Letters of J. A. Trench.
SUBJECTS IN LETTERS.
1. THE KINGDOM AS PRESENTED IN THE GOSPELS
2. THE BRIDE
3. THE MARRIAGE RELATION IN OLD TESTAMENT AND THE LAMB'S WIFE
4. UNION, AND THE RUIN
5. ALTAR OF INCENSE
6. DANGER OF A LOWER PLANE
7. PSALM 22
8. "OUT OF HEAVEN"
9. SPIRITUAL MINISTRY NEEDED
10. THE TRAITS OF CHRIST IN His MEMBERS
11. FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT
12. THE RED SEA AND JORDAN
13. MANY BE CALLED, BUT FEW CHOSEN
14. PRAYER, AND THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH
15. RESURRECTION.
THE LOVE OF THE FATHER, OF CHRIST, AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
16. THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT AT PENTECOST
17. THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE; AND PRAYER TO THE HOLY GHOST .
18. 1 JOHN 2: 20
19. ON BEING USED IN BLESSING; AND JOHN 6: 39
20. 1 PETER 1 AND PSALM 8
21. HEBREWS 13: 20
22. ROMANS 8: 3 AND THE BRAZEN SERPENT
23. JOHN 16, 17, AND JACOB'S WRESTLING
24. GALATIANS 3: 16 AND "FLESH"
25. THE FOUR LIVING CREATURES
26. THE TWO GOATS (LEV. 16)
27. PSALM 138: 2
28. THE TRIBULATION
29. THE LORD'S TABLE AND THE SECTS
30. THE FATHER'S HOUSE
31. CONDITIONS IN PERSIA
32. RUSSIA AS KING OF THE NORTH
33. "CLOTHED UPON"
34. JUDGMENT UNIVERSAL
35. MILLENNIAL BLESSING NOT COMPLETE
36. BETHESDA UNLIKE OTHER CONFLICTS
37. RECKLESS DIVISION
38. A SEARCHING TIME
39. DOING THE WILL OF GOD, THE ONLY ABIDING THING
40. THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
41. OPPOSITION TO THE LORD'S WORK OFTEN FOR GOOD
42. THE WAR NOT IN PROPHECY
43. THE LIGHT TO SHINE OUT, AS IT HAS SHONE IN
44. IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST IN REJECTION
45. THE WORK OF A DAY IN A DAY
46. PHILADELPHIA
47. THE OVERCOMER
48. "IN THE FLESH"
49. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
50. THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY GHOST IN THE CHURCH
51. THE WORD OF GOD
52. PSALM 2
53. DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE
54. ACCEPTING CIRCUMSTANCES AS THE DISCIPLINE OF A FATHER'S LOVE
55. GOD'S WAYS WITH US, TO SHUT US UP TO HIMSELF
56. THE CROSS ANSWERS TO THE GLORY
57. THE FATHER, AS REVEALED IN JOHN.
VALUE OF THE STUDY OF REVELATION
58. THE PROGRESS OF EVIL AND THE CITY TO COME
59. REVELATION 11: 14 - 12
60. 2 CORINTHIANS 5: 1-9: A BUILDING OF GOD. THE DYING OF JESUS
61. COLOSSIANS 1. AND 2: THE FULNESS or THE GODHEAD
62. 1 CORINTHIANS: MINISTRY IN THE ASSEMBLY
63. THE MANNA; AND THE BRAZEN SERPENT
64. THE SECOND MAN; AND THE LAST ADAM
65. JOHN 6: "I LIVE BY THE FATHER"
66. PAUL'S SUFFERINGS (2 CORINTHIANS)
67. THE "FALLEN" STAR (REVELATION 9)
68. THE 144,000 OF REVELATION 7 AND OF REVELATION 14
69. THE LORD'S TABLE AND SUPPER
70. "STRANGERS HERE
71. PSALM 23
72. NICODEMUS
73. ON THE CONFINES OF THE ETERNAL WORLD
74. THE FLOWER OF THE GRASS FAILING
75. WE MAY ALL GO TOGETHER YET
76. "NOW THE JOURNEY'S ENDING"
77. "MORN, NOON, AND NIGHT"
1.
MY DEAR -
I am thankful you pursue your study of the Word, and there is nothing in which I would more gladly render you any help I can. I think I touched briefly on the point of the special way the Kingdom is presented in Matthew, but it was not the time for going into it more particularly, as I willingly do now in the compass of a letter at least.
That it is not a different kingdom in these passages in Matthew will be seen at once by comparing the other two Synoptic gospels, where what is said of the Kingdom of the Heavens in Matthew is said of the Kingdom of God in Mark or Luke. Take Matt. 4: 17, Matt. 5: 10, Mark 1: 14, 15, and Luke 8: 1; Matt. 10: 7, Luke 9: 2; Matt. 11: 11, Luke 7: 28; Matt. 11: 12, Luke 16: 16; Matt. 13: 11, Mark 4: 11, and Luke 8: 10; also the parables of the mustard seed given in Matthew of one and Mark and Luke of the other — of the leaven in Matthew of one, in Luke of the other. Also Matt. 18: 3; Luke 18: 16; and these are not all. We can then study the subject of the Kingdom from the point of view of its ordinary designation, "Kingdom of God," and then and thus learn best to understand the exceptional term applied to it in Matthew (and there only) as to what is indicated by it.
In Luke 17: 20 (cp. 10: 9) I learn that the power of it was present in the Person of the Lord Jesus "among you" (not "within" Pharisees) though not yet "come," not yet established as a formal relation in which men stood to God. Hence — as not yet set up — the least in it (Luke 7) would be greater in privilege than the greatest that went before it, in testimony of the King. John 3 states how only it can be really seen (its power in Him when present) or entered into when formally set up. Romans 14: 17 describes its moral characteristics, and 1 Corinthians 4: 20 contrasts its power with men's pretensions. Compare further 1 Corinthians 6: 9, 10; Ephesians 5: 5. It forms the subject of the intercourse of Jesus with the eleven in resurrection — "The things pertaining to it." (Acts 1) And then we find it promulgated as formally established by the testimony of the apostles in the Acts, and of the Holy Ghost with them, to the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of power. See the effect of Philip's testimony at Samaria (Acts 8: 12, also Acts 14: 22, Acts 19: 8, Acts 28: 23). But the effect of the testimony was not all real, hence the application of the passages that speak of it as a professing sphere, as the mustard seed and leaven, and the special parable of it given in Mark 4: only. Nor is it limited to the present form in which it is established by, and as the result, whether real or professed, of testimony to, the absent King. It will be still the Kingdom of God generally in the millennium as, for example, Luke 13: 29, Luke 21: 31, when the dispensational form it takes will be that of the Father's Kingdom in its heavenly part (1 Cor. 15: 50; 2 Thess. 1: 5) where the righteous shine forth, and the Kingdom of the Son of Man in its earthly part. Nor is it limited to time, but in a very general sense at least it is applied when the kingdom proper is given up to the Father and God is all in all. (1 Cor. 15) When the Lord Jesus gives up His reigning place as Man to take His subject place with the Father (though the Kingdom be thus an everlasting one (2 Peter 1: 11), for it never passes to another). I say in a very general sense, for kingdom properly supposes those who have to be subjected to or reigned over by authority. This is done completely in the millennium, when at least at the end the last enemy is destroyed, so that the kingdom proper is over as such when God is all in all, save as it remains the general description of the eternal blessedness to which we are called. (1 Thess. 2: 12; 2 Tim. 4: 18.)
But when we turn to Matthew the dispensational form presented to us is the "Kingdom of the Heavens." This supposes the heavens to be the seat of authority instead of the earth — the King taking His place there on His rejection here. Thus from the first, even in John's testimony, before the King had been actually rejected the kingdom is present in these designations rather than as the kingdom of prophecy. For already in Matthew 5 - 7, by the unfolding of the characteristics of those who should enter in (to such a Kingdom as He was prepared to set up) it was found to be wholly foreign to their thoughts and expectations. The moral character of it as the Kingdom of God is of the deepest importance; yet at what a loss we should be if the dispensational form it takes now on the rejection of the King had not been given us fully and formally in Matthew, for instance, Matthew 13 and the other parables of it. But it confirms the distinction of the terms used to express what is one and the same thing, to observe that in a few passages in Matthew itself the moral term is employed instead of the dispensational. (Matt. 6: 33; Matt. 12: 28, its power in Him present; Matt. 21: 43, its fruits; and ver. 31). The dispensational form it has as the Kingdom of Heaven will pass away to give place to another form in the millennium and the eternal state, but the Kingdom of God abides, and this is its abiding designation, though as we have seen applied to the professing sphere, as well as to what has been real in it, and is eternal.
Yours affectionately in the Lord.
2.
MY DEAR, BROTHER, —
I am very glad to have your letter on so interesting a subject as the character of the relationship with Christ expressed by "the Bride," and to whom it belongs. For I quite believe with you that Scripture can hardly be found to warrant speaking of the heavenly bride, and the earthly, as if there were two, the relationship being the same only characterised differently as heavenly and earthly. We cannot build anything on the types, though when the doctrine is clear they serve to illustrate and confirm us as to it often, in a very blessed way.
There can be no question that the relationship of husband and wife is used in many passages of the Old Testament figuratively to express the grace of Jehovah to the remnant of His ancient people. Nothing can be more touching than the variety of the forms in which He seeks in this way to win their hearts for Himself and to express the place they have in His heart, and His unchangeable faithfulness to promise and purpose for them, however sad their course has been. He can even recall the love of their "Espousals when thou wentest after me in the wilderness" (Jer. 2), plead with them to return to Him for I am "married" unto you — "thy maker is thy husband" (Isa. 54: 5), and He can call her as "a wife of youth." (Isa. 54) You have recalled Hosea 2: 7: but with what endearing terms He seeks to allure her to do so; "I will betroth thee unto me for ever," and so on. (Vers. 19, 20.) And the passages can be multiplied almost indefinitely. The Canticles is based upon the figure of such relationship, at least in the desire for it, if not in the rest and peaceful satisfaction that the actually formed relationship, as we know it, carries with it. But when all is told out in such wonderful grace on the part of the Lord by the use of the figure of earth's nearest and dearest relationship, no thought of union with Him is therein expressed. It would be impossible to conceive it without revelation. That saints on earth should be actually united to Christ in Glory was yet the Mystery "hid in God," of which not a word had been breathed in the Old Testament. That it should be possible, He had to become man, and the corn of wheat had to fall into the ground and die, or otherwise be alone for ever in His glory as man, for it is only to Christ risen and glorified, and by the Spirit come from that glory that any could be united to Him (1 Cor. 6, 1 Cor. 12). No hint of union is then implied by all the passages in which in the Old Testament the comparison or figure of husband and wife is used.
And this is the defect that I have constantly found in those who seek to put Israel into the relationship of the bride, and where even no such question has arisen: so few seem to realise union, as it first came out at Paul's conversion, i.e. that all those who are His since Pentecost are Himself. It was the Mystery in germ. It is a wonderful moment for any soul when the light of it breaks in upon it — that I am united to the glorified Christ with all that are His by His Spirit given to dwell in us. Ephesians 5 shows the actuality of the subsisting relationship, upon which marriage-union can be affirmed of Christ and the Church, though the mystery be great. When Eve was brought to Adam he could say of her, she is myself, of his flesh and of his bones; thus men ought to love their wives as their own bodies - he that loveth his wife loveth himself. And so Christ and the Church "for we are members of His body" (with many authorities for the omission, I do not read the closing words of the verse as I believe them to have been inserted by copyists from Genesis).
The Lamb's wife, or Bride as she is called in Revelation, is not then a different relationship from the Body of Christ, but flows out of the Church, being His body, Himself. This truth had been already expressed in the Epistle, but it had not sufficed for the heart of Christ to tell itself out to the Church He loved and gave Himself for. Hence the moment the Apostle comes to the natural relationships, for which heavenly position furnishes the springs of a walk in them according to God, and that of husband and wife specifically, the Spirit seizes the opportunity for the revelation of this precious aspect of the relationship of the body to Christ, that it is His wife whom He loves as Himself. Before the day of the actual espousals in heavenly glory (Rev. 19) we realize the relationship by the Spirit. Hence Revelation 22: 17. The Spirit forms the heart of the Church according to the relationship of the Bride, before the marriage actually takes place, and, as the power of her enjoyment of it, gives the cry "Come"; and then the whole circle of the affections of which Christ is the centre, in that verse. She is in the relationship as fully as ever she can be — joined to the Lord, she (each one of us — ) is one Spirit with Him; but I could not say "as fully in the position," for then she will be by His side, so to speak, manifestly identified with Him in every position He will ever take: you say it is true "apart from being actually with Him!" but to be with Him is everything to the Bride. And there is nothing more lovely to me than the last glimpse we get of her, when all that scene of her display in His glory is over (as portrayed in Rev. 21: 9 - 22: 5), in the new heavens and new earth she is seen coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband — for His eye and heart alone: still the Bride in the freshness of His affections, more than a thousand years after marriage.
But turning to the remnant of His ancient people again for a moment, they have a very full place in Revelation, if an earthly one according to the faithfulness of Jehovah to the promises, save where this has been lost to them by their witnessing for Him. I refer, of course, to the early martyrs of Revelation 6, who have to wait for their fellow-servants who should be killed under the manifested power of the beast and the false prophet. (Rev. 13: 15.) These, specially the later company of them, have their place on the sea of glass (Rev. 15), having harps of God to sing the song of Moses, in triumphant victory, and the song of the Lamb once suffering, now exalted and glorified, and celebrate the works and ways of Jehovah El Shaddai — the King of Nations. And in Revelation 20: 4 we see both companies of them, who had been called into the place of testimony after the Church was gone and cut off before the Kingdom was set up, associated with the heavenly saints who come from heaven with Christ in the first resurrection, which has been kept open (as I may say) to take them in — to be in common with us priests of God and of Christ and to reign with Him a thousand years.
Then there are those who are not cut off, but endure to the end, and come out into the blessing of the Kingdom, the blessed inhabitants of the earth with the innumerable multitude of the Gentiles who will have received them, and in doing so are counted to have received the Lord: His brethren in Matthew 25 and the sheep. Revelation 7 also gives them generally — the elect of all the tribes of Israel. But not all these will have gone through the awful times of testing under the instruments of Satan. The ten tribes we know will only be brought to light for the Lord's special discriminating dealing with them after He has come to Zion. (Ezek. 20: 30 et seq.) It is the remnant of Judah that will have to stand the full brunt of the storm and trial. Hence the special recognition accorded them as those who will have suffered and been faithful in Revelation 14. They will be associated with the Lamb on Mount Zion, have His Father's name written in their foreheads, learn the song of heaven, the first-fruits to God and to the Lamb.
The reason I have gone into this is, that it has brought out for me how fully the blessing of the remnant of Israel is given us in the book, providing for the slain portion of them the richest blessing of association with the heavenly saints with Christ in His reign, as well as for those who live through the terrible time of Jacob's and the earth's trouble. But not a hint throughout of union and bridal relationship which only belongs to those given to Christ from Pentecost till He come. None else will ever be united to Him as we have been, in this time of His rejection by Israel and the earth, by the Holy Ghost indwelling, to be the fulness of Him that filleth all in all, His Body and His Bride. The Lord give us to answer a little more in heart and life to our wonderful place in the counsels of eternity, now brought into effect and in the heart of Christ. How deep the privilege ours: and with what interest it invests the feeblest two or three gathered to His name and seeking to walk in the unity we have been formed into, embracing all that are His as united to Him in glory.
3.
BELOVED BROTHER,-
The more I weigh the fact that the marriage relationship is used in the O.T. to convey the grace of Jehovah to Israel, both in the past and for the yet future, when there could be no question of union — (even John the Baptist could speak of bride and Bridegroom so well was this grace known) — as also the fact that Ephesians 5 bases the application of husband and wife, to Christ and the Church, on our being "members of His body" (ver. 30), ("of His flesh and of His bones" has no adequate authority and would tend to mystify the wonderful statement, the copyists naturally thinking of Genesis 2) — the more I feel that it would enfeeble the wonderful fact of the Assembly being His body — the fulness or completeness of the Christ its Head, from whom the whole body is fitly joined together, deriving all from its Head for the increase of God — formed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost — "joined" to Him as each member is, so as to be "One Spirit" in the character of its union. Surely we have not to go outside the truth of the Head and Body to find union expressed for us in the relationship of the Lamb's wife (Rev. 19) or the holy city (Rev. 21) prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband, or as we know the relationship now by the Spirit. (Rev. 22: 17.)
Precious is the light thrown upon what His Body is to Him by the use of the marriage relationship, not now as a figure of love as in O.T. but applied to the Assembly as Himself, according to the marriage institution — only made possible in fact since Pentecost.
I think you will see what I mean; words are defective, but what we need is to maintain the actuality of the Body united as such to its Head by the Holy Ghost — of whom as to each member He could say, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest."
It seems to me clear from Ephesians 5 that the aspect of the Assembly's relationship to Christ as His wife and bride flows from this.
I am thankful for Dr. -'s paper on the administration of the mystery in S.T. for June which has been the subject of correspondence between us. He had felt very strongly the statement that it only applied to Paul.
Very affectionately yours.
4.
BELOVED BROTHER,
Your letter on the break up of what began to be known to me with such intense interest in the early sixties, founded on the wonderful revival of truth, and referring to Paul's far more serious experience of the ruin that had set in before he was withdrawn from the scene, and the unfailing courage of faith with which he meets it to Timothy, is just wherein I find my comfort when at all able to rise above the sense of my own failure. For the general collapse is after all made up of the individual failure in responsibility apportioned to the light received from God.
Have I mentioned to you the beautiful reading which seems to give the best sense to verse 5 of Psalm 103, "Who satisfieth thy prime, or old age, with good; thy youth renewed like the eagle" (not "eagle's"). It is wonderful that we may count upon the goodness of our God for this. "The mouth with good things" would be comparatively very poor, if conveying any sense.
I do not know that I am sufficiently clear myself on the great subject of union with Christ to add anything upon it. I believe the first gleam of the light of it was on Saul's conversion as he heard, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." And that it is from Paul alone we have the revelation of the truth of it, not only of the everlasting counsels wherein it was conceived, but of the work in time by which it was carried into effect — Ephesians 2 for the new man and body, not leaving out 1 Corinthians 6 for the character of it, "one Spirit" individually, and 1 Corinthians 12: 12 corporately.
Ephesians 5 brings out the Body so formed to be His wife according to the original institution of marriage — Eve was Adam's self in becoming or being given to him to be his wife. It is not a new relationship — the Bride — but another aspect of the Assembly as His body. to satisfy the heart of Christ.
John does not teach union. Revelation 19 was the public espousal of her who, as composed of all who were Christ's from Pentecost till He comes, had been united to Him by the Holy Ghost indwelling on the reception of the glad tidings of salvation by faith in Christ.
I understand you when you say, "If it is Christ's body it must be derived from Him" — only I think we are never left to a "must be" in these great verities. Ephesians 2 proves to me both by the new man and body, that it is of new creation. The word for it is used in verse 16 in the original as in verse 10, though J.N.D. does not preserve the connection in English.
Colossians 2: 17 must not be taken as derivation, body being plainly substance in contrast to shadow, i.e. "All that was shadowed had its origin as well as fulfilment in Him," as has been well said. "Is Christ's" (of Revised) needs a little of Ellicott's amplification — "belongs to Christ in respect of its origin, existence and realization."
5.
MY DEAR BROTHER,-
On further consideration I have no doubt that the altar for which atonement is made in Leviticus 16: 18 is the altar of incense. The "go out" that for the moment misled one, is from the holiest (ver. 16) to the holy place. What decides it for me is that the whole scene is the tabernacle (ver. 16) and what is within. Verses 11-14 has to do with the saints that compose the Church; from 15-19 it is the cleansing of the heavenly places, and not till that is made an end of does he take up the reconciling of Israel by the scapegoat outside the tabernacle door.
It is the occasion of the Priest entering in to make atonement for himself and for his house that emphasises the necessity of the cleansing of where he drew nigh — the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these; verse 16 would be a general statement by itself, verse 17 taking up what went before and forbidding the presence of anyone in the outer place while the Priest was in the inner. That makes "Until he come out" (ver. 17) clear, for he has now to make atonement for the altar of communion "that is before the Lord." Verse 18 recalls the fuller characterization of it in Exodus 30: 6, "before the veil that is by the ark" (or "that belonged to the oracle") "before the mercy seat," etc., verse 10 clearly referring to Leviticus 16: 18.
And this is confirmed by observing that atonement for the altar of burnt offering, where it was a question of a sinner drawing near to have his sins removed(not approach to God in His own dwelling according to His own glory) — is provided for elaborately in Exodus 29 in connection with the consecration of the priests, "Seven days thou shalt make an atonement for the altar," etc. (ver. 37).
Notes and Comments, Vol. II, from pp. 68 to 70 (see p. 77) discusses this question exhaustively and gives the difference between the two altars and the cleansing of the one within the sanctuary; the golden altar was cleansed when man approached to God, not when man was cleansed by God, which would be at the brazen altar.
I am thankful to have been recalled by your question to what I take to be the clear testimony of the Word. Most thankful you were able to get to - and for the help the Lord gave through you, and just at such a time of need and testing too, as to whether they will go on with the Church and the wondrous circle of Divine relationships the gospel has introduced us into in connection with it by infinite grace; or take up with the gospel preached in the tent, that hands its converts over to the different denominations, to go on with the camp, and sink back into the world.
Yours ever affectionately in Him.
6.
MY DEAR BROTHER, —
I have not heard from you for some time, but hope you are well and encouraged in the Lord in these solemn times of many antichrists at work within and without the Christian profession, and alas of humbling failure within and where there has been most light and testimony of the truth. It is easy to get down under the circumstances, but faith in the Living God will sustain us above them, and furnish us with resources to go on against the current of everything in testimony for Christ. "Fear not; be of good cheer" — His own words. But the danger is, as Mr. Darby warns in his letters, of brethren being content to go on on a lower plane; as I suppose they of Asia did who forsook Paul: it was no question of forsaking the Christian profession. As to the rank and file (if I may call them so) in all these divisions carried by leaders, and who have no intelligence of what brought them into their position, simple and happy in a Christianity that just saves, but without the light of God's purposes for the glory of Christ: I have never known a simple soul refused because of the company he belongs to. A nice old sister came from Canada, who had been blessed among the "Grant" brethren, to Dublin: she knew nothing outside them and was received without question, and died there. It has been so even when coming from Bethesda, when found to be perfectly simple, though this is the difficulty in that case to find those who are. How many profess to be at first, and are soon found to be deep in the mire of it, linked on mainly by active teachers or evangelists who know perfectly what they are about.
Jude teaches us to make the difference between leaders and led. I agree too that too much must not be made of those in the divisions of brethren so-called, and in the ordinary systems as to responsibility, for in the generally low state of things, there is often little difference, save that in the former I hope that openly unsound doctrine would not be tolerated. We may leave out of the discussion then, simple souls all round. We are not dealing with such. The question is what place has Christ and the Church in our hearts? Are we set for the purposes and counsels of God connected with it, and this not to be held in theory only, but to form our lives and associations with other Christians in a practical walk. Nothing touches me more than the grace that brought me out to the Lord Himself long years ago when I knew of none to walk with, but to be on the broad ground of owning all who are Christ's to be His Body, and that has kept me on this ground with others. We cannot enjoy much of Divine love without taking in all the objects of that love. And there can be no true enlargement of heart save as our feet are in the narrow path of separation to the Lord. The humbling thing is, how one has failed to make good in testimony flowing from the inner life of communion with the Lord, what He has given me. What is needed now is wholehearted men for God to go on with the positive truth that forms them. We cannot recall or retrieve the past. But I believe He will have some to carry out 2 Timothy 2 to the end. The question is with whom we can walk so as to carry out the principles of God's nature, and the unchanged principles of the Church. The Lord give us to be true to Him, keeping His Word and not denying His name.
Yours affectionately in Him.
7.
MY DEAR BROTHER, —
I have been much interested in the correspondence between my two dear fellow-servants. I think you have taken clear scriptural ground. . . . He seems to me to fail in the apprehension of Psalm 22, though all must, as to the depths touched by it of atoning judgment that wrung from Him the cry of anguish of verse 1. But this is the theme of the Psalm before which, though He feels all perfectly, what He suffered from man sinks into insignificance. But it was not man's hand that brought Him to the dust of death. Nor were they the horns of the unicorn, but the transpiercing judgment of God.
He fails too strangely, if it be not more in argument than in fact, to see the difference between suffering that we can have no part in, and those we have. As to John 1: 18, I trust he will grow in the apprehension of the incommunicable place of the Son in the Father's bosom. The deeper and more intimate the association we are brought into with Him in the place He has taken as man on the ground of accomplished redemption, the more the heart would guard the glory of His Person He does not speak of the love with which He is loved as in John 17, "As Thou hast loved me" — "the love wherewith Thou hast loved me." It is the place He had in that love as Man down here that He brings us into.
8.
BELOVED BROTHER,
And now as to your question. I agree that it is impossible to confine "The first man out of earth earthy" to Adam personally, but involves his race as verse 48 proves. There is origin, verse 47; character, verse 48; and destiny, verse 49; all in contrast between those under Adam and under Christ. The word "out of" to express ek tou ouphanou may be a little too strong in English, specially if it was made to express that the Lord brought His body out of heaven, which would go far to affect the reality of incarnation according to Luke 2. It is characterization by source. As to the rest, the main point is I think to keep clear that though resurrection added nothing to the Lord, He did not take the place of "Last Adam a quickening spirit" till resurrection. He had ever quickened, as the Father, in the co-equal glory of both, as we know from John 5, but (John 20) now He does so as Second Man and Last Adam, taking His place as Head of a race. All He took up as man in resurrection was then in Him in incarnation, but He was alone in it; now He can associate us with Himself in all that is His as man. No doubt from His manifestation here the first man was superseded for God, and faith can enter into this now that the trial of man was over (which John's gospel assumes from the start) — consummated at the Cross. Referring back to "out of heaven," 2 Corinthians 5: 2 shows the force of it. A Greek mind would find no difficulty in it; a suggestion that our glorified body actually came out of heaven, though this has been affirmed in the folly of the human dictum (that nothing would ever go into heaven that had not come out of heaven,) and resurrection thus enfeebled. I do not see anything to prefer in the use of "eclipsed" to that of "superseded." The fact is there never was any brightness about the first man or light in him, which to be eclipsed would perhaps suggest. But what poor things our words are when we seek to put these great verities of revelation in any other form than that given us by inspiration.
But what wonderful grace of our God to adapt His thoughts to such a medium, that by the Spirit we might enter into them. Thus you see I am in full agreement with you as to the truth itself, and your care as to how we express it in dependence upon God.
Very affectionately yours in Christ.
9.
BELOVED BROTHER, —
The outlook is not encouraging. The carelessness of leaders had brought to light how many are now prepared to back up - 's course on the plea of the liberty of the servant, which is not that of the obedience of faith, for which the Mystery was made manifest according to the commandment of the Everlasting God, but savours more of the times of the Judges when everyone did that which was right in his own eyes. The Scripture terms are used, but only to disown practically what they convey. And this may not at all be insincere; for if we do not know the thing in Divine things we cannot enter into the way it is expressed (John 8: 43). It is what makes the very real difficulty of the situation, just as what was the case at Colosse, etc., where the Apostle had not been able to go — the lack of understanding to the full acknowledgement of the Mystery of God. No disciplinary process can supply this, but a ministry that will raise the spiritual tone so as to produce a state where the truth may take root and flourish.
I am more and more persuaded that those who have the truth can only serve truly now by seeking grace from God, and the power of the Spirit, to bring it out in a ministry of Christ and the Assembly, that may by grace raise the poor saints above all the questions and distractions by which the enemy would weaken any remaining testimony, thus still further preparing the way for the apostasy. I have the sad conviction that there is a distinct drifting away from the Assembly line of things, partly through our humbling failure where the truth of it was once known, and (connected with this doubtless) that it involves trouble and conflict (Eph. 6) in the increasing difficulties of the last days, to maintain and act upon it. It is much simpler to speak on Luke 15, wonderful theme of grace as it is, and what is individual, which of course has its place. The new thing is to set this against that which is corporate in privilege and responsibility.
Yours ever affectionately in Christ.
10.
BELOVED BROTHER,-
. . . Any improvement is a mercy. Nothing more sorrowful than that in a place where for so many long years there has been an open door for the Word, and many have got blessing, it should be marred by human will — which is always divisive — being at work. But I fear outside influences have been at work, and an enfeebling of the truth for the young, of God's interests for the glory of Christ, in a walk according to the divinely constituted unity of the Assembly.
I was to have been preaching tonight, but the worst weather of the winter has broken on us since morning, and for the first time snow covers everything here, and a blizzard drove us back after we had started, the depth of snow on the road making it probable that we could not have got back.
. . . As to Colossians and the Mystery I believe the thought came from - that the whole body was needed to set forth the traits of the life of Christ. But if this involves that one member sets forth one trait, and another another, etc., I cannot see that this would work out practically for His glory; the growth of the saints would be lopsided. He is the life of each, and what other traits but those of His life should be reproduced, and that in each. The bowels of compassion are not to be found in one, kindness in another, lowliness in another, etc. Love as the bond of perfectness gives them a whole in each. The peace of Christ is not to preside in your hearts in one more than in another, to which also ye have been called in one Body. If Christ is all things as object — in all as life, and thus formative of the life, there will be no trait of His wanting. But there is where we fail, and none more deeply sensible of it than your humble, yet affectionate brother.
11.
As to John 3: 34, observe that "unto him" is supplied, and is no doubt true, for the connection of the passage — the context showing that Christ is meant in it. But the words not being there exclude any contrast, as though He did give the Spirit by measure unto us. The truth is, the Spirit being a divine Person could not be given by measure — God the Spirit dwells in our hearts and bodies and cannot be less than Himself. But this does not exclude being filled with the Spirit as to indwelling, which Ephesians 5 connects with the ordinary state of the Christian, not special service merely, though Acts 6: 3 shows that some might be more marked by this state than others. Then to Stephen it was vouchsafed no doubt for the ordeal and testimony he was passing through in a special way. He was one so marked (chap. 6: 3). I think in Acts 4 it was in answer to their prayer and faith and applied to the whole assembly. 1 John 2: 20 shows how the youngest in the Christian position has divine certainty by the Holy Spirit to know divine things, and verse 27 makes such, for the same cause, independent of teachers that differ. Faith humbly counts on such a provision and enjoys the "we know" of Christian intelligence, the normal Christian condition, as everywhere in the New Testament, on every variety of subject. No one will be able to excuse themselves at the tribunal of Christ for uncertainty as to the meaning of His Word on the plea that teachers differ. "If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light."
It is quite clear to me from John 14: 16 that we shall have the Spirit as now given us, to all Eternity. Given as the seal of redemption, He is never taken from us. Acts 2: 33 remarkably confirms it, because even in the glory, the Lord Jesus receives the Spirit for us according to John 14 - 16. Now, like the unseen working of steam, He is propelling us along, against adverse wind and current; then, He will only be the power of our enjoyment of everything of the divine nature and the glory of Christ. All this power is circumscribed and limited now by the conditions of our presence in the body.
12.
The great difference between the Red Sea and Jordan is the ark going down into the bed of the latter, and not coming up till all the people were passed over. This marks an association or identification with Christ which is wanting altogether in the former. The Red Sea is the work of Christ for us. His death and resurrection which sets us before God according to the value of the work thus wrought.
In the Epistle to the Romans it brings us as far as Romans 5: 1 — every enemy dead on the sea shore. No possible charge of sins against us because Christ was delivered for our offences and is raised again for our justification, and thus by faith in the infinite value of these facts, we have peace with God. It is expressed by Peter as "The Just suffered for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," and so we have been, and never can be more perfectly brought to Him — blessed be His Name. For this depends on the absolute value of the work wrought for us. Hebrews 2: 14, 15 also comes in.
For Jordan we have to go further. Romans 6 gives us as far as that. We go into death with Him — not only for sins borne by Him, that is the Red Sea, but our old man has been crucified with Him — we are dead with Him. Still Jordan goes further than death with Christ — further than the Epistle to the Romans will carry us in its instruction. We must bring in Colossians 2, 3 to complete the type of Jordan, for there we find risen with Him too. It is our death and resurrection with Christ, and this the answer of God to an experience in us that has brought us to the known reality of no good in us: for thus to faith we are completely taken out of the thing that there was no good in, i.e. self, and put upon wholly new ground as risen with Christ, which is a thing to be experienced by faith. It is something become true of us, to us by faith, seeing it in the death and resurrection of Christ, not a work wholly outside us done for us like redemption and the Red Sea in type.
The connection between circumcision and baptism is not so easy to explain, but circumcision is of course only true to us in Christ's death. (Col. 2: 11.) It is not an "ordinance made with hands" as in the case of the Jew. It is what His death becomes to me who can say Christ is my life, so that I account all that happened to Him as having happened to me: and having been brought to bow to the complete judgment of all that I am, as only fit for judgment, I have received that judgment in the death of Christ, and have been thus circumcised with the circumcision of Christ. It is the soul brought to accept the complete end of all I was as a child of Adam, in the cross of Christ — thus putting off the body of the flesh (same verse).
How simple then to see that this was the place I look in baptism, buried in the ordinance, henceforth to walk as one risen with Christ. My circumcision was what the death of Christ becomes to faith as the complete end of man in God's judgment. My baptism was my taking up professedly and avowedly my place as thus ended in God's judgment, henceforth to recognise myself only as a dead man and risen with Christ.
I trust you see a glimmer of what the difference is, but if not don't be discouraged; but while trying to understand it, yet if you fail, lay it aside till the growth of your soul in other truths will prepare you in God's grace to come back to this and see the difficulty clearing.
13.
MY DEAR —
I am glad you called my attention to the passage Matthew 20: 16, last clause. Compared with Matthew 22: 14 I think there is the general principle of the contrast between the external result, and what produces reality in both cases — in the latter this will be more simply seen. The Gospel call goes out to "As many as ye shall find," and the external result is that "The wedding is furnished with guests"; but verses 11-13 prove that reality in being there, and blessed, is not of man's will but of God's calling in grace. The principle is the same in 20: 16 — only there it is a question of labour and reward that introduces it, the last words of 19 being the cause of the parable (Matt. 20: 1-16) to which it is appended.
The principle of reward for self-sacrifice has been stated in Matt. 19: 29 with the attached warning that those who to man's eye were foremost in such a path might prove to be last, and the reverse (ver. 27 bringing in the occasion for such a warning); and then lest the thought of reward in the treachery of our hearts should assume the aspect of so much pay for so much work, and grace be enfeebled, the Lord shows in 20 that though there is reward for labour we are no judges of it, for there are last (the converse of Matt. 19: 30) who if God calls them to it will be first. For there may be a great appearance of labour and yet God not own it. It is still the contrast, you see, of the external effect, and the internal power that alone produces what is real — which is all of God's grace. It would preserve His servants from making reward a question of following principles that obtain among men, when only self was at the bottom of it, and make it all only and absolutely the fruits of His own grace. Many are called to serve, some are chosen vessels, but all in grace.
You might profitably refer to a few lines of the Synopsis at the end of chapter 19 as to the general principle.
Yours affectionately in Christ.
14.
MY DEAR —
I am very glad to try and answer your questions. I think any command of the Lord must be rightly turned into a matter of prayer by us, for the carrying out of it can only be in dependence, and prayer is the expression of this. Hence surely it is right to pray to be filled with the Spirit: nor can the verse as to believing "that ye receive them" militate against this, for it especially says "when ye pray" as the condition of thus having them. I fully believe that this is true of every spiritual blessing we need, nor is it even limited to the spiritual "what things ye desire" lays down no limit, and I refuse to introduce one where Scripture does not. Look at Matthew 21: 22: "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," and this is in direct connection with activity in power in faith, even to the removal of the mountain into the sea. The Lord so often uses temporal needs and the faith that expresses itself in prayer to Him about them, to encourage us to pray and trust Him about the deeper spiritual needs.
I hardly know what to say as to the second question. I think from the form of many such expressions in the original (as, for instance, Romans 6: 13: "Be as those that have yielded" - not "be doing it," as in the first part of the verse — so again Romans 12: 1: "present" — one act — and many more) that if there was a verse that bade one give oneself up to and own Jesus as Lord, it would be expressed in that form. My difficulty is to what passage the remark refers. But the truth is not presented to us simply as something to accept, but to subject our whole being to the blessed One we believe in, hence the force of last verse of John 3, changing "believeth" of the first clause into "obeyeth not," (is not subject to,) in the last, because this is the effect of faith where real. How we need in love to obey in everything, which is the practical way of owning His authority over us; so carrying out practically the submission of our souls to Him — the "Obedience to the faith" the gospel was to produce among all nations. (Rom. 1: 5.)
Yours affectionately in our blessed Lord.
15.
To my unknown questioner I reply, —
There is confusion between Resurrection in this question, and the natural process by which out of the dead seed the living plant springs. God has an order in creation that every seed produces out of its death its own kind. But this is not a fresh putting forth of creative power as each seed dies and is quickened. (See Gen. 1: 12.) Nor is the analogy used further in 1 Corinthians 15 than in answer to the question "With what body do they come?" i.e. those that are raised. Two things come out in this analogy: first, that it is out of the death of the seed the living grain is produced — not saying how. And, second, that the living grain is of the same kind as the dead seed. The form that God gave it in creation is preserved (ver. 38) — "To every seed his own body." Death doesn't destroy the identity of each seed — it produces out of death its own kind.
Now when we come to Resurrection, it is by no natural law that one having died as to this life should rise again. It is the power of God (Matt. 22: 29) — fruit of the power as to us (I mean now sons of men) of the power committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. (John 5: 28, 29.) But exercised in a different way and upon a totally distinct principle in the resurrection of the just and that of the unjust, as well as (as we know) at a totally distinct period. Thus for the former compare Luke 20: 35, 36; Philippians 3: 11 — it is a resurrection "From among the dead," though our English version does not preserve in every case this exceedingly blessed distinction between ours, and that of the unjust in the resurrection of judgment; making ours after the order and fashion of Christ's own, i.e. a resurrection that leaves the rest of the dead undisturbed, taking out His own as the fruit of His favour that rests upon us and as the result of the Holy Spirit's indwelling, witness of redemption's power extending even to the body. (Rom. 8: 11)
But when we come to the Resurrection of Christ, while it was the expression of the exceeding greatness of the power of God (Eph. 1: 19, 20), which shows the folly of comparing it to a plant, God raising Him from the dead as Man, we must remember that it is also attributed to His own divine power (John 2: 19, 21 and 10: 17, 18) in which He was declared to be the Son of God with power. (Rom. 1: 4.) And also to the Spirit in 1 Peter 3: 18, so that the whole Trinity was engaged in this wonderful act of divine power and love.
(2) The love of God is not to be compared in this way with the love of Christ as though one could be higher than the other. The one is the love of the divine nature, of Christ the Son as well, therefore, as of the Father and the Spirit. The love of Christ and of the Father, and indeed of the Spirit only mentioned once (Rom. 12), is the love of — that is, belonging to, flowing from, and expressed in, the relationships we are brought into. The love is the same in kind (see Romans 5: 5), where, if it is the love of God — of His nature as such — we are immediately referred to Christ for the expression of it. (Vers. 6, 8; see also Rom. 8: 35, 39.) In Ephesians 3: 19 to know the love of Christ is to be filled into the fulness of God. 1 John 3: 16; 1 John 4: 9, 10 makes this very plain. It is the same love in its nature, infinite and without measure, that once expressed towards us as sinners, is now enjoyed by us as saints, and that dwelling in, we dwell in God. (1 John 4: 16.)
(3) The only possible answer to this question is that He feels them infinitely and therefore immeasurably deeper than we can.
It is a wonderful thought, but flowing from the fact that it is God who has become a Man that He might make full experience as man of all the consequences of sorrow and suffering brought in by sin. "In all their affliction he was afflicted." "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses," not merely healing them; truly the "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Who felt the sorrow as He did in John 11? "He groaned in the spirit and was troubled" (ver. 33) as He saw and felt the desolation of death in its effects on all. But "Jesus wept" (ver. 35) for He had His own part in the sorrow too. And then I doubt not verse 38 is as taking up as He alone could, before God, what brought it all in, loading into what the strong crying and tears of Gethsemane gave vent to when His hour was come. Thus there is added to the human tenderness of sympathy in sorrow, of which He had made perfect experience in a path of unparalleled sorrow, the divine strength of His compassions, — and what succour the very sense of this brings!
16.
MY DEAR BROTHER, —
No notes were taken, and I find it hard to produce even in summary the thoughts given me on Tuesday evening.
The facts of the wonderful work of the Spirit at Pentecost in forming the body of Christ had been before us; and the revelation of it, so that it should be known, only coming later — the first intimation of it in all Scripture at Paul's conversion. But now that it has come out fully through the teaching of the Apostle, we learn what the Assembly, composed of all who are united to Christ in glory by the Spirit dwelling in them, is to the heart of God, in Ephesians 3. "In other ages it had not been made known to the sons of men" — from the beginning of the world hid in God — creation the sphere in which it was to be brought out. There was the double ministry of the Apostle, (1) to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ — this was his gospel; and (2) to make all see what the "administration" (the true word of larger import than "fellowship," though the latter is a very sweet part of it) of the Mystery: that is the practical ordering and carrying out of it. To the intent that now to the most exalted intelligences of the heavens might be known by the Assembly the manifold, all-various wisdom of God. His wonderful works in creation had displayed His eternal power and Godhead, but the Assembly was His masterpiece, in which all the resources of His wisdom are displayed, in forming out of the heterogeneous races and most opposed nationalities of earth, such as Jew and Gentile, one Body, who should recognise each other and walk as such, wherever they were found — fellow-members of the body of Christ. How infinite the grace that has brought any of us into the intelligence of what has had so deep a place in the eternal thoughts and counsels of God.
Ephesians 5 reveals to us the place it has in the heart of Christ. The truth of the Assembly being His body, did not bring out sufficiently for Him, how His affections were engaged in it. Hence the moment the Apostle comes to the natural relationships in which the calling of the Assembly was to be wrought out, as in all else of our path here, and touched the nearest and dearest of them, the husband and wife, the Spirit leads him out into the love of Christ to the Assembly, who not only gave His life for it, shedding His blood, but Himself in all the inscrutable glory of His Person. It is the love of a formed relationship. He did not either sanctify and cleanse it that He might love, but He loved it as He found it, and with all the strength and devotion of the love that gave Himself for it; He is now sanctifying it — forming it like Himself that there be nothing to hinder the enjoyment of His love, by the revelation and ministry of all that He is to it — cleansing it going along with this, as necessary because of the flesh that is in us, and the scene we have to pass through, with a view to His presenting it to Himself all that His heart can delight in, and that we may answer practically to what we were chosen in Christ for individually before the foundation of the world, "Holy and without blame" (the same words as in Eph. 1: 4). But even yet we have not learned all the Assembly is to Christ. It is His "own body," as Eve was to Adam in God's original institution of marriage; it is "Himself," as Paul had learned in the first words of the glorified Christ to him. And thus it is that His body can be presented as His wife. In loving His wife He loves Himself, and no detail of tender nourishing and cherishing is wanted in that love of His to the Assembly, for we are members of His body. The mystery is great, but Paul is speaking to us concerning Christ and the Assembly. Revelation 19 gives us amid the celebration of the greatest joy in heaven, the result of the presentation, when the espousals can be celebrated in heavenly glory, and His wife comes out, having passed the judgment seat, arrayed in all that which had been the fruit of His grace in her. Revelation 21: 9 - 22: 5 is her display in the given glory of Christ in the kingdom; while Rev. 21: 2 carries us beyond this into Eternity where it is no longer a question of glory to be displayed to others, but what she is for Himself — "as a Bride," still in the freshness of His affection, though a thousand years have intervened since her marriage day, adorned for her husband, for His own eye and heart alone.
But what is to be the answer of our hearts to all this wealth of divine love lavished upon us? The opening words of Ephesians 4 give it. It is to seek to walk worthy of such a calling, and in the only spirit in which it can be maintained verse 2, to use diligence to seek to realize in the power of the Spirit the unity in which we have been formed with all that are Christ's, as practically governing our associations in service and testimony and everything, as well as in our being gathered together in Assembly, etc. etc.
I must leave it to you to condense into the briefest compass, if you can make use of it, for your notes.
Affectionately yours in the blessed Lord.
17.
SS. "ALASKA," UNION LINE,
OFF THE BAR, LIVERPOOL,
July, 1892.
MY DEAR MRS. G-
We have just sailed, as you see, but I have an opportunity of posting this to you at Queenstown. So many things crowded into the last few days, specially revising new printed and MSS. matter for others, that I have not had a moment before to turn to your questions — these on the Word always of the deepest interest to me because pertaining to the understanding of the mind of God in His Word.
The "Key of knowledge" I have understood to be the Word of God itself — the lawyers, so-called from professing skill in the law of Moses, acting pretty much as any set of men who take that place professedly and professionally are sure to do, i.e. arrogating to themselves to be authoritative expounders of the Word, and the exclusive privilege of this, to maintain which place they deny to others not so skilled and professional to have any competency to understand it without their teaching, thus in result withdrawing the Word from the mass — in fact, just as the R.C. priesthood and a separated clergy in more or less degree do in our own day. This comes really to making the Word of God of none effect, laying aside the commandment of God, substituting their authority and traditions. It is a solemn sentence.
As to prayer to the Holy Ghost, I think souls will only become clear of traditional usage, by entering into the truth of the indwelling of the Spirit in the believer, consequent upon accomplished redemption and the place the Lord Jesus has taken in the glory of God. The way He identifies Himself as thus dwelling in us with the whole condition of the Christian in Romans 8: 1-11, then from verse 15 looked at fully as a divine Person, distinct from the one in whom He dwells, to be the power of our enjoyment of the glory to be revealed and of which we are co-heirs, or take full part in all that pertains to the weakness of our present condition. Connected with this last (and what grace it is that He should so intimately enter into all our condition), we come to His making intercession for us — for those who apart from Him know not what to pray for or how to pray for it. Not a hint of it, as you say, in Scripture, — surely a most powerful consideration when too, the subject of prayer is so largely otherwise developed.
But I believe it will be mainly by the soul entering experimentally into what it is to possess Him dwelling in me, that it will be seen that as He is the power of all true prayer (Jude 20), He is not the object of prayer as if outside us as one to whom the soul looks up.
Yours ever Affectionately
18.
MY DEAR MRS. G-
1 John 2: 20 must be taken in its connection. It is the precious grace of God that would guard the babes in the Christian position, from the subtleties of human philosophical systems, which had begun so early to be a seducing power (ver. 26 and Col. 2). The Unction in verse 20 would be divine capacity to enter into divine things as no human mind as such was competent to do, and in verse 27 the Unction (same word) is our divine teacher. Verse 20 cannot mean in developed knowledge or else there would be no need of verse 27 — if they absolutely knew in this way all things there would be nothing left for the Unction to teach them. There is no "man" in the text upon which the emphasis is often laid — it is simply "anyone" — the need has been so divinely met by the Holy Ghost, acting down here from and for the glory of the ascended Christ (John 16: 13-15). This does not make us independent of the gifts of the ascended Christ (Eph. 4: 11, 12) or else why should He have given some apostles, some prophets, etc. etc., and tell us that they are for the perfecting of the saints intermediately through the work of ministry and edifying of the body, till, etc. What confusion of thought it would betray to make this man's teaching.
Certainly this never did and never could produce that result. The Synopsis is very good as to the scope of this address to the babes. It is to build them up in what they have in possessing Christ, and to make them independent of all outside Him; not of course, therefore, to be independent of Christ's own gifts. Only this applies where He gives and sends. It is not that if there are none, the saints are left without any means of growth; Christ withholds in that case, only to cast them the more on Himself and the Holy Ghost's teaching. We must not confine Christ's care to gifts or the Holy Ghost's teaching, though these gifts may be the ordinary channel of the one and the other. But we must have patience with all, my dear friend, however defective their thoughts.
Yours ever affectionately in Christ.
19.
MY DEAR H —
It was a pleasure to me to get your letter and to know from yourself how you were affected. As to the question of being used in blessing to others: I do not think you should be discouraged by not finding the same access to souls as you did in the country. City life does not seem to afford this generally; there is so much more to distract the mind and, in fact, shut out God in the busy city where men congregate and combine for their own ends — which are never those of God for the glory of Christ, You have been greatly privileged in seeing His work in souls. But He has ever more to do in us than by us. And this may be the character of what He is passing you through now. We have the treasure (of the way we know the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — God Himself thus shining into our hearts for the shining out of that glory — ) in earthen vessels. And there comes a time when with His true ones God takes up the vessel, in our little measure as in 2 Corinthians 4, to shut us up to the excellency of the power as of God for any such reproduction of Christ in us. And we taste what it is to be delivered to death for Jesus' sake — i.e. to be put into the circumstances that bring death in upon every phase of Nature's will that only the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. It is blessed when by grace we are able to meet this process of His wonderful love by bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus — all that wonderful scene of the last possible testing for Him of going down to the Cross to accomplish God's will rather than have a will of His own, with the same result. Only in verse 11 it is God's work. This I take is more than anything He could do by us. But it is a blessed revelation of the ways of God with His servants and saints in principle, though no doubt made good in Paul in a special way. And when we know what God is at, it is a great help to us in going through what He appoints. (See vers. 16-18 following.) May it be your and my experience increasingly, dear H- .
As to John 6: 39: I believe with you that it is no question of Messiah's rights through all this chapter. Verse 15 would prepare us for this. What we are given belongs to the time when symbolically He is on the mountain top, before He rejoins the remnant on the stormy sea and made willing in the day of His power (as they were not in that of His humiliation), "immediately" they reach their destination. It is the dispensational setting in which as a framework the great doctrine of the remainder of the chapter is set, where we find that He is the Bread of life for faith while He is unseen of men, and as four times over expressed — that "At the last day" [i.e. of the then (and still) present age, before the manifestation of His glory] instead of introducing them into the enjoyment of earthly blessing in the millennium, He would raise them up to the sphere of Eternal life. Meanwhile to be fed upon as the One who has given His flesh for the life of the world — the food and sustenance of that life in a sphere totally contrary to it.
The heavenly gift — or more literally (to preserve the emphasis of the original) — the gift which is heavenly — is, I believe, generally the Gospel character in contrast to the law. Under the latter there was no giving, but now this was what was to be tasted under the gospel, and that a heavenly one.
In John 6: 39, 40 the main difference is, I think, between the negative — that as to "all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up" (the "it" agreeing with the "all" looked at as a whole) — and the full positive, where He brings in the person, "everyone who seeth the Son and believeth on Him," with no question of not being lost, but of the present possession of eternal life, and of being raised up into the sphere of it at the last day of the then (and now) present dispensation, instead of the millennial hope of the earthly people. Our subjective entering into that life being the great subject of the rest of the chapter. Ever your affectionate friend and brother.
20.
MY DEAR H-
And now as to your questions which always interest. The scope of the passage (1 Peter 1) seems to me plain enough. Surely it is the salvation of which prophets prophesied (seeing through temporal deliverances a deeper meaning in their prophecies yet veiled to them) (ver. 10), now reported to us in the power of the Holy Spirit (ver. 12), and for which we are exhorted to hope perfectly (ver. 13) — if so there defined to be that which shall be brought to us at Christ's appearing. So (vers. 3, 5) specific (1 Peter 4: 18) and all as suited to pilgrims and strangers, i.e. when it is the wilderness; and so Paul in Hebrews and Philippians and Romans, where he gives us the wilderness, and salvation as at the end. Observe note to N.Tr. the point is — it is a soul-salvation - (characteristic in Greek as without an article) — in contrast to temporal deliverances such as Jews were absorbed with.
With all this agrees the word used for "receive" which Alford is almost justified in saying excludes present realization. See for yourself its use by 1 Peter 5: 4; 2 Peter 2: 13, and elsewhere: 2 Cor. 5: 10; Eph. 6: 8; Col. 3: 25; Heb. 10: 36; Heb. 11: 39. And now I have given you all the places where it is found, save two, with the special force of receiving back (Matt. 25: 27 and Heb. 11: 19) which also lies in the word.
As to Psalm 8 I think the note you refer to (Notes and Comments, Vol. III, p. 84) occupies us with the main (and immense in itself) truth of the passage. But I have taken it of late years as that the first query is of man generic (generally as such) the Spirit passing on to a second query which by implication answers the first, only introducing the Man of purpose, Christ personally, to whom as such all the rest belongs.
With this view accords the passing from "Enosh" in the first to "Adam" in the second query. It is exactly reversed in Psalm 144 where "Adam" in the first query comes out as "Enosh" in the second, i.e. frail, impotent and mortal as sinful and there is no question of purpose and Christ, save as it goes on to introduce Him as Jehovah bowing the heavens in coming down to deliver. (5, 7.)
Yours ever affectionately.
21.
MY DEAR H-
Hebrews 13: 20 might seem like a going back from the great truth of the Epistle in fixing Christ before our eyes throughout as at the right hand of the Majesty on high, that He should take us to the resurrection of Christ at the close. Yet everything is founded on it for God's glory and the accomplishment of blessing whether it be for us who are of the heavenly calling, or for Israel according to promise. The God of peace takes that character of relationship with us as "the Bringer again" from the dead our Lord Jesus. (The article and participle as characterizing without relation to time, as J.N.D's N.Tr.)
en haimati diathekes - note no article — it is all characteristic — through or in the blood is in that way and character (as he points out in Gr. Particles). He uses covenant as the word "law" is also used, because it was commonly employed as the condition of relationship with God. There have been, as there will be, covenants in that sense for time and earth, but the verse expresses that we have eternal conditions of relationship with God. Eternal too, as being of grace, it takes this character belonging to the truths of God's Eternal nature, and settled before the foundation of earth. It is a far larger term in this way than a new covenant or old, of which Hebrews 8 and 9 speak, and is in no sense Jewish. Comprenez vous?
Yours affectionately in Christ.
22.
MY DEAR H
Nothing could be deeper than Romans 8: 3 as it is the condemnation of sin in the flesh as such — of that flesh that we have to make proof of, in the soul's experience, as given us in the principle of the process by which that experience is wrought, in chapter 7. But before ever we had to do with it in the individual soul's history, God had, in the race of the first man at large in the ages that went before, and closed in its proved incorrigible evil and ruin and condemnation in the Cross. Romans 8: 3 has not to do with experience, though it has to do with the flesh of which we have to make experience. It has not to do with faith, though it is the judgment that faith bows to: but when by the process of Romans 7 the faith of the soul is shut up to, and brought to bow to that total judgment, Romans 6 becomes true to me (it was true of me before — but that is not the way the truth is presented — it is what has become true to my faith — ) it is experience now. We have died to sin and therefore do not hold the abominable doctrine that we may live on in it, nay, the very initiatory ordinance by which we took up our place in Christianity expressed that we were henceforth dead to the life of sin we once lived. Verse 6 is something that "we "Christians according to the full intelligence of the Christian position — "know." The sole basis and cause of such a wonderful deliverance is in Romans 8: 3 — in that which God carried out in the death of His Son — chapter 7 brings me solemnly and now joyfully to bow to the absolute necessity of it. But I thus learn that the judgment of the root — sin, has taken place in the death of Him who became my life in the first look of faith, away from sin and guilt and misery to Christ. I am thus entitled to count all that happened to Him as having happened to me. I have in the soul's faith entered into the truth of chapter 6 — presented to my soul in the death (and my death with Him) and resurrection of the blessed Lord, where the facts took place into which faith thus enters — chapter 8 developing the deliverance on the side of the Holy Ghost as the power of it.
The brazen serpent seems to me the more I weigh it to answer in type to Romans 8: 3 — the condemnation of sin in the flesh at the close of the wilderness under law, where flesh was proved to be fit for nothing else. And thus to be further on than the Red Sea, which is Christ's death and resurrection for us in their absolute value before God, breaking off the fetters of Satan, and introducing, via Romans 8: 3, to our death (and resurrection, Col. 2), with Christ in Romans 6.
I cannot find that it had struck J.N.D., but it is all in the line of his teaching on the Red Sea and Jordan.
23.
MY DEAR H-
I was very glad to see your handwriting again. Through the Lord's mercy I have nearly always been able for desk work and thankful for the privilege of it when unable to walk much, or preach save at our monthly house-meetings; exertion is the difficulty. But the Lord is letting me down very gently and I marvel at His patience with me.
Now as to John 16 I cannot doubt that the double difficulty suggested to the disciples (ver. 17) by the previous instruction, is the clue to the teaching that follows. There were two questions: (1) What did the Lord mean by "A little while and ye shall not see me, and, again a little while and ye shall see me; (2) "and because I go to the Father," based upon verse 16. The answer to 1 is from verse 19 to middle of verse 23. The answer to 2 from the last clause of verse 23 on. Verse 22 occurs in the answer to 1. "I will see you again" is the birth of that new epoch of joy, in Man rising up to take His new and counselled place in the world, or — with the fuller light we have as in Ephesians — in the universe of God, out of the hour of Israel's sorrow and anguish in the apparent dashing of all hope resting on a Messiah after the flesh. Surely that joy began to be theirs (John 20: 20) when they saw the Lord in resurrection. But then it was not only to be the joy of the forty days He was with them thus, but a joy not to be taken from them. It is continued to them and us, in the power of the Holy Ghost, as in verses 13-15, upon whose presence with them so much was to depend — not only the revelation of that sphere of heavenly glory expressed by "mine" (ver. 14) and defined by (ver. 15) "all things that the Father hath" but of One suited to be the centre and sum of all the glory of that sphere, of whom it is said "He shall glorify ME." But all this was to flow to them from that night of their "travail," but which was to be the "enfantement," as J.N.D. has expressed it, of the new creation. Surely, the consummation of a joy begun in seeing Him again in resurrection and continued in the power of the Holy Ghost ("ye see me" of John 14) will be found for them and us at His coming again.
Meanwhile they had to be instructed more perfectly, in the answer to their second question, as to the wonderful consequence of His going to the Father, in the place they and we should be left here — "in His name;" hence to represent Him here and find all needed for it in seeking it of the Father in that Name, and to be loved of the Father Himself because they had loved Him; and so much more when the Lord should be able to show them plainly of the Father (ver. 25), as He does in allowing them to hear John 17, and to know the new name in which He revealed the Father in John 20: 17.
It is surely as you say in John 17: 6 and 14 the effect of "thy word" in verse 6, i.e. the revelation of the Father in the Son, is to connect all that they saw in Christ — words and works, with the Father (what He was always seeking to bring them to — may we not say "us"? — in the gospel) and thus that they should begin to enter into "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The effect in verse 14 is so to put them into His place, not as revealing the Father indeed, but as living upon and acting by that revelation, as that they share His portion — of the world's hatred. Verse 8 is another word in the original and thought — "sayings" as you know. I am more and more astonished at the depths and fulness of those precious words — John 17.
As to Jacob and God wrestling with him in Genesis, with the added thoughts of Hosea, I do not think your correspondent does right to make it instruction as to prayer normally, or to leave out Jacob's character. If our ways are like Jacob's, as alas too often they are, and there is the energy and crookedness of nature's trusted strength, it must be broken down that God may bless. This is Genesis 32: 24, 25 — God breaking Jacob down to the point of blessing. It was then that in weakness he found strength to wrestle with God, (Hosea, i.e. the angel) — and prevailed and is given the victor's place — Israel — "a prince of God." But there was no revelation of God's name — no communion with Him. This takes place at Bethel — "He found Him in Bethel," etc. (Hosea 12: 4; Gen. 35: 9-15.) Thus in touching grace He encourages Israel, unfaithful like Jacob, with the way — after God's dealings with him resisting him in his unfaithful course — blessing flowed in when his faith, sustained in the conflict, fastened itself on this point, i.e. God's blessing, now become essential to him. I think the tears and supplication were the character of Jacob's wrestling with the Angel (Hosea) after God's dealings with him (Gen.)
You know that it is a pleasure to answer such questions — hence no apologies will be accepted or have any place.
Yours ever affectionately.
24.
MY DEAR H
I was glad to hear from you and answer at once as to Galatians 3: 26 that I believe "Faith in Christ Jesus" is to be taken generally, as, for instance, Acts 24: 24, though this latter may be, rather wider and take in the whole system of truth of which Christ is the basis and centre and all, revealed to faith (as in Gal. 3: 25). But that Galatians 3 does not exclude by the expression His work, is clear from verse 24, justification by faith. To enter into the enjoyment of our sonship needed the Holy Spirit sent forth into our hearts crying Abba Father — not to make us sons indeed, but because ye are through faith in Christ come and having accomplished redemption. (ver. 5.)
I am sure, as you say, there is nothing upon which souls are more hazy than the new birth, the beginning of all His ways with us in grace, and the forgiveness of sins on belief in the Spirit's testimony to His work and the reception of the Spirit to dwell within us. The blood must come between being born of the Spirit and sealed with Him.
As to "flesh" I think the only difficulty is perhaps in seeking to put in other language the statements of Scripture. I take it that primarily it describes the human condition as distinct from that of spiritual beings. "Fathers of our flesh" (Heb. 12) and "Father of spirits" is such a contrast. Take again "mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4), pretty much synonymous with "body" in the same connection, only emphasizing its present condition. "In the days of His flesh" would characterize the blessed Lord's condition in the body here as distinct from His glorified condition. John 3 would mark a changed force; in characterizing that which is born of the flesh by its source, we discern a shade of moral force now which, of course, becomes very marked elsewhere, as the "mind of the flesh," "they that are in the flesh," "ye are not in the flesh," "when we were in the flesh," where we have passed into the moral force of it so much as to eliminate the primary sense altogether. "Flesh lusteth against the Spirit" similarly, though the elimination is not so complete there. "The works of the flesh." So that I think both G-'s and your account of it will stand, only that Scripture uses flesh for "the evil nature in us," which seems hardly so good an expression of our moral state as born into this world.
Yours affectionately in Christ.
25.
MY DEAR H-
I think the four living creatures, or their likeness in Ezekiel and in Revelation, with many points in common though with characteristic differences, must be alike symbolic of the attributes of God in government — Ezekiel more cherubic while Revelation adds a seraphic character. That they are not silent does not disprove this. Why should not God's attributes set forth His praise as well as, or I might well say far better, i.e. with more intelligence, than fire and hail, snow and vapours, stormy wind fulfilling His word, etc. etc., that with kings of the earth and all people are to do so in the millennium? (See Ps. 148)
I think in the understanding of Scripture it is rather the other way about from what you put it, for no Scripture is of any private interpretation — i.e. that the scope or main bearing of the whole is needed to put the detail into its true place. The fact that from Rev. 5 the heavenly saints are moved up into such direct association with the living creatures seems to me strongly to confirm their symbolic character and the way they put judgment in motion in Rev. 6 — what they are symbolic of. Read "come" simply (vers. 1, 3, 5, 7) — not "come and see," as A.V.
Ever yours affectionately.
26.
MY DEAR H-
Most surely you are right in refusing to separate the two goats (Lev. 16) in the type, any more than the two birds in the cleansing of the leper, as representing Christ sacrificed and raised again from the dead. The blood of the bullock sufficed for the priestly house who in Aaron could enter for the moment and see the glory of God shining down on the bloodstained mercy seat and know their acceptance on the ground of it. But God would not leave the people without atonement, if I may so speak, who had not such witness — hence the goats, and the blood of the slain one was dealt with exactly as the blood of the bullock as sprinkled upon as well as before the mercy seat, while the witness borne to them of a risen Christ in type going as far as that their sins had been borne by Him and borne away for ever, was found in the scape-goat. But it is well ever to remember that the use the Spirit of God makes of Leviticus 16 in Hebrews, is that the way into the holiest was not open while the first tabernacle had its standing, and this, whether of bullock or goat. What a lovely, perfect type (as far as a type can be perfect) of Romans 3: 25, 26 and Romans 4: 25, as you say.
Very affectionately yours in Christ.
27.
MY DEAR H-
As to Psalm 138: 2. No doubt "Thy Word refers to that measure of revelation God had given of Himself to Moses and others up to the date of it, largely expressed as you say in promise. "Thy Name," too, is significant, as the name of a Divine Person contains in it the character of the blessing to be known according to it. To the weak pilgrims of faith the "Almighty" gave them their resources of power. To failing Israel the unfailing immutability of counsel and purpose expressed in the "I AM THAT I AM." To us the God and Father of our Lord Jesus leads into an intimacy of individual relationship as set forth in Christ's place as Man before His Father and His God, as now won for us in righteousness by redemption. How then can His Word be said to be magnified above all "Thy Name"? I believe it is as Gesenius has expressed it - beyond all that can be predicated of Him as so revealed. No word of His then shall fail of its accomplishment, if this is but the negative side of it. It surely gives a magnificent place to the Word of God, though I take it it is rather the spoken word as in 1 Peter 1: 23 and by which He made the worlds in Hebrew 11 rather than ho logos, which is more the name itself now in John 1 as God infinitely expressed — that expression being as eternal as His nature (ver. 2).
"Thy Word" in John 17 would be the revelation of the Father's name as given to the Son to make known the first great means of our sanctification.
The "Word of Life" is the Son as the expression and revelation of the life. There is no other so absolute use of "the Word" as in John 1 known to me. The Word of God in Hebrews 4 cannot be anything else than the Scriptures, and is invaluable as giving us their living and active power.
The Psalm certainly looks at the accomplishment of promise in a wonderful way — all the more emphasized by its contrast with the previous Psalm. There they could not sing (ver. 4).
Now the remnant can praise