EXTRACTS

Now I come to Luke 15. What appears there is not simply a repentant sinner who repents historically once and for all, it is the repenting sinner. The more spiritual you are as a believer in Christ the more you repent. It is a continuous thing, and history is made in heaven every moment by repenting sinners. There is a joy made there. Heaven has delight in repentance as a moral quality down here where sin is. And the more we repent the more we come into the light and the blessedness of the gospel, and love it. So I read that well-known verse telling us of how the father of the prodigal received his returning son, and how he directed his bondmen in regard of him. He does not ask the son to put on the best robe. There are robes that we must provide ourselves, and put on, but in regard to this great robe that the gospel proposes, it is put on by others. It is but a figure, I know; but a figure is a figure, and suggests something; and one thing this figure certainly suggests is that it is the very best of the wardrobe of God and really means how heaven regards you.

Would you not like to know as you sit there how heaven regards you? What does it matter how others regard you? How does heaven regard you? I look up to heaven, and I know how heaven regards me, as one clothed with Christ; not the Christ that was here only, it is the Christ that is up there. That is how heaven regards the Christian. The bondmen are told to put that on the prodigal. It is the divine thought, the mind of heaven, brought forth, and put on the returning prodigal. If there is one here tonight who will stand

and say, ‘I am a repenting sinner’; if there is one like that man who went into the temple and said, “God, have compassion on me, the sinner”, heaven is thinking about him. There is history being made there as he stands and makes his confession; he is now regarded in a new light before God; and we would clothe you with the very best thoughts we know of, and these are Christ as He is now in heaven. The Holy Spirit is here to bring out what is there and to clothe you with it. If you make a confession this instant heaven changes its mind about you; it looks on you differently, and so do we.

Perhaps we Christians do not know very much about the best robe, and we may not, in our thoughts, robe you as well as you should be robed; but heaven knows. One of the finest thoughts that you can take into your soul is the attitude of heaven towards you as a repenting sinner. The prodigal returned and said, “I have sinned against heaven and before thee. I am no longer worthy to be called thy son”, but the father said, “Bring out the best robe”. If there is anyone ready to confess his guilt and to believe in Christ, let us Christians be ready to put the best thoughts on him, and give him to understand that we are taking account of him, and clothe him according to heaven’s best thoughts. That is the idea. It is no question of a literal robe, these things are spiritual, and it is bringing forth what is spiritual; it is putting upon the returning sinner the very best thoughts of heaven, so that you go up there as ennobled, entirely suitable to the place. The thief on the cross illustrates it. The Lord said, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. As if the Lord says, ‘I will not be ashamed of you up there’, for the best thoughts of heaven enshroud the returning prodigal. It is a question of what he takes in, what he understands, what he is capable of.

J. Taylor (Vol. 99, pp.274,275)

Then we get the Lord entering Jerusalem, and there is testimony rendered to Him as Son of David and King of Israel. He claimed it in the way of testimony; what the prophets had spoken of was claimed in the way of testimony, this is often seen. So now we claim inheritance in the way of testimony, we are to be “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might”. He is Head of all things, and we claim inheritance in that way for Him. God’s way is to claim all in testimony; God gives ample and full testimony before He comes in in a decisive way. The present moment is a very peculiar one; our testimony is to Christ as Head, before His headship is asserted publicly. Christ has come in as last Adam and Head of all things, and we want to be in the witness of it before God comes in in a decisive way. The testimony to Christ as Head will tend to bring out antichrist. If there were a united testimony to Christ as Head, it would tend to bring a crisis, and antichrist would be set up. The enemy takes his cue from the testimony, he will set up antichrist, and then God will have to come in in judgment and bring Christ in.

What is set forth in Christ is God’s thought for every one. Witness is the result of affection, and you then do the right thing at the right moment. Separation from the world morally is most important for us, not separation from men, but from the principles of the world. Christ is our life; this, too, is most important; a man’s object is his life; if Christ is my object, He is my life. As to eating with a ruler, if you eat you put yourself under his power, he has invited you for a purpose, and he will take you in, therefore put a knife to your throat—you must not be affected by the man’s principles.

We must not avoid men, but you want to be prepared; in such cases it may be best to be aggressive if you are courageous. Man’s civilities are to be avoided, you put yourself under his power—you want to be faithful to Christ. In early days in Acts Christ was their life. Christ did not avoid men, but He did not touch their dainty meats. He could speak straight to them; how beautiful to see the Lord in the houses of those whose thoughts were completely contrary to His own, as in Luke 7 in Simon’s house, and see also how faithfully and wisely He spoke! (Luke 14). There was no fear or favour of man there, and what came out in His death illuminated every act of His life; so in the Supper, it is “This do in remembrance of me”; in His death God was brought in and man was put out, so call Him to mind—when they saw the principles that governed all His life, they would call Him to mind, for those principles were fully seen in His death, where God was brought in and man was put out.

F. E. Raven (Vol. 19, pp.526,527)

JT That is the point in our inquiry. We go to our house and other houses here as well as this meeting room and we have in our minds that we are to be pure. We have already referred to the house of Chloe. It must have been a clean house. It was not an open house where young people could bring in their friends in the evening and maybe have dances. It was not that. We read here of the open vessel. “And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, shall be unclean”. We go into each other’s houses. Are they open? Are young people allowed to come in and do what they like as they would in the world or nearly as much as the world would do? That will not do. The household is provided for. Evidently the house of Chloe was pure. Paul was counting on their reliability in accepting the report. He immediately acted upon it. It is a very important matter as to our households, whether they are clean, whether they are like an open vessel or whether they are covered.

J. Taylor (Vol. 100, p.246)

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