CHRIST FOR THE ASSEMBLY AND THE ASSEMBLY FOR CHRIST
[p. 369] CHRIST FOR THE ASSEMBLY AND THE ASSEMBLY FOR CHRIST
FHB I suppose the two thoughts, the body and the bride, are distinct? The body more connected with display, and the bride the saints as clothed in the fine linen pure and bright for the pleasure of Christ.
JSG Do you get the bride here? I think the body and the bride are both connected with display, but that the wife gives the position of the assembly in connection with the thought of union, “his wife hath made herself ready”. And “to her has been granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen”. This shows the distinction between the two ideas.
JT The first chapter of this epistle clearly presents the assembly in connection with the ways of God for the setting forth of Christ in that connection, and this passage is clearly the place the assembly has, in His own affections.
WJ We have to go back to Genesis 2.
JT I thought of that. The completion of the ways of God is in heading up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth, the administration of the fulness of times, all being gathered up in Christ. Then I suppose the position of the assembly is given. Christ is made Head over all things to it.
Ques How do you understand that sentence, “Head overall things to the assembly”?
JT I think it shows the great place the assembly has in the heart of the Lord, so that He would give her that unique place. He is Head over all things, but He is not alone in that glory. It is as if a king might associate his wife with him in the dignity of the throne; it is more [p. 370] that, I think.
JSG That is, it is, the counsel of God that Christ should be Head over all things, and that the assembly should share that glory with Him.
JT Think of the glory connected with the affection between Christ and the assembly! Take, for instance the sun, “which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber”. Now to see a man at his best you must see him when he is a bridegroom, because it is there that all his intelligent affections are in activity. All things will be influenced by Christ in the activity of His affections towards the assembly, and those affections are reciprocated; all that is involved in the headship. What a conception for all that is under that! It is not simply the exercise of authority or the exercise of wisdom. Wisdom is there in the headship, but it is guided in all that gracious dignity, the activity of affections between the MAN and the woman. Take a household. If the husband or wife be absent what weakness there is, and how the children are affected by it: it is the union of reciprocal affections from the top that gives character to all below.
DLH So in Adam we see what was typical of all this. He was head over all things, but he was head to his wife in rather a different sense to that in which he was head over all things.
JT It is really union there, and the woman is merged in the headship.
FHB She is taken out of the man to be with the man. Christ and the assembly will give character to the whole universe.
JT That is what will rule then. Think of the existing ruling powers being superseded by the influence of the affection between Christ and the assembly.
JSG We hardly get the thought of the bride in Ephesians. Christ is Head over all things, and [p. 371] the assembly is His body, the fulness of Him; so that He Himself may be displayed.
JT Quite so. The thought of the body is added.
He is “head over all things to the assembly, which is his body”.
WJ If the assembly had not been taken out of Him she could not be His fulness.
JT Adam had named the animals, but when the woman is brought to him he says, “This time it is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called woman because this was taken out of a man”. Hence the suitability of the assembly to Christ. We know that, but those below will not understand it. We understand it now, we understand how the assembly is taken out of Christ.
DLH Do you not get the idea of unity in the body, and of union in the husband and wife?
JT Yes: the thought of unity is not in the latter, but it would be morally unsuitable that the Lord should unite to Himself what is disunited down here.
FHB Is not the unity among ourselves what you may call the unity of the body? Is not that the result of each member being united to the one living Head by the Holy Spirit?
JT I think the body is to be taken account of by itself as formed by His Spirit. He is Head of “the body”, a distinct thing designated by the article, and it had already been brought to pass here by the coming in of the Spirit. He is Head of that, for He has animated it with His Spirit. If you follow the scriptures you find in Romans that we, the saints, are all one body in Christ; there is not the idea of the Head there; then it comes out afterwards that the body has a Head, which is Christ. But we have to take account of that body by itself. I do not mean that it could ever be viewed apart from Christ, but as to the actual formation of the [p. 372] body it is viewed as the saints here, and then afterwards it is said to have a Head — even Christ.
EJMcB So, too, it is presented as building itself up in love.
JSG Do you think it helps to remember that the thought of the body precedes that of union?
JT It does. If it were otherwise you would have Christ uniting to Himself what is not suited to Him. I think it is important to maintain the thought of the body by itself, viewed as an organism here, hence you have it building itself up in love. But then Christ is Head of it, and all the substance comes out of Himself.
PRM Is it not “head to it”?
JT For the moment, down here, He is Head of it; all the direction comes from Him. But when you come to the thought of “to it”, it is the dignity of it.
HD'AC There is a living organism, of which the “I” is Christ?
JT But undoubtedly the body is presented in Scripture as a thing formed by itself by the Spirit, and we must come into it before we realise the full working of the Head, for we must know unity first.
HD'AC I do not see how you could have the living organism without Christ, and if so, it is entirely His body.
JT What do you make of Romans 12?
HD'AC I am taking the illustration of the human body.
JT But why not take it from the Scripture? It begins with us. I am speaking now about the Spirit, we must take account of the Spirit’s work in the body. “We have all been baptised into one body ... made to drink into one Spirit”; so that the body is viewed as an organism by itself in that way, but when it is developed you have the full working of headship. I am not saying for a moment [p. 373] that you have not the link with Christ always, but I am going by the order of Scripture, and Scripture begins with the body. The whole body in Ephesians 4: 16 is deriving its life from Christ, yet it is one entity, it maintains its distinctness.
JSG Do you refer to distinctness in the sense that Eve was distinct from Adam?
JT Yes.
EJMcB Now Colossians does not present the thought of united to the Head, but holding the Head, but the point in Ephesians is bringing them to the point of union.
JT And that means that the assembly is merged in Christ, and hence the distinctness is lost as you may say, the Man and the wife become one flesh. But here in Genesis 2 she is builded and presented to Adam as a separate individual.
WJ In the passage which we read does it not refer to the assembly in its completeness?
FHB I think that is important to bear in mind. No two scriptures view it in the same manner. Here in this passage it is the whole assembly.
JT Certainly; and it is in the heavens with Christ. There you have the full divine thought of the assembly. What we have been dwelling on is most instructive and most consoling, if one might use the word, that the assembly has that place ever in the mind of Christ. He is Head over all things, but Head of the body now.
Ques When do you think the truth of Headship was first known?
JT I think after Paul’s ministry.
EHC I suppose it commenced at Pentecost, and the Gentiles were brought in later.
JT I think headship was there, but as to its being formally known, I do not think it came out [p. 374] until Paul made it clear that a Man in heaven was to rule everything here. And while Jerusalem was owned in any way there could not be that, and Jerusalem was owned in a sense after the Spirit had come.
HD'AC But there was a living organism at that time, and how was it moved? I have in my mind that you could not have a living organism without the “I” moving.
JT Scripture speaks of something and calls it a body; why could not that body move? Of the saints at Rome Paul says, “We being many, are one body in Christ”. There was unity. The question of the mind that governed the body is not raised, but the fact that they were one body in Christ is stated.
HD'AC I thought what was underlying that was that Christ was the “L”
JT Still, I think you are introducing that too soon according to the setting of Scripture. There is more in that than you might think. Brethren have to come to recognise their obligations to one another, to be of one mind. Christ is not brought in as Head until that is brought about. We ought to allow for the Spirit. I think as regards the assembly Christ is the mind of the body when you come to the full thing, but in Romans and Corinthians you do not come to the full idea; it is more what the saints are as having the Spirit. When you come to Colossians and Ephesians you have the Head.
JV You are tracing the way it is brought out in Scripture.
JT That is the only safe way. The effect of the work of the Spirit is to bring about unity down here, not union but unity. In Romans it is just mentioned, but in Corinthians it is connected with the Spirit.
GR Is not headship seen [p. 375] in 1 Corinthians 12?
JT No. The human body is in view there.
ASL “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”
How do you take that?
JT I take that as His body. But then the rejection of Stephen had come in.
ASL He speaks of it as “me”.
JT Yes; but look at what it is that He speaks of as “me”, something that was suffering. The Holy Spirit formed them in that way; that was the only way Saul knew them, and the Lord says, Those suffering ones are “me”. I think we have to recognise what is due to Christ. Are you going to make Christ Head of what is disjointed? It is well to have before us what is developed in Scripture, and what is seen as complete.
ASL Is not the whole truth of the assembly involved in that question, “Why persecutest thou me?”
JT I think so. It was like Paul’s commission.
Paul’s commission was wrapped up in it.
Rem The One who spoke was in heaven, but the suffering ones were on earth, and yet it was “me”.
JT In the end of Luke it says the Lord “was parted from them”; that is not the idea of headship, nor of a body. He was parted from them.
EHC The word for “Head” has been sometimes translated “Chief”.
JT Although He is Head of the body, He is not said to be Head of it in Acts, Romans, or Corinthians. You might make it Chief over all things, but I think Head of the body is right. We have to make allowance for the conditions which obtained at Jerusalem. God bore with Jerusalem, and whilst God bore with Jerusalem you could not have the idea of headship here in its fulness. Hence it was after Stephen’s rejection that this wonderful disclosure is made to Saul, that this people whom you are persecuting are my body — “ME”.
HD'[p. 376] AC But is that a living organism, or the idea of the body?
JT I think it is the living organism. I was pointing out that in the end of Luke the Lord was parted from them. He blessed them on earth, but He was going to heaven. That is not the idea of the body, but when you come to Acts He is there Himself.
WJ It is not developed there.
EJMcB But you must remember this, that we meditate upon it in the light of the truth which has explained it to us.
ASL But I think in that light to go back to it is of the greatest possible help.
DLH I would like to ask a question as to the illustration of the human body. Is that found in Ephesians?
JT No. It is not.
DLH That is what I thought. The word is really Chief.
JT How could He be Head over all things in the sense of an organism?
DLH Quite so. You must certainly drop that illustration, and you must think of Genesis 2.
ASL Perhaps Genesis 2 explains it more than any other scripture.
JSG Do you not think it helps that sonship comes first in Ephesians? There is the position of the Son of God in the presence of His God and Father, with the sons in connection with Him. Thus you have in the body a vast company manifested in the intelligence of sonship, so that they are a perfect manifestation of Christ. Christ is expressed in them.
PRM Is it involved in the Lord forming all in the truth of sonship? you cannot shut any out.
JT No. You take all in. In Romans 8, having spoken of the Spirit of Christ, Paul says, “If Christ be in you”, and I think if the Spirit of Christ is there you can say Christ is there, but then it is of great importance for Christ to be formed. It suggests the greatest difficulty to endeavour to arrive at the truth in connection with present conditions. The only way to arrive at the truth is from the way in which Scripture presents it. The apostle says “we are all baptised by one Spirit”, so you would not except one believer from that. But at the same time the body is marked as formed in living affections down here, and it is when you get that you have the thought of headship.
Rem It would never do to accept a principle that shuts out any of the saints.
JT No: as Judah said in Genesis 42: 13, “we are twelve brethren”. You see the working out of it there in type. Where there is unity the “all-various wisdom of God” is seen. If you get it in a company the working out of headship is there.
Ques But what about the rest?
JT Well, the comfort is the Lord knoweth them that are His.
Rem We ought not to be content that we are an intelligent company of Christians; there are a good many absent, and we ought to miss them.
JT I was going to remark that from the moment the Lord took Saul up, He spoke to him. Saul got the thought from Christ, like the men of David who heard the yearnings of his heart. Israel was gone, the death and burial of Stephen is the end of that. The Lord’s affections for Israel had remained, and He lingered over Jerusalem, but now it being all over with Israel His heart needed a companion, craved companionship, and Paul goes out into the Gentile world to bring in a companion for Christ. And I have no doubt that the truth of sonship is at the bottom of it, for Paul announced immediately that Jesus is the Son [p. 378] of God.
JSG It seems to me very important that we can only reach the full truth of the body through sonship.
FHB Why do you put it in that way?
JSG Because the first thought in Ephesians is the Son of God as Man in the presence of His God and Father; then the sons are seen associated with Him. As sons they are formed in the divine nature, and are intelligent; and they are associated with Christ as wisdom in working out of every problem in the universe, and they display Him, for they act exactly as He would. It is not only that they do right things, but they do them as He would, and so they are His body.
JT The assembly is viewed by Christ as a distinct entity. It is a company formed intelligently in the mind of Christ, there is ability for counsel there. It is Christ’s assembly, and competent to express intelligently His mind for the universe.
HD'AC I want to know where the fulness comes in.
JT It required that for Christ to express Himself fully.
HD'AC Then in that case you do get the two thoughts in that chapter. You get the thought of Adam and Eve, and you get His body.
JT His body is brought in because Christ is to be expressed, but I think we ought to note the word “assembly”. It is a company capable of intelligently giving the mind of God on any question that may arise in the universe. It will be the highest court of appeal in the coming age.
JJ Where does the prayer in chapter 3 come in?
JT The two prayers are wonderful. The prayer in chapter 1 is that we may know the will of God and see the greatness of His power, but that in chapter 3 is that we may be great ourselves. I think there is the thought of ability. Very few [p. 379] Christians are capable of taking in divine thoughts, because of their weakness spiritually. So the apostle prays that they may be strengthened by the Spirit of the Father in the inner man. I think it is a question there of power inwardly, of being great enough to take in what is so wondrous, not merely mentally, but in your affections.
JSG In chapter 1, you have the body, but in chapter 3 it is more the thought of the house, the habitation.
WJ Is not unity secured if the prayer in chapter 3 is realised?
JT “That you may be able to apprehend with all saints”. It seems as if ability to take in divine things is greater when you are with the brethren than when you are by yourself.
Ques Is that what you meant by the thought of the assembly?
JT I look upon the assembly as being composed of spiritually intelligent persons. What is the idea of an assembly if it is not for counsel? You see He is Head over all things to it, not to the body, but to the assembly. But then that assembly is His body.
It has intelligence.
DLH I suppose that in Eve you get the thought of an helpmeet, and in that there is the thought of suitability for the position.
ASL Going back to Genesis 2, which is a marvellous and complete picture, is not the deep sleep to be noted? Also that the woman was the outcome of the sleep and builded from the rib taken from the sleeping man. Could Romans be spoken of in any sense as the building of the woman?
JT I think formation is implied by the rib.
The Lord takes account of certain things down here; there is Eleazar, for example, in the book of Numbers, he was chief of the Levites, he represents a spiritual state which the Lord Jesus has placed [p. 380] here, and which He counts upon as down here. And how much more when we are up there, if she was to be a helpmeet to Him. She would not suggest things, no one would suggest things to Christ. But how advantageous it is to have one who understands things; how the Lord would greet her when she goes up to heaven! Do you think she ceases to act when she enters into her full place?
ASL Does it not refer to a work of God?
JT Quite so; the Lord recognises us; “this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”.
FHB And it shows what a favoured creature woman was, there could be no counsel between Adam and the animal creation.
JT Now we are coming to it; He is Head over all things, but He is seen in all that she does; “her husband is known in the gates” gives the principle. If the woman had maintained headship, Satan would never have had a footing in the earth.
EJMcB Would you say a word about reciprocal affections at the top giving effect to things at the bottom?
JT I do not know anything more interesting than that. What a world it will be! It is not only influenced by Christ, but under the influence of reciprocal affections between Christ and the assembly. Christ has been down here and has sympathy with all the creation, and so have we, and so it is a sympathetic influence in regard to all that is below.
DLH In regard to Ephesians, I suppose we must not localise this at all; what is in view is rather universal.
JT I think it is the counsels of God. There was a company at Ephesus sufficiently formed by the ministry of Paul that they could take these things in, but it is intended to set out the whole [p. 381] divine purpose.
DLH So that those at Ephesus were representative of the whole assembly?
JT I think they were. The apostle had ministered to them the whole counsel of God.
ASL It is interesting to note that a great part of this epistle is taken up with prayer.
JT It suggests what ought to affect our hearts whenever we open this epistle, a sense of the meagreness of our ability to take it in leads to prayer.
WJ The immensity of it caused the apostle to feel that he must pray.
DLH I suppose there is a spot where ministry must end and prayer begin?
JT I think that spot is where the whole counsels of God have been made known; then all you have to do is to pray. I see the great importance of the brethren getting together. When we are together in affection there is far more ability both to communicate and to receive than when we are alone. Then when you come to chapter 3 the apostle says, “I bow my knees”. I understand that meant the excess of exercise. We read of the apostle kneeling down with them on the sea-shore; but bowing the knees means, I think, excessive exercise, and it is to the Father. And it is that the saints may be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man.
FHB I was thinking as to the display. In Ephesians it is different to Colossians. In Colossians the display is more of the moral perfections of the second Man, but I thought that in Ephesians it is the display not only of what Christ was as Man, but what has come out in Him of God. It is said of the church as coming down from heaven, that she has the glory of God.
JT As to Ephesians 5, we ought to consider what Christ desires for Himself. The apostle sets out to bring in that which the heart of Christ yearned for; he says to the Corinthians, “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”.
WJ Is it not here what she is to Him for His own pleasure? Is it not the highest thought?
JT I think it is. The most intimate relations are involved in it, and He is to present it to Himself glorious.
WJ I suppose you had in your mind the idea of Isaac being “comforted after the loss of his mother”, Genesis 24.
JT I think that in Rebekah you get the assembly taking the place of Israel in a provisional way. Rebekah did not go into what is typically heaven; she went into what had existed on the earth before, namely, Sarah’s tent, and in that way she ministered to Isaac’s heart. We may say the assembly ministers to Christ provisionally here, but in Ephesians 5 we get her highest calling, that she ministers to the affections of Christ in heaven. I think Genesis 2 is union, probably the only type of union we have.
PRM Before sin came in?
JT Yes, “one flesh”.
EB So we get one worthy of His love.
JT Yes, quite so; worthy of His love and capable of reciprocating it.
WJ Does He not love the assembly apart from any history?
JT Eve must have been a beautiful woman; I mean as answering a man’s conception.
WJ And Christ sees in the assembly the reflection of Himself.
Ques What is referred to in “the saviour of the body”; what body?
PRM Mr. Raven always used to say it referred to the human body.
JD How are we to understand verses 26, 27?
FHB The Lord saw the assembly prospectively [p. 383] in all its beauty and perfection, and is He not occupied now with that end in view?
WJ Is He not presenting Himself to her in order to reproduce Himself in her?
JT I have no doubt the idea of the assembly arose historically as the Lord saw the disciples with a new type of affections springing up in them. The Lord saw the idea, but a great deal had to be accomplished to bring that out in perfection; hence He gave Himself. Matthew 13 speaks of the pearl, but He has not got it yet. I think it helps to bear in mind that the things was there in principle in the disciples. Now He gave Himself for that, He loved that, and He gave Himself for it, in order that He might have it without anything incongruous; “that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”.
EB Is that the object of true ministry at the present time?
JT I think the Lord uses one and another to help in this, and it comes out in perfection at the end. I think it is very encouraging and beautiful that the bride speaks at the end. It is as if the Spirit had been speaking to her all the way through, and now He has her to speak with Him. He speaks to Christ, and the bride is with Him; there is perfect unison of mind between the Spirit and the bride.
EB So that the full thought of the bride is found at the end.
Ques What connection has the bride with the body?
JSG I think Ephesians 1 is the body, chapter 3 the assembly as the vessel for the display of the glory of God, and then in chapter 5 it is the wife. It is the wife who becomes the bride. I think the bride is [p. 384] the saints displayed in the results of suffering here in the scene of the Lord’s rejection, whereas His body is entirely for the display of Himself.
FHB In human things the bride becomes the wife.
JSG Yes, but in divine things the wife becomes the bride. The judgment-seat will enable Christ to reckon everything that has been done here as the fruit of union.
JT The idea of a bride is not continuous. The assembly comes out of heaven in the freshness and vigour of bridal affections. She shines at her best then, and there will be no deterioration. A bride presents a woman at her highest and best in the activity of her affection at the beginning, and the figure shows that the assembly appears at her best when she comes out with Christ.
JSG In Revelation 21 she comes prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The point there is that, although the thousand years have passed, all the brightness of the garments remains. There is no deterioration at all.
Ques The bride as the wife of the Lamb; is that the suffering side?
JSG Yes.
WHB Is not Revelation 21 more in accord with Psalm 45, the “within” rather than the thought of display?
JSG The king’s daughter is glorious in the royal apartments, but the thought of the bride in Scripture is always connected with display. We must bear in mind that the divine order is first sons, then the thought of the body, then the assembly as the vessel for the display of the glory of God, then you come to union. When the marriage of the Lamb is come, His body, the wife, appears as one who has been faithful during the night of His rejection, and she [p. 385] comes out in her bridal garments, woven during the time she shares His suffering and rejection.
JT The graces of Christ are seen in the assembly now, but in the future she will be His fulness; all that He is and all that God is will shine out in the assembly.
WJ But is not sonship the greatest thing of all?
JSG Yes; I think so. But in Ephesians you have Christ as Head over all things, and the thought of sonship has preceded it. The saints are always greater Godward than in manifestation, and the inside place is sonship. But when you come to His body the sons move corporately, and are thus a perfect display of Christ. When you have the thought of sonship it is the Son of God and His God and His Father, but His body stands in relation to Christ. Then you have the thought of the assembly as being a vessel equal for the glory of God being displayed in it.