HEARING AND SPEECH
[p. 301] HEARING AND SPEECH
Mark 7: 31 - 37; Luke 4: 16 - 22
JT What is in view mainly is the subject of speaking as entering into the testimony connected with christianity. Many other scriptures could be mentioned, but this one is mentioned because of the extraordinary exercises the Lord gave expression to in healing this man that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech. The organs of speech have a very prominent place in the Scriptures, and they come into evidence particularly in view of the ministry of the truth about to be committed to Moses. Moses felt his inadequacy for the great charge proposed by Jehovah, saying he was unable to speak, and this brought out the place that speaking has in the ministry of the truth. God had no difficulty about Moses, knowing well how He could furnish him with the power of speech. And when Moses persisted in his profession of weakness, Jehovah said that Aaron the Levite was his brother, and that he could speak well. He says, I know he can speak well. This man, the subject of the verses read in Mark 7, seems to furnish an occasion for the Lord to show how concerned He was about persons hearing aright and speaking aright. We are told, “And having taken him away from the crowd apart, he put his fingers to his ears; and having spit, he touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven he groaned, and says to him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, and the band of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right”. The deep exercises of the Lord here correspond somewhat to what we find in John 11 in the presence of death, so we can gauge how important the matter is, that christians should hear aright and speak right.
[p. 302] In the passage in Luke, the Lord Himself is a model for us as to speaking. The words of grace that were coming out of His mouth point to the great liberty and rapidity in which they proceeded from His mouth. That is another phase of the subject, words of grace coming out.
Ques Had you something to say about these two organs, the one that goes in and the other that comes out?
JT That is the connection. The connection here is that the man was brought to Him. It is said, “They bring to him a deaf man who could not speak right”. Unless we take in divine thoughts we cannot give them out. If they are taken in imperfectly, they can only be presented imperfectly, and I think that is what burdened the Lord in taking on this case of need.
RWS In Romans 3 Paul speaks of the throat and the lips and the mouth and the tongue. Is that to indicate that that is the line of recovery for God to use?
JT I think that is good. How they are in the natural man employed in evil! Here the organs themselves were damaged. Whether from the outset of the man’s being or whether morally through evil usage, the organs themselves were damaged. It does not say he was wholly deaf, that he had never heard before, or that he could not speak at all. But he could not speak right, it says.
ABP Is it particularly significant that this comes in in Mark’s gospel, having levitical service in view?
JT That is what I thought. It occurred to me that it is a matter of importance as to receiving and giving out, the hearing and the speaking and the great concern the Lord had. Also, that those who brought the man only requested the Lord to lay His [p. 303] hand on him as if they gauged the power that the Lord had in helping him. Sometimes it is laying His hands on, but here they ask just for the hand.
AR Do you think the reason why some do not take part in meetings or speak at all is because they are defective in hearing?
JT I think they go together. We certainly cannot give out unless we take in. The name that is attached to Christ especially by John in John’s gospel is the logos, alluding to conveyance of the mind of God, speaking, and that requires these organs. Therefore, I think Luke gives us the Lord as a model. He refers to certain who were eye-witnesses of and attendants on the Word. That is, on Christ, as the communicator of the word, of the mind of God. And he gives us an example in chapter 4 of how the Lord spoke, how the divine mind came out. So that the Lord said, “The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”, Isaiah 50: 4. This was the attitude that He took up; also in the temple He is hearing and asking questions, and they marvelled at His understanding and answers, what He took in and what He could give out. So here the words of grace were coming out of His mouth.
CAM Do you think that Mark would especially feel this, being a recovered vessel, on the principle of the Potter taking a vessel of clay that was marred and making it again another vessel? Would the fact that the Lord’s hands were used in this connect with that?
JT They only asked Him to use His hand, as if that would suffice, but the reply on His side to what they say is very striking, “And having taken him away from the crowd apart, he put his fingers to his ears”. We are not told what fingers, as if they [p. 304] were all involved. That is, it was a very big matter, “And having spit, he touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven he groaned”. It seems you have one of the deepest movements of Christ there in His healing services. In fact, there is not anything more in regard of healing than this. The boy who was a lunatic was a bad case too; the father said to the Lord, “If thou couldst do anything, be moved with pity on us, and help us”, Mark 9: 22. Well, the crowd rushed up, and the Lord said, “The ‘if thou couldst’ is if thou couldst believe” (verse 23). ‘The “if” is not Mine, but yours’. And as the crowd rushed up He healed him immediately, as if the crowd hindered the work. But here He takes him away from the crowd, the matter is so important, and possibly affording the enemy opportunity. He took him away from the crowd, and then there are all these deep emotions that we have recorded. It is a matter for our consideration, as to why the Lord is so profoundly affected by this case, and whether there is any corresponding need in each of us as to hearing and speaking, hearing rightly and speaking rightly. Has the Lord in mind the havoc that has been wrought in the ministry or in the conversations between the saints by bad hearing and bad speaking?
Rem In the next chapter He takes charge of a blind man. I wondered what the difference was between the two organs, the eyes and the ears; that is, what goes into us, and the tongue, what comes out of us.
JT Yes; speaking is what comes out. He spits also on the blind man. That is another thing to be noticed. It indicates more than simply power from God. It alludes to what He is essentially, as if that is applied in meeting these two cases.
AR Do you mean that the damage that is done is not what is said in the meetings but what is being said out of the meetings? Is it your thought that our [p. 305] conversation outside is coloured by how we take on the truth inside?
JT Taking the thing in first, the power of hearing. And then, how we give it out. The right impressions are conveyed.
AAT Is Zacharias an example of one who did not take it in right and then is silent and could not give it out?
JT He represents those who pray for things and then forget that they prayed for them, or did not really expect to get the answer. He had prayed for a son, and when the time came for him to get an answer, he did not believe he would get such an answer. His case is really unbelief. He did not believe the testimony of the angel in answer to his prayer.
RWS Would the blessing in this district in chapter 5 be more or less evangelical, whereas the blessing in this chapter has more teaching in mind? The man out of whom the demons were cast in chapter 5 proclaims what great things Jesus had done for him, but here the man speaks right.
JT What is in mind here as to Decapolis is not any testimony rendered to it; it was the coming through the place. “And again, having left the borders of Tyre and Sidon, he came to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis”. Is the man in chapter 5 not the occasion of testimony rendered to the Lord?
RWS It says, “And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him; and all wondered”, Mark 5: 20.
JT That verse is what I was thinking of. He is proclaiming to the cities, a testimony, that is, whilst the preaching goes on in these cities, because the ten cities allude to the power of Satan in the cities; chapter 5 would allude to divine attack on that through the man. Whilst the attack is on, whilst [p. 306] God is aggressive, the evil of a place or a city is minimised. But when the testimony is quiescent, when the Lord simply passes through, the evil of the place is felt. If we are preaching in a town, we feel it is a divine offensive, and the evil is modified; hence the importance of preaching in the streets, or wherever we can, because evil is modified by the preaching. But when we simply go to the meetings, and do or say nothing, or pass through, the evil is not disturbed. And I believe the Lord felt that in chapter 7: “He came to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis”. He would feel the power of evil in the cities, and that would, I believe, be in His mind, as to the awfulness of the human organs of speech, of hearing and speech, what they are engaged in, what wickedness they are promulgating, in places of amusement, and even in religious places. Cities have ammunition of satanic power, and if we are quiescent in regard of that, the evil is not disturbed. The Lord came through Decapolis, not intending to minister there. He was going to the sea of Galilee, but He came through those quarters, and undoubtedly that was on His spirit. The connection is between the ten cities and this matter of man’s power of hearing and man’s power of speech. It does not say this man was absolutely dumb from his birth, but he could not speak right. And he was deaf. Was he absolutely so? We are not quite sure. Probably the correspondence was in the speaking. It was not right. The hearing would not be right, either. That would be on the Lord’s spirit, the awfulness of what is given out among men because of the distorted condition of these organs.
GVD Was it also on Paul’s spirit while at Athens? “But in Athens, while Paul was waiting for them, his spirit was painfully excited in him seeing the city given up to idolatry”, Acts [p. 307] 17: 16.
It was a matter of speaking and hearing on Areopagus.
JT Quite so. Athens would represent what we are saying in a very striking way. The Greek speaking was supposed, in man’s account, to be the best in education and literary powers, all that Greece was famed for. Well, that is just what you get. It corresponds with what we are at here, the power of cities, the influence of cities.
Rem This idea of speaking — right speaking is in the assembly?
JT This man spoke right. We are not told what he said when he spoke. You would like just to know what he said. In Luke’s gospel the young man that was raised in Nain began to speak. We are not told what he said; but in Luke 4 we are told what the Lord said, and stress is laid on how He said it. The words came out freely; words of grace were coming out of His mouth.
Ques Would you regard it in any way as a contrast between this idea of speaking right and the speaking which is going on in the world?
JT They are not speaking right at all. Take for instance when the Lord enquired from the disciples as to what men were saying about Him. Not one of them was saying the right thing, not one of them. That is what we should take on. We want to say what is right, and if we do say what is right we must hear what is right and hear it properly.
WWM Would you say that there is a great contrast in hearing in Luke 4 where they marvelled at the words of grace, showing they were not affected by it; but in Acts 10: 33 when Cornelius sent for Peter, it says, “Now therefore we are all present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God”? And then at the end of that chapter it says, “The Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were hearing the word” (verse 44). Does the reception of the [p. 308] Spirit have a great deal to do with how we hear things and how they affect us?
JT They were hearing right. They were all there to hear; and it says, “And Peter opening his mouth said” (verse 34), alluding to the way he spoke. And so the Lord’s mouth is alluded to in Luke 4, and we have Jehovah’s remarkable comments on Aaron, and at the same time saying, “Who gave man a mouth?” Exodus 4: 11. So that that is the thought running through this instruction, the organs of hearing and of speaking; if they are not right, then we have a defective result.
TM Would the right kind of speaking be found in Philip and the eunuch? It says Philip opened his mouth.
JT We are just commenting on that expression. Peter opened his mouth, and then we are told Paul took the lead in speaking. People noted that he took the lead in speaking; and it is said of the lame man that was healed by him, “This man heard Paul speaking”, Acts 14: 9. That is the point the Spirit of God is stressing. That chapter begins by saying, “They ... so spake that a great multitude of both Jews and Greeks believed”. This man heard Paul speaking and was evidently impressed by it, and made ready for the work of God in his soul.
CN Do you think the Lord taking up this matter and dealing with him as He did shows what is needed to arrest the conditions in a city that may be adverse?
JT I think so. So that the Lord coming through these ten cities, through the midst of them — it would be on His mind; the impressions as He came through. We will suppose He came through a town where they had a cinema and a queue of people waiting to get in. How He would be impressed by that! The devil has those people. How will they hear? What will they hear? They will not hear anything right. It comes from the pit. Then they go and talk about [p. 309] these things. That is how the whole population becomes morally deformed. That is how the matter stands in the great cities of the world. Hence the importance for us to have right hearing and right speaking; even to the point of the language we use. The language called slang is usually from these places.
FHL In Genesis 11: 1 it says, “And the whole earth had one language, and the same words”. There was great unity in that way.
JT God confounded the languages. He did not confound the organs of speech. It is simply that He made languages; they became diversified so as to prevent unity in evil; not to prevent unity in good. It says in Acts 2: 11, “We hear them speaking in our own tongues the great things of God”.
THH In His groaning, the Lord looked to heaven as though heaven is to be brought into this matter of hearing and speaking.
JT To speak simply about the Lord, He stood up in the presence of this thing as if to say how awful it is, and He groaned. And then He spat and touched the man’s tongue. Remarkable! There is no doubt He is bringing His own essential Being into the thing in the spittle.
AAT I think you made some remark about a gospel preaching on the street corner. What was that reference?
JT Even if you do not get conversions, you certainly modify the evil that there is. In Mark 5, as I was remarking, the testimony went to these cities in the man that had the demons cast out of him; but here there is nothing like that as the Lord comes through these cities. The Lord is coming to the sea of Galilee, and He just passes through, but He would be impressed by what He saw, and felt it.
CAM This matter of feeling things creates an impulse in us. Mark seems to be a very definite case [p. 310] of a man that had strong feelings, do you not think so, in the way he writes his gospel?
JT He is very forceful and pungent in all that he would say. His is the shortest of the gospels, is it not? showing that in ministry we are not long. Of course, it is necessary to be long at times, but Mark’s gospel is comparatively short, and things are done straightway. As soon as a thing should be done, it is done; and when a thing should be said, it is said, and said briefly.
AS What is the thought of the ‘they’ here? In verse 32 it says, “And they bring”, and then it says, “And they beseech”, and then in verse 36 it says, “They proclaimed”. Is that the taking on of the ministry after this has been done?
JT You do not know how many there were. It is one of the most remarkable things. It does not say there were four of them, as in chapter 2. It is ‘they’ without saying how many, I think the plural would mean it is a sort of general feeling.
Ques Would this be the same place where they beseech Him to depart out of their coasts?
JT That is in chapter 5.
Ques Do you think ‘they’ would be some who had been affected by the miracle?
JT Apparently He had come all the way, “He came to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring to him a deaf man”. It would seem as if He had come to His objective. And so you get Bethsaida here, which has been alluded to, where the blind man was. That is on the sea of Galilee, I would connect the ‘they’ with the sea of Galilee here, rather than with the towns; “they bring” alludes to an evangelical spirit in the place, which did not mark Decapolis at all. The sea of Galilee seemed to be in an area blessed of God by the Lord’s ministry.
FHL Is there not a suggestion of the Lord’s personal individual dealing with this man? He took him away from the crowd here, the issue is so great.
JT That is what marks this area, because the same happens in regard to the blind man in Mark 8: 22 - 26: “And he comes to Bethsaida; and they bring him a blind man, and beseech him that he might touch him. And taking hold of the hand of the blind man he led him forth out of the village, and having spit upon his eyes, he laid his hands upon him, and asked him if he beheld anything. And having looked up, he said, I behold men, for I see them, as trees, walking. Then he laid his hands again upon his eyes, and he saw distinctly, and was restored and saw all things clearly. And he sent him to his house, saying, Neither enter into the village, nor tell it to any one in the village”. I think what is conveyed is that the Lord reached His objective in coming through these towns. They are not His objective. He had been there and had been asked to depart out of them, but He comes through them. He is going somewhere else. That is, He is going to the sea of Galilee, and in arriving there it would seem as if there was an evangelical spirit or feeling in the people. It is a good sign if you can get feeling: “If indeed they might feel after him and find him”, Acts 17: 27. It is a very vague word, feeling after. And it seems when you get another person bringing a person to the Lord Jesus, that is the idea. There is an evangelical Spirit in the place, but that is not enough for the Lord. He wants to have the man by himself, and He takes him apart from the crowd, and then the same thing happens in Bethsaida. He takes him out of the town even. You cannot trust this feeling in a neighbourhood.
CAM At Athens Paul told them that: “If indeed they might feel after him and find him”. Evidently they did not exercise the other senses. Apparently they were not any good at [p. 312] hearing.
JT It is a very little thing to feel after God; if they do, of course, it is to be noted. Paul says, “He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17: 27), showing it is worth while to feel after Him. But when you get the plural here, there is something of God in the place. And that is why the sea of Galilee has such a great place in connection with the Lord’s ministry.
JTJr There did not seem to be any wilfulness in the matter. He did not say he would not go with the Lord. We need to get into His hands to get clear that we might hear right.
JT Many a young person pulls away the shoulder, although the parents may speak about the Lord to the young. I find it very hard. But this man is subject, “And they bring to him a deaf man who could not speak right, and they beseech him that he might lay his hand on him. And having taken him away from the crowd apart ...”. The man was subject, and hence he got the blessing.
FNW I was thinking of the details of Isaiah 50: 4, 5 to which you alluded earlier; the personal references are interesting. “The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed. The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not away back”.
JT I am glad you mentioned that, because the tongue is brought in there as well as the ear.
RWS Is the tongue connected with the moistened fingers more than the ears, or is that reading something into it? “He put his fingers to his ears; and having spit, he touched his tongue”. I wondered if there was something to that; if there was some connection between the spittle and touching his tongue.
JT I think there must be, if we accept that the spittle denotes what the Lord is essentially. It is [p. 313] more than what He is apparently. It is the unseen side of the matter that is brought into it. It is a question of God coming into the scene and dealing with it, meeting this awful condition of man in his disorganised organs, so to speak, deranged moral conditions, immoral conditions.
ABP The fact that it says simply that He spat is in contrast to the other place where He made mud of the spittle; it is more the general fact of the thing, that He is God manifest in the flesh.
JT That is what I was thinking. Really, it is new creation that is in mind. You must bring God in for new creation. The Lord Jesus is said to be “the beginning of the creation of God”, Revelation 3: 14. Not that He was part of it. He is the Creator. But He is the Beginning of it. That is, it all issues from Him. I believe that is what is implied. It is the new man that is implied, which is new creation. “For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision; but new creation”, Galatians 6: 15. We must bring God in for creation.
TEH Is Mark impressing us with that in the beginning of his gospel? He speaks about a messenger of the Lord, as if that would imply hearing, and then a voice of one crying in the wilderness. The two organs would be employed.
JT Just so. And the One speaking audibly is Himself the Creator. Not only is He the Mediator, but He is Himself the Creator. Hebrews 1: 1, 2 says, “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in the Person of the Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds”. That is, He is the Creator. It seems as if the spitting here would mean nothing less than that will do, this is such an awful thing. It is not reformation; it is not improvement [p. 314] of what there is, but a totally new thing that has to come about.
ABP Sometimes in speaking about young people who do not take part there is an exercise that they may get to God in their soul experience. I wondered if this might be a little bit further than that? Would it be right to pray, if there is no response to that, that God might make a move?
JT God is here. That is what we get here. But then the other side is that He might bring us to God. He has not far to go, because God is there. When Thomas, who needed recovery, was recovered, he said, “My Lord and my God”, John 20: 28.
CAM This matter of new creation is a wonderful thing. It connects, perhaps, with the idea, “And the vessel that he made was marred, as clay, in the hand of the potter; and he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make”, Jeremiah 18: 4.
JT That is the thing exactly. It is another vessel. The first was defective. That is what is going on here. There was something there. He must have stuttered out something, but he could not do it rightly, and that will not do for God. You must have everything perfect. And the word here in result is: “He does all things well; he makes both the deaf to hear, and the speechless to speak”, Mark 7: 37. Everything is perfectly done, and that is new creation. It is not making things over; it is new creation.
JTJr To the woman in John 4 He says, “I who speak to thee am he” (verse 26). He makes a point of speaking there to the woman, so that she goes and speaks in the city.
JT Quite so. So in chapter 9: 37, He says, “Thou hast both seen him, and he that speaks with thee is he”.
Ques Is the thought of new creation in Psalm 45: 1? “My heart is welling forth with a good [p. 315] matter: I say what I have composed touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer”.
JT Well, it is new creation, only there he is speaking about God. I mean, new creation is essential; nothing less will do. But Psalm 45 is not dealing with the creature. The leading thought is what a creature is saying about God; what he has to say is about the King, and He is called God in that psalm, is He not? so that we are in the presence of God. All these signs, I believe, or miracles, or good works of Jesus had in mind the making of everything new. Things are to be made new. You cannot remake the old thing. It is new. Everything is to be made new. And that is why God is brought in. The creation requires God.
CAM The Lord’s fingers are alluded to in the first creation. All that line of things is really suggestive of new creation.
JT That is the idea. Here He is operating; the great divine Operator is here operating. They say, Lay Thy hand on him; but the Lord is going to do the thing thoroughly. He brings His fingers into it. He is going into it in detail.
FHL Mark had turned back, but now he says, “He does all things well”.
JT He would say every time, I did not do so well. That is what Mark would say after being restored. I made a poor hand of it, and I see now that it is not simply remaking, but a new thing altogether. The first is, as has been remarked, useless; it is marred in the making. It is a wholly new thing that the Potter makes.
AR That involves that I say things that I never said before, and my language would be choice; my selection of words would be choice.
JT I think God helps us in the words we use. You remember that it was said of Cornelius that he had “been divinely instructed by a holy angel to send [p. 316] for thee to his house, and hear words from thee”, Acts 10: 22. That is enough; it was a question of words, “Peter, who shall speak words to thee whereby thou shalt be saved, thou and all thy house”, Acts 11: 14. In chapter 5 the apostles are imprisoned, but they are told to go out and speak to the people all the words of this life. The men that brought this dumb man to the Lord, no doubt, had heard He could do great things; and they asked Him to lay His hand on him; but the Lord is operating now in connection with crowd conditions. He is operating to make the thing perfect. It is a wholly new matter. He spoke right.
AAT What is the point in the Lord asking them not to speak about it?
JT You do not want to garnish the world as it is. That is what is always meant in these cases. It is said that God by His Spirit garnished the heavens. That is a perfect creation. They stand there now. They are a glory to look at at any time. But He is not garnishing humanity as it is. He never intended christianity to improve the world. That is what the Lord means here. It is a wholly new matter; it is not reformation. It is not bettering things at all; it is a wholly new matter. And, therefore, if you begin to tell the people about these matters, they will think, Well, we are wonderful to have such a Man amongst us. And they are not converted at all. Christianity to them is simply unconverted men affected and made better than the rest of men. They are not really made better, but it is external. These things are never to be made common subjects of conversation. If you speak to a man about the things of God, link him on with what is unseen, in faith.
AR Is that why the Lord was rejected by the Pharisees and scribes and chief priests? They did not like Him to cut across what they were at. They were on the line of reformation.
[p. 317] JT They were ready to take on John the baptist, because they saw he would be used in their system; but the Lord is not going to be used in their system at all.
AAT They did not take His advice; they went out and published it.
JT That is what we are all prone to do. It is simply desecrating the truth; spreading it out before natural men, as if it were a subject like others.
ABP Would you make a little clearer the matter of new creation as applied to the recovery of Mark?
JT I think that must be the aim in everything in the incarnation. The incarnation had in mind the new creation. “For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision; but new creation”, Galatians 6: 15. That is christianity. That is what is in mind. It may not be fully seen at the beginning but that is what is in mind. So that, “according to his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness”, 2 Peter 3: 13. Even the millennium will not do for God. It is only preliminary. The new creation is promised in Isaiah, but it is only what takes form in the millennium. The new creation that Paul touches is wholly new, and what Peter says is wholly new, so that “if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”, 2 Corinthians 5: 17. You say, It is not yet; but there is a new creation. It is the principle of christianity that is received; it is only a matter of time. So that we may as well give up reformation.
ABP Applying that personally to Mark’s experience, would you say there was no evidence of new creation before his failure?
JT I should not say that. He simply failed. I think it is alluded to in his own gospel when he fled from them naked. He was exposed as not on the line of new [p. 318] creation.
CAM Looking at where he failed in the Acts, he failed before Paul went to Philippi. In Philippians 3: 3 it says, “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”. He was not fully equal to that.
JT Just so. It came into Acts 15. He departed from Paul and Barnabas in chapter 13 on the first missionary journey, and went back to Jerusalem. When this matter of legality came up at Antioch, that they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, they were denying new creation. That is really what the truth was, and that is why Paul says in the letter to the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision; but new creation. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace upon them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God”, Galatians 6: 15, 16. That is, the rule of new creation. You may not have reached it fully, but the rule is in your mind. And the primary thought for Israel is the Israel of God. When the debate took place in Jerusalem about this matter, undoubtedly John Mark was there. We know he was there. Titus was there. Now, John Mark would be a Jerusalemite. That is where the legality was finding its home. Things were waning in Jerusalem, and where there is a waning condition in christianity, you may be sure legality will come in, a mixture. John Mark was there, but Titus was there. Paul tells us expressly, “Taking Titus also with me”, Galatians 2: 1. Why does he mention that? Because Titus represents new creation. That is what was going on among the gentiles through Paul’s ministry. Nothing less would suit him. It is the principle of new creation. But then John Mark was there. Would he shake hands with Titus? Would he measure himself up with Titus? Would he converse with [p. 319] Titus? He would not, apparently, because he went off with Barnabas.
CAM That throws a lot of light on it.
JT It was the parting of the ways. Barnabas took John Mark, and Paul took Silas. And then Titus, as we know, had a great place with him. That is the position. And I believe Mark’s gospel is working out this great principle, because he is restored. Nothing will do but new creation, and this man needed that. God is there Himself in creation in the spittle, I believe, as He was in John 9. The Lord said, “Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him”, John 9: 3. That is the idea in new creation. Mark has that in mind. And every servant, if he does not go out with the rule of new creation in his pocket, will miss it.
CAM That allusion to Titus was very interesting. They did not compel him to be circumcised.
JT What better can you make him? That is the inference. You will only make him worse.
FSC You referred to Exodus 4 where it says God made man’s mouth. “Who gave man a mouth? or who maketh dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? have not I, Jehovah?” Exodus 4: 11. Is that what is meant in John 9?
JT That is exactly what is meant. The disciples say, “Who sinned, this man or his parents ... ?”, John 9: 1. They could not get out of the realm of the government of God. But the Lord says, “Neither has this man sinned nor his parents”. You just wonder how He could say that, but He did. He says, “But that the works of God should be manifested in him”. That is, that God should begin another creation.
RWS Is new birth the first item in new creation or does it not go as far as that?
JT New birth is a family idea. It is a generative idea. The creation primarily was not generative; it [p. 320] was created. It is another idea. Paul is working on that line, and Peter, too. Peter speaks about new creation, but John speaks about new birth. But undoubtedly they are collateral thoughts; but new creation is a creation. The word ‘create’ is not generative. It is another matter. It is God beginning over again to bring about His thoughts in new creation.
WB-w Would you say Paul links reconciliation with new creation in 2 Corinthians?
JT It is leading us to new creation; it is the principle. Reconciliation is effected through the gospel. In Romans 5: 10 it says, “Being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son”, but new creation is not on that line. It is God taking us up to create us again. Of course, the old history has to be dealt with, but it comes to nothing.
FHL Do you read new creation into Luke 4: 18 where it says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”?
JT That is the gospel. He had nothing else in mind. If we are ministering, we must have in mind that God is making everything new. But birth is a family idea. I may be very vague in what I am trying to say, but it requires a lot of attention. New birth is another thing, because John is dealing with the family. Paul deals with the family too, but he deals with new creation, and the spittle involves that. Mark takes it up here and in the next chapter too.
ABP You referred to the young man that had the linen cloth cast about his naked body. The young man sitting in the sepulchre after the resurrection of Christ would hardly be a development of that young man, but rather in contrast to him.
JT He represents the full idea. The young man in the tomb glorifies the tomb. Instead of a dead [p. 321] Christ you have a living new creation. That is what I had in mind, but Mark is before that. The linen cloth about his naked body would allude to the way he took on the truth; not in a truly inward way, and yet he was a true man. There is another thing about him: if I remember rightly. Mary was his mother; the Mary in whose house the prayer meeting was going on when Peter came according to Acts 12. There is rather a bad link all the way through. That prayer meeting was not too good, either, and yet God recognised it. But it was imperfect; they were not ready for Peter.
CN So then, we have already referred to Romans as describing what comes out of the mouth, the tongue. Would it be right then to say what we have here in Mark is God making another vessel? Romans is describing the vessel as marred; now the action of the Lord here in Mark 7 would be the making of a new vessel, or new creation, as you say, so that this young man speaks right.
JT That is what I would say. Genesis 2: 7 says, “And Jehovah Elohim formed man”. The first chapter says He created him, but the second chapter says He formed him, or made him. The creation is one thing, and the making is another; but the same idea runs into them, that we have a creature that can speak. God says, Now, Adam, what about this creature here? God is bringing in a creature to speak about creation. Well, Adam says, That is a lion; that is a cow; that is a sheep. He is speaking right. That is the thought. God says, That is right; that will do. So that God has His creature there according to what He intended; but when you come to new creation, then we have what we have here; it is another thing, another order altogether, I mean, that is what is in the Lord’s mind in spitting and touching his tongue. It is the contact of Deity with [p. 322] the creature.
JTJr And the detail in the fingers would be suggestive that it is a matter of detail with us. We cannot be slovenly; it is a careful matter. The man in John 9 can set out in detail what is in his soul.
JT The use of the fingers is interesting here, because they are alluded to in the creation.
WB-w In Colossians and Ephesians you get the new man referred to. Is that the model? The idea of new creation in the new man?
JT Just so.
WB-w It says, “And your having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”, Ephesians 4: 24.
JT “According to the image of him that has created him”, Colossians 3: 10. We do not call you a new man, or any of us; meaning it is the same as the human race under Adam. It is a new order of things; it is new; it is a creation, and it is beginning in this man. The next thing is, what will he say when he speaks? If he reports something he heard, will he report it correctly?
Ques Are there two creations in Romans 8? The one says, “For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now”. And then, “But even we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we also ourselves groan in ourselves” (verses 22, 23). Is that new creation?
JT It is involved in that. The first-fruits of the Spirit would mean Christ is much in evidence. It is making much of the Spirit. That chapter is full of the Spirit. It is a question of making much of the Spirit of God in that chapter. The Spirit is mentioned thirteen times in the first thirteen or fourteen verses in that chapter.
Ques Would the Holy Spirit involve new creation?
JT That chapter has mainly in mind to stress the idea of the Spirit of God as taking charge of [p. 323] the believer.
CAM Would it be right to say that the Holy Spirit makes use of the feelings by coming on to our side in the midst of it all? He makes use of the feelings in this present set-up of creation, and carries the feelings over in some holy way into the other.
JT It is not made out of nothing as the first creation was. It is said to be made out of nothing. Where did God get the material? But here in Christianity He takes up persons already persons and quickens them. Ephesians says it is out of a dead condition. There are no feelings God-ward, but God begins there and quickens them there and makes them a new creation. He takes up persons already in existence.
TEH Would you help as to Titus 3: 5, “Through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”? Where does that come in in connection with the family?
JT Regeneration is usually the family. The word there is only used twice. The one is in Matthew and the other there. It is not simply creation, but regeneration. It covers the millennial state of things in Matthew. And with you, of course, you can see if you look back, that it has taken place in you. The renewal of the Holy Spirit is to keep you going. The primary thing is regeneration, but you are kept going by the Holy Spirit. The water of new birth may be linked with it.
TEH The note alludes to a bath, as if you took it all over you.
JT That is the idea.
AAT The new creation is definitely God’s work.
JT It is. God as a Creator. That is behind it; whereas new generation or regeneration, or new birth is God as a Father. He has families, but He has creatures. A creature is created; a man, a child is born, but a creature is created. “And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth”, Ecclesiastes 12: 1.
[p. 324] That is God as the Creator, but that same Being is my Father as well.
AAT In the chapter before us I can see the Lord working in making the spittle and using His fingers and all that, but how is that worked out today?
JT Everything is by the Spirit now, the details in which you are cared for from the time you are created; the details into which the Spirit descends in caring for you. In fact, all the divine Persons are occupied with us.
GH It says in Genesis 2: 7, “And Jehovah Elohim formed Man”. Would that mean He went into detail in making man?
JT He must have gone into detail. Look at all the organs. In Ezekiel 37 we have the valley of dry bones. We only have the externals there, the sinews and the flesh, and the skin. But think of the internals; think of the detail! Infinitely wonderfully made, and fearfully made. We are so accustomed to ourselves we forget what has been expended on us. What a Creator we have! And we are to remember Him in the days of our youth. Every organ you have — remember that God is the Creator of it.
AR So the new man in Colossians includes the organism really.
JT The body of Christ includes that.
AR I was thinking, if we understood it, how closely we would be brought together and understand the links we have with one another.
JT Quite so.
TEH In speaking to God about one’s exercise, in referring to new creation or referring to the matter of the family, you would address either God or the Father intelligently in that way.
JT Yes; God is the Creator. The Father did not create the worlds. It is a remarkable thing; it is the Son that created the worlds, but still it is God [p. 325] that created the worlds. The Father is connected with the family.
WB-w Does new creation refer more to eternal conditions rather than millennial conditions?
JT Isaiah has millennial conditions in mind when he says, “For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy”, Isaiah 65: 18. The principle is in the millennium, but the millennium is not a perfect state of things; but in new creation old things are passed away and all things are become new.
AR The new heavens and new earth are a new thing.
JT That is the final thing that God has in mind. The heavens are not even clean in His sight; everything is to be made new.
RWS He takes away the first that He might establish the second. There is nothing after that.
JT Just so.
ABP After the recovery of Mark he appears to be serviceable in connection with the ministry of the kingdom of God. His gospel seems to emphasise the kingdom of God, too.
JT Just so. Mark says, “And he said to them, Verily I say unto you, There are some of those standing here that shall not taste death until they shall have seen the kingdom of God come in power”, Mark 9: 1. He would mean, ‘that is what I have experienced myself since I have been restored’.
ABP Paul says to the Colossians about Mark and others, “These are the only fellow-workers for the kingdom of God who have been a consolation to me”, Colossians 4: 11.
JT You can understand that in the way he treats of the kingdom of God in his gospel.
APf You are calling our attention to the world that was, and the world that now is, and the world [p. 326] which is to come; there is nothing new; it is the same world.
JT The world that then was, and the world that now is, and then the world to come is the millennium. It is the habitable world that God has put under men and not under angels. But then the expression ‘kingdom of God’ is sometimes vaguely used to cover eternity. It is the idea of God’s rule which love always delights in.