A NEW STATE BY THE FORMATION OF CHRIST
A NEW STATE BY THE FORMATION OF CHRIST
ER Would you mind repeating a remark you made yesterday as to the difference between “the body” and “his body”?
JT I thought that “the body” is a definite thing, having come in in addition to other things which had existed before, of which the Lord is stated formally to be Head. The body is a definite thing to be taken account of in the mind by itself, and then later on the apostle says “his body”, which is the assembly.
It is doubtful whether we can get a right understanding of the place of the assembly as viewed in the Ephesians unless we see how it is formed now in affection and intelligence. Another practical effect of the knowledge of the assembly, as seen in Colossians, is that it enables saints locally, however few, to be independent spiritually; it teaches saints to get a direct supply from the Head, provided that the conditions stated exist. Hence the apostle’s great combat in the epistle to the Colossians was in regard to those conditions. The gain of the Head depends not only on the fact that Christ is Head, but upon a certain state, so that the burden of the apostle’s exercise was that the hearts of the saints locally “should be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God; in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. I thought a little on that line might aid saints locally to derive the benefit of the Head, for the word “mystery” in that passage I suppose implies not only the Head [p. 353] but the body.
WJ There is no thought of gift in Colossians?
JT I think the point is to show the independence of the world implied in the mystery, independence in the saints as being free of all that is in man’s world, man’s mind, or ceremonialism.
WHB Each one individually is dependent on the Head?
JT Each one “holding the head”, and each one standing in relation to the others according to the truth of the body. The benefit to be derived from the Head depends on that, that our hearts “should be comforted”. How little we know of divine comfort, so that there is no anxious care; and then that saints have their true place in affection one for the other.
WHB And that is effected as each one draws from the Head?
JT The organism is set to work. I mention it because one sees the importance of it locally, that saints may be absolutely dependent on Christ and independent of the elements of the world.
Ques Would you say each local assembly is independent of what was around?
JT I think the thought in Colossians was in a way local; so the letter was to be read there and at Laodicea. The apostle had seen the order at Colosse; they were further on than the Corinthians, they were orderly, the formative work of the Spirit was there; but there was one danger, that philosophy, man’s mind and vain deceit should affect them, or that they should even feel any need of it.
JV They were set up in Christ independent of all that was of man’s mind as a local company?
JT If the apostle came of course there would be an excess; but there was an organism there, and the apostle’s exercise was that they should be in the [p. 354] good of it, as in it all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge were available, and if you have all, you have all.
GeoC Is it not a solemn contrast to the assembly mentioned here that in the Revelation it proved to be independent of Christ?
JT Yes; the danger was also here as to the Colossians of becoming independent of Christ, because if you admit the principle that man’s mind is of some account, that will grow and it will gradually shut out Christ altogether, and has done so in Christendom.
Rem Hence the condition at Laodicea was the result of their not benefiting by the epistle which was read in their midst.
Ques Would you say the Lord gives ministry to meet present conditions?
JT Whatever may be the threatened danger God meets it. He meets it here by bringing in the thought of the Head, and then the conditions down here which are essential to the working of the mystery. “Knit together in love”. “Hearts comforted”, that is to say, if the saints are engaged with distracting things you do not get the working of the mystery, and moreover you do not get the working of affection amongst themselves. I would like to make clear that headship only becomes available when certain conditions exist among us. I do not doubt that many get some light and guidance, but I do not think the mystery is known, because the conditions which the apostle had in his heart are not there.
Ques What are the conditions?
JT The conditions are that the saints should be undistracted, that their hearts should not be engrossed with the affairs of this world, and then, that the saints have their proper place in their affections; there is knitting, not only that you like [p. 355] a brother, but there is a knitting, so that the whole becomes a unit.
DLH Then how is all this to be promoted?
EJMcB Was it your thought that the apostle wrote the epistle to the Colossians with that in view, and that if we got the gain of the epistle, we should be able to appreciate what came out in Ephesians?
JT The apostle sought to bring it about by exercise and prayer.
DLH I suppose, if we were in the good of what is in the chapter, we should be equal to that condition?
JT I think it is a good plan to act up to the light you have in your soul and to test everything by that. The had received Christ; everything was to be tested by that. The passage shows that we are brought into correspondence with Christ. An Old Testament saint could not be what is here spoken of, because there was then no possibility of being in correspondence with Christ; but now the death and resurrection of Christ have come to pass, and we can be in correspondence with Christ.
FHB We cannot improve on the apostle’s way of exercise and prayer; so the comparison between his exercises here and the prayer in Ephesians helps us. Here it brings them into the “treasures of wisdom and knowledge”, but in Ephesians into the “hope of God’s calling”.
JT The next thing is that the conditions here enable the Lord to guide, because I think one great feature in headship is direction, and in this there is the disclosure of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Then every item of direction abides; wisdom is seen in it. I was saying last night, in regard to the two women who anointed the Lord’s feet, the one in Luke 7 acted in love when she anointed the feet of the One who carried grace to her; in John 12 the act is intelligent. The Lord alludes to the intelligence of the act, saying “against the day of my burying hath she kept this”. She had gathered this up by listening to Christ.
GeoC If you come across an assembly or district where the saints are positively non-plussed by the condition of things that have come in, what then?
JT As local troubles arise that seem to be inextricable, and the saints cannot extricate themselves, what we should bear in mind is that the truth of the mystery is the solution of them. If you can bring in the feast of unleavened bread, I think that will make room for the feast of Pentecost, and the feast of Pentecost implies the mystery, it makes room for the Spirit. It is quite impossible if the working of will is going on, but if there is room for the Spirit, there is room for the Head.
GeoC I see it is a practical difficulty in many districts. I have thought that the only resource was in Christ Himself, in heart submission to Him.
JT I think a good thing to impress the saints with is this, that the way out of every difficulty is suffering. The secret is that people will not suffer.
It very likely arises from difficulties of feeling between brethren, and the way out is to suffer. If one brother suffers, the Lord will stand by him. Self-judgment is the feast of unleavened bread; Christ is our passover, He has gone into death, He has supplied that, but we must eat the unleavened bread through self-judgment.
Rem It is the bread of affliction?
JT It means that one surrenders. You see that will has been at work, and you give it up. Now, if you have the feast of unleavened bread, you will have the feast of Pentecost. There will be room for the Spirit, and if there is room for the Spirit, there will be room for the Head. If you can get a brother to see that one man has to die for the people on [p. 357] every occasion, and it is his privilege to do it, that will be the solution of the difficulty.
Rem Not that he is wrong and the other right?
JT Not at all. The Lord was not wrong, but He died for the people. There is not a brother who under certain circumstances, will not say, ‘The Lord knows my heart’. You have to leave your justification for the future, and to be quite content with that. As a matter of fact, it says, “He bringeth forth his judgments morning by morning”. The morning will come, but you wait on the Lord, for it is on the calendar. Then the one who suffers becomes a leader. God’s way is to deliver through some one, and then that one is a true leader morally.
DLH I have often thought that the very first elements of Christianity are utterly lost sight of on these occasions, and people have forgotten that the way to go up is to go down.
JD Can you give us some thoughts as to these verses in Colossians?
JT “The treasures of wisdom and knowledge”, are all hidden in the mystery. I think the thought is, that we should be prepared now through acquiring these treasures to come out in the future, because in the future we shall become the vehicle of Christ’s mind, and we shall not be that automatically. I mean acting mechanically. The Lord acts through our intelligence and our affections; that is to say, that we are educated now according to Christ, so that whatever you do in the future, you are to influence something or some one, you do it intelligently. The body is intelligent; there is not only love for Christ, but it is formed in the mind of Christ, it is wise, so that in the future, as regards the government of the world, wisdom will mark it. A wonderful political study is the government of the world [p. 358] to come.
EHC In chapter 2 it speaks of “the mystery of God”; is that a wider thought?
JT I think it brings God in; the mystery, “Christ in you”, is necessarily more limited. There is a treasure in the heart and that treasure is connected with glory. But when you come to the mystery of God, surely you have all the divine thoughts there. Now I would like to know what Christ will be as Head of everything, but one would also like to know how the headship of other things is administered, and that is acquired in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, because there is nothing outside of that.
Ques Is it your thought that we are being prepared now to act mediately in the time to come, so that the intelligence is gained now?
JT Quite so; and I thought it was essential that we should see this, so that we should see the suitability of the body to be Christ’s fulness.
WJ Why are “dead” and “risen” brought in here?
JT That we may correspond with Christ now in our mind; as to the principle of our mind we should be outside of the range of man’s mind and ceremonials.
WJ I thought that expression in John, “Come and see”, is very much Colossians. You have to leave the sphere of the first man entirely.
JD I thought we need to travel step by step according to these verses in order to have the condition you refer to. Each verse brings out some further thought to form the conditions, and especially that remarkable statement, “Ye are complete in him”, in whom “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”.
JT Then you come to holding the Head. The strength developed now in these things coming to pass is under pressure. To hold Christ as Head implies that you refuse any medium to come between [p. 359] Him and you. Now all this is worked out under pressure, and therefore the strength and enduring character of the formative work in us.
K At all events this would exercise us in view of formation.
JT The one who has come to the mystery has in his soul the solution of everything. The world is a labyrinth of evil that no politician or statesman can find a way out of, but the mystery is the solution of everything. Hence the importance of the book of Proverbs: wisdom is the way out, and that is in the mystery; all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are there.
JD What a place wisdom has in this epistle!
JT I was going to say the simplest believer knows more than the ancients; he has much more light about things, and he knows more about real politics.
Rem These thoughts are worked out now in a company locally. If the world is waiting for the saints to come out for the administration of the world to come, it is sad if we cannot order things locally now.
JT We have to begin with ourselves.
JSG It is very remarkable the order in chapter 2: circumcision, baptism, risen, quickened; it is not the order you have in the Old Testament.
Rem I was thinking in regard to the natural man: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard”.
JT “There is a path which no fowl knoweth”.
WJ Speaking practically of these things, the way we go on together is an education.
JT But it is in the assembly the “all various wisdom of God” should be worked out; it is marvellous, and it is in the midst of pressure.
Rem Does not suffering bring about enlargement? “In pressure thou hast enlarged me”.
DLH Of course we are very greatly hampered by the general breakdown; at the same time we have the same resource which the saints had in Colossian days, we have the Head.
JT And if you have one other brother you have material for the mystery.
Ques Why does circumcision come before Jordan here?
JT I think the apostle wants to end with resurrection. Circumcision is negative, and so is baptism, but resurrection brings us positionally into positive correspondence with Christ who is risen; then quickening, which is immediately added, puts us into correspondence with Christ in our state. I think in baptism you disappear, then in circumcision the reproach of Egypt is rolled away, the marks of the world. In Colossians it would not be the gross things of evil.
Ques What did you mean as to one brother?
JT I meant what the apostle refers to in the opening verses, the mystery is contingent on the saints. If you have one brother and yourself that would be two.
FHB It is a very encouraging thought that a few saints can enjoy the benefit of the headship of Christ.
JT It shows us that we are not deprived of the very best things in the last days. I think the secret of it is seen in the state of Philadelphia. The assembly works out locally. I have often thought that the second commandment is local responsibility; “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”.
EB Would you say that the education always goes on in the local company?
JT Yes; it goes on locally. If you want to have a meeting, and there is no gifted brother available, then, if the conditions the apostle is labouring for exist, you have [p. 361] the mystery.
FHB A brother is put to the test in the local meeting.
Ques Is it your thought that each local meeting is set up in its own responsibility and with sufficient resources?
JT Except that you always take into account the body.
JD Each individual has a wonderful resource, because I believe that the word is in the singular, “holding the head”.
JT “Risen with Christ” places you positionally in correspondence with Him, not only outside of Egypt, but outside of conditions of flesh and blood. It is a matter of life; we are raised, it says, by the faith of the operation of God.
THR Would you not say it puts us in moral superiority to everything of man?
JT I suppose it does. You are in the light of the operation of God, and that operation is superior to every other power.
THR When Christ was here He was dealing with the circumstances that were here; for instance, He stilled the storm on the sea, but in the second case He walked on the sea — there was moral superiority.
JT I quite go with that. It is really the platform on which God carries on all His operations. Only in Colossians and Ephesians it is connected with the assembly, and the quickening puts us into subjective correspondence. We are in sympathy with Christ through quickening power in our souls.
THR It is remarkable that in Colossians you get quickening after resurrection, but in Ephesians quickening necessarily precedes “raised up together”.
Rem F.E.R. used to say you live in the love of God.
JT Quickening is not said to be by faith; it is a very real [p. 362] thing indeed.
Rem And resurrection is more what you leave behind you?
JT Not only do you leave behind, but you are in the good of the power that overthrew everything; you are in the light of the operation of God. I believe we are now on the crucial point; we want to find out really what the body is.
Ques Would you say a little more on quickening?
JT I believe it is that the operation of God has become formative in your soul, so that we live in the life of Christ; we are with Him in sympathy and affection. Things would be out of joint if you were not in the position in the state of your mind. I have no doubt many are farther on in their affections than in their intelligence.
ASL You are entitled to take that position; then, if you do, the meaning of quickening is known in the heart.
THR Quickening is always given as out of death; it is what was dead is quickened. Say a man is condemned and he is executed; so far he is justified, but if he could be brought to life again, no one could lay a charge against him. Having been raised from the dead, if I know resurrection, it is not the old man that is brought up; it must be in the life of Christ that I live.
JT So that in Gilgal it is adjustment for the new position. It is the question of their adjustment to the new position which Colossians has really in view. You do not want to carry old things into the new position.
THR You must have ability, and that comes in the power of resurrection and quickening.
FHB I think the operation of God gives the ability for this new condition.
JT And then you find there are certain things which you are ashamed of which were quite an honour to you on [p. 363] the other side.
GE Would you say the quickening gives you intelligence?
JT I think quickening is power more. There is light objectively presented as to the position, but quickening gives you power, and there is a leverage in your soul enabling you to throw off things. The new situation is so marvellous that these things are a disgrace to you. All that attaches to man, birth, education and means, had a certain place in the wilderness; in the land there is absolutely no recognition of them, you are ashamed of them. You get hold of the magnitude of the position, then you feel, ‘I must adjust myself to the position’; hence you cannot bring in these things which may attach themselves to you in the world; they are an offence there. Who could endure the thought of a title, something received from the world, being brought into heaven?
THR You have only to say, ‘Who could give a title to Christ when here on earth?’ Psalm 16 really gives us what we have been speaking of, what Christ is. Faith goes out to Christ in heaven, and affection towards the saints here.
JT So the apostle says he knows no man after the flesh; he does not even know the saints after the flesh. It is a most serious offence in Scripture to be looking at the saints in the flesh, because you would see the most hideous things in them. There are most unseemly things there, but you are warned against uncovering the nakedness of the near relative. That is very pronounced in Scripture, and we have Ham as a constant testimony as to that.
Ques Why is Christ so prominent here?
JT To bring Him in as Head. They had received Him, but they were not making enough of Him, and the apostle insists that there is really nothing outside [p. 364] of Him.
JSG Is it not important that in Romans you have the power to go over Jordan, but in Colossians there is preparation for the enjoyment of the sphere to which you properly belong?
Ques And in Ephesians you have power to go up?
THR I think God puts you there.
JSG In Ephesians exaltation is in view, but in Colossians the road the soul is led along experimentally is in view of exaltation in Ephesians.
JT In Ephesians it is God’s work, not our going over; but in Colossians it is on the line of deliverance; hence the necessity of power in the soul.
JSG It appears to me that we have to accept circumcision before we are ready for the truth of baptism.
THR Circumcision is the absolute cutting off of Christ, in the cross, from all connection with the flesh.
JSG And would you agree that it is cutting off in view of entering into a new order of things; therefore it was on the eighth day? I thought that no person is ready for the full truth of baptism unless he is in the light of circumcision; in baptism you go right out of sight.
THR You have to take things in a different order in the New Testament from the Old.
WJ What has come to pass in chapter 2 is maintained in chapter 3; it is the moral result of chapter 2.
DLH But in chapter 2 it does not seem to be presented in the order of the Old Testament, the book of Joshua.
JSG Whilst in chapter 3 it corresponds with the Old Testament, it is striking that it does not in chapter 2.
JT Circumcision in chapter 2 is as positional as resurrection; it is the circumcision [p. 365] of Christ.
JSG Do you not have to take into account that in Colossians the persons have grown, and are now capable of seeing from the resurrection of Christ that the pleasure of God is that the saints should be raised with Christ. In Romans the saints are capable of seeing the bearing of Christ’s resurrection on justification.
THR Baptism in Colossians is looked at as a past thing. It does not give you the bearing of it, but as having been baptised, you are viewed as risen through faith of the operation of God in raising Christ from the dead.
JJ Do you mean that circumcision was done once, and that mortifying is a continuous thought?
JT Yes. Circumcision is positional, a matter of light, but in chapter 3 you have the effect of that.
FHB Gilgal was not only a camp, but the place to which they had to return?
JT Yes; that was the secret of power. Now, another thing, you begin to draw a line between heaven and earth, the soul becomes interested in heaven. Because, as our brother remarked, resurrection is in view of heaven, although it is the platform on which all stands, but in the light of chapter 2 you begin to draw a line between heaven and earth. So the apostle enjoins them, “If ye then be risen with Christ set your mind on things above”, which you can do. One is entitled to govern one’s mind, “set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth”; it seems to me that the “not” is a sort of line between the earthly things and the heavenly.
FHB I have often thought that that is the test whether we are in the good of chapter 2.
JT And the danger is implied that in spite of chapter 2 and all the light that is there, one might have one’s mind on the things on the earth.
PRM The “not” is an emphatic [p. 366] one.
JT I have connected it with Numbers 34, which gives us the boundaries of the land which every Israelite was to know; he was to know the geography of his country. Numbers 34 gives us the boundaries of the land which God gave to the people. It suggests not what heaven is literally, but what the purpose of God is now for us, and we must not connect it with the earth. It is our territory, and you want to have your mind there and keep it there.
WJ Whilst you have the boundaries in Numbers you have the division in Deuteronomy.
Ques What are the things that are above?
JT I think we may find out what the things are. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit”. They are revealed, and the things which are revealed belong to us, we are entitled to look at them.
WJ Would it take in Ephesians?
JT I think it does take in Ephesians. In Colossians your mind has gone in there, but in Ephesians you have gone in there.
Rem The boundary line was as far as the river Euphrates?
JT Not in the chapter I alluded to. The original thought of God as regards the limitations of the people was simply Canaan, but as regards the extent of influence it was as far as the Euphrates. As regards the living associations of the people Jordan was the boundary, but in Deuteronomy the boundary is extended.
FHB The great point is that it is across Jordan, the things that centre in Christ.
JT You cannot carry anything of nature over.
THR When they came to the mount of [p. 367] the Amorites they might have gone straight into the land, but flesh cannot do it, and therefore God has to take them round quite another way. God has to test flesh and bring them round through Jordan, which was practically death and resurrection in order to come into Canaan. Flesh cannot take this line at all.
JT One of the first statements of the book of Deuteronomy is what Moses says; “there are eleven days’ journey from Horeb” to the land, but they did not take advantage of that.
THR After thirty-eight years they are not a step nearer Canaan, but the flesh has been judged.
EHC I thought that in the forty years God also gave the nations an opportunity to repent; therefore it says that Rahab believed.
WJ You made a remark, that we must be established in our own territory before we can see other territories.
JT I would not like to depreciate prophecy, but we must distinguish between the letter of it, the parting out of countries, and the spirit of it. “The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”. Really and truly we take our view from heaven, and it is a great thing to look down on things. And I believe that the true way is to trace things from Genesis 10. The outlines are all clear from Scripture, but the thing is to get into the true position, to look down from heaven.
WJ I suppose if you are established in your own territory, you will understand the things of the others.
JT When it is a matter of prophecy the apostle John is caught up into heaven.
WJ Is there not great moral instruction [p. 368] in that?
THR And in that way John comes in to support Paul. We see John following Christ, then you have the breakdown of what Paul has set up, and John is caught up to heaven to see things on the earth.
EHC We often say we are brought nigh, but where it speaks of bringing in, Peter says “brought to God”, whereas in Ephesians you get the word “made” repeated three times, “made accepted”, “made nigh”, and “made to sit in heavenly places in Christ”.
THR I think that is very important.