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LIVING WITH CHRIST

JT The thought is to consider living with Christ. It says, “They lived and reigned with the Christ”, living and reigning. In the passage in 2 Timothy we have how the living is reached, “For if we have died together with him, we shall also live together”; and how the reigning is reached: “If we endure, we shall also reign together”. The dying is in view of living, and the enduring in view of reigning. The word ‘endure’ points to experience of a peculiar kind, and we are told in the note that it has a double sense in English, ‘to last’, and ‘to go through suffering patiently’; it is the latter here. Reigning will thus apply to those who have endured down here. The hope is that while these passages have a prophetic bearing they may also have a practical, experimental bearing for us as we realise that if we are to administer in a governing sense, we must first learn how to live, to live with Christ, and then how to reign, to reign in the sense of influence and government in the assembly.

AR Are the things set out in these scriptures a reward for being faithful here?

JT Well, it is put that way: “They lived and reigned with the Christ”. But what precedes that is, “And I saw thrones; and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them; and the souls of those beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of God; and those who had not done homage to the beast nor to his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and hand; and they lived and reigned with the Christ a thousand years”, Revelation 20: 4. It is clearly put in the sense of reward, that they are worthy of this honour.

AR The overcomer in Smyrna is given a crown of life. Would that be a reward?

JT The word is, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life” (chapter 2: 10). The lesson to us would be that what we go on with now in time in a moral way fits us to enter on official dignity; that is viewed or conferred as a reward. The apostle says, “Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me in that day; but not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4: 8); so we are not coming into anything in this respect that is not already known in some sense. There may be, and doubtless will be, some surprises to us, but what we are coming into is already known normally. Living and reigning are already known.

Ques Would the mighty men of David’s reign who were given places in the kingdom of Solomon correspond with this?

JT I would think so.

Ques It says of one that he was afflicted in all that in which David was afflicted. That would be like suffering with Christ.

JT Quite so; they had already experienced things with David that perhaps they could not have experienced fully with Solomon, but with Solomon they would be confirmed; and in the antitype, at least, we are in glory with Christ, glorified together with Him. There is a certain peacefulness with Solomon that the mighty men could not have had with David. The Lord says, “But ye are they who have persevered with me in my temptations”, Luke 22: 28.

CAM The second clause in verse 4 says, “They sat upon them, and judgment was given to them”; that is one sentence, and then the next sentence speaks of “the souls of those beheaded on account of the testimony”. Would it be right to apply that first sentence to the saints in the present dispensation, and the second to those beheaded after we are gone?

JT I think so; it is a classified position. “And I saw thrones”; that is a general position; “and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them”, that is a certain class; then “the souls of those beheaded ...”, that is another set or class but linked up with the former; then another group, “and those who had not done homage to the beast nor to his image, and had not received the mark on their fore head and hand”. It looks as if the Spirit has put them down here in a classified way, but all as one whole on the thrones. Some come in later. The first set would include, I understand, this present time. But it is the living and the reigning that is in mind to be stressed, how we are to learn to live so that we are not surprised, having already known something of it, when we come into the fulness of living and reigning with Christ.

AAT Are these the same ones that are mentioned in the end of verse 6, “they shall be priests of God and of the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years”?

JT It goes on to say in verse 5, “The rest of the dead did not live till the thousand years had been completed. This is the first resurrection”. That all fits in with what we have just read. And then, “Blessed and holy he who has part in the first resurrection: over these the second death has no power; but they shall be priests of God and of the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years”. This is a further statement governing the previous passage, that is verses 4 and 5. I would say they are the same general class only they are said to be priests, priests of God and of the Christ; not simply priests unto God but of God, as if it is a sort of office they have, not simply a priestly service Godward, but priests of God and of the Christ as a general position of service. It may extend in help to others in the millennium. In chapter 1 it is that He has “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”.

FSC Would it show here that not all those in the first resurrection are raised simultaneously?

JT Well, that is a wonderful thing. It is all classed as one thing, indeed it is all one thing, but it is clear from the facts stated that it begins with ourselves according to 1 Thessalonians, although according to Matthew it had already begun as a testimony after the Lord rose from the dead. “Many bodies of the saints fallen asleep arose, and going out of the tombs after his arising, entered into the holy city and appeared unto many”, Matthew 27: 52, 53. They had part in the first resurrection although they had part in it hundreds of years before ourselves. Then there are those who are raised according to 1 Thessalonians 4, including, I suppose, all the sleeping saints up to that time. But then others will die through persecutions, as we learn here; they will be beheaded: “The souls of those beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of God; and those who had not done homage to the beast nor to his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and hand”. These come in literally later, however short the time, but it is all one thing, nevertheless. The first resurrection covers them all. The rest of the dead are held in abeyance for one thousand years; they do not come into the liberty and glory of resurrection.

AR Will those that die be greater than those that go through the persecution? They will be reigning with Christ in that sense.

JT They have all part in the first resurrection. Of course there are those who are quickened; they do not die at all.

JR Would quickening in Ephesians 2 help us to know how to live?

JT We will refer to that scripture: “You, being dead in your offences and sins ... God, being rich in ^[p. 5] mercy, ... (we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace,) and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. Your thought is that the quickening here and the raising enter into the idea of living with Christ?

JR Yes; living now.

JT Just so. We have also a passage in 1 Thessalonians: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has died for us, that whether we may be watching or sleep, we may live together with him” (chapter 5:9, 10). So that it is a strong thought in the Scriptures. Colossians has it too: “You ... he has quickened together with him”; and then there is this side of the position in 2 Timothy, that dying precedes the idea of living; I think the passage really amplifies that in Revelation, “The word is faithful; for if we have died together with him, we shall also live together”; it is not only that we are “dead in trespasses and sins”, as in Ephesians, but we do it as an act of our own, dying with Him having a moral force to it.

WWM Is that the meaning in Romans 6: “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of His resurrection”?

JT That is the same thought. We have the word ‘if’ in these various scriptures. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him”. “If”, so that it is a sort of hypothesis for us to face. It is open to us to die and the question is whether we have taken it up. “The word is faithful; for if we have died together with him ...”.

It is a state reached. We have reached that. “If we have died”-that is our side; it is our action.

CAM It would not be merely the solution of the moral question, but that we are going to enter into life because Christ has died, and that we pass through ^[p. 6] death to do it. It is a sort of moral necessity, but there is also the idea of affection for Christ.

JT Quite so, “Where thou diest, will I die”. It is your action.

CN Would it be right to say that life is involved in the idea of being beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and in not doing homage to the beast, and so on? Would the kind of life they lived necessitate these things?

JT Yes; they are honoured because in time they have stood out against the evil even unto death, because beheading is a very positive idea of death. The allusion would be, I suppose, to antichrist or the man of sin, getting rid of them, getting rid of persons like that who had such intelligence. Beheading is to remove the intelligence that would be in the enemy’s way. We know that Goliath was beheaded. It alludes to Satan’s resentment of any whom God has used in intelligence in the testimony. Such a man knows what he is doing and he is, dying for it.

WWM It is important to see that the ‘if’ is connected with identification with Him in the likeness of His death, but it says, “So also we shall be of his resurrection”. There is no ‘if’ about the latter statement.

JT The ‘if’ is what you have taken on, whether you have died with Him deliberately, because the idea of dying of yourself is very strongly pronounced in the Scriptures. We have learned to lay down our lives. We lay down our lives for the brethren as He has laid down His life for us. But here it is, “If we have died together with him”. The “together”, I suppose, would allude to us and Christ.

AR Paul says, “I die daily”.

JT That shows how he used the commodity of death. He tells us elsewhere that death is ours. But what good is it if we do not use it? So that David says of Goliath’s sword, “There is none like that”.

^[p. 7] It is the kind of sword to use; that is, it is real death; but it is not to be wrapped up behind the ephod, it is to be used. David said he could use it, and in the government of God he was forced to use it, but he knew what its value was.

RWS Do the ‘if’ here and the several ‘ifs’ in Colossians suggest that there may not be many who are prepared to go this way? “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him”, Romans 6: 8.

JT It is open to us. It would have no force at all unless the opportunity of dying is open to us. In that scripture in Colossians it is already done, “If ye have died”. That is already done, so that we are in that status, that class of people who have reached a point through dying. And then we go on into living with Christ, so that it is not a new thing; it will be no surprise that we have such distinction, because we have already gone through the process.

FHL Is the practical working out of it seen in “Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus”, 2 Corinthians 4: 10?

JT Quite so; it would be that kind of thing, the dying of Jesus. It is not simply to see Him as dead, as in John 6, as food, but He is dying. It is the dying of Jesus, “that the life also of Jesus may be manifested”. That is the way it works out.

ABP Is it distinct from the idea of putting him to death?

JT I think it is; that is, putting to death the body of sin. It is something that is deserving of that at your hands; is that what you mean? It deserves it at your hands because you know the thing you are dealing with, how provocative it is and how obnoxious to God. It ought to be dealt with by your hands.

ABP Is this dying more in relation to the order of man, not necessarily a question of the active ^[p. 8] opposition against what is of God, but the character of man that has been ended in the death of Christ?

JT Yes; he deserves to be put to death; the word is, “Put to death therefore”.

ABP “Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, vile passions, evil lust, and unbridled desire, which is idolatry”, Colossians 3: 5.

JT They are very deserving of it! The word ‘therefore’ shows it is a sequential thing, the chapter begins with it: “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ” (that refers to chapter 2), “seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God ... . Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth”, that is, the moral features of the natural in us that we are well aware of in their character and offensiveness to God, and in the damage they do. There ought to be no hesitation about it; there is even a certain amount of happiness in doing it according to Psalm 137; even the little ones of Babylon are put to death. It is a sort of pleasure, if one may use the word, to terminate the thing that is so awful, that is so disturbing, so objectionable to God.

FSC Do you think the Lord’s teaching on the mount laid the basis for the apostles’ teaching?

JT Do you mean Matthew 5? Just so. It is a long chapter, in fact there are three chapters, authoritative words; you might call it the Mount of Legislation, but it is legislation against things that are so offensive and the establishment of what is right as over against them.

Ques Is it right to say that in David’s reign Joab, Shimei and Abiathar never learned to live and reign with David, because they allowed certain features of the flesh they did not judge?

JT That is good. He would have put them to death himself, and rightly, and perhaps have had a ^[p. 9] certain satisfaction in doing it, but in the government of God he had to leave it for Solomon to do. You can see that in his mind they were deserving of death, that they could not five and reign with him. They might in a certain sense outwardly five and reign, but not in the true sense, because living involves affection.

DP Would Abraham in circumcising himself and his household go as far as that of which you are speaking?

JT That is the idea, I am sure. Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Genesis 17: 18); but that is putting a man in the presence of God that God did not care for. Ishmael was circumcised like the rest; circumcision goes a certain way to it, but Colossians makes the thing thorough. It is the circumcision of Christ; it is the real thing, what He endured in the way of suffering.

CAM I was thinking of Jacob somewhat in that connection. It says in Genesis 49: 28, 29, “Every one according to his blessing he blessed them. And he charged them, and said to them, I am gathered to my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave”. He must have faced an immensity in that as he thought of all those sons. Was he not stressing to them the necessity of burial, the great meaning there was in it? There was a history really that went into burial.

JT He wanted to be buried himself and to be buried in a certain place, where resurrection would take place; so that we can well afford to accept burial in view of resurrection, “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”. I am not sure that I would connect Jacob’s instructions as to his burial with any evil-doing. What we are speaking of now in Colossians, the putting to death and the putting off, is dealing with evil-doing. But then there is such a thing as dying by the will of God in the light of resurrection, and there is nothing attached to that,

^[p. 10] nothing blameworthy. It is a question of Machpelah, a burial ground that belongs to the Lord, a place in which He keeps His own, “the dead in Christ”, until the time of the resurrection.

CAM That is just what I thought. Would it be right to say it was not so much a moral question as a matter of privilege?

JT Yes. It was at the threshing-floor of Atad that they stopped as they came round into Canaan to bury Jacob. It is a place of fruitfulness, like the threshing of the corn. 1 Corinthians 15: 44 links with it. Whatever it is, it is all in the light of resurrection, of sowing to be raised. “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”. So that I think our burials in that way become precious. Our baptisms, of course, are too, but usually baptism comes in to deal with what was objectionable. “Why lingerest thou? Arise and get baptised, and have thy sins washed away, calling on his name”, Acts 22: 16. It is burial in both cases but Jacob’s burial was according to the will of God; burial to be raised.

RWS Is there not a peculiar sweetness about this word ‘together’ in 2 Timothy? All that believed were together in the pristine days, but as we move on these moral lines that thought is not lost, is it?

JT I think not. Ephesians, as we have already said, points to our being raised up together, not with Christ, but with one another. God has raised us up together, not with Christ but in Christ. But “together” refers to one another which, as you say, began at Pentecost and is going on to eternity. Here it is together with Christ that is in mind, I think. It seems to be the teaching of the word; not that we are raised with one another but with Christ. We, together, are unitedly raised with Christ, that is the force of the word. “The word is faithful; for if we have died together with him”, that is, all of us viewed ^[p. 11] as taking on the thing; what Ruth took on, “Where thou diest will I die”. We have all taken that on, and the Lord is telling us it will be that way always: ‘You are to be living with Me, going all of you together, all of you with Me together’. That is the force of the passage, because there is a moral bearing to it. The “if” is hypothetical, and it reverts back to me personally, whether I have faced that matter; whether I have accepted with the brethren this great thought of dying with Christ, dying together with Him. These meetings ought to lead to that. We are speaking to one another unitedly and we are enjoying something, but have we faced this matter together of Christ’s death? If we have, the word is, “We shall also live together”. It is a precious thought, all of us, every one of us. We are here together now today, but we want that “together” to go on for ever, and it really does in our unitedly coming to the point of dying, laying down our lives in the testimony for Him, the kind of way He laid down His life.

ABP Does this synchronise with the apostle’s judgment when he says, “Having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died”, 2 Corinthians 5: 14? Is that the process of arriving at this?

JT That is good. We judge; it is a judgment. “For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died”. That is a fact as before God, but I think this goes a bit further. It is a decision to which we have come unitedly, all together, the brethren in fellowship. I think that being in the fellowship we ought to come to this, doing things together. It is our time to die, it is a time of dying for the Lord Jesus. He has done it and we are deciding to do it together.

ABP Does it refer to His death, not as under guilt, but as the One who in every movement was pleasurable to God, for the purpose of terminating one order of man to bring ^[p. 12] in another?

JT Just so. And you feel that in joining in with this as in these meetings and in our fellowship, it is something to come to, to unite in together. It settles everything, really, if you unite in this point: to die together with Christ; you and I and all of us to join in this. The “if” leads on to the fact that we shall live together too. There will be no separation.

Ques One of the apostles had this in mind, do you think? Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”, John 11: 16.

JT That is good. That is one of the assets he has to his credit. He has some debits, but that one is mentioned in John ii, when they were going to Judaea, as if he felt there was opposition to the Lord in Judaea, and he was taking it on himself, and he was ready to die. He was going to join in. I believe that is the idea.

Rem He says, “Let us also go”. The “us” is emphatic. It is remarkable.

JT Yes, the “us” is emphatic, so that Thomas is seeking to draw them all into it.

CN Does verse 10 of our chapter show that the apostle is labouring to this very end, to bring the saints into the truth of what we are speaking about?

JT Yes, I think so. It is what Paul could say, “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things. Remember Jesus Christ raised from among the dead, of the seed of David, according to my glad tidings, in which I suffer even unto bonds as an evil-doer” (verses 7 - 9). Then he says, “For this cause I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain”, showing how near he was to Christ in this matter and how his mind was running along the Lord’s way as He entered into death for the elects’ sake. Why should we not all join in this matter, not simply in the fellowship, but in this great matter of identification with Christ in death? Because it is a time of danger, just as Thomas said, “Let us ... die with him”. It is a time when we are called upon for that sort of thing.

FNW Is there a certain leverage toward going this way in “Remember Jesus Christ raised from among the dead”?

JT That is good; it is something to have in your mind. There is a title in the Psalms we have often noted, “To bring to remembrance”; and of course the Lord’s supper involves it.

CAM I suppose it would help us in our viewpoint as to those that are suffering on the continent of Europe and our young brothers. You really face the thing with them. You do not just hope there will be some turn that will bring in peaceful conditions, you face what it really means.

JT That has often come up during the past four years, what our brethren have been suffering. “Remember prisoners, as bound with them”, Hebrews 13: 3. The Spirit of God would draw us into what is going on. We are immune to it in actuality because of certain physical and political conditions, but the thing is there, and if you are not there physically, at any rate you want to be in it thoroughly in your heart and mind. It is the time for this, that we are to die and then proceed into life.

JS Do you think the Lord is stressing the fact of making the assembly ready to cross over?

JT It looks that way. It seems as if the Jordan stresses that. There is so much detail in the book of Joshua so that they should go into the land in a suitable spirit and way. The ark has gone in before us, as it were for us. It is there holding the judgment back, holding death back, and we want to join in that rightly, not in any disorganised way when we cross the Jordan, but in order.

Ques What is the meaning of the word in Matthew 16: 24, 25: “If any one desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow ^[p. 14] me. For whosoever shall desire to save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it”?

JT It is not the Lord’s cross there, it is your own cross; that is, God in His way has put in your way the means of dying, and it is really a painful thing. As it was to Christ, so it is to us, but it is your matter; it is your death; it is your cross. It is a painful thing as Christ’s was. I think that is what is meant, so that if you lose your life you will save it; that is the way it works out.

AAT Does this suffering qualify one for reigning? This verse also speaks of reigning together.

JT That is the point we should now go on to. We have already dealt with the word, “If we have died together with him, we shall also live together”. The next thing is, “If we endure, we shall also reign together”. As already remarked, the word ‘endure’ means that you go through, go to the end of the war, for the duration, as we say, and do the best possible, but that you really go through it triumphantly. The word is that. ‘Endure’ has a double sense in English. ‘To last’ is the first idea, that whatever may come, you do your best to go through. Ungodly men have to do that and they are doing it. But the other meaning is that you go through suffering patiently; that is, you go through according to heaven, according to the example set by the Lord, and that qualifies you for reigning; “If we endure, we shall also reign together”.

AAT Job is a sample of endurance.

JT James says, “Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of tender compassion and pitiful”, James 5: 11. Job helps us, but you really want Christ for the example of endurance. Take a man like Jonah: he endured too, but he made rather a poor hand of it, though he did fairly well in being cast into the depths.

“Cast me forth”, he says; that meant that he was going to face the thing because others were suffering on account of him.

AR How do we get the benefits Paul speaks of? He says, “For this cause I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”. Are we getting the benefits of somebody else’s enduring? That is how Paul puts it here.

JT That is how Paul acted. What a noble thing that was! that they might obtain something because of what he does, that they might gain something from what he endures. Now that is brought down to ourselves in verse 12: “If we endure, we shall also reign together”. It is not just as Paul endured but as Christ endured, the way the thing was gone through by Him.

FNW Would you say something about the matter of boasting according to Romans 5? “We boast in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works endurance” (verses 2, 3).

JT Just so; “Tribulation works endurance”, so that experience is stretched out for you. There are many things you have to go through, but you are learning through them. There are certain things that work out results, and the thing that works endurance in you makes you a man like this, that you go through the thing according to God.

JR Have we not the power of God to do it “Strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory unto all endurance and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father”, Colossians 1: 11, 12?

JT That is a very good word. I hope the brethren will notice it. It is a Colossian touch. It is divine power that is needed for going through things in this way as ^[p. 16] Christ did.

FHL Would not the apostle have been affected by Stephen’s ministry and martyrdom?

JT Just so; it would be a lesson to him that was never to be forgotten. He was bearing the clothes of them that stoned him, and he afterward called Stephen, a martyr. He tells the Lord he was His martyr, as if he was the representative of martyrdom.

FHL It says in Acts 9: 31, “The assemblies then throughout the whole of Judaea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being edified and walking in the fear of the Lord, and were increased through the comfort of the Holy Spirit”. Would that not be in measure an outflowing of the result seen in Stephen?

JT Just so; I think God had greatly advantaged the testimony at that time in bringing in a man like Stephen. It is the idea of the acacia wood, the humanity of Christ expressed in Stephen, so like the Lord Jesus.

ABP The sisters will be included in this reigning, will they not? The brothers have the most active part in administrative matters now, but it would not be right to exclude the sisters from having part in the reigning in the day to come.

JT So that they can ask their husbands at home what happened in the care meeting, so that they can join in and carry things in prayer. Not that one would suggest that the care meeting is a reigning time; it is really more agonising, so as to reach an end in due time in assembly authority. But it certainly needs this endurance.

DP Would the difficulties we encounter every day all be used of God to help us, to bring out this feature of endurance?

JT I think so. We have already referred to it in Romans 5; we might look at it again so as to have it clearly in our minds. There are certain workers that God gives us in verses 3 - 5: “Knowing that tribulation works endurance; and endurance, experience;

^[p. 17] and experience, hope; and hope does not make ashamed”. The idea of the workers runs through all these things, that is, the idea of what works, meaning what helps us. Peter enlarges on this, showing how one christian quality works out another christian quality, so that there is a continual sequence: that in our faith we are to have virtue, and in our virtue knowledge, and so forth (2 Peter 1: 5).

WWM Is that why James suggests this line? He says, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into various temptations” (chapter 1: 2).

JT That is just what he means-all joy. That is, he triumphs. If a depressing thing is gone through in this way it is triumph. It is really the exhibiting of christianity, Christ’s life in adversity.

WWM In Romans 8 it says, “We are more than conquerors”.

JT Quite so, “Through him that has loved us”.

RWS The disciples at the Supper have reigning in mind. Then the Lord in the garden a little later on, being in conflict, prays more earnestly; and then there is the awful pressure, sweat as great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Then He goes to the disciples and speaks to them, saying, “Why sleep ye? rise up and pray”, Luke 22: 46. I wondered if that would help as to what we are saying now, the way the Lord comes to them and is so tender with them.

JT There you really reach the acme of the Lord’s path of suffering. The cross, of course, is the fulness of it, Gethsemane being the place of pressure. The Lord made disposition of the disciples in that place so that they might be fully in the position and get the gain of it. He was pressed; the devil was there to do it; he was a sort of servant to do it, and to work the thing out in the winepress of Gethsemane, and the disciples were to be brought into it. We know how they felt, how they came short, but still, in due ^[p. 18] time, they were all brought into it. The Lord says to Peter, Some day you will come into it. “When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire”, John 21: 18. So that we do not go through anything very well. That is what is meant in the awkwardness of the disciples with the Lord, but the Spirit brought them into it in due time.

WWM Do you think that shows us the difference between Joshua and Caleb and the mass of the people going through the wilderness? The others rebel at it, but they had the joy of what was on the other side. They really would represent life in that way.

JT They had much better times than the others. Caleb said he had not lost anything; I am just as strong, he said, as I was forty-five years ago. He had lost nothing; he had gained.

AR He said he had wholly followed the Lord.

AAT Did you say reigning is influence?

JT It is. A brother has just remarked about the sisters coming into this: it is an open door to go into. It is a time of suffering, and if we have died with Him, we shall live with Him, together; it is all of us coming into it together. At the care meeting we will say we have agonising things and we go through them together on the Saturday night, and the Lord’s day is the time of living together with Him. Then when the time of action comes in assembly dignity it is a sort of reigning. Things are done in heavenly dignity, and the assembly is really reigning with Christ in the thing. Everything is to be done in order, but there is dignity attaching to it. I believe it works out just that way. That is, those that live with Him are glorified to reign with Him.

CAM It puts a great meaning on what we are doing now in a small way.

JT I am sure it does. It is right that we should have it in our minds that things are great. Assembly ^[p. 19] action will be fully displayed in the millennium, but it is taken on now with a measure of understanding. Then we shall have the rule over certain cities, but really we have already come to it now.

Ques Does this reigning time you are speaking about apply now, or has it only a future bearing?

JT It has a future bearing; but we are just trying to apply this passage in Timothy at the present time in a moral way.

Rem We need strength to endure. A child cannot endure much; the thought of endurance involves strength.

JR It says, “Strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory unto all endurance and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father”, Colossians 1: 11, 12.

JT That is it; it is how you go through it according to Colossians. That is not a child’s way. Children do not come into this; it is men. Colossians contemplates that.

Ques Is the writer of the Hebrews stressing that when he says they were not able to take meat? They were like children in a way, and yet he tells them to call to mind what they had endured earlier.

JT Just so. They had dropped, I should think.

APf Speaking of the care meetings, are they more exercising to you than other meetings?

JT I do not know; they certainly should be exercising to us all, because so many things have to be dealt with, and it is agonising really as to how to get through them and maintain the rights of God in them, so many things arise to cause real sorrow. They do not come up at the readings or the prayer meetings, and you have to go through them at the time of care. We are to care with genuine feeling how the brethren get on.

Ques Solomon must have agonised in 1 Kings 3 over those two women with the child. Do you not ^[p. 20] think that is the way it should be? The queen of Sheba suggests the happy side, but there is that agonising side.

JT I am sure that is right. Solomon must have had real anxiety and sorrow that he should have to exercise such action on Joab and others, but he had real joy when the queen of Sheba came up. It was a time of joy and victory, the way he went up to the house of the Lord. That was not the care meeting; it was how he went up.

FHL Is there instruction in the Lord’s endurance for forty days in the wilderness, with the climax of endurance in the garden at the end of Luke?

JT Yes. In Luke it is said He was led in the wilderness by the Spirit-not into. It might appear that He was led into it, but He is led in it. That is the way Luke presents it, showing that He was in victory in it by the Spirit. Luke does not mention the name Gethsemane, He does not enlarge on the sufferings of the Lord so much, but still you can see what was there-how the Lord felt things. He was led of the Spirit in the wilderness, that is, He is presented as moving there by the Spirit, or rather the Spirit is taking the lead, as it should be with us “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”, Romans 8: 14. That is what marked the Lord. So when you come to Gethsemane-although in Luke it is not mentioned by name-the same principle was there and the Lord went through it in that sense, that He was led by the Spirit. The Spirit had to do with Gethsemane and with the cross too “Who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”, Hebrews 9:14.

FHL I was thinking of assembly exercises worked out in the wilderness as seen in Luke 4, corresponding to the Lord’s experience there; and then the exercise at the close of the church’s history. It speaks in Luke of the Lord’s going to the mount ^[p. 21] of Olives, that He endured the pressure there. It is in the garden in Matthew and Mark, but it is at the mount of Olives in Luke. I was wondering whether that is the type or character of exercise the assembly is passing through at the present time.

JT Quite so; there is something in that, in the mount of Olives, and the Spirit being linked up with it. It is a time for us to come to this matter of the Spirit and doing things by the Spirit, that the Spirit is doing things by us, for that is what is seen really in Luke 4.

Ques Is the thought of reigning entirely future?

JT It is a prophetic thought, of course. In our scripture it says, “If we endure, we shall also reign together”. That is a future thought, but there can be no doubt that there is a present bearing to it. The actual prophetic thought is fully in Revelation 20.

RWS There are gradations in reigning, are there not, according to the number of cities? Is that just for the thousand years?

JT A thousand years, that is the word there; they live and reign a thousand years.

RWS Is this reigning with Him in Timothy more than a thousand years? Does it apply to the millennium only or does it go into the eternal state?

JT It is a question whether it does. We would have to work that out through other scriptures. Here the great point is that you do reign as a consequence of knowing how to suffer now in patience and endurance. That is what accrues. It will be no surprise because you have been through the thing already.

AR The twenty-four elders are reigning before this.

JT They are seated on thrones around the throne in relation to the course of things in the book; they are throned elders and crowned elders. There is a good deal that we could work out on these lines; but living and reigning a thousand years is remarkable, as ^[p. 22] if it were singled out as a time when these things will be seen peculiarly, the time for seeing the thing and working it out. I would not make much of the thousand years except that it is a time period. We are still in time, a long time of course, but still it is in time, and it is to bring out certain things in a practical or concrete way, what God can reach in the millennium.

CAM With the Lord it is one triumphal day.

JT Quite; God has picked out these years, as it were, and put them away for a purpose, to work out some thing or things, so that it shall be fully seen as worked out.

AR There is a time period after the millennium, too, is there not?

JT According to this chapter there is. Whatever there may be after or before, God would say, I want these thousand years for a purpose. So they are a very important thousand years; they have to be measured and taken as they are, the thousand working something out. There are a great many, periods of time that Scripture contemplates in the numerical way of dealing with things. This matter is a great point with God, and He has ordained the idea of numbers and the use of them. They show how He works out certain things. This is the longest period He has ordained for that purpose. These people in verse 4 are greatly honoured as to what they are, and how God signalises what they are by causing them to live and reign with Christ a thousand years! God has singled out these thousand years to bring about certain things, and these people are involved. In verse 6 we have an addition to the matter: “They shall be priests of God and of the Christ”, not to God, but of; that the whole universe may see that God has these people for priests. It will be a great priestly time with such men as these. God will use them in a priestly sense.

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