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THE HOLY SPIRIT

RT I thought there might be help for us in looking at the Lord’s own words as to the Holy Spirit. He had spoken earlier of the Holy Spirit as water, and in other figures, but as leaving the disciples He speaks of the Holy Spirit as One to be loved and relied upon. I think it would be true to say that as the dispensation has continued, in the public body the Spirit has been more and more disregarded. It therefore becomes those who would seek to taste the vitality of Christianity to revere Him and to be impressed with the sense of His greatness. The Lord would make clear to those He is leaving that there was to be no loss; no lesser personage was coming to be with them. We speak regularly of the greatness of this dispensation—and rightly so—and of the greatness of the assembly as being the family that is nearest to Deity, but these things are so because the Spirit of God is here, and such a Person is with us. This dispensation transcends all dispensations because of the place that divine Persons have taken in the economy, but principally on account of the place that the Spirit has taken. The Lord says, “that he may be with you for ever”. That was never so before, but it is true now, that there is a divine Person “with you for ever”. What settlement that gives! There were times of great exploits in previous dispensations, but what a touch it gives to this dispensation that He will be “with you for ever”. May we have some sense of the Spirit and the Lord helping us to be enlarged, deepened, in our appreciation of this blessed, holy Person.

DJH Would it be true to say that God is here?

RT Yes. As you look at these passages it is very affecting; the Lord says that He would beg the Father about Him. He says in chapter 15, “whom I will send to you from the Father”. In chapter 16 He comes. “It is profitable for you that I go away”, the Lord says, “I will send him” (the Comforter) “to you”. He comes from heaven where the Father and the Son, and the relationships that exist in heaven, are known, and He brings the wealth of that sphere to be our present portion. As you say, God is here: I do not know whether the fullness of that really affects us enough. We speak about decline and we feel the weakness. Some may say, What is going to happen? Well, God is here—another Comforter. They had known the assurance and the comfort of the presence of Jesus, but there is another Person here, and He will be with you for ever.

ECB In this section Jesus speaks distinctly of the Spirit as a Person, not, as you say, as water, or wind or otherwise, but as a Person.

RT Yes. We may tend to think more of Him in His services than as a Person. His grace through the dispensation needs to be contemplated more. There is room for expansion in our expressions of worship to Him, and as we think of what has been effected in the dispensation for God, it would help us in our response to such a One. He is to be worshipped.

HAH Is it your understanding that this is the only dispensation in which He is known as indwelling persons?

RT Yes. The Lord is speaking of something that was new to them. They had known something about the Spirit coming on David, and the Spirit of Christ in such persons, but think of the impact of this: “that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth”! It gives the present dispensation, and the assembly, a wonderful status, that there is such a One—a divine Person—with us for ever.

WJRB What is implied in the expression “the Comforter”?

RT Well, you are glad of it, are you not? The Lord was leaving them and He knew what was coming in. Where is our comfort? Where is it? It is in the Holy Spirit. The comfort of the Spirit is to be with us; the comfort is in the fact that there is Someone here who is superior to all that is around—the decline, the decay, the breakdown, and all that is going on—there is Someone, a divine Person, who is greater than all that, and He is with us for ever. Is that not a wonderful comfort?

WJRB It would have that particular meaning in this present dispensation.

RT Yes. I have often thought of it in recent sorrows, that a divine Person has taken (not by mistake) this name of the Comforter, that He can bring in solace and what is needed to heal the wounds. Comfort is more than sympathy. You can sympathise, but comfort fills the void. There may be a great loss felt; sympathy does not quite meet it, but comfort brings things back to a normal, stable relationship.

SDKR Mr Darby has a note to verse 16, that ‘solicitor’, if it were not too common, just answers the sense. He is one who is managing for us and whom we can consult.

RT Well, what makes you go to a solicitor? Because you do not feel able to handle your affairs, and the solicitor is supposed to be somebody who knows all about things and is able just to fit you into the picture and do things on your behalf. You are the client, you are the important person. As you say, it is a very common word, but Mr Darby says it illustrates the idea of somebody who makes up for all the loss.

VEW The disciples knew what it was to go to the Lord Jesus day by day in every detail, but now they would have another Comforter.

RT Yes. You just feel that the simplicity of it should enter our hearts more: “another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth”. He says, “whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him nor know him”; but there are those persons who are loved by Christ, and He begs the Father that a divine Person may be here, as you said, in His stead.

DAB It was said here on a previous occasion in relation to the solicitor that he is charged to do his very best for you. Is that the thought here?

RT What a friend! It has often been referred to, has it not? A solicitor may be official (that is why Mr Darby hesitates at the word) but what a friend, as you say, who will do His best for you, and Somebody who has infinite resources. He has come from this area; think of the Lord’s love for His own, that He would beg the Father that Someone so great should come with the wealth of heaven to be at our disposal.

ECB The distinction from the solicitor is that the Spirit does not have to be briefed, does He? Romans 8 brings that out; He knows your case first.

RT Yes; you do not need to pay Him either. He says, “I will beg the Father”. The Lord has taken up the matter of the cost. He says, “I will beg the Father”. What an affecting thing that is! He felt the need we would have here in this dispensation, but He knew Someone who was great enough to see us through.

HGH He does know all things, yet He loves to hear us put our needs before Him.

RT He joins His help to our weakness; we do not know what to pray for as is fitting, see Rom 8: 26. These are real experiences and I think that many of the brethren in recent times know something about them. There are matters lying on your spirit that are more than you can handle. He joins His help to our weakness.

HAH Is it a blessed thing that these scriptures to which you have referred, apart possibly from the one in chapter 16, make no reference to moral issues or His restraint of evil? They are His normal blessed service to the saints.

RT Well, the moral questions are underlined in what He says in the latter part of chapter 14; He brings in His commandment and His word. Love for Christ and committal to Him gives the Spirit greater liberty. The lack of vessels has hindered the Spirit in His liberty, but the Lord here, I think, is engaging us with the grandeur and the glory and the greatness of the Personage that is coming in, and we need help in faith to lay hold of it.

CCI You have emphasised the matter of His being with us. Is that perhaps one of the most important scriptures in the New Testament, as to the Spirit being known objectively, to be prayed to and worshipped, and sung to? Is that the way that the Lord has drawn attention to the Spirit in our day objectively?

RT Yes. I think that the Lord here is opening our eyes to the greatness of the Person of the Spirit. He says not only He will be with you for ever, but “he abides with you, and shall be in you”. I think it is to help us to be settled about the dispensation, that things are not oscillating or getting out of hand.

JM There are ups and downs, are there not, but the fact that He is with us for ever, in charge of the testimony, is the assurance that what is in the divine mind will go through to glory. That gives us a certain restfulness of spirit, though not causing us to be without exercise.

RT And as the greatness of the Person comes before us it would stimulate us to be with Him, because He is going through. Scripture says that He is guiding, so that you can hardly think of these scriptures without thinking of Genesis 24. The great matter with Rebecca is, “I will go”. “Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go”, v 58. Is that not what is to stimulate us, that we will go with Him? He is going through the dispensation, and as we are prepared to go with Him, we will come into all the blessedness and the grace of His service, will we not?

WJRB Is there a good deal in the Spirit descending on the Lord as a dove? He singled Him out in all His perfection.

RT That brings out the preciousness of that Man to heaven. Here is brought out something of the preciousness of the saints to heaven. He came, as you say, on Christ in bodily form. What a point of attraction to heaven there was in Christ as a man here, but now here it is the saints, the saints in those circumstances, and a divine Person has come forth from with the Father to be with us for ever, to abide in us.

EP I was wondering what your thought would be as to the fact that it is in the epistle to the Romans, right at the end, that “the love of the Spirit” is referred to (chap 15: 30), and the apostle exhorts them—which seems to me as if it was a known thing by those Roman saints—that they knew the love of the Spirit. Would you say something about that.

RT Do we not know it? The idea of the Comforter must involve love—“the love of the Spirit”. He speaks too of “the communion of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor 13: 14), that it may be with them. I think it brings out the greatness of the Person. It is not (I do not want to say not only) the water aspect; it is a Person so great, and what love He has shown! But then it is to be working in the saints.

PM Does the distinctiveness of that Person come out in this reference, “ye know him, for he abides with you”?

RT Yes, what do you say about that?

PM I wondered if they had seen the character of the blessed Spirit here in the Lord’s own movements among them, but then “he … shall be in you” would be distinctive too, would it not?

RT The same blessed Person. As you say, they had seen the Lord doing things in the power of the anointing, the power of the Holy Spirit. You can see how quickly they came into it in the beginning of Acts. “Ye know him”: they knew the power that had come in. Peter has no longer doubts as to the Person of Christ, doubts as to His work. The whole thing is set on in power as the Spirit comes to be with them and abide in them.

EC Would you say something about the Spirit teaching? We know the Lord as Teacher, but it is emphasised here: “he shall teach you all things”.

RT That has come out very markedly in the recovery, do you not think? You go to the meeting and you say, Well, Mr So-and-so is not here tonight and it is a difficult chapter. Well, I think the Scriptures would help us. It needs vessels, of course, but you are exercised in the morning about the reading at night, are you not? You are exercised about the chapter through the day before you go to the meeting. I think all these things make room for the teaching of the Spirit known among us, would you say?

EC It is very important, is it not? “He shall teach you all things”. I wonder how much we rely on the Holy Spirit for the teaching.

RT Well, if we do not we will lose it. I think that the Spirit teaching you makes the thing good in your soul and it develops manhood. “He shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance”—who could remember?—“bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. Think of how much lies in the realm of the Spirit’s operations. John, in this very book, says, “not even the world itself would contain the books written”, chap 21: 25. Yet there is a divine Person who has the whole treasury in His hand, and He is leading us into it, teaching us all things.

ECB Would it be opening out the things which began to be spoken about by the Lord?

RT Yes; it includes what the Lord had said in the days of His flesh. “He ... will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. I think it leads on to Paul’s ministry. It leads on to the opening up of what is in glory, but the whole thing is in Him. It is not in the books and it is not in any man. That was the confusion in Corinth—they had men before them, and it is not absent among the saints to make too much of men. Would that we loved all the brethren! He says, “he shall teach you all things”. There is a divine Person here in charge, and teaching and setting things forward.

EC Does it help to remember that He Himself indited the very Scriptures from which He teaches us?

RT Yes, and the application. I think as you look through the recovery, certain Scriptures have a bearing today that they did not have before. “He shall teach you all things”—the Spirit gives a touch to scriptures that bear on the present, to comfort and to lead and to strengthen the saints in the circumstances in which they are.

DJH These very chapters are an example of the way He brought things to John’s remembrance—written years afterwards, and yet the detail of what Jesus said.

RT Yes. Well, think of Peter; he says “having been eyewitnesses of his majesty”, 2 Pet 1: 16. He did not say that on the mount, nor did he think about it before Christ went to glory, but you can see the Spirit teaching him as to that very occasion on the mount, that they were eyewitnesses of His majesty, bringing things to his remembrance. He was bringing before the saints a present, up-todate touch as to Christ to strengthen them.

EO So as the Lord was patient in teaching the disciples when He was here, the Holy Spirit is continuing that service in His speaking to the assemblies. It is vital to cherish all that has come out, as you say, in the recovery. We shall make shipwreck, will we not, if we do not cherish what has been said to us?

RT Yes; and authority lies in the Spirit’s speaking; the realisation of who He is would help us to come under His teaching, to be amenable to His leading. It is a very affecting word in chapter 16: “he shall guide you into all the truth”.

DER Is the Spirit’s service consequent upon the company who love the Lord and keep His commandments, and too the individual who loves the Lord and keeps His word?

RT Well, these are the persons who get the gain of it, are they not? But the setting of the chapter is that the Lord loved them. “I will beg the Father”; He was appreciative of their love for Him, but He loved them and felt for them in the conditions in which they were, and He says, “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”. I think verse 21 has in mind the breakdown, that there is the need for being in the area where the flow of the Spirit is known, and the commandments help to keep us in the area where the Spirit is in liberty.

HAH So would you say that “If ye love” and “If any one love”, is not an ‘if’ of doubt but is to bring in the consequence?

RT It is to encourage us. The Lord had no doubt about their love, but He says that things are very mixed. He says, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”. He is helping us to get clear of profession, to get into an area where Christ is loved and the Spirit is free to take of the things that are His and show them unto us.

AJEW I was just thinking of the very interesting part that the Spirit has in Peter’s adjustment in Acts 10 and 11. Peter has the vision of the sheet, but then later as to the men that came from Cornelius He says, “go with them, nothing doubting, because I have sent them”, chap 10: 20. The Spirit was taking charge of the situation, linking it in the sense of teaching with what had gone before, making it tangible, so to say, in the experience of Peter.

RT I think that is a very encouraging suggestion. So Peter says, when he was recounting it, “who indeed was I”, chap 11: 17. There was Someone greater than anything that is in man, a divine Person directing the operations, and that direction is still continuing through the dispensation.

AJEW That was really the critical time in the unfolding of the dispensation, was it not? The Spirit becomes the key to what you might speak of as the disentanglement of everything for Peter.

RT Very good. You can go through the Acts, and there are many difficult situations where, as you say, the Spirit was the key, as in chapter 15. But the Lord would try to help us here into the normal leading and directing of One here to be with us and in us, abiding with us for ever, to see us through at the heavenly level of what Christ is setting on from heaven.

DEB Had you any impression as to why verse 18 comes in in this context, why when the Lord is speaking about the Comforter being with them for ever He speaks about Himself “coming to you”.

RT Well, He says, “I will not leave you orphans”. I suppose they thought that was what was going to happen. He says, “I am coming to you”. Would the setting of the verses imply that He is coming to them in the Comforter, in the Spirit?

DEB I just wondered whether there was something there that could be opened up.

RT Well, they had known what it was for the Lord to meet their needs; think of them in the boat, toiling in the agitated sea and the wind contrary. It says, “he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm”, Matt 8: 26. They had known that. I think the Lord was suggesting that the Spirit coming would bring that same calm restfulness of spirit. “I am coming to you”: in this Person being here the Lord’s grace and the wealth of what Christ is in glory is available to be the strength and support and encouragement of the saints.

JM Is one side of the Lord’s coming in at the Supper that He actually comes in in confirmation of the saints in the testimony? He comes in in relation to the Spirit’s operations among the saints, but does it not need the Spirit on our side to discern His coming in?

RT Say something about that for us.

JM I do not know that I can say very much but it shows, does it not, how dependent we are on the Spirit, even as to our recognition and our understanding of the movements of the Lord?

RT Yes. It is, I think, a bit like the women in the hill country, and also like when David comes in in Samuel: “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”, 1 Sam 16: 12. There is something in you that you cannot define too exactly, but it rises up: “this is he”. It is the Spirit working in the believer, and for the moment you are lifted beyond the small meeting, the sorrows of the testimony, all these things; you are lifted into a scene where Christ is held in your affections in all His supremacy.

ECB In this section we get not only Jesus Himself saying He will come, but Himself and the Father, “we will come”, and the Spirit come. Does it fill out ‘God with us’?

RT Yes, and it is not just coming; in verse 23 it says, “we will come to him and make our abode with him’’. There is something very precious about that, is there not? As I said, I think these verses are alluding to the breakdown, because it speaks about coming to one individual, but what comes to the individual is intensely precious—“make our abode with him”. What do you say about that?

ECB Well, the disciples in the beginning of the gospel had asked Him where He abode and He said, “Come and see”, and now He is pointing out that He and the Father will have their abode, their abiding place. They too will be with us for ever, will they not? One impression you get from this section, which seems to run with your thought, is the great readiness of divine Persons to come. “I will beg the Father, and he will give you”, as if the whole divine system is engaged with the saints.

RT Well, the Lord loves us here in these conditions. Chapter 17 gives you an insight into His feelings about the saints continuing through the dispensation, and here the Spirit is answering that prayer, you might say—He is making good all that the Lord was requesting. He says, “My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him”; that is to be enjoyed today amidst all these things that may press in upon us.

CGH At the occasion of the Supper, when the Lord is discerned as having come in, we pass from the sphere of responsibility into the sphere of privilege, and there is opened up to us, as He leads, the whole aspect of the divine mind in purpose.

RT Yes, well, we are very thankful for the experiences of privilege, but the Lord is speaking here too about the course of the testimony. In the circumstances in which we are we are to know a divine Person abiding with us, and we are to know not only our abiding in Him—that comes in more at the Supper—but here it is divine Persons in the circumstances in which we are—“make our abode with him”. It brings out what a blessing there is to the lovers of Christ.

CGH Does that enable us to go through the circumstances in quietness and peacefulness of mind, knowing that all is in His hand?

RT The hymn which we sang (No.408) brought that home to me afresh, the rest that is to be tasted in the conscious sense of such a Person here to see us through. I think the encouragement of the Lord’s words about the Spirit would be to strengthen us in the confidence that there is such a Person available to us. He says, “he ... will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. Think of the immensity of that, that there is a Person who is able to bring these things to us, at the moment we need them to strengthen the saints.

EP That is calculated to stir a response to Him in our hearts, is it not? I was thinking that, for example, there is the spirit of this in Psalm 103. The psalmist says “Bless Jehovah, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name”, v 1. Do you think that it is right to accord that to the Holy Spirit?

RT Yes; I think it is something that we should perhaps think about. There is room for more depth in our response to the Spirit of God. We sometimes speak in a way that is hardly suited to the greatness of the Spirit of God. His service is so precious, coming down to the weakness of the conditions in which we are, but what a mission He has in view, in the type to conduct Rebecca to Isaac. He comes down to our needs, but His great mission was to take Rebecca in all her freshness to be a comfort to Isaac, that is the assembly to Christ.

BWW It would go along with that that His service has spread over nearly two thousand years, and the number of individuals in whom He has been and in whom He has operated must be vast.

RT Yes, and what pressure, what opposition there has been! Yet the grace of the Spirit is seen in the lowliness that has marked His service, but this is not to becloud the greatness and glory of His Person.

ECB It is quite anomalous if response to the Spirit becomes formalised, because He is the great source of liberty.

RT Yes: I do not say these things critically, but there is room for expansion. Just think of who He is, and He was active from the creation. One particular feature of the Spirit of God is His feelings. The great point of His service now, amidst all the confusion, is that there has been formed a bride that is suited to the heavenly Man.

EFW Does this depend on how much we know Him? The Lord speaks of the world not seeing Him; we cannot see Him, so there is another way in which we know Him.

RT That is an interesting verse—“because it does not see him nor know him”; then He says, “but ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you”. What do you say about that?

EFW I would think experience is more than anything that we can say, to assure us of the Spirit dwelling in us. You have spoken about His comfort, His support. There are so many ways in which He freshly assures us of His dwelling in us. You would encourage us that we might know Him more in that way.

RT Yes; His service is not only to bring relief into the circumstances but to endear Himself and the glory of His person to our affections.

CCI Rebecca says, “Who is the man?” Does that involve the rapture? The glory of Christ in manhood is a peculiar matter that has been unfolded at the end of the Spirit’s dispensation.

RT It is on the eve of union, is it not? “Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us?”, Gen 24: 63. Typically, the Lord was on the move, and the Spirit was on the same path, you may say. They were going together, eye meeting eye. “Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us?” It was very soon that she was in his embrace, was it not?

CCI So do you think we are particularly dependent on the Spirit to understand the humanity of Christ? Our natural minds are, we might say, unable in any way to appropriate that wonderful matter, the humanity of Christ in a new condition.

RT Oh yes, that is chapter 15; He says, “whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father”. In chapter 14 the Lord is speaking about His going away, and He is speaking about His going into heaven. In chapter 15 He says, “when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father”, speaking there of Himself sending Him from the Father, coming from that scene of the Father and the Son, and bringing the wealth of that to be within our reach. He says, “he shall bear witness concerning me”, and He says, “ye too bear witness”.

ECB I suppose the witness there is to Jesus glorified.

RT Yes, I think so. It is bringing into human hearts what exists in heaven, Christ received there,

Received in glory bright up there (Hymn 350)

How do we know the place that Christ has in heaven? We know it because the Spirit has come from that scene and taught us about these things.

ECB It is the only means by which we can know that Christ is alive and is glorified; not only that He is alive, but He is glorified. A lot of these scriptures seem to connect very much with Paul’s impressions in Corinth: the Father and the Son abiding, “ye are the temple of God” (1 Cor 3: 16), and what you are referring to in chapter 15 seems to connect very much with 2 Corinthians 4: 6, the radiancy is in the heart.

RT Yes, I think that Paul, while not one of the twelve, is a vessel in whom the Spirit’s service is very distinctively set forth. Through him, the Spirit brings out the things of Christ in glory, all that was in heaven and all that was to be worked out here in the assembly as a vessel that was suited to the heavenly One. I thought that chapter 16 brought us on to Paul: “he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself”. Such a Person is here, and yet it says He will not speak from Himself, “but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming”. The wealth of heaven is at His disposal; that is what He is bringing out.

ECB Announcing what is coming is not exactly what is spoken of as prophecy, is it? It involves the church, and the whole of the present dispensation, because that was coming.

RT Yes; it involves the rapture. Those verses about the rapture: “the Lord himself ... shall descend” (1 Thess 4: 16); how do we know that? Because the Spirit is announcing to us what is coming. We have comfort in these words that the Lord Himself will come for the saints. Too, He will come in the appearing. How do we know all these things? We know them as the result, not of ministry, not as scriptures; we know them as the result of the Spirit’s leading, guiding and announcing to us what is coming.

AJEW It is very affecting that the verse of which you are speaking flows from the Lord’s word, “I have yet many things to say to you”—many things—“but ye cannot bear them now”. This carries, does it not, the definite inference that the Lord will see that these things are conveyed to the saints? He would not allow them to be hindered from reaching the saints, but in the day of the Spirit it need no longer be said, “ye cannot bear them now”, because the Spirit is known by those to whom the precious truth is being conveyed, known by them in support and in constant application of what the Lord is conveying.

RT That is very comforting. The result of Christ in glory is that the counsel and purpose of God are opened out to us by the Holy Spirit. As the Lord says here, “It is profitable for you that I go away”. What a profit we have, that there is a Man in heaven, a great Priest there, representing us before the Father, and another divine Person come from that scene of glory, bringing the wealth of heaven and announcing it to us, and shedding it abroad in our hearts.

JM The Spirit of truth guiding us into all the truth is more than the opening up of it; does it involve His work in formation, an answer to the counsels and purpose of God?

RT Yes, and I think this verse would affect our attitude in the meetings. As I said earlier about coming to a meeting or a reading, “He shall guide you into all the truth”. The way to get the advantage of the Guide is to keep near Him. A guide usually has a lot of people round about him and if you are on the outside of the circle you do not hear too well. Well, you have to get near Him, He will guide you. You have to be near the Guide to follow and to apprehend the greatness of what He is calling attention to.

SDKR You have in mind making room for Him, for example in a reading. Would you say a little more about that.

RT Well, that was the exercise in Genesis 24, was it not? “Is there room ...?”, v 23. It came out that there was the acknowledgment, but there was hardly the room: let her stay ten days was not giving him room, was it? But the formation was in Rebecca; assembly affections make room for Him. I think it is a matter of faith. We tend to rely on memory, rely on experience, but that will not guide us into anything that we do not know. The Spirit is leading us into things that we do not know, and could never know. It is only the Spirit of God that could lead us into them.

JW It says of the Spirit, “whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak”. Do you think we practically make room for the Spirit through hearing, hearing Him? I was thinking of the overcomer, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says” (Rev 2: 7, etc.), and wondered if that would practically make room for the Spirit in our comings-together, if we are exercised to hear the Spirit speak.

RT Well, we come together to listen, do we not? Somebody has to speak, but even the speaker is to listen. So that you feel your way in a reading. Something you have not thought about before is usually the best part of the meeting. A fresh impression on a well-known scripture, or it could be a well-known doctrine, comes from the Spirit, and we need to hear for that. Then the setting here is “whatsoever he shall hear”. Think of the Spirit here listening to what is taking place in glory, listening to the Father, listening to the Son, and bringing that to be shed abroad in our hearts.

EP It is the Spirit that quickens, is it not? And that is a touch that we would look for, as we gather, in a reading. The Spirit quickens, something comes in that is really living, and you say, I have never seen that before.

RT I think that is verse 14: “He shall glorify me”. I think that is the great end, the great purpose of the Spirit’s service here. We think so much about what He does for us but the great end is what He is doing for Christ, what He is doing for the Father, bringing persons into sonship, securing a bride for Christ; “He shall glorify me”. We need to have that in the faith of our minds, that the Spirit will meet our weaknesses, He will meet present situations, but not just meet them. Are we exercised enough to get the gain and the end—“He shall glorify me”?

PM Does the Spirit glorifying Christ involve what He is forming in the saints that is in the features of that blessed Man? Must that not be consequent, or dependent, on our being guided into all the truth?

RT Christ will be glorified in a vessel which the Spirit has adorned and has had to do with us in the earlier chapters in this gospel, in new birth, and so on, all leading to assembly formation. Think of Isaac’s admiration as he saw Rebecca, as he took her into that tent; it says he was comforted. What an answer to the Spirit’s grace, that there is someone brought to be so near to Christ to be His bride.

ECB The Spirit is competent for the whole range of the glories of Christ, is He not? It struck me at the Supper recently that we sometimes feel limited in our response even to Christ, but the Spirit is competent for His glories from creation until finality.

RT I think we need to feel incompetent. It is not what we know, because we may say a very blessed truth and it just does not have a ring about it, but the Spirit gives a ring to things that are said. I think that is “He shall glorify me”. Something rises in our affections that will only be satisfied with the heavenly Man.

DEB Being guided into all the truth: does that mean that at any time we understand all the truth?

RT No, we would cease to need a guide if that was so, would we not? All the truth is available in the Spirit, but I do not think we yet know it all.

DEB Well, I do not, anyway, but there is a certain link on with 1 Corinthians 2 as to “things ... which have not come into man’s heart”. That is always before us, is it not?

RT Yes, there is a divine Person able; “He shall guide you into all the truth”, not just a section of truth. Guiding us into all the truth helps us to hold it in balance, to be heavenly persons in the midst of all that would becloud the glory of the heavenly Man.

HGH Could there be a dispensational part in the path of guiding you into all the truth?

RT Well, what do you mean by that?

HGH Before the dispensation is over it will all be out.

RT Yes, so that encourages us, that the Spirit is active all the time. He has not ceased; great personages have gone, but He is continuing His service to provide these adorning touches to the bride suited to the heavenly Man.

HGH So we want to be exercised as to what the Spirit has to say to us in our day.

RT Yes, and in relation to all the truth, not just to be specialists on Romans or Colossians or Ephesians, but “guide you into all the truth”. He has Christ the heavenly Man before Him, and He is bringing about, through His guidance and through His teaching, formation in features suitable to the heavenly One.

JM It bears very much on the place that the Spirit has taken in the economy. The truth as we speak of it is all out, but His service is particularly to bring the saints into it in a subjective way, do you think?

RT Yes, the truth is all out in the sense of Christ having gone in and the Spirit come, but it does not mean that I know it all, nor does it mean that the brethren know it all, but it means that there is a divine Person who has it all before Him, and He is anxious, and He is leading, and He is serving, that we may come into the joy and blessedness of it.

JM The close of the dispensation will show that there has been a full result from His service and a full answer to all that has come out from God, will it not?

RT What will be translated will be the fruit of the Spirit’s service, and Christ glorified in that, God glorified in it, the triumph of divine grace over evil and all that has come in, that there will be raptured a vessel that is suited to the heavenly One.

AJEW Is it interesting to think of the way that the type in Genesis 24 brings out the Spirit’s feelings in respect of what He (if I could use the word) discovers in the assembly, what is there which He can take on and bring into relation to Christ. The servant worships as He contemplates what is brought into view in Rebecca.

RT The divine counsel is unfolding before his eyes, you may say, and you see it here too, that “All things that the Father has are mine”. The Spirit, in type in Genesis, came with all the wealth of Abraham; bringing out these silver and gold articles, the clothing for Rebecca. He is bringing them out; I think that is all part of the guiding, bringing out these things that He brought from glory, and He is adorning the assembly with them. Are we prepared to put them on, dear brethren? When Rebecca accepted that heavenly clothing she had to follow the Spirit. What good would that adornment have been in the wilderness, or in Laban’s household? As accepting these things that the Spirit brings she had to go with Him, because they were all things that were only suited to Isaac.

PM Does the Spirit have them all before Him “as the truth is in Jesus”, Eph 4: 21? Is it in the most attractive sphere, and would He not in His service occupy us not only with the detail of the truth but with the character of it as it is in Jesus?

RT That is very much emphasised in what it says here: “whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak”. That hearing is from heaven, is it not? Then He says, “he shall receive of mine”. Think of the glory that Christ has been given! What honours the Father has conferred on Him, the heavenly One! He says, “he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”. What a link we have with the glorified Man in the Spirit of God, and He is bringing these things out that they may be substantially in the saints and be our present portion.

SJH In Genesis 24 it speaks in type of the Spirit having men; they were with Him, that is, they understood what He was about, as it were. That is where we want to be, is it not?

RT Yes. It may apply to the gifts in 1 Corinthians, the Spirit dividing to each in particular” (chap 12: 11), the Spirit giving all these gifts and all these things set for the helping forward of the formation that is suited to Christ. So there is a great system of help. The Spirit has vessels, and as you say, we want to be one of them, we want to be listeners, we want to be those who are receptive to what He is announcing, to what He is bringing of the heavenly Man.

SJH I think that somebody has said that, when we walk in the Spirit, Christ is paramount.

RT Well, there is no true walk for the believer unless Christ is before the soul.

Be Thou the object bright and fair

To fill and satisfy the heart. (Hymn 328)

How much we grieve the Spirit through being occupied with others and other things, but He is longing to produce this kind of affection that will not be satisfied without Christ. “He shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”.

In Corinth it is all worked out in the local company. It says, “Do ye not know that ye are the temple ...?”. We should make room for that. “Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” The quotation is from Isaiah 64: 4—which says “Never have men heard”—it was not possible for them to hear—“nor perceived”—it was not possible. That is what Paul is saying at Corinth. It is not possible for the natural man, the natural mind, ever to entertain what is spiritual, but he says, “God has revealed (them) to us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God”, I think, brethren, there is a lot to be opened out yet as to the depths of God. What do we know about the Lord’s burial? What do we know about Christ in death? The Spirit gives us some inklings about that. It says that He was loosed from the pains of death (see Acts 2: 24): what do we know about it? I think that is all part of the Spirit searching all things, the depths of God. May we not be complacent in feeling how much we know, but may there be produced in us a sense of dependence that we may know more the leadership of such a glorious divine Person who has come to be with us.

LONDON

19^th March 1988

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