LEVITICAL EDUCATION
LEVITICAL EDUCATION
JT In Mark the Lord is seen much by the sea; He appears here as walking by the sea of Galilee, verse 16.
Ques What is the meaning of “by the sea”? Is it universality of blessing — going out everywhere?
JT It would remind the Jew of something beyond his realm, but there is also a reference to death in it, in the way in which it is referred to in Mark. I thought we might see here how He begins gathering by the sea. Later we have another reference: “And he went out again by the sea, and all the crowd came to him, and he taught them”, (chapter 2:13). Then, He “withdrew with his disciples to the sea”, (chapter 3:7). Also: “And again he began to teach by the sea”, (chapter 4:1). At the end of that chapter He says, “Let us go over to the other side”; and then, “They came to the other side of the sea”, (chapter 5:1). So that in these early chapters of Mark we have the idea of the sea emphasised, and I thought we might see that He begins gathering here by the sea, calling men out of occupation in the sea.
Rem It reminds one of Genesis 1:20, where God said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life”. The waters are called ‘seas’, and I thought the Lord was here seen in that relation.
JT That is right; it is the “moving creature that hath life”. You see in the book of Jonah how these moving creatures are available for the will of God. Jonah 1:9 says, “I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land”. The fish that swallowed him was divinely prepared and under divine command; it did the will of God. I think the sea implies latitude — universality, but also death. Those who have to do with it, especially at the outset, know the peculiar feelings that arise in relation to it. Evidently it was [p. 435] intended to represent distance and death; so that there is a certain sobriety connected with occupation with the sea. But what I thought we might come to is the correspondence with the Lord in this gospel, immediately reached in the mother-in-law of Simon. It is said that she arose and served them. The Lord begins here, “after John was delivered up”. Verse 14 says, “But after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn nigh; repent and believe in the glad tidings”. He waits until John is delivered up, in this gospel, and His first address, or preaching, is brief. It is very brief, but very comprehensive, as if to remind us, as to ministry, of the idea of compression, and withal, retaining in what we say all that is needed.
Rem By ‘compression’ you mean that the thoughts should endeavour to be concentrated on some particular thing which is within the power of the human mind to grasp at the moment? We have limited power of thought.
JT We are very limited in our capacity. The prophets are to speak by two or three, as if God would reduce and vary the volume of ministry at any given time. He takes account of our capacity.
Rem Then, too, we are liable to remember one strong point more than a great variety. It makes an impression on our souls.
JT And in what you say you indicate that it can be opened up in leisure by those who hear. That is, you do not convey to your audience that you have to do all the thinking for them. Of course, you have to do thinking, but each believer is to think things out himself. In the books of Kings and Chronicles, where history is given it is usually brief, but at times you are referred to some other book not extant now. That is to say, the suggestion is that we are to follow things up. Ministry is to suggest things; it does not mean that those who [p. 436] minister do all the thinking. There are suggestions, and the saints are intended to follow things up. So that the Lord here says, “Repent and believe in the glad tidings”. That is how it should read.
Rem You meditate on the things presented, so that profiting appears from it.
Rem At home there is to be the roasting of that taken in hunting.
JT That is the idea; so that the Lord says, “Repent and believe in the glad tidings”. That is, the thing is presented to you, and you believe in it in principle. No address could convey the glad tidings fully, but you believe in them, and work it out afterwards. That is how the Lord presented it, not simply that you believe the glad tidings, but that you believe in them.
Rem The glad tidings are about the Person of the Lord Himself, and that could not possibly be expressed in a nutshell.
JT No. It takes time to unfold the glad tidings; the epistle to the Romans is an example. It is an unfolding of the thing doctrinally, and requires great attention and pains to find out what there is for the soul.
Ques Would it be somewhat the same as the prophets speaking whilst the others judge? (1 Corinthians 14:29).
JT “Let the others judge”; they are all responsible.
Ques In the others judging, is it implied that they have ability to do it?
JT That is right. Abroad in the ‘denominations’ things are pretty much left with the ministers, the clergymen, but that is not the divine thought. The Lord here contemplates that the one who believes in the glad tidings takes opportunity to look into them and see the fulness of them.
Ques Is this line of teaching consequent on the close of John’s ministry? He was now in [p. 437] prison.
JT That is what is emphasised here. He came into Galilee preaching “after John was delivered up”. He waited for that. Dispensationally John came before Him, and He would wait until John’s ministry was over.
Rem Whereas in John’s gospel He does not wait.
JT No; it is expressly stated that John was not yet cast into prison (John 3:24).
Ques Is that because of His Person, there?
JT He could not be limited by any levitical law. He is seen there acting of Himself.
Rem It says here, “The time is fulfilled”.
JT Yes; the true levite waits on his ministry. “Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering”, (Romans 12:7). The Lord is recognising that here, because this is the levitical gospel; so that we get beautiful touches as to ministry and preaching.
Rem You referred to Romans. In the working of it out — believing in the glad tidings — we prove the will of God.
JT Just so; there you begin with the Son, the glad tidings of God concerning His Son. That is a fine subject; one might say the gospel is a life subject. It is not only something you heard once and were converted by.
Rem It must have increased much if you have been meditating upon it twenty or thirty years. It does not grow stale, but fresher and fresher.
Rem The apostle towards the end of his course says, “according to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God”, (1 Timothy 1:11). I suppose there he was enjoying its fulness.
JT Then, you see, in Paul’s own history his references to his conversion increase in feeling. In speaking to Agrippa he goes further in feeling than he does in recounting it to the people in Jerusalem.
Ques Perhaps you will enlarge on [p. 438] that?
JT We have an account of it by the Spirit in Acts 9; then we have Paul recounting it at Jerusalem before the Jews (chapter 22). In each you find certain variations, as you would expect. But when you come to chapter 26, he is telling about his conversion to Agrippa and those present, and he is full of it. You like to hear a man speaking with feeling. “At midday ... I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me”.
Rem I suppose he would address himself to the audience, both Jews and gentiles, that he might win them.
JT But I am sure the apostle advanced in his appreciation of the gospel, as every one should. It is a thing we believe in, and then work out. You have got to work it out.
Ques What is the force of ‘repentance’ here?
JT That is our side; the gospel is not to improve man in the flesh. The Lord did not intend in His preaching that men should receive it mentally, and thus become christianised. Repentance is first; it is the disallowance of flesh. Otherwise we just have a christianised world, and the true minister will not have that. He presents the gospel in such a way as sets aside the natural man.
Ques Is there any real work done in the conscience or the soul apart from repentance?
JT It is the evidence of the work of God. As soon as God works in a man, he does repent. “There is joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner”. It is a repenting one, not simply one that does it once. He is characterised by it.
Rem You see that in Paul. When he has become a great apostle, he still calls himself “the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).
JT There is a deeper sense of his guilt than ever. This matter of believing in the glad tidings and looking into them should be taken to heart. How much have I [p. 439] entered into the thing, not simply that I preach it for others, but for my own enjoyment. “The glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God”, (1 Timothy 1:11). What a scope of things is before you there!
Rem I suppose if we believe in the glad tidings we shall be prepared to accept anything that may be revealed to us as light, no matter how much it displaces the flesh.
JT That is the thought; repentance makes room for all that is unfolded there. Joseph commanded his steward to fill his brethren’s sacks with food, as much as they could carry (Genesis 44:1). Whether it be a question of light, that is to say, the unfolding of the gospel, or whether it be the Spirit, it is a question of capacity, and repentance tends to make capacity. It tends to remove what occupies the place; it makes room for God’s thoughts. We are so full of natural thoughts, but the gospel brings in God’s thoughts about Christ — His thoughts “concerning his Son”.
Rem So that we have to be empty in order to be full.
JT That is the effect of repentance; it is a sort of emptying process, making room for the positive. So that if we see a thing presented objectively in the gospel we say, That is wonderful! But we must make room for it. The man in Luke 12 did not have room for his fruits and his goods. He said, “I will pull down my barns, and build greater”; but his soul was required of him that night. If you think of the wealth God presents in Christ, it is a good thing to pull down your barns and build greater, to have capacity to receive it.
Ques In starting His ministry the Lord Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens”; and “Blessed the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. Is not that the line?
JT Yes, that is the line; “poor in spirit”, and those “who hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:3 - 6). The glad tidings are presented to us, and they involve so much [p. 440] that the thing is to remove what interferes, what occupies the vessel. God’s thought is to fill us; He fills the hungry with good things.
Rem Job would be an illustration of this. He says, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”, (Job 42:6).
Ques You referred to compression. I suppose capacity is necessary if there is to be compression?
JT It is not the divine thought to overcrowd your mind with what is presented. I never care about an address that seems to be exhaustive, that seems as if the whole subject has been told out. The thing is that you convey one thought, and that there is a lot to be looked into. After writing twenty-one chapters, John says virtually, This is by no means all that can be said. If all was written the world itself would not contain the books.
Ques Would you connect what you say with Acts 20:20, where the apostle speaks of “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”; and he says, “I held back nothing of what is profitable”?
JT It has to be remembered that that was a matter of three years’ ministry. How many addresses could be given in that time! He could say, “I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God”, (chapter 20:27). When he went to Corinth he just kept to the fundamentals, shewing what a levite he was, that he could restrain himself. You do not need to say everything that you know. The levite gauges his audience. What affects one is how marvellously the Lord refrained from speaking of things that men would be curious about. How much he could have spoken of — of the sun, the moon, and the stars! But never a hint of astronomy, as far as I know. He was not here for that. He was here expressly to convey the mind and heart of God; that was His service.
Rem And He gave out as people were able to bear it.
JT Just so. In Luke 19:11 it says that “as they were
listening” He continued and spoke a parable. That is, it was according to their interest.
Rem The Lord would know perfectly their capacity as He ministered to them. As has often been said, He answered the questioner rather than the question, shewing that He knew where each one was.
JT He has in mind here to make levites; He walks by the sea of Galilee.
Ques Why did you say that this all leads up to Simon’s mother-in-law, who is healed of a fever?
JT I think that is a point in this passage. She is taken up as a sort of example of one who is changed from a state of fever into one who ministers. In Mark it is said to be “the house of Simon and Andrew”. Andrew is added here, whereas in Luke, Andrew is not mentioned as being of the house. It is a more difficult situation than in Luke, for you have a man and his wife, then the husband’s brother and the wife’s mother. So that you have a set of people in the house who are a sort of ‘mutual irritation society’. That is really how things work where you have these relationships. The wife’s mother has a fever. You may depend it is an awkward situation. Well, the Lord goes into the house, and makes the most irritable one in it the servant — she served them. In walking by the sea the Lord had seen these very men, Simon and Andrew, and what is mentioned is that they were casting out a net in the sea, for they were fishers by calling. I think the Lord would thus remind us that those whom He would use are true to what they are called to; whatever their occupation is, they are not lazy in it. We may be sure these two men would cast a net with skill.
Ques Will you say a little more about what one is called to, and not being lazy in it?
JT We see that God takes up people who are occupied in their daily business; those who, whatever they have been called to, have continued in it (1 Corinthians 7:20).
[p. 442] Ques Would the business in which Simon and Andrew and James and John were engaged be an indication of what would be their service afterwards? One pair were fishing, and the other mending nets. Would not John’s work come in after Peter’s, to keep things going?
JT Quite so; with Simon and Andrew the nets were evidently in fit condition to be used, and they were using them. That is to say, I should not expect God to take up a man who was an idler or careless in what he is occupied in. My ordinary calling is not an accident; it is what I am called in with God. I should have God in it. He is interested in what I am doing, however menial the work. God has called me in it, and He would expect me to do it well.
Rem “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord”, (Romans 12:11).
Rem That perhaps raises a very practical difficulty, because is it not a fact that many of the people of God serve their masters so well, that they become almost indispensable in the commercial world, and are somewhat submerged?
JT That is the danger, but it does not set aside the fact that righteousness requires that what I do I should do well. Here it is not simply that they were fishermen, but they were actually doing their work when the Lord called them. He says, “Come after me, and I will make you become fishers of men; and straightway leaving their trawl-nets they followed him”. If the Lord calls you, you are to leave your business. In Luke 5 we see that the Lord gives them a large draught of fishes, but having run the ships on shore, they leave all and follow Him.
Ques Would you say that in this call there was something sovereign?
JT There was. Then with Simon and Andrew it is simply specified that they left the nets. But with the next two, James and John, who are mending the nets, it [p. 443] is the father and the hired servants that are mentioned. They have got more to leave than the others; it is a severer test because evidently Zebedee was a man of some distinction. Anyway, he was able to hire servants, and a man who can hire servants is a little above the average. So the question is, Can I leave my father and the servants? You see, the nets are not mentioned here; it is the father and the servants. I am tested as to whether I have got a little bit of social distinction, and that is a harder wrench than the nets. Of course the nets were left, but the father and the hired servants give me a status.
Ques Is there not a great deal involved in what the Lord says, “Come after me”?
JT That is the point, whether He is going to be attractive. They would find out who He was afterwards. John’s gospel and Peter’s ministry tell enough as to what they found in that Person, what their recompense was.
Ques Where was their service to be? He says, “Come after me, and I will make you become fishers of men”. Was not their service to be amongst men?
JT Yes; the sea would denote that. It would be the sea of people.
Rem You were connecting the sea with death.
JT Well, I think that is right, but it also has a universal suggestion. When Peter was at Joppa, he lodged at a house which is said to have been by the sea. That is to say, Peter was nearing the time of moving out into the gentile world. God had brought him to that point. It was not accidental that he found himself by the sea. He went up on the roof; he would get a better view of the sea as he went up there, and it was at that point that a call came to him from the gentile world, for Cornelius represents the gentile. Peter realised there, perhaps more than ever before, what the Lord meant here.
Ques Do you think it was a process with regard to Peter? The Lord says, “I will make you become fishers of men”. It would not be immediately, but I suppose the result of going after Him.
JT Yes; it would be. Who can say what these men found in Jesus? He says, “Come after me”. So that it says they left all and followed Him. The first thing is following, not fishing. We have to learn to follow before we can fish for men.
Rem I suppose following would be in view of fishing.
JT As with Him they would see how He did things. It says, He went out by the sea with His disciples (Mark 3:7). Then it says, “Going on board ship he sat in the sea”, (chapter 4:1). And in verse 35 He says, “Let us go over to the other side; and having sent away the crowd, they take him with them as he was, in the ship”. So that, as following Him, they would learn how He was, in the sea.
Rem Everything in this gospel is ‘straightway’.
JT So that the believer is supposed to be able to make decisions promptly; there is no dallying about things.
Rem In this gospel the Lord chooses the disciples that they might be with Him (chapter 3:14).
JT That is right; He took them into a mountain and chose them “that they might be with him”. But I think we might notice this instruction regarding James and John in this section, because whatever distinction we have has to be left. And business does involve distinction; indeed it is constant rivalry in business circles as to who will have the most distinction. The more hired servants one’s father may have, the more the distinction, and that is the instruction here. “Leaving their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, they went away after him”. That is to say, they leave the whole business; they leave them in the ship and go away after Him, and they are coming into a system of things, because in the next passage you have the plural. Verse 21 says, “they go into Capernaum”. It is not ‘He’, but ‘they’. It is a system of things, a set of persons, and I am coming into that now. There is goodwill attached to these new circumstances. It is as if the Lord would say, I know that you have left your father and the hired servants; you have left all that where there is distinction, but now you have come into another circle. It is a mutual movement, for it says, “they went”. I am speaking of this movement. Each one could say, I am one in this movement; I have got a status in another order of things. “They went”; these four men and Jesus. Five persons move together. As the Lord’s supper was celebrated, they went, having sung a hymn, to the mount of Olives. I have got a status there. Every partner has a status in the business.
Rem It is a new partnership.
JT That is the idea. “Our fellowship is indeed with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”, (1 John 1:3).
Rem It is one that can never be dissolved.
JT There is also a new set of family relationships.
They go into the city. Capernaum was a distinguished town in those days, but one in which they would be known. So that they are now in a new setting. If I am converted I want to make it clear that I am no longer posing in the old setting, in what I had in this world. I am posing in the new setting. Here are four men walking down the street in Capernaum with Jesus. They are called into the fellowship of God’s Son, as it says in 1 Corinthians 1:9. Heaven would look on these five persons as they walked down that street.
Rem “This and that man was born in her”, (Psalm 87:5).
JT It shews what fellowship means, what I have come into in my new setting. I should say that as James and John met their father later, they would be able to tell him something; he would have to come in. It is a fellowship, a partnership.
Rem There seems to have been no [p. 446] progress with Zebedee. Elsewhere you have the mother interceding for her sons.
JT Yes; she was evidently more a mother than she was a wife. She was all for her children, but that will not do. It was well that these sons were taken out of that setting.
Ques I was going to ask whether you could make what we have been saying plain? We cannot all shut up our businesses.
JT It is a question of where your heart is. If you have a big business, it makes you influential. Money is really the basis of all social relation, and it comes mainly from commerce. Without commerce there would be very little in this world. The possession of means is a most influential thing.
Ques May we not leave it in a moral sense, though not in a literal sense?
JT Yes; you may stay in your business and use the proceeds for the furtherance of the Lord’s interests. You are responsible to Him to be a good steward of what He places under your hand.
Rem If the Lord’s things and service were growing in your mind, if your delight in them were growing, the business would be put into its proper place relatively. It would not be allowed to swamp you.
JT No; you would rather reduce your business in order to set yourself free.
Now in verse 21 you get another thought. It says, “on the sabbath he entered into the synagogue”. It says, “He entered”. The disciples doubtless did too, for it says, “straightway going out of the synagogue, they came”. You see, in going into the house you have the mutual side, but the mutual side does not enter into the synagogue. There it is the Lord attacking the enemy. In verse 21 it says, “And straightway on the sabbath he entered into the synagogue and taught ... And there was in their synagogue a man possessed by an unclean [p. 447] spirit, and he cried out saying, Eh! what have we to do with thee, Jesus, Nazarene? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And the unclean spirit, having torn him, and uttered a cry with a loud voice, came out of him”. Now that is a military move, in which the Lord takes the initiative in attacking the enemy. But the disciples were with Him, according to verse 29. It is interesting to see this mutual side in the going into Capernaum, and the going out of the synagogue into Simon’s house.
Ques Why does it say that this was on the sabbath day?
JT To shew, I think, that He was disregarding the old system. The sabbath was a sign of the covenant, but inasmuch as they had broken the covenant, the sign of it was of no value, and the Lord was shewing this. This is His first attack. In the wilderness it was the enemy’s action against Him, but this is His attack. The enemy holds his ground as long as he can; it says, “The unclean spirit, having torn him ... came out”. He would do all the damage he could. It is a remarkable passage, as bringing out the character of satanic power.
Ques What is the force of “the kingdom of God?” It is presented as the “glad tidings”.
JT It is God coming in in power for man’s deliverance. This case in the synagogue is illustrative of the power of the kingdom acting against Satan for man’s deliverance.
Rem In that the Lord was alone. You emphasise that this is not the mutual side.
JT No; it was the Lord’s doing. It was in Him that the kingdom was being exercised at the outset; later it is seen in the disciples also.
Ques Is not the thought of authority emphasised here? “He taught them as having authority”.
JT It is; He spoke with authority. Then you have the new doctrine — “what new doctrine is this?” That is how the thing would strike the natural religious man.
Rem If the synagogue had been on godly lines, this man would not have been found in it.
JT That is how these scriptures help us today, because the barriers are all down in the systems around us, and the enemy has got in. It is very solemn that there should be in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit.
Ques Would not the synagogue represent the religious side?
JT Yes; the Lord had not come in to build up the synagogue. He left it, and not only did He leave it, but they left it. It says, “And straightway going out of the synagogue, they came with James and John into the house of Simon and Andrew” — shewing that the four persons are still in view. He is taking them through these experiences.
Ques Is there any way in which this kind of thing might be with us today, that is, wicked spirits as it were, controlling certain ones?
JT Well, it is a solemn thing that they exist. One has often thought of it, that the Lord never sent a wicked spirit into a place of restriction. He always let them go. It is a solemn thing that they are allowed to move about in the world. He just cast them out. The time for restriction had not yet come. They are not inactive, so that the Lord is acting against them for us. Luke says, “he was casting out a demon”, (chapter 11:14). There is a sort of suggestion that that is His attitude when it concerns His people; He is acting against the enemy.
Rem So that your thought in bringing before us this passage is to shew us the pathway which leads to levitical service, and also that we may be extricated from the most trying circumstances to serve. A person may say, ‘You do not know how difficult my home life is, and my business life’. But these circumstances are [p. 449] ordered of God that He may shew what He can be for us, and that in spite of them we can serve.
Rem It says, “She served them”, not ‘Him’.
JT As if He might have carried into the house the mutual thought, and it was passed on to them. “She served them”.
Rem Not only do you have people freed from demons, but here you have sickness; people in bodily sickness are made serviceable. I suppose those who lie on a bed, unable to get about, can be levites, in the spirit of it.
JT Such can serve most effectively as priests. I have no doubt many bed-ridden believers are left here to carry on that service, to lift up their hands in the sanctuary (Psalm 134).
Rem Yes; we learn that as we visit among the saints. We often get more than we bring.
Ques It says, “straightway they speak to him about her”, (verse 30). Is not that important?
JT Yes; it shows the sympathetic feeling that existed, leading to mutual conditions in service. It says, “straightway they speak to him about her. And he went up to her”. That is another touch in this gospel. It is a movement in exercise on His part, that He went up.
Ques Would it suggest the lowly place He took in service?
JT It would, and the toil of it. “Then he raised her up”. There is something in that word. It would convey to her that there is a certain exercise involved, needing energy. So that she serves. There is the idea of moral elevation; you come down to serve from that position.
Rem I think it is very precious to see the way the fever left her, when she came in contact with the Lord Himself. Is not that the same in our souls?
JT He took her by the hand; there would be a touch of divine power, giving her a start. Ordinarily the fever would leave her in weakness, but in raising her up [p. 450] the Lord conveys a touch of His power, and in that power she serves.
Ques What would be the idea of the fever?
JT I think it is a very abnormal state; it is a disease that occasions irritability. She would be self-centred in it. But now it is gone; she has got the divine touch. The Lord set her moving in service.
Rem She would be subdued in her spirit.
JT Yes; though I think that comes out more in Luke. In Luke the Lord stands over her. There is no doubt it means that the will is at work. Luke emphasises more the side of authority, and subjection to it, but with Mark the point is energy. Things are to be done at once, and done well. In Luke 4:39 it says, “And standing over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left her; and forthwith standing up she served them”. But here in Mark you get the touch of the Lord; she serves, we may say, in the strength of that; she is set in movement.
Ques Would Mark be more in view of what is levitical, and Luke more what is priestly?
JT That is just the idea, so that the Lord standing over her would mean subjection. She would be impressed with that Man. As standing over her, His authority would be felt, and this would lead to headship, and her service would be according to this.
Ques Have you any thought as to the Lord going into the house of Simon and Andrew?
JT He goes with James and John; that is to say, it is part of their education. He is after these four men. They are all mentioned in verse 29, Simon and Andrew, and James and John. He is impressing these four men.