CHRIST'S DISPOSITION OF HIS DISCIPLES
CHRIST’S DISPOSITION OF HIS DISCIPLES
Luke 8: 35 - 39; Mark 6: 45 - 52; Luke 24: 49
My object in reading these three scriptures is to speak of the Lord’s disposition of us. I may say it is arbitrary; His disposition of us is in view of His service, but although arbitrary, the authority being that of the Son, to be subject is not irksome; the rule is not irksome. The more we accept it, the more we shall prove how acceptable, how benign and delightful it is, in a supreme way, the perfect law of liberty.
The Lord, as Ruler in the kingdom, being the Son of the Father’s love, has a state of things in which to work out His great thoughts; otherwise, much time has to be spent in subjugation. Of course subjugation is very much better than extermination, infinitely better. Joshua’s military service had extermination in mind, and the Lord will have resort to that in time, but in the meantime it is more on the line of the administration of David and Solomon, which is subjugation.
David spent much of his time in subjugating those over whom he was to rule. Solomon entered on that and had a free hand, and so developed a wonderful system of empire. There was no “adversary nor evil occurrent;” and so it is that as subjugation is effected, the work of God proceeds in a positive, well-defined way.
Now I take this first scripture as having to say to us individually; for the Lord, in order to use us structurally, must have us first severally; we each must come under His adjusting hand, so that He may fit us for what is in His mind. This man in Luke 8 serves to illustrate how the Lord takes us up and tests us out in an individual position, so that we learn how [p. 225] to get on with the Lord alone. Many do not experience this very much, but Luke more than any other of the evangelists enlarges on the effect of the healing on the man himself. Luke and Mark both make much of the effect on the man; this trophy of Christ’s service. Matthew mentions two men, and makes more of the overthrow of the evil, making nothing of the effect on the men. It is a great matter, of course, that when an evil arises, and interferes with what God is doing, that it should be overthrown. Matthew, being concerned about the assembly, and the Lord’s word as to it, that “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”, makes much of the overthrow of the evil.
It is a great matter that God acts, not yet for the overthrow of evil universally, but for the overthrow of it in the measure in which it impedes the progress of His work; so Matthew enlarges on the evil. As remarked, it was in two persons, not in one, as Mark and Luke give it; for two would suggest organisation, and organised evil is the more powerful and effective. Matthew tells us that the two were possessed of demons, and they were so fierce that no one could pass that way. That is a particular point noted. The rights of heaven were challenged, for all power is given to Christ in heaven and on earth, and any position occupied by evil that interferes with what is in His mind must be dealt with. What He has in mind must go on; in Matthew He has the assembly in mind, and the development of it, so that any condition arising in a locality that hinders right principles, that prevents them being operative, must be dealt with. The Lord has to do with that constantly. Alas, that conditions locally in many gatherings should interfere with the operation of divine principles.
It says, that no one could pass that way, that is, other principles are adopted, and what God has in mind cannot proceed. Matthew would make much of that, while Luke and Mark stress the effect on the [p. 226] man. There is not the slightest evidence that the evangelists copied each other in any way. The Spirit of God used them all, and each wrote according to what He wished to present. The divine thought is not only that the evil must he overthrown, but that the human agents are to be rescued from it, and henceforth employed as agents of good.
God set out that principle in commissioning Moses. He said, “What is that in thy hand?” (Exodus 4: 2). God would have us to work with Him, to be intelligent in what He is doing. It was obvious that he had a staff in his hand, but still God would have Moses name it. In this he would be reminded of what the staff had been to him, and hence would grasp what God would convey to him in view of his service. Moses says, “A staff”. God says, “Cast it on the ground”. Moses had it in his hand; it was a useful thing; something to be leaned upon; having to do with experience with God, of which he had much. As the hand of authority released it, it became a serpent, illustrative of what man becomes as God releases His hand, and Moses fled from it. If you asked him what it is now, he would say, a serpent. A terrible transformation, but illustrative of what we are capable of; and Jehovah says, “Stretch out thy hand and take it by the tail”, and he did so, and it became a staff in his hand. It returned to normal, to what was in the mind of God about it, what it really was in this sense. In other words, man has returned, God taking him up in Christ, man has returned to normalcy, to what is in the mind of God as to him.
The manhood that God had always in mind was Christ, and Adam was a figure of Christ. It is in Him that the true divine thought of man is, and so here in Luke, as you would expect, we have the man, as delivered from the power of Satan, answering to the thoughts of God. Matthew is dealing with the assembly as an organisation itself, so to speak, that in which God’s power is, and against which “hades’ gates shall not prevail”. The gates of hades shall not prevail against it; the thought involves that there is power to deal with the gates of hades, and so, as I said, Matthew stresses the overthrow of the evil in these two men, and leaves the rest. What he has in mind is that the work of God will go on. People can now pass that way. Divine principles have a right of way, and we shall never have the assembly, according to God, until divine principles have a right of way. They must prevail.
We have to consider if there has been anything different from that, and if divine principles have not been operative; whether what has been hindering them has been dealt with in us severally. This is going on constantly in the Lord’s gracious government of the assembly, for Luke would bring in the Priest, he does not leave us simply as Matthew does with the overthrow of the evil, great indeed as that is. What about the man? Luke and Mark would say. Any servant that Mark would approve would be concerned to reach the full desired end, and see that the divine thought in the object of the service is reached. Luke alone says, “they ... found the man”. Now that is really what the Lord is looking for in all matters of this kind, however modified they may be, that manhood shall be reached through conflict; so they see the man. How different from what he was! They see him, Luke says, “sitting, clothed and sensible, at the feet of Jesus”. In other words, as delivered from the power of Satan, I take the place of learning. I am going to learn everything from the Lord. Sitting, clothed and sensible. Sensible persons are very important, but they are rare in a spiritual sense. God uses here the word “sensible”, having in mind persons who exercise their senses, the five of them, according to His mind. Where you have a sensible man spiritually, he discerns good and evil, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, “full-grown [p. 228] men, who ... have their senses exercised for distinguishing both good and evil” (Hebrews 5: 14); and so evil has no inlet.
This man, being sensible, is amenable to all that would be right and fair; he would not be unreasonable or exacting. You could talk to him. He is ready for what is true and spiritual. Present it to him, and he will listen. He is material for the assembly. In truth, this chapter in Luke brings out assembly material. This man of whom we have been speaking, and the woman with the issue of blood, and the girl are what you might call the component parts of the public assembly; and how important it is that you have a sensible man, clothed; all that is unseemly covered. This man had been naked, and now is found clothed, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Now, the Lord will take him up, and see what he will do, left, as it were, to himself. He besought the Lord that he might be with Him. How pleasing this must have been to Him! But the Lord says, “Return to thine house and relate how great things God has done for thee”. What a commission that was! He himself is the witness of what he is to speak of, and that is the great principle in the testimony of God, that one is what one speaks of. He went through the whole city, publishing how great things Jesus had done for him. Cities are hard territory, where worldly principles prevail and the spirit of so-called refinement; all that will be against him.
The man is to witness where Christ is rejected for He had been asked to depart (verse 37). What kind of a welcome will he get? Well, he is going to be tested, and then there is the idea of what one man can do. The Lord had left and there were no brethren as far as the Scriptures tell us. The whole place would thus be against him. He tells them what Jesus did for him. The Lord had told him to tell them what God had done for him, and it was no question of disobedience to the Lord’s word, that he said Jesus had done it. He [p. 229] understood that God was there; in truth “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5: 19).
What nights he would have, what days! There is not a word said of him having the Scriptures, or books of any kind. How did he get on as a believer? Was the Lord unmindful of the great disadvantages of this man’s environment? Not at all. The Lord had them all in mind, you may be sure, for He had placed him there. He would have recourse to God. It is well for each of us to begin this way. We should work out the idea of individual relations with God. It develops such confidence in service as can accrue only from experience. Nehemiah says, “I took counsel with myself”. You might say that appears to be independence of God, but far otherwise; it is really independence of man, as such. The Lord Jesus Himself says in Psalm 16: 7, “even in the nights my reins also instruct me”, but He had counsel with God in a most wonderful way. In the same verse He says, “I will bless Jehovah, who giveth me counsel”. Thus He is a model for us, and of God’s work in the believer accordingly.
The Lord said, the Spirit should be in the believer as a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life. What possibilities there are in one thus set up in relation to God! The recipient of the gospel, and of the Spirit! What possibilities in one person! He is not to remain in isolation, though it is a great thing to be tested out in isolation; there it is known what we are capable of, and how we get on, and so we shall be concerned not to come under the influence of others unduly. There is, of course, influence that is good. In Matthew the Lord makes much of it, for He says, “make disciples of all the nations”. It is a great thing to have spiritual influence, but at the same time those that are so influenced have to learn how to get on with God; learn how to be by oneself, to speak by himself, and take counsel by himself. If my [p. 230] senses are in action, I can weigh things and balance things, and thus learn to stand on my own feet; in this way I become practically a board in the tabernacle. As we have noted, the boards were made “standing up” (Exodus 36: 20). It can only be so spiritually. This man was made to stand up, and evidently he held his ground, not only negatively, but positively, for he told “how great things Jesus had done for him”.
Well now, the second scripture speaks of the collective side. Mark gives it as no other does. I refer to him because, although the Lord teaches us to be together, and that is one principle of our position, yet in a gracious way He compels us to be together, without asking our leave as to this one or that one He puts into the company. It says after He had fed the multitude that “he compelled his disciples to go on board ship, and ... he departed into the mountain to pray”. And they were “labouring in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them”. Note the words “comes to them”. How heaven looks at us with compassion, knowing full well how the enemy takes account of us as in any city. At times the wind blows contrary. The education of the disciples was the object of this; the wind was contrary to them, and the Lord knew it. So “he comes to them walking on the sea”.
There is a great lesson to be learned from this walking on the water, but there is not so much made of it here, as Matthew makes of it; this again is characteristic. Mark contents himself with Christ walking on the water, and says nothing about Peter. Matthew establishes the principle of men being superior to the worst circumstances. The Spirit of God in Mark has something else in mind; to show us how the Lord intervenes for His people as in distress; also how we are to be affected by the work of God. The feeding of the multitude was a great evidence of divine resources; every person with any right sensibility would rejoice in seeing so many fed, it was a great miracle.
[p. 231] The account given here shows the effect it had on the persons who saw it; those for whose good educationally it was intended. What did they gain by it? They certainly could tell you about it as a matter of history, as Gehazi told the king of Israel about the great works of Elisha, but what was the effect on their hearts? What is presented is that the Lord compels us to be where we are, we would not choose each other possibly, but the Lord has compelled us to be together, and normally the more we are together the better we like one another, I mean spiritually. One can say the saints are becoming increasingly a delight, as one sees them in all circumstances, but the Lord puts us together, it is a sovereign act now; here the disciples were closely together. It was in a boat, evidently not large, rubbing each other’s shoulders, and the wind contrary to them; conditions that bring out any irritability, impatience, or readiness to complain that there may be in us. The Lord had this in mind. The whole position is before Him. He was on high praying for them, and now He is on the water, and they think they see an apparition; their vision was bad. Mark makes much of seeing everything clearly. The Lord was no apparition, He was a real Man walking with human steps on the water, and He would have passed them by. That is a very solemn thing, for there is the suggestion that He can get on without us; His love would take account of and desire to have us, but still, as regards the testimony, we must never limit Him to ourselves. He knows Himself what He will do, but let us never assume that He cannot get along without us. Not that He fails to love us according to eternal counsels, but I am speaking about the public position, and if things are not suitable, the Lord will indicate to us that He is not just satisfied.
I am not speaking of any particular company; what I am saying applies to the assembly in its subdivisions at the present time, and the Lord gives us to understand [p. 232] that He is not just satisfied. If things are not suitable He will have it otherwise, and He would go further; here “he ... would have passed them by”. We cannot afford to ignore that; we cannot get on without Him. We must have Him, and that enters into His position, I believe; so that it is a searching matter. He compelled them into the position, but went up to pray for them, but would pass them by. He could do that perfectly, and convey to their minds exactly what He wanted to convey. What the composition of the company in that boat was, the Lord knew well; He would bring it out and expose it. Mark shows us that the real difficulty was that their hearts were hardened. They did not take right notice of the miracle of the loaves (verse 52). The intervention that had just occurred was not affecting them spiritually. No doubt they spoke among themselves about it; how many people were fed; it may have been a subject of conversation on the boat, but the moral effect was not there; their heart was not touched; it was “hardened”. Mark would, no doubt, consider well, that if he used the word hardened, it applied to himself. He would say, I was once hard; I was with Paul and Barnabas, and I failed and went back from the work. He was speaking of what he knew, and one would take this home, for the natural heart is deceptive. He says, “their heart was hardened”, and the Lord knew it.
Now, I return to Luke; to the verse I read in chapter 24. The Lord had been speaking about the terms of the gospel; repentance and remission of sins were to be preached, beginning at Jerusalem. He makes a great deal of Jerusalem. He says to the disciples, “I send the promise of my Father upon you”, that promise characterises the dispensation. The great fact of the Holy Spirit being here is a dispensational thought, but it enters into the whole experience of a christian. It is a practical thought, and so the Lord says, “Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon [p. 233] you; but do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high”. The clothing with power from on high is the coming down of the Spirit. It is not heaven here, it implies moral elevation accorded to us in the service of God. That is the idea, I think, of on high. Our preaching and teaching, and our relations with one another, are not what is current in religious circles at all. What is current in these circles is not from on high; it is according to the principles of this world; it is what is common. What has existed in man’s religions from the beginning, although more or less dignified in the eyes of men by the name of Christ, is not from on high. The clothing from on high is by the Spirit. So that the third thing I had in mind is spiritual power in ministry. Individual experience with God, collective experience with one another in close quarters, and clothing with power from on high — all are required for the testimony of God. What God has in mind for us in this sense is the gospel. Thus the Lord says, “Ye are witnesses” — not my witnesses here, but the thought of having seen what is to be testified to, but in serving there must be the Spirit, whose presence here is essential to public testimony. What is to go on to the end, is to be in the dignity of the anointing from on high; as if the Lord would say, In spite of the fact that you have so much knowledge, through being with Me from the beginning, do not present that in testimony until you are clothed with power from on high. The Lord is concerned about what is representative of Him, and that must be in the dignity of the anointing.
Then He leads them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them, and as He did so He is carried up to heaven, and they return to Jerusalem; true to His commission; true to His word, they were in the temple daily, with great joy. They had worshipped Jesus before they came back, which is beautiful, and are now in the temple praising [p. 234] and blessing God. They are where He wanted them to be, and the next narrative of Luke, that is Acts, shows that the Holy Spirit came down like tongues of fire and sat upon each of them. Then Peter stood up and preached the gospel, explaining the whole position. It is one of the most striking addresses available. In the first chapter he stood up in the midst of the brethren; in the second, he stands up in relation to the eleven, indicating that the gospel testimony is a matter of gift. He is perfectly accurate spiritually in what he does, and standing up with the eleven, he announces Christ as glorified, and that the Holy Spirit is here.