MASCULINE LOVE
[p. 61] MASCULINE LOVE
1 Samuel 18:1 - 16; John 21:15 - 19
JT This subject, as it comes before us, may stimulate our love for Christ, and help us to see that love is graded in Scripture. This type in Samuel brings out what we may speak of as masculine love as over against feminine love, the latter alluding to what is collective, whether in the assembly or in Israel. The former, masculine love, is more personal, which Jonathan seems to represent in Scripture, for David compares his love with feminine love, and says it surpasses the latter. So that it may be taken to represent a more steady and intelligent kind of love that takes form in brethren as such, perhaps entering into the most exalted relation into which we are brought.
EM What place has the speaking of David in relation to the formation of the love you have just mentioned as characteristic of Jonathan?
JT Well, it is important, because it enters into the love that was begotten in Jonathan, and helps in what has been remarked, that it is the most exalted kind of love in so far as seen in this chapter and commented on in 2 Samuel 1. Jonathan was evidently affected by what he saw in David, not only in his military exploits, but in his personal character as speaking to Saul. Chapter 17:57,58 says, “as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, Whose son art thou, young man? And David said, I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Beth-lehemite”. Great as were the exploits of David from a military point of view, it would seem that in his demeanour he retained what was proper to him in speaking to the king; although the king was not inducing good feeling by his tone and manner. Certainly his address to [p. 62] David was not calculated to draw out the best feelings in David, for he ought to have known him, and yet professed not to know him. Jonathan must have observed this; he must have known David, too, though he does not say so, for he had been in the house of Saul; but he is not affected in an envious way by what must have overshadowed him, for he was a great military man, too, and a worker with God, as earlier history shows. His military attainments only added to his affection; that is to say, the greater a man is by spiritual formation and experience, the greater will be his love for Christ.
HC Do we get the counterpart in the New Testament, when Saul said, “Who art thou, Lord”, and the Lord said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” — is that the same kind of spirit?
JT Yes, that would lead to Paul’s love for Christ. I suppose we may take the apostle Paul as the greatest lover of Christ. Although John is said to be the disciple whom Jesus loved, Paul is presented as the greatest lover of Christ, which illustrates what we were remarking, the character of the masculine love, as over against feminine love, which has a collective sense.
WT It would help us to remember that David bore attractive features personally, as chapter 16 shows.
JT Yes, his beauty is noticed; even in the presence of Goliath on the battlefield, he did not lose it; he was not so under the influence of the moment as to lose his attractiveness. The Philistine had no taste for it, nor does it appear that Jonathan was affected until David had finished speaking to Saul, then, “it came to pass, when he had ended speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David”. So the kind of love seen in Jonathan is thus developed — a man’s love. Intelligence enters into it and it is calculated; not simply a love that overcomes at the moment; it is calculated love and therefore steady.
[p. 63] Ques How would you connect this speaking between Saul and David with the Lord?
JT The way the leading men of the Jews spoke to Him, the tenor of their remarks was generally to discredit the Lord; take Simon the Pharisee, he spoke in his heart, saying, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39) — that would discredit the Lord; the influence he would exert in his house would discredit the Lord, but the Lord’s reply would affect the woman. She was under great reproach in that house, and so was Christ, but she loved Him in spite of the conditions.
Ques Would David’s answer to Saul — “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Beth-lehemite” — move Jonathan to appreciate the intrinsic worth of David more than his military exploits?
JT I think so. It must have been the moral qualities in the man as he spoke to Saul that affected Jonathan. How entirely free David was of any disadvantage in the presence of the king! It was moral superiority. If I love Christ viewed thus, it is more masculine, studied love.
HPW Is it the thought that came out in John the baptist? The scripture says, “looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:36), as if it was love resulting from reflection.
JT I think so. What was there would draw out his affection. All John’s remarks in this gospel are mature, balanced remarks. He says, “I knew him not” (verse 33) — he was not influenced by his natural relationship to the Lord when he saw Him coming to him. He had spoken well of Him before; he had said, to the messengers that came from Jerusalem, that he was not worthy to untie His sandals. He says, moreover, He is “preferred before me” (verse 30), that is a yet earlier knowledge, as you might say, a spiritual apprehension of Christ. Now in the history of David in these chapters we have the same [p. 64] thing, the same opportunity for anyone who has spiritual formation, for David is mentioned, without being named, as already displacing Saul, in chapter 13. Then, in chapter 16, he is actually anointed and presented by the Spirit of God as very attractive; any one who came within the range of all that, if he was spiritual, would be affected without even meeting the person. Apparently, John had not been acquainted with Christ, but he is humble, dependent, and balanced, and so he is ready for the great event as he sees the Lord coming to him. This great Person ordinarily coming to one would tend to incite certain natural feelings, but John had already said, He is “preferred before me”, that is, John is displaced in his own mind, so is ready for the great occasion. When he saw Jesus coming to him he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (verse 29), that is calculated, referring to the scriptural significance of the word “lamb”, the Baptist understanding it. That is why I say that in Jonathan and in John the baptist it is calculated love for Christ, it is something you may reckon on, it is love for the Son of God, begotten by the glory of His Person, in great persons, and the persons certainly must add to the love. Hence the next day, after thinking over it, we may say, when he saw Jesus walking — not now coming to him, but walking — he said, “Behold the Lamb of God”, that is an expression of affection and admiration; and John the baptist, in John’s gospel, is a sort of model for us, for he starts with the idea, I am displaced in my own mind. Someone is taking a place in my mind before myself.
HPW In connection with the intrinsic worth of the Person, which comes out at the beginning of John’s gospel, I was thinking of the address to Philadelphia, where the Lord presents Himself as the Holy and the True. This intrinsic moral worth appeals to our affections.
GCS [p. 65] Would it be masculine love in John 17:26 — “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”? It was the Lord speaking, and then Judas as betraying Him appears in the next chapter.
JT That is so. You cannot get greater love than that — the Father’s love for the Son, and that that love should be in us is a very wonderful thing.
EM The Father’s love for the Son springing up in our hearts.
JT Yes, so that you can love Him relatively as the Father loves Him — that must be the greatest love we can have. The love spoken of by the Lord in verse 24 should, I think, be regarded by itself, as the love of one divine Person for Another before incarnation.
Ques “The love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Would that be calculation?
JT Just so — “having judged this”. Intelligence should and does enter into what we may call masculine love; that is, what develops in the brethren viewed in an individual or personal sense.
Ques Did you use the expression, Love as the result of formation?
JT Yes, as the result of a combination of things that go to make a man. I think Jonathan had that combination. He was a sufferer from Saul, his father. He was by him brought to the very point of death, and he was a military man, who, like David, had gained a great victory over the Philistines. In that conflict, too, he showed that he could be very small in exercising his military powers. Therefore, he was able to value the demeanour of David, the simplicity with which he spoke to Saul — “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Beth-lehemite”. According to chapter 16, Saul would have known Jesse the Beth-lehemite, and David, too, but there is no admission of this with him; he represents the supercilious man, and it is over against Saul’s attitude in these chapters that this remarkable love for David springs up in Jonathan.
HG Are you connecting the thought of the masculine love more with the individual?
JT It is seen in the brethren, I think, characteristically. The Lord is leading many sons to glory; that is not a collective organic thought, it is so many persons, but the most wonderful persons — outside the divine Persons — in the universe; and these persons must have love in keeping with their greatness, and I think that is what is in mind. God is leading, or bringing, many sons to glory and He has made the Leader of their salvation perfect through sufferings. That is, He has entered into that state of humanity through sufferings, therefore He is not ashamed to call us brethren — “both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name to my brethren” (Hebrews 2:11,12). Then the assembly comes in; but the idea of the brethren seems to be the greatest idea of manhood next to Christ — He is anointed above them, but they are capable of more reciprocated affection and intelligence than any other family.
EM Does the Lord wait on us, that we might be prepared to commit ourselves in this energy of affection?
JT Quite so. Jonathan loved him as his own soul; it is all put on the side of Jonathan. David comments on the character of this love afterwards; and we are told that, when it became a question of separation, David exceeded Jonathan in weeping as they kissed one another. What is in mind here is the quality of Jonathan’s love.
Ques What is the connection of covenant here?
JT Well, you feel, if you love a person in this way, you want to be with him for ever; a covenant is a bond involving calling for trustworthiness. We know Jonathan did not go all the way, but still the love was there. Peter’s history in the New Testament shows [p. 67] that this kind of thing is followed out to the limit by the Lord, showing it was in His mind. He never gave up the thought of Peter’s confession of love, it was no vain or hollow thing, and the Lord knew this; knowing all things, as Peter urges; but in the end, Peter changes the word from conscious knowledge, to objective knowledge, in saying he had affection for the Lord, to show that there was evidence that the thing was really there, and the Lord did not deny this. It is not merely hidden love, that the Lord only could know, it is a manifested love, that can be known by observation.
JTS Have we anything in the nature of a contrast in the beginning of Luke 8, in the twelve with Him and the women and others who ministered to Him of their substance? Would you carry forward the character of love in Luke 7 to that?
JT I was just going to remark that Luke 7 is the background of that; it is a love begotten in most withering circumstances. All the circumstances tended to wither up what was there, but love was too strong, it survived; so the Lord turned to the woman, and the explanation is, “she loved much”. It does not go so far as what we are speaking of here, it is the kind of love that is begotten of grace. The Lord says, She is forgiven much; I suppose that is the way love begins with all of us, but the time arrives when we look at the Lord from another point of view, not simply as to what has accrued to us through Him, but as to what is there; I become capable of admiration of what is there, apart from needs met — I am great enough to think of Christ in that way. It would be like the case of the widow later on in Luke, she gave all she had, and the Lord immediately began to speak of the temple, that every stone should disappear, meaning, among other things, that that woman’s affection for the house of God was too great for a stone building, it must have another building. So the woman’s affection in Luke 7 was too great for the system that Levi represented.
[p. 68] No doubt she would be among the women who ministered to Him; she was, at any rate, qualified to be there.
LDM Love as John presents it is too great for the Jewish system. John the baptist says, “He must increase, but I must decrease” — he says this after the discussion with a Jew about purification, and then there is the introduction by the evangelist of the Father’s love to the Son.
HC Would it be seen in what the Lord says in the message to the disciples (John 20)? He was looking upon those in whom this love was formed.
JT Yes. I believe they represent the full result, you get it only in John; the Authorised Version says in the nineteenth verse, “where the disciples were assembled”, but it is not that, it is “where the disciples were”.
Rem “The men whom thou gavest me” are referred to in chapter 17:6.
JT That helps. There are babes in Christ, but there are men in Christ, too — we have to bear that in mind. Hence, when they had the Father’s love in them, where were there any like them? Think of being possessed of the kind of love the Father has for the Son!
Ques Would the work of God, effective inwardly, result in the great end of God in securing men spiritually?
JT It would. In assembly service the collective idea comes first, the feminine side, the body, but what we are speaking of now is the more exalted side — the brethren.
Ques In Ephesians 4 the ministry has in view that we should be brought to “the full-grown man ... the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. Would that correspond?
JT Yes. We would be no longer babes. Not that you would deny that a babe in Christ loves Christ, but it is this kind of love we are speaking of that should ever be aimed at.
HC A lover of Christ is too great for any human [p. 69] system. Would Paul illustrate that when he says, “For if the things I have thrown down, these I build again, I constitute myself a transgressor”; then he says, “I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:18 - 20). Would one get the thought there of the greatest sphere in which this love could be known?
JT Yes; the sphere involves the house, and the Son only could build the house. The great idea of love is in relation to the Son, and our loving is akin to that, as God’s sons. David even could not build a house great enough for divine Persons; it must be God’s Son. It is God’s house, and Christ is over it as Son. We have part in it as God’s sons and Christ’s brethren.
EM Jonathan missed this. He sought to detain David in Saul’s house, but David was too great for so narrow a system.
JT Yes. Jonathan never became detached from Saul’s system; he never followed David, and today there are many like him. But in this particular passage Jonathan, I think, represents what we are speaking about, although the sequel, as we have said, shows that he did not go the full length. The Lord says, “Follow me” to Peter; Jonathan never followed David, and he died in the world, as we might say. Many will end thus; the Lord disciplines us that we should not be judged with the world.
Ques Does Ittai come in as one who went the whole way — after the speaking of David?
JT Beautifully so, he stands over against Jonathan in that sense — “surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be” (2 Samuel 15:21). David says, “Go and pass over” — he was fit to be with the king in his rejection. That is his honour. The reality of his profession was manifest. Christians in the systems of men have no idea of the disparity there is between them and the systems they are in — to say nothing of [p. 70] the evil that is there; such systems are not great enough for the sons of God.
Ques Would not Barnabas be like Jonathan, in bringing his possessions and laying them at the apostles’ feet, but afterwards failing to go the whole way with the brethren?
JT Yes, I think he stripped himself in the presence of Saul of Tarsus, and yet he did not go the whole way.
Rem John’s two disciples followed Jesus, and the Lord turned and saw them following, and said, “What seek ye?” Then they say, “Rabbi ... where abidest thou?” and the Lord says to them, “Come and see” (John 1:38,39). Is that what is to be reached, drawn by the attraction of Christ personally?
JT That is right. The two that followed Jesus went the whole way there, and I think what we are speaking about was reflected in Peter. Barnabas was a son of consolation; he was so styled by the apostles, and he stripped himself, laying all at the apostles’ feet. Later he laid whatever dignity he had among the apostles at Paul’s feet, as a better man than himself, and yet he failed soon after, but I believe by the way Paul speaks of him he was restored. Peter was carried away by certain dissimulation, the Jewish influence in Jerusalem, and so was Barnabas; they really turned away from Paul, yet at the end, when about to lay down his life, Peter says, “our beloved brother Paul”. I think he went the full length, he fully recognised Paul; and he puts his writings on the level of Scripture, saying “as also the other scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15,16). I think Peter exemplifies what we are speaking of in a complete way, although having become cloudy for a while. Paul as owned among the saints at Damascus went to Jerusalem to make acquaintance with Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days; a link would then be formed between them: that is what we want, a kind of love that survives [p. 71] difficulties.
LDM That would be Peter being true to the name the Lord gave him — “thou shalt be called Cephas” (John 1:42) — going through.
JT Yes, capable of standing tests: what was there would come out according to itself, and has come out.
Rem Thus the Lord placed on Peter a wonderful trust in connection with the sheep and lambs.
JT Because the Lord knew he loved Him; his conduct had denied it, but ultimately there was abundant evidence of it; indeed outward evidence of Peter’s love was there already, as we have noted (John 21:17).
WSS The apostle Paul said, “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me” (Galatians 2:20), and Peter said, “whom, having not seen, ye love” (1 Peter 1:8).
JT Yes, that is the class we belong to.
WSS The expression of love from our side seems to come out in Peter.
JT Yes. What comes out in him is the permanency of the thing — “thou shalt be called Cephas” — I believe the thought in that is permanency. Of course it is material for a building, and what is the good of anything in God’s building that is not permanent? It requires what stands, and that is what Peter is. It became overshadowed, as we have said, but the Lord knew it was there, and very soon it was there manifestly. John uses much the word “manifest”. In these last days when things are so cloudy, we do not want to be content with the assumption that love is in us, we want to show it. If I am hesitant about associating myself with the Lord’s people here, my love is cloudy; we want people to see it, we must follow Christ, identifying ourselves with Him in His rejection.
Rem So He says to Simon, “Seest thou this woman?” (Luke 7:44)
JT Exactly; the love was there, and so the Lord calls attention to its evidence. Many say, The Lord knows my heart. He does, and the more you recognise [p. 72] it the better; but, if you want to testify to Christ, you must have something that can be seen.
Ques Does 2 Timothy suggest a state of things where affection may be clouded, and you have to fall back on the fact that “The Lord knoweth them that are his”? (chapter 2:19). They have not moved out into the clear light where the thing is manifest.
JT Yes. If we have their word only that they love Christ, it could not be accepted, for, as remaining in the general profession, our love for Him is questionable; we are to separate from evil.
Ques Is the fact of our taking the Supper, if we do it rightly, as truly in the fellowship of His death, an evidence of love for Christ?
JT Yes. It is lovers of Christ who truly take it. I do not want to be among the uncounted, in that respect, but among the counted ones — those who love Him. In Revelation 11 the worshippers are measured — the court is left out.
Rem The hundred and twenty (Acts 1) represent the kind that are counted.
JT Yes. It is “the crowd of names”; they are all distinguished.
SR All Israel and Judah loved David — was that expressed in them all?
JT We come down there to this other feature of love. “It came to pass as they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tambours, with joy, and with triangles. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath smitten his thousands, and David his ten thousands”. Now these women loved David, all Israel loved David, but then, you enquire of these women, What is affecting you? and you ask Jonathan, What is affecting you? You get different viewpoints. There are many with these women; it is quite right so far, but it is not what [p. 73] you might call a masculine position. Jonathan is affected by the person of David: he came definitely before him in his personal grace and dignity. The women were affected by David’s exploits.
Rem ‘We love Thee for the glorious worth Which in Thyself we see’. (341:2)
JT Quite so. You can always ask, Why do you love Christ? Well, He died for me. Very good. My sins have been forgiven through Him. “She loved much”. That is very good, but it is not the love of Jonathan.
Rem “What is thy beloved more than another beloved?” (Song of Songs 5:9).
JT Quite so; the Song of Solomon is very helpful on this line. In verse 12 of our chapter we read, “Saul was afraid of David, because Jehovah was with him, and had departed from Saul. And Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand”. Saul is forced to do something, so he made him a captain of a thousand; he would not have made him a captain at all if he could have avoided it — it is a forced thing.
Ques You mean the system would give him some sort of a place?
JT Exactly, they do. Certain so-called brethren have published a list of their distinguished leaders of the last century, including also the great servants God has used to recover the truth for us, whereas when these latter were bringing out the truth they refused them and it. That is the idea with Saul, it is a forced thing. In truth Saul hoped David would be slain by the Philistines. But he “made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people” — he was not concerned about Saul now, it was before the people.
EM The moral beauty of David is seen here in his accepting any position that he is given.
JT [p. 74] It is one of the finest touches, that as a man is put into a position in such circumstances, he stays there. You know that your worth to God will show itself, wherever it is — and here it did show itself. So the passage says, “he went out and came in before the people. And David prospered in all his ways; and Jehovah was with him. And Saul saw that he prospered well, and he stood in awe of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before them”. The Lord Jesus, we are told in Acts 1:21, “came in and went out among us”, that is, He comes in and goes out among His people, so that we might love Him. It is a question therefore as to what this lesson has for us, whether what we see in the movements of Christ amongst His people affords any attraction for us, and whether we love Him accordingly.
Ques What would be involved in “he stood in awe of him”?
JT I think it is God limiting the power of the enemy, bringing out what was of Himself in David.
Rem It is a great encouragement that that is going through.
JT It is. God is magnifying David. “David prospered in all his ways; and Jehovah was with him. And Saul saw that he prospered well, and he stood in awe of him”. You want to be like that. If people put you in a small position; well, gold is gold and it will show itself.
Ques Does this disclose what the man is, the way in which he goes out and comes in?
JT It is a question of the man here; not the number of the Philistines he slew — it is the way he did things.
Ques So we are tested by our movements amongst the brethren.
JT Yes; and, if you are consciously with God, you cannot be crushed, you cannot be put out; the gold is there and it will shine, in fact you will prosper [p. 75] all the more. No matter what people think or do, you will become exalted morally.
Rem Nothing gratified the heart of Haman while Mordecai sat in the king’s gate.
JT Just so. Saul here is somewhat like him.
Ques What would you say about Michal?
JT She was a lover of David, but it was a very poor love; she ultimately “despised him in her heart” (2 Samuel 6:16).
Ques Would the image in the bed go with that?
JT Yes; she was not like Hiram, who “always loved David” (1 Kings 5:1).
Ques Is there a marked contrast between the hating eye of Saul and the admiring and loving eye of those who knew the worth of David?
JT Quite so. Saul’s was not a dove’s eye, it was an evil eye; but the people would look at David with affection; he is presented to us as a lovely and attractive person.
HPW Does the Lord set peculiar store by the kind of love that values Him for what He is? Is it that kind of love that comes in for such opposition? And in a sense the Lord shows His appreciation of it as He suggests in the address to Philadelphia, “behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee” (Revelation 3:9).
JT Over against Ephesus, that left its first love, I suppose Philadelphia would mean quality such as John himself had, he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. Now the Lord is speaking about something He loved, the assembly at Philadelphia, and everybody is to know it. It is an objective thought that the Lord has in His mind; He would show His love for the assembly — that they may “know that I have loved thee”.
HG Did you link up the thought of the development of this character of love with the apprehension of Christ as Son?
[p. 76] JT That is the centre of it all. “The Father loves the Son” (John 5:20), and “that the world may know that I love the Father” (John 14:31), and “the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). It is all in that setting: the relationship of a divine Person with a Father — that is the spring of it all, we know love in that way.
HG That is interesting, for David is so often referred to, and speaks of himself, as a son of Jesse.
JT Yes; and, carrying the thought forward, David is debarred from building the house; it must be the Son of the Father who builds the house. In 2 Samuel 7 he proposes to build a house for Jehovah, and the message through Nathan tells him the builder must be the son. It is really a matter of love, that is, love reciprocated in the relation of Father and Son. It is a peculiarly calculated matter: there was to be One in a certain relationship with God, and in that relationship love is seen in undimmed lustre; it is He who is to build the place of love, the Son must build the house.
Rem The building of the house must await the coming of the Son of the Father’s love, and this apprehension of Him must be in our hearts for us to have part in the house.
JT That is it. The message to Mary in John 20:17 is very like the message through Nathan — both have to do with sonship. “Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” — that involves sonship.
Ques Is that love in relation to the Father and the Son seen when Solomon was born? He was the object of David’s love, and then he speaks of him as “young and tender”.
JT Yes, God sent by the hand of Nathan and called his name Jedidiah, because Jehovah loved him, it is a man in that relationship with God.
Ques You have referred to Peter — would the development lie in what he has to say, “Thou art ... the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:[p. 77] 16)?
JT Just so. It is, however, remarkable that Peter did not formally preach the Son of God; Paul did from the outset. It is a very remarkable thing as showing the accuracy of levitical instinct in the apostles. The idea of sonship was to come out in Paul, so sonship is revealed in Paul to be announced by him as glad tidings amongst the nations (Galatians 1:16); and in that same epistle he says, “the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (chapter 2:20.).
Rem You were saying on another occasion that Peter used the keys to open the door to let Paul come in, so to speak.
JT Yes, there is more in that than we perhaps think. It is not only love, but the place of love — the Son, whom Paul preached, must have to do with it all.
Rem So that when David got the message through Nathan he was not indignant, as he was when Uzzah was slain; he humbly went in and sat before the Lord. He was perfectly restful in the presence of God, his soul filled with the greatness of God, and conscious of his own greatness, too. For after all, the persons whom God loves must be morally great. All this would lead into the region of greatness. “Thou hast done all this greatness, to make thy servant know it” (2 Samuel 7:21) — the greatness of God, and the greatness, too, of His people.
JT Yes; God is seeking to lead us all into that realm.
EM Did the root of the breakdown in Jonathan lie in the fact that he never really surrendered the greatness that was attached to him in relation to the house of Saul?
JT Yes, he never judged and relinquished it, for he speaks of Jehovah being with David, as He was with his father; Jehovah had not been with his father for a long time. Brethren like that, those who remain in human organisations, are usually marked by [p. 78] latitudinarianism.
HB It would be very much like the man in John 5, who did not leave the system, which served him so poorly, to follow the Man who served him so well; but the man in John 9 did.
JT Exactly. The apostles began that way, and it is the secret of going on — they left all and followed Him.