THE BREAD OF GOD
RT I seek help to speak about this bread the Lord speaks of. In the earlier verses it is the bread of God, what has come within our range to be appropriated and to be built up in. In the time when there were those going away, as the chapter speaks about, a time when there was a lot of inferior food about, the Lord brings in this food, food which abides. We all know the benefits naturally of good food, the kind of constitution it builds up, it helps throw off disease and can stand when other things may seek to dull the sensibilities. There are advantages of good food. The Lord brings it here in Himself within our reach; first of all, in the incarnation, the bread has come down out of heaven. It says in Isaiah 55, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?”, v 2. Why would we fill our minds and souls with things that are not bread, it is not going to stand. The Lord speaks here about what has come down out of heaven. What He has brought down with Him! In this chapter it has come down out of heaven, now He says, “He that has eaten my flesh”, an allusion to His death, and He says, “he also who eats me”, an allusion to where He is. How much there is that has come on to our view, of Christ, to nourish our hearts and give us stamina and strength in the current winds of change that are around us, that we may stand as those who are true and loyal and have an appreciation of our glorious and living Lord.
We have read in these passages, and we may not have time to speak of them all, but I think they show what Peter had appropriated in the death of Christ, and they show too how Paul appropriated it, it was everything to him, Christ was everything to Paul. That is the effect of this kind of food. These matters are deep in one sense, but very precious, very testing and yet very attractive, and they would hold our hearts in relation to what Christ has provided. Such a cost, a cost that we shall never fathom, a cost that caused Him to come down out of heaven. What a contemplation for our souls and what He brought down with Him that there may be another order of Man before our gaze. Philippians says that we should be formed in it, Paul was formed in it. Philippians 2 is seeking that the saints should be formed in it through feeding on Him and having this precious food entering into our souls.
JW Do you think that the fact that it says that He came down brings the character of manhood, the lowly Man, that marked Him, and as we feed on that we would become like Him.
RT John the baptist got a view of it, he says, “Behold the Lamb of God”, John 1: 29. He had seen many men, he had seen the professors, but as Jesus came onto his view he says, “Behold the Lamb of God”. As a Man of another character filled his soul he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease”, John 3: 30. I think that is the effect of this bread that has come down out of heaven. There is nothing here to nourish the soul, nothing here to build up this kind of man that is going to go through. Peter says, “we have believed and known”, (John 6: 69); the bread that had come down out of heaven. What he brought in with Him; another order, another character, love and grace. He brought in grace to our weary sin-stained universe, but lowliness too. These features have been brought within our reach. John speaks too of the things, the things that have come, things that we have handled, contemplated, 1 John 1: 1. What has come on to our view; “He that believes on me has life eternal. I am the bread of life”.
JW He is indispensable to us, and there is no lack outside of Him.
RT These things are very true, are they true to us? It was true to Paul and true to Peter. It is a good word you use; this bread is indispensable. It shows that all the other breads that you eat are going to lead to death. All the other things that may be built up by the food that comes in, are all going to end in death, but here it says, “He that believes on me has life eternal. I am the bread of life.”
DEB Do you make a distinction between the use of the word ‘bread’ and the use of the word ‘flesh’ in John’s gospel?
RT Well the idea of the bread is referring to the substantiality, concentrated nourishment. “Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread?” There are no husks about bread! It is the thought of what would satisfy you. Then the flesh is showing how near it has come to us, it has come within our range, it has come to us through intelligible form. What would you say about it.
DEB I was only interested in it! The references to flesh always involve the Lord’s death. Does the bread involve death in quite the same way?
RT The primary thought is the incarnation, I think. He went into death, but He took a condition that He may touch death; it says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”, John 1: 14. He took a condition in which He could die, it was laid down in death. It brings it very near to us, it brings it within our reach, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. I think the allusion to the bread is in contrast to all the other things that might satisfy and build up another kind of constitution that is prone to disease and prone to deflection, but the idea of the bread brings in what would satisfy and help us to stand and be strengthened with some stamina.
JM It says in chapter 1, “In him was life”, v 4, and then here He says, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father”. Do you think that what has come within our range is a life in which there is nothing of this scene whatsoever, and that is intended to be reproduced in us?
RT I think that would be implied in the bread that He has brought in life! Every other man brought in death. From the moment we are born, death is there, but He brought in life. It is very good food, food that builds up, food that has “life eternal”; He brought it in. The scripture says bread “out of heaven”. Adam very soon came into the line of death and every other man, but here was One who came in and “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. It was there to be appropriated, shone into our hearts and now it is here to be appropriated, to be partaken of that we may have life. It goes against the stream, that life can look beyond death, to look into the very heavens itself as our present eternal home.
DJH Are these things the things that Paul speaks of, the things of Jesus Christ? “For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ”, Phil 2: 21. I was thinking that that seems to suggest that there is quite a range for us to occupy ourselves with, the “things of Jesus Christ”.
RT That would be an interesting enquiry, what those things are! Here is the time of being life, it says He brought in life. It is one of the things He has brought into a weary sin-stained universe, He has brought in life where there was death. Well, do I want to feed on life? The kind of life that He has brought in is to be our food that we may live. He says here “He that believes on me” and “he also that eats me”, we may eat of it and not die. It lifts our horizon does it not?
DJW Did Mr Taylor not say, it is life out of death for us. If we appropriate, eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, we are appropriating His death. Later on in the gospels He says, “because I live ye also shall live”, chap 14: 19.
RT What you are saying is going on a bit, but very true and that is the essence of the chapter. First of all, He has come down out of heaven. There was a Man came onto view into this world, and He brought with Him the bread of life. He brought in as you say, what was superior to death, and we must come to that and see the way it is done. We have come to see that He lay down that life. I have been impressed lately with the life that was laid down. What a life it was! To us death comes, and it is a life that is subject to death, but there was in Jesus a life laid down that Peter says was incorruptible. It was not possible that He, the One in whom that life was exemplified, could be held by death’s power, Acts 2: 24.
Ques Is that why we get the two thoughts? “I am the bread of life” in verse 48, but in verse 50 it says, “I am the living bread”.
RT “… which has come down out of heaven”; that is where it has come from! A great matter to see it has come from the Father and when He was here, He said on account of the Father, think of that bread, bread that drew nothing from this world but drew from the Father, drew from heaven. We can well understand the grace that shone on those streets of Nazareth, it was coming from heaven. Every day; “morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear” Isa 50: 4. Every day He says, “I live on account of the Father” (v 57), drawing the wealth of heaven into those weary circumstances. What a life was there, and John says it is for our contemplation.
ECB Is this chapter in answer in part to the curse in Genesis 3; “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”, v 19. There is something of that here.
RT It is all brought within our reach. Brought to us to be appropriated, it is brought there very attractively to stimulate our taste buds that we may admire, and not only admire, but that we may appropriate this kind of Man. Well, as our brother has said, for us to come into the gain of it, His life was laid down. I think it is something to be thought about, the kind of life that was laid down, the beauty of it, the perfection of it. Do I want to have some of that character now? I can have it if I feed on this bread that has come down out of heaven.
JW The references to His flesh and His blood, when His flesh and blood conditions were ended, it was perfect in Himself, but that condition has been ended!
RT What a matter that was! We can contemplate it, what was laid down, the beauty of it! A life that had been the object of heaven’s attention every moment for thirty three and a half years. As you say it was laid down. Men cried why? Why was it laid down?
JW There was a lot involved in that. The purpose of God was to be accomplished, if we were to be brought into life, His life had to be laid down.
RT If that life had not been laid down, He would have been forever alone. But the effect of that life being laid down is that there are those who appropriate it and are brought to be like Him as He is, not as He was. That life was unique, precious and blessed and yet through eating this we are brought to walk in the steps and in the grace in which He walked.
JM In Luke’s gospel it is from the mount of transfiguration that He “set his face to go to Jerusalem”, chap 9: 51. He could have gone back there, He had every right and title in virtue of that life that had been filled out here perfectly for God to return, but it would have involved returning alone.
RT So He could not have gone back!
JM No, from that standpoint He could not have gone back! Love held Him.
RT Love for us and love for His Father would not allow Him. The Hebrew bondman could have gone out free but he says, “I love”, Exod 21: 1-6. That all enters into what He says here, laying it down.
DEB Would you say some more about ‘as He was’ and ‘as He is’.
RT Well we have them both in this chapter. I think we have to appreciate what came down from heaven to understand how great the matter was that was laid down. But then the Person is Jesus; the same Person! There was what was laid down but Peter says, “This Jesus has God raised up”, Acts 2: 32, the same blessed Man. He has come into these circumstances; I enjoyed the hymn that we sang, involving the manger and the grave, in order to endear Himself to our affections, “This Jesus”, the same Jesus, God has raised up and made Him “both Lord and Christ”, v 36. I think there is an allusion as we go through the chapter “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him”. I think we come to Jesus as He is but too we feed on that.
PM Was the condition laid down to which He came, but what He was characteristically goes right through?
RT Yes, “This Jesus”, the same Jesus.
PM I wondered if that was involved in the references to “the bread which comes down”, what is there characteristically in the Person is heavenly.
RT Yes come down to where we are, it is not something that has remained as a doctrine or a text, but it has been exemplified and seen, come down to where we were that He may display this kind of life.
JW Did the Lord point out how He lived, lived on account of the Father, and all that marked Him in His pathway here, He did not derive anything from the world, He did not rely on the company of His own, He lived on account of the Father. Do you think that is to produce something with us that we are to live on account of Him, our life is dependent upon Him, and we do not even rely on what we find among the saints.
RT It would teach us dependence would it not? This kind of life is only enjoyed through dependence on the One who has brought it in and in whom it is established. So that He was here as dependent Man. It says, “Thou wilt make known to me the path of life”, Ps 16: 11. Think of Jesus here, all that was in Him, but this is the Son of man in this chapter. He has come into these conditions; in all His grace He has come into these surroundings that our hearts may be attracted to this kind of Man that lived on account of the Father. He did not use His own will.
DER In this chapter has the Lord not in view that the disciples should accept death to all that the flesh lives in naturally, and that we should find life, as accepting death, in Himself where He is in glory now. That is really the product of appropriating His death is it not?
RT Well it is very rich food is it not? “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”. There is no life outside of this, and there is no life outside of His death. His death has opened up a new way of living, a new principle of life, but what a cost! I think there is need for us to tarry and think for a moment: “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”. Doctrine will not hold us. The text of scripture will not hold us, the terms of the truth will not hold us; “Unless ye have eaten”, unless we appropriate what it cost Christ to go this way. And I think Paul shows us he went the same way, “I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, Phil 3: 8.
DER It involves the termination of everything of the first order of things. It is as we appropriate Christ’s death in that way that we shall come into life.
RT It says Christ died, all were dead; He went this way, what a matter! I think it is something that would radically change our way of thinking about life as we realise the fulness of what was laid down: “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”.
JRW So as the manna was a necessity for the wilderness so this is the necessity to maintain us in life?
RT There is no life outside of it. Peter in Acts was contemplating that life laid down and the beauty of it. The beauty of what entered into death; it was not possible that he could be held by its power, Acts 2: 24. But He went this way that we may feed our souls on what He did and all that entered into it; “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood”. Christ going into death made a radical change on the life of the apostles.
JM It is one thing about eating, it is not learning, it is eating, the result of that is to be the production of moral fibre in us.
RT The end of every other man, every other man is terminated in the death of Christ. Think of eating it, think of appropriating all that was effected. Paul did very quickly, so did the apostles, they appropriated very quickly all that was meant and involved in Christ entering into death on their account.
JM Do you think it should also bear on our affections? The life of that character had to be laid down, do you think that should really touch our hearts?
RT Yes wonderful! Not only a life laid down, but He was three days in the heart of the earth, all that was involved, what food, what a Man to contemplate and appropriate, that Christ went that way to terminate all that man had brought in. All that had come in in man was terminated, and as we feed on it there is a new constitution, a new order of character developed in us that will stand and will be true in the days in which we live.
ECB Could you say something more as to why it is the Son of man.
RT It is very beautiful! He came so low, but it was the Son of man who died was it not? You say something about it.
ECB I was only thinking what a wonder that would be to the audience to whom He was speaking. There is that which is in relation to the glory of the Son of man in Psalm 8, but it bears on the scripture in Philippians, “emptied himself”, chap 2: 7. It is interesting how much Peter uses the title especially in his gospel, and the other apostles do not use it at all.
RT It is language He uses to endear Himself to our hearts that He came into this position, He came into these circumstances that He might taste death. Had He asserted His deity death would have had to flee, and it did! But think of the Son of man entering into death and as Son of man breaking the authority and bondage of death; “it was not possible that he should be held by its power”, Acts 2: 24. The One who came so low, “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross, (Phil 2: 8), but it was not possible that He could be held by its power.
JRS How would you help us to distinguish between eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
RT I do not know, it is one matter, and I do not think we can have the one without the other, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood”. I think that they would speak of the fulness of that death, what was there substantially that death had to bow, and death had to give way, it was not possible He could be held by its power. I think too it refers to the work of expiation, what drinking His blood would allude to and show us how much we are affected. It is what was removed, what was ended, the blessed and preciousness of the sacrifice that was there, and appropriating it brings us into life eternal. You could say something about it for us.
JRS I am thankful for what you say, that it is one matter. The Lord refers to it three or four times in this chapter, but He refers to both together each time.
RT I think it is to emphasise the reality of His death, He died! The flesh and the blood, that life was laid down. He went that way that there may be a way made for us to be clear of all that flesh and blood had brought in on us. He laid down that condition. He went through it, and the reality of death is emphasised in the flesh and the blood being referred to separately.
DJH I was reading again yesterday in Mr Darby that it was the life to which our sins were attached that was laid down, Synopsis vol 4 p108. Would you say that it is the complete clearance of everything on our side.
RT And in it He has terminated before God and as feeding on it helps to terminate in me, the kind of life that is displeasing to God.
JW So that we are to experience another kind of life. It says, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal”, that is more a continuous characteristic is it in verse 54?
RT And then it says, “and I will then raise him up at the last day”! We are then brought in to taste and partake of something that is not going to end with death. Think of our lives, most of what we treasure and most of what we possess, and what we call our life, is going to end in death. But here the Lord is encouraging us to feed on something that is going through, “raise him up”, the character formed that is going through to eternity. It encourages you to appropriate this kind of food that is going to build up and order, and form something in us that is fit to be raised up.
RWF Is life eternal the answer to what is out of heaven?
RT Well it is the answer to what has come in in Christ and it is to be formed in us. As you say the source of it is heaven, but it commences in the death of Christ. He has ended the bondage, He has ended Adam’s order, and He has brought in through appropriating His flesh and blood what will be raised up at the last day.
SDKR We referred earlier in John about the grain of wheat, unless it die it abides alone, (John 12: 24), and we referred earlier to what is constitutional: could you say something about that?
RT A fine scripture to bring in. Say some more about it.
SDKR I was thinking that we form part of this order of humanity, do we not?
RT Yes, and it says, “but if it die, it bears much fruit”. That is it here, He has died to bring forth something of His own character and order, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood”. I think that scripture helps us, it would help us to feed on that corn of wheat. It is His own action; to fall into the ground and die. It is His own action in going into death. We have said earlier that heaven was open to Him: at the mount of transfiguration you see something of Himself as suited to heaven, but He came down and set His face to go to Jerusalem; the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying. It abides alone if it does not die, but He has died and He has given us this flesh and this drink, that there may be formed something in us that may be raised up at the last day.
ECB Do you think there is an extended thought in relation to the flesh and blood to the Supper. It is in the light of the Supper that we appreciate Him and appropriating Him it is in view of eternal life, resurrection, abiding in Him and He in us.
RT A dead Christ is before us as we come together. We do not remember a dead Christ; we call to mind a living and glorious Lord. But as you come to the Supper you cannot but be affected that Christ has died. It says “ye announce the death of the Lord, until he come”, 1 Cor 11: 26.
ECB That bears on ‘as He was’ and ‘as He is’.
RT I think it is to be before us as come to the Supper, the loaf and the cup are separate. The Lord could not live here, He died. Peter brings it home to them, they crucified Him, that is their side of it, but the other side is that He went that way to terminate the kind of man that is in me, to terminate the line of Adam that had come in, to terminate it before God that there may be through His death a way made for us to partake of a life that is beyond death.
DEB This line that we are on, as the scripture says, “life in yourselves”, that would be evident would it not? It is not something that is exactly enjoyed secretly, it would come in to display so that others could see that it was so.
RT Peter brings it into evidence here; “we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”, v 69. The Lord said “Will ye also go away?”; He felt those days and He feels the days we are in. As you say it is evident when someone has been appropriating this. Peter did not enter into the fulness of it, but I think we can read it into the passage that Peter as he appreciates it comes out with this, “we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”, and he says “thou hast words of life eternal”.
JW Why does Peter use that title “the holy one of God”?
RT Death would bring it out. Death brought out that He was holy, it was not possible that He could be held by the power of death; “neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption”, Ps 16: 10. He was there three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. All that is future from this passage, but I think Peter saw another kind of manhood, he saw something that had come from heaven. There was no holiness in any other man, but he saw in Christ One who had come from heaven, who was intrinsically different.
JW This is from experience with the Lord, having been in company with the Lord, to appreciate the Lord in this way.
RT Yes, the Lord says, “my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink”. There is what is concentrated. It is truly food, there are no husks, it is not the kernel of things, it is not just the light of doctrine, but it is what is truly food. So that He says, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me”. We are brought into communion, we are brought into association with Him; “dwells in me and I in him”. That would be something like Christ as He is would it?
DJW It says, “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”. It is very sobering.
RT Yes, very sobering. It would preserve us from dabbling in other foods, it would preserve us from mixed foods. A great deal of what is provided today is mixture, but He says, “for my flesh is truly food”. It is concentrated nourishment, it is truly food. I say again Isaiah asks why do ye spend money for that which is not bread. So much that we may fill our minds with is building up the wrong kind of man, leading our hearts and affections away from Christ but “my flesh is truly food and my blood is truly drink”. It brings us into these dwelling conditions, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me”. There is the past tense and the present tense as the footnote tells us, there is what we have to eat, but then there is the continuous, “He that eats”, there is the constant thing. We need two or three meals a day, and it is a constant appropriating in view of this kind of living, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”.
JW This would be the way of deliverance, complete deliverance from the world and all that is in it, and bring us to be attached to Christ Himself?
RT Very good, I think the eating His flesh and drinking His blood would bring about deliverance. Once we have tasted true food would we want any other? We tend to go back to something less. The young man in Luke 15 filled his belly with the husks, but it does not satisfy. We have to come back to where the bread is, he says there is bread in my father’s house, enough and to spare, Luke 15: 17. He comes to the true bread. I think as you say it would deliver us on the one hand but then it brings us into these dwelling conditions, “dwells in me and I in him”.
JM It is really the positive side of the line of instruction. There is the side of life that is over against death which might have a moral connection, but then there is also the side of life according to John which really means our associations of life and all that pertains in that area?
RT I think eternal life as we speak of it involves associations. It does not involve solitude: it says, “dwells in me and I in him”. It makes it very attractive! And then He says, “I live on account of the Father”, then “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. There is great supply! There is great reserve of resources that this this kind of life should be maintained.
DJH He says later in the gospel, “Abide in me and I in you”, chap 15: 4. Is this the same and is this the way into it? It does not speak about how it is to be brought about there, but is this the way into it?
RT Yes I think that is so. It is “He that eats”, it is a continuous matter, feeding on that death, feeding on all that was effectuated in that death, seeing all that was terminated, and then it is “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him”. It is a very fine end reached. So how could we go away; “dwells in me and I in him”? We have felt the test of it, and we are meant to feel the test of it, the test of the application of the death of Christ to me, the termination of all that I am. These things are not just to be terms to us, we are to have some experience of them; “dwells in me and I in him”.
DEB The expression, “dwells in me and I in him”, is for the present time. It goes on to speak about raising him up in the last day, v 44. I was just wondering about that because all believers will be raised at the last day, but dwelling in Him is something in anticipation of that is it?
RT It is present enjoyment is it not? And it is life, “I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. Feeding on Him and dwelling in Him; “to whom shall we go?” There was nobody for Peter outside of Christ. There was nobody for Mary outside of Christ, it says she was sitting at His feet, listening to His word, Luke 10: 39. I think she was eating. There is Martha complaining, looking at the surroundings and being critical, but there is Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His word. I think she was eating, eating involves restfulness. You get the good of a meal in these times, we need the circumstances, we need the surroundings, we need to make room, and Mary was doing that sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His word.
DER Feeding on Him and living on account of Him involves where He is now, so that our life is not just here but it is in Christ where He is now, in His realm above. Is not the Lord attracting the disciples to Himself where He is in glory?
RT I think the chapter is very full, where we began it is Christ as He was, He came down and brought something within our reach and John says we have contemplated it. It is something to contemplate, Christ as bread out of heaven; and as you say it involves contemplating and feeding on His death and that makes way and opens up that it was not possible that this Man should be held by death. He has been given a name that is above every name, at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, Phil 2: 9-10. I think it would fill our hearts with something of the glory; “he also who eats me”. It is not only eating His flesh, but now it is he that eats me. I think it would bring us into the joy of Paul’s ministry a Man enthroned in glory and what is flowing from Him as the glorious Head of the assembly.
DER I was thinking of what our brother was saying, it is completely delivering if we knew it because to be honest we would all own that our life is very much in things here, but the Lord would transfer us in our affections through a scripture like this to Himself where He is now that we might find life in Himself where He is now as appropriating His death and the meaning of His death upon us morally.
RT That is why I thought Paul may help us as an example; “I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, Phil 3: 8. I think Paul came to it very quickly. But then we have to be practical, we have to live here, we have to find our way here, we have family life, business life with all its problems, we have all these things to go through, but Christ Jesus who is our life, Col 3: 4. All these other things, we have to be righteous in them, go through them, but they are all going to end in death, but then there is Christ Jesus who is our life, something that we are enjoying now that is going to go through into eternal conditions. The eating is to help to build that up.
JM Would that link with Peter’s words do you think, “thou hast words of eternal life”, that would maintain him here in a scene of death, as coming into their souls, would it not?
RT The Lord felt, applying it to our times, how there are many who would take the advantages of the forgiveness of their sins, they would have some hope of going to heaven, some hope that their sins had been met in the death of Christ, but how are they living; living to themselves. They went away, they could find a life outside of the area where Christ was, but Mary could not; “they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him”, chap 20: 13. It is very easy for us to try to have both, but eating His flesh and drinking His blood means that we cannot have both, we cannot have the world and Christ, we cannot have the things of the world and Christ. What do we want? Christ Jesus who is our life? Will ye also go away? Think of the Lord’s feelings in those words. We feel the brethren that we have lost, but much more He does, “Will ye also go away?”. He is providing in this chapter something that will not only help us to stay but something that will hold us in view of the enjoyment of life eternal.
ECB It is in chapter 21 that Peter says thou knowest that I love thee (v 15, 16, 17); do you think he comes back to this? He went away, “I go to fish” (v 3), but he says thou knowest that I love thee. Underneath he was living on account of Christ.
RT Very much so and he goes into the Acts does he not?
ECB I was thinking of what you said about persons who can be identified as living on account of Him like Mary, Peter and Paul, “I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God”, Gal 2: 20. John too, “he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not”, Rev 1: 17.
RT It produces a new character. We get something of that new character in Philippians 2, Paul says “let this mind be in you”, v 5. There will be change in the person’s attitude to things; “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”. It is another way of living, another way of thinking. There is something formed, identifiable as you say, through feeding on Christ as having died but too as feeding on Him as the firstborn from among the dead. He went into death, but He is the firstborn from among the dead. He is the heir of all things as risen everything has been placed in His hands and it is all there to be appropriated by us now in the scene where we are.
JM So that heaven is really His place, there was that of the character of the heavenly Man when He was here but heaven is really His place. He could not be holden of death, that means that He could not be held here at all, and that character of man is to come out in the power of the Spirit in us do you think?
RT Yes, He went through death, the Man went down, the life was laid down, but the Person went through, and He is to be the object of our hearts.
PM I was just thinking that in His going into death He not only removed what I was, but He also won my affections, and those affections can only be satisfied with Himself where He is. Paul never knew Him where He was, did He?
GAP IN RECORDING – just about a minute
RT And what emerged was a man who thought to have Christ for his gain. The effects of that come out in persons who think the same thing, and have the same life and are joined in soul.
WHS I was wondering if you could say something about the fellowship of the Spirit. In the beginning of that chapter in Philippians, “If there be any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit”. Would the Spirit work in view of Christ having the place in our affections that you have in mind so that we might be of one mind.
RT It all has its basis upon feeding on the death of Christ. The Spirit will not have room with me if I am allowing something that has been ended in that death, the fellowship of the Spirit is these features that come out in character in the person who has been eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
WHS I was wondering about the service of the Spirit in view of this unity that we have been speaking about. We have been baptised by one Spirit into one body (1 Cor 12: 13), and that should be seen in evidence in the day in which we are now.
RT Well it is “any fellowship of the Spirit”, not a fellowship of the flesh, not because I like you or you like me whatever measure that might be, or any other standard but there are links formed through feeding on the death of Christ. There is a new character, new features formed, that gives us affinities in the Spirit and those affinities are to be nourished and strengthened and we are to be watchful that we may not bring in anything that may be divisive, but the fellowship is of the Spirit. I am not intruding anything that has been ended in the death of Christ, I am not bringing anything that death has had to say to, but I am exemplifying a kind of Man that makes the fellowship of the Spirit easy, I am a happy man.
JW In John 6 the Lord refers to the Spirit, He says “It is the Spirit which quickens, the flesh profits nothing”. Does that make way for the fellowship of the Spirit?
RT The spirit of strife and vain glory, (Phil 2: 3 )is gone and we make room for the Spirit for our bond and affinity and for His work to proceed in a way that glorifies and exemplifies Christ.
EOPM All these scriptures that you have read are very deliberate, the act of eating and drinking, and Paul saying I count. We need to set ourselves for these things, they will not just happen, we need exercise, but we arrive at something very much better. The food that we have as eating on the Lord is not just a substitute for what we have here in the world but there is something of a completely different order, very much better.
RT The husks would never have done, it says the younger son would fill his belly with husks but they would not do, he had to come to the bread and Paul is saying here, “If then there be any comfort in Christ”. Paul is trying to encourage the saints on to this line of things: “If then there be any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and compassions, fulfil my joy”. I think he is encouraging the saints that they may feed on Christ. He brings in the truth, these verses are very similar in one sense to John 6, he brings in the kind of man that went down, he says “let this mind be in you”. It is deliberate as you say, let it be in you. Give yourself over to thinking like this, thinking in lowliness, not seeking our own ends, not thinking in a proud way, but thinking in lowliness that there may be formed in us something of the character of this Man whom God has exalted and set above every name named.
PM The whole universe for God was established through the work of a lowly Man. Does that not provide an example for us, that if matters come up among us, they are to be dealt with in the spirit of lowliness.
RT Yes, eating my flesh and drinking my blood. I think we are brought back to this that, if I am portraying anything that is in the spirit of strife or vain glory, I am showing I have not appropriated the flesh and the blood. I have not been feeding on the way that Christ went and what He ended in going into death.
GCB I am being helped, I feel the depth of what we are having. It would result in this right estimation of one another regarding how valuable each one is to the Lord in view of that death.
RT That is a good touch to bring in, we have to appreciate one another, “each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves”. I can see that you have been feeding on the death of Christ and I see something formed of that other Man. I can see in myself what is not of that Man, but I can see in my brother, I can see in the brethren, something that is formed from feeding on the death of Christ; and I can esteem it as “more excellent”. Where is pride, where arrogance, where is man’s mind, where is what I think in my opinion? It is all gone to make room for this comfort in Christ and fellowship of the Spirit.
ECB Do you think the excellence of the movements of Jesus, apart from the question of our sins, is something about which we might reflect more?
RT I think so! That is what going into death was, not only the sin question, but there was One who went that way, laid down His life and took it again. Excellence has come out of heaven, not only to be admired but to be fed upon, to produce character and stamina in us in the present difficult times we are in.
ECB We have to judge ourselves, but we cannot do anything about our sins and therefore if we contemplate the death of Christ from the point of view of John’s gospel and Philippians, we have to look at the excellence of the movements of One who was straight in His goings! There is what has been referred to, the corn of wheat which falls into the ground and brings forth much fruit. I wondered whether we do not habitually think about our sins when we think about the death of Christ; of course it was on that account, but it is as “the Father has commanded me, thus I do”, John 14: 31.
RT My sins are gone, gone evermore! God does not expect anything from me as a man in the flesh, He has terminated it all in the death of Christ. What He is looking for is something in me that is feeding on that precious Man.
ECB So that the obedience of the Christ can be seen in us.
RT The enemy gets a great advantage in troubling us about our sins but our sins are gone. As the hymn says—
My sins—O the bliss of this glorious thought—
My sins—not in part, but the whole—
Were borne on the cross, and are gone evermore,
(Hymn 238)
And God is not looking for anything from me as a man in the flesh because He has ended it. But He is looking for something in me formed by the Spirit as feeding on Christ as having died but as the Man who He has exalted, the only Man, the firstborn from among the dead. Paul says here in Philippians that he sees something in Philippi, and may the Lord see something more in each of us in all our localities.
REDBRIDGE
16th January 1993
List of initials -
D E Burr, Redbridge; E C Burr, London; G C Bywater, Buckhurst Hill; R W Flowerdew, Sunbury; D J Hutson, London; P Martin, Colchester; J Mitchell, Sidcup; E O P Mutton, Walton-on-the-Naze; D E Remington, St Albans; Dr S D K Roberts, Croydon;
R Taylor, Barnet; W H Shepherd, Bedford; J R Surtees, Spaldwick;
J R Walkinshaw, Bexley; D J Wright, Redbridge; J Wright, Redbridge
This reading has been included from a recording; the script has been edited but not by our brother.