Reading 5
A.J.G. As we have already remarked, in all these chapters, Peter is set before us. In chapter 14, he walks on the water; in chapter 15, he puts a question to the Lord bringing out that what is important is not what is outward but what is in the heart of man, implying the necessity that man be put aside so that God’s pleasure can be presented in Christ and in the assembly as being drawn from Him. In chapter 16, we have Peter who receives the light from the Father as to Christ, but his subsequent remark is entirely out of accord with the truth, the Lord showing that the secret was that his mind was not on the things of God but on those of men. In chapter 17, he has the privilege of being on the mountain with Jesus, who gives him at the end of the chapter this marvellous light as to association with the Son of God. Now in chapter 18, he raises a question about forgiveness. Peter is a stone, that is to say, he represents one among us as forming an integral part of what the Lord is building, His assembly, so that all the instruction of this chapter is for each in particular. The kingdom of the heavens is presented anew because the kingdom is truly for the protection and support of the assembly. He presents the principle of submission to Christ. Christ is in heaven, we are on the earth, and a practical submission to Christ is what is to be learned of Him, producing in us what is invulnerable. So, the kingdom of the heavens is essential for the protection and support of the assembly. It is therefore very important for us all to learn and to know the features of the kingdom: we understand that it is just opposed to our natural minds. It is said at the beginning of the chapter: “In that hour the disciples came to Jesus saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of the heavens?” It is another illustration of the rapid way in which our natural minds can present themselves in us after having been in the presence of the greatest spiritual thoughts. The disciples are on this line of natural thoughts: who therefore is the greatest? The Lord then takes a little child: He takes it beside Him as being one who can be placed at His side. The Scriptures say that God knoweth the proud from afar. None of those who sought to be great could have a place alongside Jesus. So it is that Jesus calls a little child to Him, placing it in the midst of the disciples so that they should learn through this little child the kind of mind that the Lord can identify with Himself. That leads the Lord to say that it is necessary to be converted. This is not addressed to sinners, but to disciples: the need to change completely so that natural thoughts should be put away and the truth should be learned in Jesus. We can understand how all that is important in relation to each local company. Every element of self-vindication which seeks to come in or which demands a personal importance is in conflict with the truth of the body of Christ and brings into the assembly what does not suit it. So the Lord makes a lot of what is small, not a little child literally today, but someone among us full of the Spirit of Christ.
P.C. Even as to the coming kingdom, it is said, “a little child shall lead them”.
A.J.G. That is very striking, which shows that the kingdom that the Lord is going to bring in publicly will be entirely different in character from what exists today, and that which will be introduced in a day to come is what is in view today in the assembly. The assembly must become an important element in the testimony and we can well see that it is the object of Satan’s attack.
P.A.N. This morning we spoke of surnames. Is this what we see in Paul, which means little, an element that shows that Paul was on this line?
A.J.G. I have no doubt about that. It is not exactly said that Saul of Tarsus is surnamed Paul; it is said, “Saul, who also is Paul”, as if perhaps he had repudiated the name of Saul, having preferred to take the one of Paul. He had seen Jesus in glory; he had seen the Lord coming from heaven to him on the road to Damascus and that must have greatly impressed him. He can speak of the overabounding grace of our Lord. One can well understand the adjusting effect of that that must have produced on him.
P.A.N. We have the contrast in Saul: Samuel says to him: “when thou wast little in thine eyes that thou becamest the head of the tribes of Israel”.
A.J.G. King Saul represents the natural man in his apparent greatness while David was one who was chosen by God and when he was anointed, he had apparently been forgotten by his father and his brothers. He simply kept the sheep; they had to go and fetch him to anoint him. He was a bit like the little child that the Lord took here. When David is brought in, his features of moral beauty are apparent and the word is: “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”.
P.C. You made reference to the ease with which, after having the vision of the glory, the disciples have unsuitable thoughts. Was Paul preserved from that by the thorn; “that I might not be exalted”?
A.J.G. It was the Lord’s faithfulness as to him. If we guard our thoughts, we will be preserved: we have also to remember that the Spirit of God has made His abode in us and if we are sensible to His presence, we will be preserved in our thoughts and in our minds because the Spirit is come from Christ in glory and He is always faithful to Christ and faithful to His cross.
L.M. It is remarkable to see that while the Lord was here, Peter failed so often, but when the Spirit was come, Peter followed a way more faithful to the Lord.
A.J.G. That is indeed so. We find indeed that Peter had also failed according to the second chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, and the Spirit uses Paul to reprove him, but Peter accepted the reproof without doubt and was quickly adjusted. Even a spiritual man can fail at certain moments, but what marks him is that he is quickly recovered because he is familiar with the principle of self-judgment and he is exercised to be available to the activities of the Spirit of God.
P.A.N. Would you give an explanation as to the passage, “Unless ye are converted”? the Lord Jesus addresses Himself to the disciples. What conversion is in view there?
A.J.G. There is the danger for us when we are converted and come to the Lord, that all is finished, but we have to learn really that there is a succession of exercises in view of formation. That must be accepted and the beginning of it is conversion, that is to say, a complete change of mind: the displacement of myself and the bringing in of Christ, so that it is not a matter of seeking a great place in the assembly, but what marked the assembly suitably according to the epistle to the Colossians, that is to say, that “Christ is everything and in all”.
A.R. Do we have this conversion in chapter 3 of the epistle to the Philippians?
A.J.G. Yes, I think so. It was a gain; he considered it as a loss on account of Christ and at the end of his course, he was always on the same line of thought. He could speak of himself as being less than the least of all saints. He did not only say that with a note of humility, but he said it by the Spirit of God. It was the truth which was developed in Paul and he considered himself in this light.
E.J.S. We have to be led to be in contrast with Moab according to Jeremiah 48.
A.J.G. That passage is very important, especially for those who desire to serve; discipline has to be accepted, “emptied from vessel to vessel”. There is always the necessity of accepting this process that empties us so that we should be able to be filled and available to the Lord.
P.C. Would it be the same thought in Jeremiah 31: 18: “Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised as a bullock not trained: turn thou me, and I shall be turned”?
A.J.G. Ephraim actually says: “Surely after that I was turned, I repented”. It is indeed in line with what we are saying. So the Lord shows the full importance of a little one, saying, “Whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens”, and the Lord then pronounces a solemn judgment as to the world, on account of offences. I believe that it is one of the points that is the object of the most serious condemnation, that has been a stumbling block to God’s people. The world always tries to produce self-importance, or self-confidence, and as being in the world, we are in danger of following this line and bringing the same thing into the assembly. What will preserve us is the kingdom of the heavens, understanding that we have to learn submission to Christ and to bear His own character.
L.M. Why does the Lord say there need to be offences?
A.J.G. I believe that helps us to learn the truth. The work of God goes on in us in the presence of what is contrary; that helps us to develop power in us. I believe what is very important to keep in mind is that the Spirit of God has taken up His abode in us and if we want to cultivate sensibility as to His presence, we see that He will quickly warn us as soon as we begin to get away from the power of the truth.
P.C. Would it be the same thought when Paul says in the epistle to the Corinthians, “For there must also be sects among you, that the approved may become manifest among you”?
A.J.G. It is another example. The Lord insists on the importance of being unpitying towards our natural tendencies. “And if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee … And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee”. It is a matter therefore of being firm and not indulgent as to all the activities of the flesh. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul says, “I buffet my body, and lead it captive, lest after having preached to others I should be myself rejected9”. That is said by a man who has been as far as the third heaven; it was before he had written the first epistle that he had been to heaven, to paradise, and he tells us in the second epistle that it had happened fourteen years before. There are not fourteen years between what is written in the first epistle and what is given in the second, so that what is said in the first epistle is said by a man who had already been to paradise, showing that one can enter into the greatest privileges by the Lord’s grace, and yet be in danger as long as one is down here, if the flesh is not held in its place in the power of the Spirit.
P.S.C. Would you explain the force of the expression, “réprouvé [lit ‘condemned’]?
A.J.G. In English the word is “rejected”, that is to say that the Lord can no longer use us; you are no longer in His service. I believe that is the force of this word; it is not a question of being lost eternally, but it is a matter of being no longer at the Lord’s disposal for His service. It is important to see in this chapter, that when the Lord speaks of cutting off our hand or our foot, or plucking out our eye, He says that it is better to enter into life lame or maimed, or having only one eye, than to be cast into eternal fire, which shows that if we occupy ourselves with what is of the flesh, we can be led on a line that has eternal fire as its end. That will clearly never happen to a true believer, but it is to show the character of the course on which we are engaged if we allow the tendencies of the flesh.
P.P. Is that what Paul means in Philippians 3 in speaking of those who are “enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction”?
A.J.G. Exactly.
L.M. Are the sons of Levi an example to us in a moment of crisis in Exodus? Moses recalls it at the end of Deuteronomy when he blesses the children of Israel.
A.J.G. They had been faithful; they had put the rights of God before the rights of nature.
L.M. It is said, “they have observed thy word, And kept thy covenant”.
A.J.G. That is why they can put incense under Jehovah’s nostrils, which shows that faithfulness leads to a greater efficacy in the service of God.
So we come now to verse 15 of Matthew 18 where we find our relations with one another. This is equally important because one of the most frequent attacks against the testimony occurs in relations between brother and brother, or brother and sister, or sister and sister. We have to keep in mind Christ’s assembly as being the body of Christ, a single vessel, in which Christ must be seen and the beauty of one pearl, implying unity in the local company, having its power in that only one Man is before it, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”. So we have here the case of a brother who sins against a brother, and the brother who is sinned against does not allow the sin to go on; he desires that his brother should be gained. It is not a matter for him of maintaining his own rights, that is not at all in his mind; the question is that the brother is not to continue in what is false. The Lord says, “if thy brother sin against thee, go, reprove him between thee and him alone”. It must be a brotherly matter; the brother is reproved so that the thing should be seen in its true light and that the element of unrighteousness which has come in by some act should be examined, that there is repentance and forgiveness and that the thing should be judged, that it should be forsaken.
In the book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 22, we read, “Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them back unto thy brother”. I think that “thy brother’s ox” is really the brother as being a servant and thy brother’s “sheep” is a brother as one among us, a sheep of the flock, and we must not see a brother go astray without seeking to bring him back. If a brother sin against me, I have to put it on his conscience; otherwise he loses his liberty and God loses His part in him. One does not desire that that should continue, so one seeks to lead him back.
L.D. Would the “thee” here, “if thy brother sin against thee”, imply one of the little ones?
A.J.G. It may do. It is what must govern us in our relations one with another. In chapter 5, we have the other side of the question. The Lord says, in verse 23, “If therefore thou shouldest offer thy gift at the altar, and there shouldest remember that thy brother has something against thee”. I am reminded there that my brother has something against me, my brother thinks I have offended him; it is therefore my responsibility to go to him and for me to be reconciled with him. But in chapter 18, it is the case of a brother who sins against me, and my responsibility is to seek to gain him. This is a very important thing. The Lord goes on to say, “But if he do not hear thee, take with thee one or two besides, that every matter may stand upon the word of two witnesses or of three. But if he will not listen to them, tell it to the assembly”, that is to say that things must not be left without being closed. The reason is that it is by means of these things that Satan succeeds in bringing in what is contrary to the assembly. The assembly must be our great preoccupation, it must be kept in its true character, and every effort of the enemy to corrupt it must be met and faced.
E.J.S. The assembly here is regarded as being the reflection of the mind of heaven; it is the last instance.
A.J.G. The assembly is the last court of appeal. If my brother sin against me, I must have the grace to go and find him to seek to recover him; I must bring in grace and truth, so that that has weight with him. If he does not hear me, I bring in one or two other people; all must be done with the grace of heaven, but according to the truth. The idea of reproving him is so that he sees things as they are, so that he is able to repent as to what he has done. If he will not hear two or three persons, all the grace and authority of the assembly must have their weight on him. All these provisions are there for preservation. The Lord honours the assembly in saying, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on the earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on the earth shall be loosed in heaven”. Having brought in the dignity of the assembly, the Lord brings things to the days of ruin in which we are in saying, “if two of you shall agree on the earth concerning any matter, whatsoever it may be that they shall ask, it shall come to them from my Father who is in the heavens. For where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”. These are two or three who are truly assembled, so that the Lord brings in the truth of the assembly at the level of two or three who are part of it.
P.C. Does what you have just said relate to what the apostle says in 1 Corinthians 6 about someone who has something against another?
A.J.G. Certainly. That was to their shame at Corinth, that they had such matters between them and that the matters were not governed as they should have been according to Matthew. They were going before the courts and the apostle shows how that is entirely out of accord with what the assembly is, saying, “Do ye not then know that the saints shall judge the world?” and further on that the saints are going to judge angels? We must therefore have the capacity to judge things down here. This is one of the reasons why in recent years the Lord has so insisted that the sisters should be present at care meetings, because they will have their part in the judgment of the world and the judgment of angels, and they must currently have their experience in judgment in the assembly, at the present time, in view of developing in us the spiritual judgment for the world to come.
L.M. The enemy has often had great advantage because we do not take things to their source. As soon as some matter comes in between one brother and another, we must not leave it to continue, but intervene immediately?
A.J.G. Exactly. It is important that we cultivate brotherly relations one with another while conditions are normal. I remember several years ago that Mr James Taylor set before us the thought in the epistle to the Galatians10 that Paul went up to Jerusalem to make acquaintance with Peter and he remained with him fifteen days; that is to say, the time needed to establish brotherly relations with him. And later he could resist him to the face because the brotherly relations already existed, and that allowed him to resist him. Peter could well have thought that Paul only had pure motives in him, so that as a result, things might be adjusted without Peter retaining any bad feelings against Paul. He speaks of him later as being “our beloved brother Paul”. That had been brought about by the brotherly relations that had been definitely established by Paul. This matter is very important for us: to establish brotherly relations with all the brethren while conditions are normal, not to have preferences among the brethren. If relations are well established while everything is normal, it will be much easier to take up questions that may later arise.
P.P. So it is good to maintain good brotherly relations in our houses, not only in the meeting. Paul says to the Galatians, “I abode with him”.
A.J.G. Our relations must not be confined to the meeting room but we must know each other in our homes.
P.A.N. Does the passage in 1 Timothy 5 support that: “Rebuke not an elder sharply, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brethren, elder women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity”?
A.J.G. Certainly, there is a certain grace which is manifested thus.
L.P.N. Observations made with grace are generally accepted.
A.J.G. That is indeed so.
P.G.B. What is the bearing of the expression, “let him be to thee as one of the nations and a tax-gatherer”?
A.J.G. I suppose that we have nothing to do with such a person and the assembly clearly has entirely the same attitude. This shows the seriousness of not hearing the assembly. Then Peter raises the question of knowing how far one should go. He says, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?”; he suggests a certain limit. He says, “until seven times?” It is a matter here of the spirit that I have towards my brother and to keep in mind how far we have been forgiven with the unreserved character of forgiveness in which we hold ourselves. We read in the first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians that we have the remission of offences in the Beloved; we are taken into favour in the Beloved, made fit in Him, in whom we have redemption, the remission of offences. It is not presented as something we have in the past, but as what we have, and which we enjoy now. It must be always in our minds, that having been so pardoned by God, it is simply normal to maintain a spirit of forgiveness towards our brethren.
P.G.B. We have this spirit of forgiveness at the end of chapter 4 of Ephesians.
A.J.G. “As God also in Christ has forgiven you”.
J.P. Could the thought be brought into Luke 17: 3 as to forgiveness? The Lord says, “Take heed to yourselves”?
A.J.G. “If thy brother should sin, rebuke him; and if he should repent, forgive him. And if he should sin against thee seven times in the day, and seven times should return to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him”. One might be led to ask oneself about the reality of repentance if he sins seven times in a day, but the Lord says that if he takes the ground of repentance, we must forgive them; it is my attitude of mind as to him. One is happy to be able to apprehend that there is some evidence of repentance.
P.S.C. Must we make a difference between this passage in Luke: if “seven times should return to thee, saying, I repent”, and what we have in Matthew: “go, reprove him”?
A.J.G. In returning “to thee”, there is evidence of the reality of his repentance; while in Matthew we have to go to him to produce that.
P.C. Is what is true for the case of personal offences true for sin in general? “If thy brother sin against thee”, it seems to me, is a personal offence. But there are cases of sins that are not personal offences.
A.J.G. We have to take account of what is due to the house of God. Evil must not be found to continue there; the holiness of the house of God must be maintained. But as to matters that are personal, one must be very indulgent because we have been so forgiven ourselves. The Lord speaks of a very exercising question in verse 23: “For this cause the kingdom of the heavens has become like a king who would reckon with his bondmen”, that is to say that the thing is not put off to the future; the present time is the time when the Lord would reckon with His bondmen. We must keep that in mind; we are under the Lord’s eye in all that we do, and in all our relations one with another, and it may be that we should understand that there is a reckoning being made.
P.P. Would the thought of reckoning in this parable correspond with what John says in his first epistle: “If we say that we have no sin” and “If we confess our sins”?
A.J.G. I believe it is rather a question of government that is carried on at the present time, so that I maintain a spirit that is not forgiving, I will not enjoy any liberty at all with the Father in His governmental ways; I will not enjoy either liberty or peace. The government of God works in all of us; it is for the support of what is good and against all that is evil, and this government works among His own children. If I do not forgive my brother, I find that I am not in the enjoyment of forgiveness myself; I do not have liberty with God, no peace, no joy, but I feel rather a sense of torment.
P.P. In bringing in this passage in John, I wanted simply to say that we can only apply forgiveness in the measure in which we realise it ourselves.
A.J.G. I am sure that is important. The Lord shows here the great contrast between a debt of ten-thousand talents and that of a hundred denarii; the small debt of a hundred denarii is a small thing compared to ten-thousand talents. The ten-thousand talents represent the debt that we have to God, the measure in which we have been forgiven, and, in comparison with that, what one may owe me is just a matter of a hundred denarii.
P.A.N. Forgiveness is accorded by love, for it is a matter of forgiveness with all our heart.
A.J.G. That is very important. So it is said in the last verse, “Thus also my heavenly Father shall do to you if ye forgive not from your hearts every one his brother”. There is a great joy that moves in the spirit of forgiveness. In God’s ways as to His people, when they were in the land, they had the year of release; every seven years, debts had to be abandoned, and after seven experiences of that nature, that is to say after forty-nine years, there was another year, the year of jubilee, so that the thing is enlarged. The sound of trumpets is heard in the year of the jubilee; the whole country had to be in the exuberance of the joy of forgiveness.
P.P. Are we in this year of the jubilee now?
A.J.G. It is the spirit of Christianity, the year of the jubilee, and it is very important that there should be a jubilee; that is to say, a matter of joy. I believe that we can see the importance of this chapter as linking to what has been before us previously: the idea of the assembly against which Satan constantly directs his efforts, and it is for each of us to watch that we do not give him any help in this.
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CONTINUANCE OF THE TESTIMONY IN A LIVING WAY
Genesis 3: 20, 21; 4: 8-12, 25, 26; 5: 1-5, 21-24
I desire to show from these scriptures that God’s thought is that a testimony for Himself should be continued among the saints in a living way. We have remarked this morning what is said on the subject of James and John, who the Lord surnamed “sons of thunder”, as representing two distinct characters of testimony that God has maintained among the saints; the one the testimony in the martyr in that certain ones have died rather than renounce the truth; the other is the testimony of life, for the Lord said as to John, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee?”. That does not mean that John personally would not die, but it means that what John represents in his ministry must continue until the coming of the Lord. We are in the days in which the ministry of John is particularly important; it is indeed a ministry blessed for the last days when outward things are in ruins; the truth is maintained on the principle of life, life being a great subject in John’s writings.
In the passage read in Genesis 3, it is indeed remarkable to see that man calls his wife by the name of Eve, which implies life, when God had just pronounced the sentence of death on man; nevertheless with faith, one is lifted above this sentence. Man and the woman had heard what God had said to the serpent, and knew that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head; having the faith for that, man names his wife Eve because she is “the mother of all living”. The penalty of death being pronounced on man, he rises up by faith to grasp that God would find a way to maintain everything in a living way. We understand well that that implies the coming of Christ and then the gift of the Spirit. And more, for it will be manifested that God maintains everything in a living way. He has in view that there is to be a testimony which should be rendered to Himself, and so that of which it then speaks is that Jehovah made Adam and his wife coats of skin and clothed them. Now an important foundation of the truth will be established: the principle of righteousness. Men being sinners, it is only possible to face their condition by the sacrifice of another. Righteousness requires that the penalty of death should be met, or rather that it should be borne, that is to say that it is not past for the sinner unless it be judged; sin must be judged according to God, and this principle has been established from the beginning in the coats of skin that are furnished and which had necessitated the death of a victim. This great principle of righteousness has therefore been established from the beginning. But faith understands equally that, in the same act, a testimony has been given to divine love because the sacrifice which has been provided in its own time was not less than God’s only begotten Son. From the beginning, God has thus rendered a testimony to these two great questions: righteousness on the one hand, but on the other love providing the full price of what will assure the blessing of man. When we come to the epistle of John, we find that these are the two things, righteousness and love, which must characterise the children of God; that distinguish them from the children of the devil. The great efforts of the enemy have in view to overcome God’s testimony which is borne by His children. The light that shone in this provision of coats of skin is what Cain and Abel had, and the question has to be raised: are they to be affected or not? God’s truth must be maintained from generation to generation, and Abel maintained the truth while Cain despised it; he showed that he was a child of the devil. He began in the line of the children of the devil and what came into view was that he killed his brother. He was their firstborn and he therefore had the same light as his brother. After his birth, God gave him a brother, Abel. If you notice verse 2 of chapter 4 and verses 8 to 11 of this same chapter, you will see that the word brother is mentioned seven times. That teaches us that as soon as the light of God is given, God brings in the thought of the circle of the brethren in which this light must be maintained, not in terms only, but in deed and in truth, that is to say that the truth must be kept in view. It is said, “she further bore his brother Abel”. God had in view that brotherly links should be established between Cain and Abel and in this circle, with brotherly links, righteousness had to be maintained and love had to be expressed. That is what must characterise the circle of the brethren. This is what John stresses in his epistle. There are the two great features of God’s children there: righteousness, that is to say what is right in the sight of God, and love. We do not exactly love persons of the world; we show them grace because God is indeed disposed to them in grace, but love must be expressed and developed in the circle of the brethren; it is in this circle that God must be seen, and that is what He is.
As we have seen, the devil took Cain under his influence and Cain rose up and slew his brother. What follows in chapter 4 is that Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah and he built a city. There is then the idea of the development of a world, a world at a moral distance from God. Cain is the beginning of it, and it is a world in which the glory of man and the satisfaction of man are everything. Cain built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch, as if not only had Satan brought in what is morally of himself and opposed to the truth of God, in the murder of his brother, but he also establishes a world in which man can live at a distance from God. It is the great challenge to the testimony as to God. A world is sought to be established in which men can live without God.
At the end of chapter 4, we find that God gave Eve another son, and she called his name Seth, and in chapter 5, it is Adam who calls his name Seth. Seth is in a sense a figure of Christ. Abel typifies Christ as being put to death by man, in particular by the Jews, while Seth typifies Christ as raised from among the dead, so that God can go on. He secures a seed according to Christ. Eve says, “For God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel”. It is important to see that, dear brethren. God goes on; He secures a testimony to Himself in this world, in the presence of all that Satan has brought in, a true testimony to Himself, maintained in life. That implies a great dependence on our part, so that when Seth had a son, he calls him Enosh, that is to say, mortal. He recognised the fragility of what attaches to our position; we are subject to death and we can be easily put to death, as James and Stephen, and as others. But in recognising that, we invoke the Name of Jehovah; we understand that God is going on. The great thoughts that are before God relate to the way that life is to be maintained in the circle of the brethren. It is important to appreciate the circle of the brethren as a circle in which righteousness and love are expressed because it is there that the light is found in which God has shone out in the presence of all that Satan has brought in.
So when we come to Genesis 5, it is as if God started again: “This is the book of Adam’s generations. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him”, that is to say that Christ having been introduced, typified in Seth, God can now return to His original thoughts and man must be here in God’s likeness. That evidently implies for us the possession of the Holy Spirit and the fulness of the truth that the assembly implies, which is the body of Christ; it is there that Christ is expressed in a living way. If Christ is expressed, God Himself is expressed, for Christ is the image of the invisible God. So in chapter 5, God returns to His original thoughts: “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him”. In a sense, likeness is more than image; image is the thought of representation, but it is possible for someone to represent another person without being exactly like that other person. Someone could send an ambassador to represent them, but the ambassador cannot be like the sovereign, he can only represent them in an official way. But God made man in His image and in His likeness; He had in view that the representation should be effective and for that man must be like Him. God therefore returns to this thought of likeness: “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him”. It is the thought that is found in the children of God. The children are like their parents; what God is morally is expressed in His family, and the circle of the brethren is one where these things should be expressed. This chapter 5 is a chapter of life. You may perhaps say, but it seems to me that it is a chapter of death, since as to the most of those found mentioned there, it is said, “he died”. But it is necessary to see that what is really set out as to all those who are designated in this chapter is that they lived. For example, in verse 3: “And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years”, then in verse 5, “And all the days of Adam that he lived were nine hundred and thirty years”, so that the important point in this chapter is a living line, not exactly a line of faith but what is stressed is that they lived and that is the point where we are now. We hold ourselves there in spite of all the opposition of the enemy to the truth. The truth as to God is always here among the saints, and it must be maintained, not simply in word but in deed and truth.
We read in the first epistle of John, “In this are manifest the children of God and the children of the devil. Whoever does not practise righteousness is not of God, and he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another”. This is what we have had in the course of our meetings together. The great beauty of the assembly answers to the one pearl: unity seen in the saints together in a locality, a unity that depends on the fact that Christ alone is before their hearts. In this chapter of the epistle of John, it is said, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. It is not a matter of laying down our lives for our country, it is a matter of the brethren, of the circle of the brethren in which the truth of God is maintained.
This love in its practical expression follows the maintenance of righteousness. All that is maintained in the presence of the world of Satan. The Spirit of God tells us: “Do not wonder, brethren, if the world hate you”. One can well understand that Satan is going to be opposed to the circle in which the truth as to God is maintained in a living way. But this passage continues: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. We live in a circle and in an atmosphere of love and we have our own interests in that circle; it is entirely apart from the world that is around us, so that Genesis 5 gives us a line of life entirely outside the world of Satan, seen in chapter 4. That leads to a sort of culmination in the case of Enoch, about whom it is said that he walked with God for three hundred years after he begat Methuselah. “And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years”, so that the life of Enoch is measured in days. The life of all those who are mentioned in this chapter are measured in this way. It is a very important fact for each of us, dear brethren. We have to recognise that each day has its own value in God’s sight, we must not neglect a single day because each day has its importance before God. Think of Enoch walking with God for three hundred years, day after day; think what it must have been for God to have man morally outside the world which surrounded him, walking with Him, day after day, and persevering in that during three hundred years. This is exactly our position now. We have the circle of the brethren for our comfort and support, the circle in which God’s character is morally developed and expressed. But what really gives character to this circle is that those who compose it walk with God, or in any case, realise that it is their responsibility to walk thus. If we take character from Enoch, we will act in this way. It is much easier for us in a sense to walk with God than it was for Enoch, because we now have the Spirit of God, who is God, dwelling with us at all times; He has made His abode in us so that God is near to us and we are near to Him. If we can only learn to give ourselves up in a practical way to the Spirit of God, and our thoughts formed by God’s thoughts, and not by those of men, we will know something of what it is to walk with God. You will remember that on a certain occasion several of the Lord’s disciples went back and walked no more with Him, then the Lord turned to the twelve and said to them, “Will ye also go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”. Peter realised that the Lord spoke to them continually of what really constituted eternal life; the Lord was not taken up with current things happening in the world, but He spoke to them of His Father and the thoughts of His Father, of all that He was going to bring in. Peter recognised that. He said, “thou hast words of life eternal”. What we enjoy among us, dear brethren, what we enjoy in the Spirit, is really what eternal life is. But there is something else. Peter also says, “we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”, that is that he recognised in Jesus One who was in every way morally, perfectly acceptable to God. If we know what it is to walk with God, and to have the enjoyment of eternal life, we will be concerned with being morally acceptable to God. If these exercises are found in us, the Holy Spirit will not be grieved and He will reveal before us more and more of God’s thoughts. I have no doubt that Enoch represents someone who is in the enjoyment of eternal life. He walked with God, God’s interests were Enoch’s interest: “he has the testimony that he had pleased God”, and there came a day when he was not, for God took him. It is said in Hebrews 11 that “he was not found”. I have no doubt that his neighbours would have asked themselves, where is Enoch? but he had been taken. That will be the end of our course, dear brethren, we will be taken from this scene, but may our exercise be to be found for God’s pleasure now. Before being taken up, Enoch had the testimony that he pleased God. There is nothing for us more pleasurable to God than to seek the grace to walk with Him, day after day, maintained among us in the circle of the brethren, according to the light in which God has shone out in righteousness and love.
May the Lord bless His word to us.
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These meetings have been translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’, April to June 1955
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