THE ASSEMBLY AS SEEN IN THE REVELATION (3)
[p. 76] THE ASSEMBLY AS SEEN IN THE REVELATION (3)
JT The address to the assembly at Thyatira must be included in what comes before us at this time, beginning with verse 18 of chapter 2. That address was read yesterday afternoon but not touched in our remarks, so that we have four assemblies to consider now. We shall have to be more or less brief in our remarks so that all may be covered. The assemblies especially before us now are Thyatira and Philadelphia. The errors in Thyatira may be counteracted by the virtues indicated in Philadelphia, for the two assemblies run together; they are prophetically contemporary. There is a peculiar kind of responsibility attached to angels in Thyatira, as indicated in what is said to the angel there. The Lord says, “But I have against thee that thou permittest the woman Jezebel, she who calls herself prophetess, and she teaches and leads astray my servants”, Revelation 2: 20. The brethren no doubt have noticed that the word ‘woman’ may be translated ‘wife’, so that we are reminded of a household situation in Thyatira, in which there is the wife and the one who is responsible in regard of her. Her conduct is terrible, but still it is a household situation that is in mind. It shows what christendom has become, a sort of administration contemplating a household, and the responsible element, that is, the angel, is neglectful. The Lord says, “Thou permittest the woman Jezebel”, as if her husband were ignoring the officious conduct of his wife. He knew it, he was there and responsible, but he failed to check it, to have it corrected. He permitted it, the allusion being, as the teaching shows, to the situation in the reign of Ahab in which Elijah ministered. It was a [p. 77] situation marked by conduct which was dreadful, Jezebel being the wife of the king who was responsible and who, to some extent, was amenable to reproof; indeed at one time he humbled himself and God owned it, but still negatively, and he went on to ruin, showing that where there is a neglect of household responsibility and restraint the end is sure to be ruinous.
CHH It says in Kings that she urged Ahab on to sin. I was wondering whether she would be in contrast to Abigail, the true wife you might say. Does this woman really develop into Babylon?
JT That is what the teaching of the book brings out. She is seen more in a political relation later, that is, in chapters 16, 17 and 18, especially in 17, where she rides the beast. Then she is spoken of as saying in her heart that she sits a queen, not a wife, but a queen (chapter 18:7). Of course the queen Jezebel was a wife, but what is said is that she said in her heart, “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow; and I shall in no wise see grief”. Here it is the household position, hardly a kingdom position, but the household.
HH What do you mean as to the household?
JT A husband and wife and the children: they are all alluded to. Then there are those in the setting, the religious position, that are responsible as Ahab was. They are responsible for the house. It is not as the wife is responsible in Proverbs, one who is viewed as faithful, her husband being known in the gates. Jezebel is over against this; her husband is simply unable to deal with the situation, and this person or wife pursues her wicked ways unhindered.
Ques Would John’s second epistle indicate the right conditions prevailing in the elect lady and her children? She is found walking in the truth.
JT I think that is good; she is called the “elect lady”, and she was faithful over against this wicked person. Peter has a similar expression: “She that [p. 78] is elected with you in Babylon salutes you”, 1 Peter 5: 13. The allusion would be either to his wife or to an assembly there, but in either case it is a matter of the husband’s sense of responsibility.
RWS Is the believer’s household like an antechamber to the assembly? If Satan can secure something in the household he is attacking God’s assembly.
JT I am sure that is the truth. Satan attacks our houses. He attacks the local assemblies, too, and the leaders, the brethren or elders who are responsible. The masculine side would be in the leaders, those who attend the care meetings or wherever rule is maintained. 1 Timothy 5 helps on this line, and indeed the whole teaching of Timothy helps as to how rule is maintained and how it bears on the assembly. So that as the sisters grow older they are not to be put on the list until they are sixty, showing that the assembly is not to be damaged in any way by persons for whom it cares financially. It shows too that youth is not an asset; it is a liability really. Younger women are enjoined to marry so that there should be children to be brought up for the Lord. Children are a sort of check in households, a sort of balance, a responsibility that helps to balance the position.
AAT You were calling attention to the Nicolaitanes and the difference between their works and their doctrine. I notice here that Jezebel teaches; that would take in doctrine.
JT It is well to bring that up. It is said, “She teaches and leads astray my servants”; and then we are told in verse 24, “But to you I say, the rest” (that is, the remnant) “who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine ...”. The allusion is to what she teaches, so that we have to watch the feminine power rising, attempting to teach in the profession and acquiring pre-eminence above the masculine feature. That is what has developed in Rome, because this paragraph in chapter 2 is early in the history of [p. 79] the assembly. The later chapters deal with later conditions, more political conditions, but this is somewhat earlier in the history when she took root, not as a queen, but as a wife. She took root and acquired power and corrupted; she became the great corruptress of the earth.
WFK She calls herself a prophetess. That is a false position, is it not?
JT Quite so; that is what the system we are alluding to does.
WFK Jezebel had false prophets and maintained them.
JT She slew the prophets of the Lord. The following queen, Athaliah, would have slain and did slay the seed royal as far as she could; that is to say, the royalty of Christ and the prophetic ministry of Christ. These two women represent Satan’s instruments to overcome by evil.
AB “She ... leads astray my servants”, that is on the masculine side. The note says, ‘bondmen’. They were led astray.
JT Quite so. It shows it was at an early stage of the history of the assembly, but that the system had already taken effect, and in a very subtle and powerful way that the masculine had failed to restrain. The corruption was allowed to go on.
AB Was that seen in Jezebel’s writing a letter in the king’s name and using his seal on it, taking the matter entirely out of Ahab’s hand?
JT Just so, that helps. He was weak in all that. What develops in that section of 1 Kings is that God had great regard for royalty at the moment. Bad as Ahab was, the prophet had already come and spoken to him, and God says to him, You are going to lead Israel. And he did lead Israel and led victoriously, so that there is no excuse for him. He is man enough on those lines, man enough to make war, but not man enough on household lines to correct his wife and [p. 80] children. So that here in Revelation Jezebel in the character of a wife becomes the great corruptress; and in later chapters branches out in a queenly way, a more royal way, you may say, bringing down the wrath of heaven. There is more exultation over her overthrow than over anything else in the book.
HH What you are saying is an important word for the home circle now.
JT The devil gets in in that way. He gets in with the fashions of the world and its pleasures, and the lack of restraint from the masculine side is what he is counting on. His ideas are positively operating in the feminine side, in the mothers and the sisters.
CHH The prophet Ezekiel complained in chapter 43: 8 that there was only a wall between the houses of the kings and the temple, and that they were corrupting God’s house by what was going on in their houses.
JT There is a great deal made in Ezekiel of Jehovah’s love for Israel. That is, for Jerusalem really, because Jerusalem is taken up in the time of David. How God regarded her! what she was like when He found her, and how she developed in beauty and then failed Him utterly.
RWS In the promise to the rest: “To you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I do not cast upon you any other burden”, who are “they” in the words, “they say”?
JT That is Rome, I would think. Rome would aver that the real ones were influenced by the devil; that is what I think is meant. The speakers were the enemy’s instruments: “As many as .. have not known the depths of Satan, as they say”. It is the kind of language that the professional people would use as to any work of God, because the time had come for the real separation. The remnant had begun to take form, and the enemy, through the leaders in [p. 81] Rome, would attribute to them what really was attributable to the official class, the Jezebel class. That class began at Pergamos where Antipas was slain; it is on the lines of which we are speaking now. The opposition to what was of God was there. The remnant is not spoken of there; it is spoken of first in Thyatira, and the enemy is given to know that God is moving.
AB Is that like the great cry of heresy that Rome raised?
JT The word ‘heresy’ became emblazoned in their vocabulary, whereas Paul was the one who introduced it. Throughout the history it is applied to the real people of God and of course at the time of the Reformation it became a very far-flung thought. Heresy against the truth was charged against the christians, whereas in truth the heresy was in the public and leading class.
HH Would the attack be made on the overcomer by this class?
JT Just so. And therefore you would need to be an overcomer in view of this in order to make room for the Spirit. So the word is, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”. The word to the assemblies comes in after that to the overcomer, so that no one will hear the Spirit’s word unless he overcomes these things, these conditions.
FKC In relation to, “her children will I kill with death”-is that a kind of doctrinal thing, such as the doctrine of transubstantiation and the worship of images, which Satan has introduced?
JT Just so. Possibly the Eastern elements are in mind and had something to do with the dead condition that ensued; but it spread over the whole of christendom and her children. The Lord says, I will kill them “with death”. It would be moral death, not literal death. Satan would kill the saints in Smyrna with literal death, but now the Lord takes that weapon [p. 82] over and uses it against the children of Jezebel. That is, they die morally; the doctrine is so deadly that they cease to have any life at all. Let anyone travel through Europe, southern Europe particularly, and he will be impressed with the deadness that there is.
AAT I think you would be impressed with it in Montreal.
JT Well, there is probably more virus here; they are in touch more with Protestantism here, as in Ireland. The thing is kept going. But where you have masses of people without any opposition, without anything but the sort of thing that Jezebel has, there is lust deadness. And of course Rome flourishes in that darkness.
EAL How far would you go in placing the responsibility of these false doctrines? Would you link them entirely with clericalism?
JT These elements that flourish in Thyatira are seen in the previous church: the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes and the doctrine of Balaam are there, and now we have Jezebel’s doctrine: “She who calls herself prophetess, and she teaches and leads astray my servants to commit fornication and eat of idol sacrifices”. This has to be taken as pure out-and-out worldliness, shameful conduct. “And I gave her time that she should repent, and she will not repent of her fornication”. Then follows the statement of the legal judicial action: “Behold, I cast her into a bed, and those that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and her children will I kill with death; and all the assemblies shall know ...”. It had not happened yet at this writing; the teaching was current but the penalty had not yet been enforced. It has been since.
Ques What is the thought of the bed?
JT Well, it is the close association with evil, idolatry brought in, heathen practices brought in;
[p. 83] not only judaism, but heathendom taken on and practised.
M What is the thought in “I will give to you each according to your works”?
JT It is to stress what He had against the main body, the whole body, as He said earlier: “I have against thee that thou permittest the woman Jezebel ...”. Then comes, “I will give to you each according to your works”; that is, the Lord will deal with each one of them according to their works, to each one in the public body. Then verse 24 says, “But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine”; this is where we get the real parting of the ways; the rest involves the remnant; the rest is over against the main body”who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I do not cast upon you any other burden; but what ye have hold fast till I shall come”. So now the Lord is speaking to a class or a part of the whole body of believers, and He is marking them off as spoken to separately. He is marking them off as if He is leaving to the main body these words as to Jezebel, that “she will not repent”, and what He will do to her and her children. It is true there is a word as to repentance, but it says, “She will not repent”, so there is no hope at all for her. The book tells us later that she is to be destroyed root and branch, and the judgment will go on eternally, showing what heaven thinks about it, but the remnant is spoken of by itself, and the overcomer is put before the hearing of the Spirit, as if He is saying, I am not going to minister to the public body; I am going to minister to those who have overcome or who are in principle overcomers.
Ques Did the parting of the ways take place in the Reformation?
JT It did historically; that is what happened.
CHH Would you suggest that now there is no “rest”, as referred to, in Thyatira?
JT [p. 84] No, unless you take the word Thyatira as a divisional word, as one of the seven divisions; in that case it involves the public body, which is yet responsible. But the Spirit of God has in mind that there is a system, and that the matter is settled in their case. In principle, the whole system is judged. It is only a matter of time till God will bring it up to remembrance for destruction.
FC Why does the Lord connect repentance at all with such a system?
JT It shows God’s attitude; it is still the christian dispensation, and the Lord is true to that. That helps us, too, in our souls.
AAT As to verse 21, “And I gave her time that she should repent”, is there a principle in that that in connection with our handling of evil we should give time for repentance?
JT I think so; I think we ought to make the thing clear and then give time for repentance, because that gives time for the Spirit of God to operate. The dispensation may be said to be the dispensation of the Spirit, and that means that time must be given for Him to operate. But then, the Lord has said here authoritatively that she will not repent, so the system is doomed.
HH Is that not characteristic of persons who, so to say, secede from right fellowship, that you seldom hear of repentance? The thing goes on.
JT Usually when the system is connected with it, it becomes a systematised matter; there is judicial doom attached to it.
MWA Does it suggest here that there is ministry that should bring about repentance when He says, “I gave her time that she should repent”, ministry brought before them but not taken in and acted upon?
JT That usually goes with such circumstances. God never leaves Himself without a witness, and certainly there has been witness even up to the present [p. 85] time. There has been testimony to this situation and the remnant is in mind, for the Lord has the remnant in mind. But this refusal to repent morally finishes the matter as far as the system is concerned; the general position is settled when the Lord says, “She will not repent”. He continues, I will do so-and-so, and so-and-so, and when that begins to take place the matter is settled. But the idea of the remnant runs on, and we shall see it in Philadelphia.
RH What is the idea of “all the assemblies” in verse 23? “And all the assemblies shall know that I am he that searches the reins and the hearts”.
JT I would take that to be just the general position of the profession. The Lord sees to it that the matter is closed. I suppose historically that came out at the Reformation; the whole general position became aware of what was current. Of course that period in church history is most interesting as to what the Spirit was doing, and what evidences there were of His work; also the principle of the whole becoming acquainted with the actual situation.
CHH Would previous history enter into this matter of repentance, as in Esau’s case? You were speaking in your address as to a certain fixity that would arise where one is already doomed.
JT That is true. It came about with the Amorites and with Esau. God did not say at the beginning that He hated Esau, He says it in Malachi, meaning that it was when the conduct of Esau became public. The time comes when God says, It is finished.
SRMcC God’s dealings with Thyatira are to turn our eyes inward to see the kind of God we have, who searches the reins and the hearts.
JT “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”. What the Spirit says is much wider than what the Lord says. What the Lord says is only the text of your address, but the address itself is much wider. Therefore it would mean [p. 86] that in the address, in the full bearing of what He says, He searches the reins and hearts. The reins are the lower organs of the person; the heart is the upper and intelligent organ. The Lord does not deal with these any more simply in externals. That is what came out at the Reformation: the thoughts of many hearts were revealed. What a revelation there was of the state of christendom!
RH Why is it that the first feature of the remnant is connected with doctrine rather than with practice? “As many as have not this doctrine”, it says.
JT It would be a question of whether they were really clear of the system. The Lord could hardly recognise them as a remnant unless they were clear of the system. People began to judge of it even down in Italy and in France; and in Bohemia too the Spirit of God raised exercises and they began to judge it. They judged the doctrine on which the system was built up.
CDeB Is this the first time the coming of the Lord is mentioned? In chapter 22 it says, “I come quickly”. Is not this different?
JT Well, what it says in verse 25, “But what ye have hold fast till I shall come”, is said to the remnant, not to the whole public system. It continues, “And he that overcomes”; as much as to say the Holy Spirit will keep on ministering, though on smaller lines, no doubt; but He will keep on ministering, and if He is doing that, then there must be overcomers. He is not going to keep on ministering to that system, He has dealt with it. So that He says, “And he that overcomes, and he that keeps unto the end my works, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall shepherd them with an iron rod; as vessels of pottery are they broken in pieces, as I also have received from my Father; and I will give to him the morning star”. That is the position. Then verse 29 shows that the ministry is going on but it is those [p. 87] that are overcoming who will get the good of it. Hence there is the renewal of things, a change-over, the ministry continuing on, but on smaller lines. Nevertheless it is real, and in view, not of the past but of the future, the future kingdom when the Lord will come and rule the nations with a rod of iron. These devoted ones are under His eye and they will join Him and rule with Him. In the meantime they will get ministry. “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”; not to one, but to all of them, so that the general position of the dispensation is maintained in the Spirit; for it is the dispensation of the Spirit.
WFK The Roman system goes in for rule and authority, but here it is the overcomer that will rule and shepherd.
JT The overcomer has the light of that, that he is going to rule. Rome says she is still ruling, but in view of the continuance of the ministry, which is the last verse, I believe history shows that Rome set itself up in opposition to the Holy Spirit. Then the Bull of Infallibility was intended to check or overcome the actual ministry of the dispensation, which is that of the Spirit of God. We are coming under that at the present time.
Rem She calls herself a prophetess.
JT She has done that. Of course, the Bull of Infallibility is the full expression of that. The Pope is said to be infallible under certain circumstances, a terrible thing. But we are finding out today, as the brethren have been doing for many years, that the dispensation of the Spirit still holds.
JRH Is the searching of the reins and the hearts to fit us into the conditions of transparency found in the end of the book, as over against the secret side seen in the bed and the existence of holy orders and all that kind of [p. 88] thing?
JT Transparency is a word which applies to what we are saying; the system we are dealing with does not know it at all. They ignore it. It is darkness they maintain; they flourish in darkness. Our dispensation is a dispensation of light, but that means the dispensation of the Spirit. It is the day of the Spirit.
EAL It is interesting to see the distinctions here. Jezebel calls herself a prophetess, a title for which she has no authority. Then the overcomer is on the masculine side. Is that right? There is no recognition of headship in her calling herself a prophetess.
JT She assumes that role of feminine rule; so that finally she becomes a queen. She moves over from the title of prophetess to become a queen: “I sit a queen, and am no widow”. She has no felt need whether her husband be dead or alive. She is not a widow. It is a political position she has acquired, so that she is, as it were, self-contained. She came into very close quarters recently with destruction, because anyone can see how easily it could happen if God so ordered. She thinks she has a permanent tenure of life, but she has not.
Rem “As I also have received from my Father”. Is that not interesting as being the Lord’s second mention in this book of the Father in relation to the assembly? There seems to be a suggestion of the way this system is set up, how the head of it receives this title, which is so foreign to it.
JT He is called ‘Holy Father’. The Lord used that designation in addressing His Father. He refers to Him here: the overcomer “shall shepherd them with an iron rod; as vessels of pottery are they broken in pieces, as I also have received from my Father”. That is the kingdom that He has received from His Father. We shall see more of it later; He will say to Laodicea that “he that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have [p. 89] overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne”. That is His present position, that He has sat down with His Father in His throne. But presently He is going to sit on His own throne, and He is telling the overcomer here that he is going to sit with Him on His throne, as He has received from His Father; that is to say, the Lord takes everything from His Father. He is going to have a throne of His own, and the overcomer will sit with Him there; so that all this is in prospect.
ARC Why does the allusion to hearing the Spirit’s voice precede that to the overcomer in the earlier assemblies, while in the latter ones you have the overcoming first and then the ear to hear?
JT It is to show that if you are in Rome and stay there you will not get the ministry of the Spirit; you have not an ear or you would not stay there. If you have an ear you will come out of it, you will be an overcomer and then you will hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. “Let him hear”; the responsibility still attaches to you, but you are to hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. So we are on very wide ground, the dispensation of the Spirit.
WWW Would the morning star bring us into the light of another day?
JT Quite so; it is another day coming in. We have to wait for that. It is a dark world around us, and no one can be conscious really of that coming day unless he sees that we are in darkness all around politically and religiously.
AB Would “the depths of God” be set over against “the depths of Satan”? An apprehension of them would have a great consolidating effect in our souls.
JT Quite so; the Spirit of God searches the depths of God and brings them into our [p. 90] souls.
AB Is the morning star connected with the principle of rule?
JT It refers to the coming day of glory. It is a gift-Christ Himself in this connection as said in chapter 22: 16.
CHH Would the iron rod indicate the inflexibility of God’s principles while on the other hand Thyatira has broken down all restraint?
JT Quite so; as applied to the nations it is inflexibility. In the coming day a sinner of a hundred years will be cut off, there is no hope; whereas today God is allowing things to go on because it is a dispensation of grace. So Isaiah 26: 9 says that “when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness”, that is, when they are shepherded with an iron rod. They are not learning it now.
CHH Would you say that in the assembly there should be the recognition in a moral way of this iron rod, the maintaining of divine principles without any flexibility at all?
JT You need to be inflexible in order to use the rod. In our local positions today we have to learn to be patient, but in the millennium there will be the rule of Christ on His own throne. Of course Satan will be bound. It is the time in which God is setting out certain things, and He is going to take a long time to set them out, a thousand years. It will be a wonderful kingdom because it is the final issue, when God will show how He can control men in flesh and blood conditions. It has never been thus demonstrated in any dispensation. This is the dispensation of grace, and God is bearing with people, but He is not going to continue it indefinitely. He would say, as it were, I am going to have a time for Myself, one thousand years, in which I will show how principles can be set up by which men may be controlled. Then there will be no allowance of man’s will; a sinner of [p. 91] one hundred years will be cut off. But then it comes out when Satan is loosed that the flesh is still un changed. It had been held in check by the wonderful principles of Christ’s kingdom. But the nations under Satan’s leadership will come up on the breadth of the earth, and then fire comes down from heaven and destroys them all (Revelation 20: 7 - 9).
HH The thought of recovery goes a long way in connection with what you have just been saying as to the millennium. I suppose you would allow that it is not new creation, but the recovery of things for God on earth under the rule of Christ.
JT It is recovery, not on the principle of new creation but on the principle of the old. The new principles that God will set up in that day will control sin, even although it be there; for it is there and will show itself when Satan is let loose. But during the millennium it is held in check. I think it is a great test, a great final exhibition of what God can do, an answer, as it were, to the suggestion that God cannot control man in the flesh. He can do it, He has means of doing it, and those means will be in the hands of Christ. But the matter will be terminated according to chapter 20; the nations will go up on the breadth of the earth, as if Satan acquires a free hand with no longer any international restrictions; as if he can interfere with any territory. God allows that, but only that he might come to his utter ruin and all that are with him.
WWW Is it not a great victory that God has at the present moment those who are governed by divine principles before Satan is chained?
JT Quite; divine principles are being maintained in the assembly. It is the same thing now in the assembly as it will be in the millennium; it is a very great matter. We should see to it in our care meetings, in eldership, that things are searched out and dealt with according to these principles. It was [p. 92] in accordance with this that the man in Corinth was handed over to Satan; the power of God did it: “I ... have already judged ... (ye and my spirit being gathered together, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ), him that has so wrought this: to deliver him, I say, being such, to Satan”. It will be the same thing in the millennium only in a more public and extended way.
But to go on, we cannot spend much time on Sardis, which is just Protestantism. There is not much in it, the Lord does not indicate anything much in that period. Nevertheless He has the seven Spirits of God, meaning that He has the same power as before; the seven Spirits allude to that. And He has the seven stars. It does not say He holds them but He has them. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which are about to die, for I have not found thy works complete before my God”. So that there is nothing there, you might say, nothing that we can rest in. They are dead or about to die, but still He goes on at the end and says, “I will come upon thee as a thief”. It is a distressing thing and ought to arouse anxiety that He will come as a thief. And then it says, “But thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy”. So that there is not much to say. I suppose historically it would be the Reformation and what followed in the servants the Lord used before the idea of the assembly was thoroughly revived and began to function.
RH Why is the thought of watching stressed in Sardis?
JT I suppose the Lord would have whatever there is in that period kept alive by watchfulness. There were individuals. There is hardly anything you can speak of as the assembly, so that there is not [p. 93] much in the account to rest in; still there were a few, which in itself has a peculiar voice: “a few names in Sardis”.
HH I was noticing the footnote to verse 2: it reads, instead of “Be watchful”, ‘Become so’.
RWS We have a few hymns from those few names.
JT We have a good many. One has noticed of late the number of hymns that we have from that period, though since the revival by the Spirit of the truth of the assembly one would not take on any hymns that disregard it. You will not find any such taken on after the Bethesda matter arose, after the truth of the assembly came out and was refused in Bethesda. We have some hymns by brethren that were with Bethesda, but written before they went there. I do not think any were accepted, or should be, from such authorship, or from any who remain outwardly in Thyatira. We have a great many from previous centuries and from the last century, up until about 1830, before the truth of the assembly came out; we have had none since from sources not in the truth, nor shall we have any more.
SRMcC Would you bring that exercise into the household: not to have hymn books in the house other than those in keeping with the truth?
JT It is a household matter in the true sense, that is, in the sense in which the Holy Spirit has part in it.
SRMcC I was thinking of such hymns as Moody’s and Sankey’s.
JT Well, of course, Moody and Sankey brought forward many of those earlier hymns of which we were speaking, but none of our own that I know of, because they came in after the truth was revived. But those who wrote hymns that were right, we will say, before that, were accepted, such as Charles Wesley’s and others like them. What I am saying is,
I think, right, and the Lord’s hand was over it too. These extraneous hymns will never be permitted if the Lord has His way.
WWW Those hymns that we have from past centuries were written in the light that existed at that time.
JT The authors wrote simply in the light they had, but things changed after the Spirit began to function in the assembly. A person’s product now must be tested by whether the Spirit of God has had His way with the author.
JS Do you think that those not walking in the truth could write hymns suitable for the assembly?
JT I do not think they could. They might write them verbally, but I do not think they would be in keeping with the idea of this dispensation. It is the dispensation of the Spirit. Of course it is the Lord’s dispensation, but it is the dispensation of the Spirit and the dispensation of grace.
HH We have hymns in our book written by brethren who at one time walked with us but do not now.
JT Some by Tregelles are very good; he was with us when he wrote those hymns, but he did not remain with us. Many earlier hymns that were verbally right are being used.
Rem Those words of a hymn in our previous book: ‘Thy death has brought to light the Father’s heart’ sound very plausible, but they are not in line with the truth as taught by the Holy Spirit.
JT That was written by James Boyd, a brother in fellowship when he wrote it. The hymn would have been accepted but for that very line.
CHH What about literature written by people who are not walking in the truth, children’s books and the like?
JT I do not think they should be taken on at all. We have to bear in mind the honour due to the Spirit of God. The Lord says that anyone who says a word [p. 95] against the Spirit of God shall never be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come.
WWM Do you not think if we took on more the ministry of those that were walking in the truth at any time in question, we should have very little time to read other ministry?
JT Quite so; there is plenty of food. The Lord thought of the matter of food when He said of those providing it, “Blessed is that bondman whom his lord on coming shall find doing thus”, Matthew 24: 46.
LR What has been said would include such works as the Schofield Bible?
JT Quite so; that is a work that has come in since the Holy Spirit has been disregarded. I could not take on that. Of course you might take on things for the sake of examination; there are things you might learn from many by comparison; but as regards positive things that belong to the saints we must recognise the Spirit.
CHH Would that apply to the mothers in connection with the religious books they buy for their children from other sources than our tract depot?
JT I know there is likely to be a good deal of looseness in that line and what we are saying now is intended to check it, that we are to honour the Spirit of God. The Lord stresses it that if any one shall say a word against the Spirit, it shall never be forgiven either in this age or in that which is to come.
RH What about those words of hymn 234: ‘Who, by His wondrous dying, Revealed, O God, thy heart’? That statement is addressed to the Father.
JT You do not think that is incorrect, do you? The heart of the Father was revealed in the Son before He died, but it is the heart of God that was revealed in the death of Christ. The revelation of the Father was before that.
RH It is a little ambiguous, for the hymn is praise to [p. 96] the Father.
JT What has been said clarifies it. The revelation is said to be of God’s heart. I think the hymn was examined carefully before insertion.
WWM Should we not make ourselves more familiar with the New Translation as we think of the service of the brother that put it into our hands? There are his hymns too in the book we have been speaking of, the help he has given us in this way in the service of God.
JT The Spirit of God raised up that brother in a special way. He spent many years in translating the Bible into German, French and English, and it is the best translation unquestionably that there is in any of these languages. He spent much time in Elberfeld, Germany, in France, and of course in England, so that we have the best there is in those three languages and in Italian, too, I think. And alongside of that are his hymns. They stand alongside of the Scriptures, not of course on the same level, but I believe they stand alongside for enhancing the ministry that God gave. We have all that and recently we have a concordance of this translation which is very useful to any who wish to get the truth. The Lord would, I am sure, lay it upon us that there is plenty for us directly from the Spirit to carry us through.
Rem The Lord says to Philadelphia, “Hold fast what thou hast”. The Lord has given us much.
JT Quite so. We have to look now at Philadelphia and Laodicea, and then tomorrow at the assembly as coming down out of heaven as a bride. That will be on more positive lines than these two chapters but Philadelphia leads on to it. Really we might say that what has developed spiritually during the last one hundred and twenty years is what is alluded to in Philadelphia, and we are in it now. It will go on to the end. Laodicea is a sort of outlet for the effort of the devil over against that, but Philadelphia [p. 97] is very close to the ministry of the Spirit in this dispensation of the Spirit.
RH Is the Laodicean condition what we are peculiarly exposed to now?
JT That is what I would think, that is the thing to watch now. Sardis is running on, you might say, but it is a dead thing, there is not much to say about it. What is there today that you can find of any value in the merely external profession of christendom? What you get by the Spirit is the only thing of value and that stands connected with Philadelphia. Laodicea is a sort of pretension that has arisen in that connection.
CHH Would you place the companies that have seceded from the truth in that class?
JT I think in principle they are there. If you get a systematised thing, as in all these bodies to which we often allude, it has to be watched and refused. I believe the Lord is helping us to refuse these imitations. Sardis is not a form of imitation; Laodicea is.
RH In connection with what you say as to what is systematised, J.N.D. refers to Bethesda in that way.
HH I suppose you could not quite understand the true nature of Laodicea if there were not a Philadelphian side also.
JT I think that is true. God has graciously given us the positive, and the dispensation as revived involves Christ in heaven and the Spirit here with the assembly formed and functioning. Therefore the dispensation in principle stands. Laodicea in its characteristics is an effort of the enemy on the principle of imitation. So in a Timothy Jannes and Jambres are brought down to us from the Old Testament. Their names had not been spoken of before; they are imitators and they withstood Moses on that principle.
Rem These features of Laodicea may be [p. 98] amongst us.
JT Only that what you have amongst people that are in the main right is not systematised, whereas they are systematised, and the systematisation is where the evil lies.
RWS Where do you see it systematised? Have you in mind something special?
JT It is systematised error, that is the phrase in Ephesians 4: 14.
HB In Philadelphia the Lord speaks of the synagogue of Satan. Would that not be a system?
JT Quite so; it is a local suggestion. The synagogue is a local thought. I think Rome is never anything else but local.
CHH Systematised error is in connection with teaching: “In unprincipled cunning, with a view to systematized error”, Ephesians 4: 14.
JT That is the thing that we have to deal with all around us. All the sects are systematised, but we are now dealing, not simply with ordinary Protestant sects, but with imitations of the truth, of the true thing; the name of ‘brethren’ attaching to them all.
FKC Would you say that the Lord’s words to Laodicea, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot”, express the position Bethesda took as regards the Person of Christ?
JT That sort of thing has spread wider too, in Protestantism. But our subject now is what is said about Philadelphia. The Lord says, “And to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia write: These things saith the holy, the true; he that has the key of David, he who opens and no one shall shut, and shuts and no one shall open: I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an opened door, which no one can shut, because thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. Then He goes on to say, “I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet”. That is remarkable, that is, before the assembly’s feet. “And shall know that I
[p. 99] have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. I come quickly: hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”. Well, these are the things we are to take on and understand and develop in ourselves. And then what the overcomer comes into-for there must be overcomers in Philadelphia or there will be no ministry, no hearing of the word, “He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more at all out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name”. This surely would all allude in the main to ministry that has come out particularly in the past thirty to forty years. I do not say the past one hundred years, but more recently, what has come out in the ministry bearing on the service of God, such as the matter of the temple and the assembly itself; the assembly being “the temple of my God”. Then too the relation of Christ to God: “My Father and your Father ... my God and your God”. I believe the Lord has honoured all that ministry and the results of it, and He is telling us that as overcoming He will write on us these wonderful things.
AAT What does that mean, to write on us?
JT It shows that we are writing material; we are capable of being written upon. The apostle Paul alludes to the Corinthians as being his epistle, “Known and read of all men”, “written”, he says, by “the Spirit of the living God”. 2 Corinthians 3 helps as to this matter of writing: “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or do we need, as some, commendatory letters to you, or commendatory from you? Ye are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read of all men, being manifested to be Christ’s [p. 100] epistle ministered by us, written, not with ink, but the Spirit of the living God; not on stone tables, but on fleshy tables of the heart” (verses 1 - 3). I think we get there clearly the clue to the matter of writing material and how the writing proceeds. Paul is alluding to the place the saints had with him, “written in our hearts”. But then, they were written on too; they were manifestly “Christ’s epistle ... written, not with ink, but the Spirit of the living God; not on stone tables, but on fleshy tables of the heart”. That is Christ’s writing.
RWS Is this the crowning promise of all the promises to the seven churches?
JT It would seem to be. What a place these thoughts should have with us; how they should become indelibly stamped on us! We are known to be thus. So that Matthew helps us when he says, “two of you”; that is, persons of that kind.
Ques Would you connect what comes out in verse 12 in regard of Christ, with what God says at the close of the previous dispensation in Malachi 3: 16? “Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another; and Jehovah observed it, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name”. Is there a connection, do you think?
JT The book of remembrance was written, just so, and He speaks of them as “mine”. “They shall be unto me a peculiar treasure, saith Jehovah of hosts, in the day that I prepare” (verse 17).
Ques What would be the thought of “my new name”?
JT I think if we understand John 20 we shall understand what the Lord is speaking of here. How intimately He links the message through Mary with Himself: “my brethren”, “my Father” and “my God”; and then the addition of “your”-”my Father and your Father ... my God and your God”.
[p. 101] I think John 20 really helps us to understand what is promised here to the overcomer. What we have had all these years, to which we have been alluding is, I believe, bound up with John’s ministry, especially in chapter 20, the message through Mary.
CDeB “Thou hast a little power”. How would that be manifested?
JT Maybe what we have here today. These meetings are growing in importance and likability. The brethren seem to like them, and the Lord likes them; I believe He sees that there is a little power. They are growing in value. They began in the early movement of perhaps one hundred and twenty years ago, but they have grown. These so-called ‘readings’ have grown in importance and likability and the Lord has definitely taken them on.
AAT Is it not remarkable that this type of meeting is found only among the brethren with whom we walk? They are the only ones who hold readings like this.
JT Others could hardly do it. That in itself shows that they have drifted away from the dispensation because it is bound up with this sort of thing. We have often alluded to Acts 20, the love chapter; in the middle of it Eutychus is raised up by love; he is called a “boy”, and is “brought away”, representing the youthful work of the Spirit that is brought away, by which the brethren are comforted. But after Eutychus’ recovery there was a conversation until daybreak. It is conversation. It is not like the clerical system, depending on discourses, but it is reading and conversational intercourse so that personality comes into view and we speak to each other on personal lines. They carried on this sort of thing until the break of day. And so Paul went away and the brethren were comforted.
SRMcC “The temple of my God” becomes [p. 102] prominent in Philadelphia. Would that link on with meetings such as these?
JT I believe John 20 is a sort of basic chapter as to all that has come out in these years, so that the Spirit of God has effected better conditions in the service of God, for we know what to do; we know the conditions in which the glory shines; we may say, “from glory to glory”.
FC Do you think the words, “He shall go no more at all out” would refer to the position we have taken up, that it is never to be given up to the end; God helping us to maintain it?
JT Yes, I would connect it with what is said in chapter 21, which is really an eternal thought. “Go no more ... out”. There is a great deal of going out now! If anything is to be effected ministerially we have to go out and travel, and suffer in travelling, too. The devil has been allowed to succeed in closing our way to some extent, but the going out implies that the Lord is taking account of suffering more or less; “journeyings often”, as Paul said. Now I would take this word, “Go no more ... out”, and link it up with eternal conditions. Chapter 21:3 - 7 says, “And God himself shall be with them, their God. And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall not exist any more, nor grief, nor cry, nor distress shall exist any more, for the former things have passed away. And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he says to me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that thirsts of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be to him God, and he shall be to me son”. I would link on that word in chapter 3 with this as a part of our eternal position, that we go no more out.
CHH That would be confirmed by the use of the term, “new Jerusalem”, which occurs in those two places only. It is a question of eternal conditions.
TLS Is it right to think of both David and Solomon in the matter of Philadelphia? I was thinking of the expansion of what is proposed to the overcomer, how he receives an expansion in the way of service to God.
JT Quite so; Solomon, of course, is a counterpart of David. David represents refinement and excellency in this book and Solomon is just an expansion of David, so you might connect the idea of pillar with Solomon, and all that enters into the new Jerusalem in the way of glory; it is what the queen of Sheba saw, the ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord. I think that would be quite admissible. Solomon is there because it is a question of David expanding, Christ at the present time in that light in the grandeur of the system of new creation.