kingdom. It is the reality here. As a matter of fact a man does not enter into it unless he is converted, it is the condition under which he goes in, you must become as a little child.
Rem. You are not fit as you are, you must go back to the beginning.
F.E.R. It was the more striking to a Jew because a Jew made so much of the man. You have to let go all that you have gained in this world; it is what a man has acquired in this world that makes him a man, but it has to go, it is no good. Man makes use of the faculties God has given him to acquire prominence here, but it all has to go, all the greatness and pretension a man has in this world, religious or in whatever form it might be. A child does not set up for strength or knowledge. What can you take to the Lord?
Rem. You can take a great deal from Him.
F.E.R. But then you must give up all you have, I think it is a most wonderful thing to be governed and ordered here by the Lord, no one can describe the manner of it, because it is peculiar to each, no one can define it to another. There are people in the world
who think that they can carry on the Lord's work as they carry on man's work by organisation and combination and natural means; but as far as I understand it, everything which tends to give greatness and importance to man has to be dropped, I do not think you ever cease to be a little child in that sense. I think that the Lord in this chapter takes up one point after another. We have the very important principle, that even the infants have their place in the kingdom, they were despised among the Jews, but it shows the character of the kingdom, it is not law but grace. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven". The Lord attaches great importance to it, "In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father". "The Son of man is come to save that which was lost". The meanest and smallest thing upon earth has its place; this is a beautiful feature of the kingdom. Law recognised the man, there is very little about the children under the law, but here there is. I think the gospels show how the children stand in relation to the Lord, and the epistles how they stand in relation to the Spirit.
Rem. They are to obey the Lord in the epistles.
F.E.R. Oh, yes, it is all in that sphere where His rights are maintained. In Corinthians they are holy, in the gospels, where it is more a question of the Lord, they are to be suffered to come to Him. After the children you have the question of difficulties between brethren, how they are to be met. You first get the way in which offences are to be avoided, then the place of children, then the dealing with possible offences between brothers, and in that connection the church comes in.
Ques. Why does the parable of the ninety-nine come in?
F.E.R. Because law would make everything of the ninety-nine, but grace makes everything of the one. It shows the complete reversal of all that existed before. "The Son of man is come to save that which was
lost". Seeking is left out, it has more applicability to those grown up. Children are viewed as "lost", but it is not the Father's will that one of them should "perish". Angels are here, as very frequently, representative. With regard to the matter between brethren, the Lord lays down a way of which we must all admit the wisdom. The great object is to gain the brother.
Ques. The thought is that there is something between two parties, and the one offended goes to the other, is it not?
F.E.R. And evidently that is the very best thing that could be done, it is difficult to do sometimes, but the one offended is to be superior in grace, and this is a great test for us.
Rem. Writing would not fulfil this.
F.E.R. No, it would only increase the mischief; letters do not bring the persons in contact, and there is not much opportunity in them for showing grace; a difficulty might be solved by the spirit of grace in the parties.
Rem. One often notices that there is a great deal in the manner in which a thing is said, and you cannot impart that in a letter.
F.E.R. The Lord's way is not public exposure, He will expose you to yourself, but to no one else except when nothing else avails.
Ques. When the Lord uttered these things who constituted the church?
F.E.R. The Lord had not taken the new place, except typically, at this time; the teaching hangs upon that; He had brought it before His disciples, and His rejection in chapter 16. In chapter 14 the Lord typically takes the new place, but He was not yet actually walking upon the waters. All the latter part of Matthew hangs upon the thought of the Lord being in glory.
Rem. In applying this teaching you have to treat it from the standpoint of the Lord's rejection and that He is no longer here.
F.E.R. The Lord gives the keys to Peter, but Peter had not begun to unlock. I do not think Peter used the keys until he had the Spirit.
F.E.R. Because it is administration, keys are so used figuratively in Scripture. "The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder". Here the Lord gives instruction concerning what should take place when He was away; you could have no kingdom without the Lord in glory, you have got no kingdom light in heaven until He is there. What has God set in heaven? Nothing except Christ at present. I think when the church is set there it will share His authority.
Ques. The question in 1 Corinthians 6 is of a different character from what we have here?
F.E.R. I do not think, however, that business matters should be brought into the assembly; why cannot people go on quietly in spiritual things, and not trouble us with their business difficulties. Verse 20 is to my mind the greatest verse in the chapter. It is connected with asking of the Father. I think it is that you are here for Christ's name and interests. You are not asking for yourself, you are, I understand, entirely taken up with His interests, and you can ask anything then.
Rem. Philippians 4 is not the same thing.
F.E.R. No; you are free as to your own things in that. I think a person has to find out the things in which the Lord administers. What people have to get clear about is the sphere and order which the Lord administers, I think you are free enough to ask then.
Rem. One said, "Speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance".FELLOWSHIP, PRIVILEGE AND TESTIMONY
THE LORD
LANDMARKS OF GRACE
THE ONE BODY AS PRESENTED IN SCRIPTURE
NOTES OF READINGS ON MATTHEW
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3 - 4: 11
CHAPTER 4: 12; CHAPTER 5
CHAPTERS 6, 7
CHAPTERS 9 AND 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 13: 53 TO CHAPTER 16: 5
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18