THE GROUND OF THE SPIRIT
THE GROUND OF THE SPIRIT
AH It might be helpful to have something before us as to what really hinders our entering into the purpose of God.
FER To get at what is in your mind we must divide the book of Numbers into two parts.
Ques What is the division in the book?
FER When we come to the chapter we have read we reach the ground of the Spirit. It accords pretty much with John 3 and Romans 8. The flesh had been tested in the previous part of Numbers; then comes in the death of the high priest, and in this chapter the flesh is met by the brazen serpent, and we have the springing well. After that we get another order of things. There are certain hindrances which affect people up to a certain point, but then another class of hindrance comes in. The hindrances in the latter part of Numbers are different from those in the previous part. The previous ones are in things that test the flesh and bring out the natural perverseness of man. The things into which we are brought in grace become tests to us. We have believed in them, but then they become tests to us.
FER Yes; we are brought to God in righteousness, but then God and righteousness become tests to us; and so we are married to Christ; then Christ becomes a test to us, and we learn the contrariety of the flesh in relation to God and to Christ. You find these tests in the early part of Numbers. There is rebellion against God and Christ.
Rem It reaches a climax in loathing the manna.
FER Yes; you get idolatry, too, and murmuring against Moses and Aaron.
Rem “These ten times”; (chapter 14: 22), it is a ten-fold failure.
Ques Do you get what answers to [p. 301] the brazen serpent and the springing well in John 3 and 4?
FER Yes; but you come on to that ground when the perverseness of the flesh has been learned. The tests are different according to where people are. What tests people in the systems is different from what tests those who are in the truth.
Ques Is Romans 5: 5 the same?
FER It is the same Spirit, but not exactly like the springing well; it is the Holy Spirit given to us, and the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, and in that you get the thought of God dwelling in us. That raises the question of fidelity to God and to Christ. So in Romans 6 it is, “Shall we continue in sin?” Dead to sin and living to God — is that going to be maintained?
Ques Are the tests in Romans 6 before or after the brazen serpent?
FER Before.
Rem The brazen serpent is in Romans 8.
FER Yes; only what comes out after Numbers 21 may in christianity be concurrent with what takes place in the previous part; only the tests apply to people on different ground.
Ques Do you mean that in the first part of Numbers it is more the perversity of the flesh that comes out, and in the second part it is more the social seduction?
FER Yes, I think so. After Numbers 21 we find more of the character of seduction, and in two aspects; one is in regard of association, and the other in connection with the situation. One was through Moab, where the effort was to seduce the people by association; and the other, in the case of the two and a half tribes, to forego the calling to the land on the other side of Jordan. They took up their inheritance on this side of Jordan, but it was not the promised land, and that has detained plenty of people, just as association detains plenty more.
Rem The nature of the tests must differ in that way.
Ques In what way would the perversity of the flesh manifest itself now?
FER In opposition to God and to Christ. Lawlessness [p. 302] comes in, and that is the way the flesh shews itself — not advancing towards holiness. “Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life”, Romans 6: 22. People do not always advance towards holiness. In the presence of God we begin with righteousness, but we cannot stop there. We want our “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life”.
Rem That would be increasing in separation to God.
Ques Are we not holy in one sense?
F.E.R. In what sense?
Rem By sanctification of the Spirit.
FER But I do not call that holiness; you do not grow in that. Sanctification is more positional, holiness more moral; you grow in holiness.
Rem Holiness would be connected with love.
FER Yes, it is promoted in that way. If you are not entering into the love of God, holiness will not be promoted. If people do not enter into the righteousness of God, they are lawless; if they come out in righteousness, they have left lawlessness. There is a great deal of lawlessness I fear in the way of reading, and I have no doubt in other things too, in amusements and in other ways. If you are brought to God in righteousness, there is no room for lawlessness. You are become servants to righteousness, you are in bondage to God, and must not allow anything that is not suitable to God. You come into righteousness by faith, but the moment you come into it it tests you.
Ques Would practical righteousness be the answer to the righteousness of God? “He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous”, 1 John 3: 7.
FER Yes; you have your fruit unto holiness, but I do not always see practical righteousness.
Rem “Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness”, Romans 6: 19.
FER One leads to the other. Take the thing I have spoken of — reading; do you think that a great part of the reading tends to holiness? I think reading light literature [p. 303] tends to corruption: taking up that kind of reading is lawlessness, it is entirely outside of the will of God.
Ques Why should we not do it?
FER Because we have become servants to God, and have no right to do our own will while in bondage to God.
Rem A slave has no right but to do the will of his owner.
Rem It is a pernicious thing habitually to read the newspaper, because it puts you in touch with the world.
FER Yes, I think so. The point is that you do not take up that which tends to corrupt, you are in bondage to God and have to pursue holiness. Anything that tends to call the imagination into play does not tend to holiness.
Rem If we read what is not true we become untrue.
Ques Do you include religious moral tales?
FER Anything that tends to call the imagination into play.
Rem “Take heed what ye hear”, Mark 4: 24.
FER Quite so. If people took up the admonition of the apostle in Philippians 4: 8 it would tend in the direction of holiness.
Ques In John 17 there are two kinds of sanctification. Is the latter what tends to holiness?
FER Holiness may come out of it but it is positional. The position of Christ defines your position.
Rem I remember Mr. Stoney speaking of sanctification in John 17: 17 as constitutional, then the second time it occurs (verse 19) as positional.
FER I think sanctification is positional — once for all. Our position here is determined by Christ’s position: He has set Himself apart at the right hand of God that we may answer to it.
Ques Is ‘holiness’ a different word?
FER Yes. This question of righteousness affects every christian wherever he is. It may be very well to get married, but when you do, your husband will test you, because you never had a husband before, and you had a [p. 304] will before. It has been said that whatever we try tries us, and if you are married to Him who is raised from the dead it will test you, because the question is whether you please Him or yourself. The position we are brought into tests us. The point in preaching the gospel is to make clear to people where they are. It is important to make them see that when they believe they are in righteousness; they are not only forgiven, but they stand in relation to God, and there is no reason for lawlessness. They are in bondage to God, and they cannot move of their own accord. We are brought into another system.
Rem It is not bondage in a legal sense, but in a moral sense.
FER That depends on what you are in bondage to. If to law, you are legal; but if to God, it is liberty.
Rem Some one wrote, ‘This bondage to love makes me free’.
FER Take a woman married to a husband, she is in bondage to her husband, but I do not think it terrifies her much; if there is no love, it is bondage indeed.
Ques Did the Israelites resist that bondage to God when they lusted after the things of Egypt? They said, “Who shall give us flesh to eat” (Numbers 11: 4)?
FER Yes, they broke out against God and against Christ, they were lawless.
Ques To go back to holiness and sanctification, is holiness moral suitability?
FER Yes; I think so; and Christ will present the church to Himself holy and without blame. We have to pursue holiness. The “sanctify” in Ephesians 5 is positional: “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”. Sanctify is position, and holiness is in nature. You are set apart to be holy.
Ques If born again, we are holy?
FER I do not exactly see holiness in the mere being born again; it is connected with the Spirit.
Rem And with love, “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints”, 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, 13.
FER The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Properly, holiness begins with the Spirit.
Rem You do not connect nature with being born again.
FER How can you get ‘nature’ till you have a constitution — a substance? The being must be there before you can speak of the nature of the being. Take anything you please, you must have the substance before you can talk about its nature.
Ques How do you get the constitution built up?
FER By the Spirit, with good food and wholesome condition.
Rem Had we not better get on to the second part of Numbers?
FER Yes; when we come to that it is ground which is more applicable to us. The testing of the flesh by God and Christ is common to all christians; all are so tested, but after chapter 21 we come on to ground which is more applicable to those who are in the truth. If we come to the unity of the Spirit we are subjected to tests which other christians do not know much about. One of the most serious tests with us now is that of associations. People come into fellowship, but do not like to break with their worldly relations and friends. The great object of the temptation to which we are subjected is to bring us into the acknowledgment of the god of this world, and that is idolatry. Where people do not make a break, but give place to worldly friends and relatives, it links them more or less with the world, and that is idolatry in a sense. People are not much above the company they keep.
Ques Do you not think that many suppose they have continued these links simply because they [p. 306] are natural relationships?
FER People keep up links of that kind and their friends and relatives lead them into all sorts of worldly ways, and they go down to their level.
Rem It is not only “country”, but “kindred and father’s house” we have to leave.
FER The great principle of salvation is the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is in that you are true to your baptism; it brought you into the christian circle. You love the brethren; the laver of regeneration is the way into the christian circle. It is a great mercy in the present time that a christian circle is possible. You cannot get the church, but the thing is to make the best use of what is to hand. It is a great point to cultivate our relationships with one another.
Rem You must have warmth. That is the right atmosphere.
FER And that is in the christian circle; you cannot have the atmosphere apart from the christian circle, outside it you get the atmosphere of the world, and that is hatred.
Rem Friendship with the world is enmity with God.
Ques Is the washing of regeneration once or continuous?
FER Once.
Ques Is it true of every one who has the Spirit?
FER I would not say that exactly; the Holy Spirit is one thing and the renewing of the Holy Spirit another: it is the operation of the Spirit when He has been received.
Rem That would be continuous.
FER The passage looks at it as effectuated, it is arrived at.
Rem It is very clear in the present day that the social element amongst us is the great hindrance.
FER I think so. People have to judge themselves in regard of righteousness. First, there is often lawlessness in regard of God, then in connection with being [p. 307] married to Christ, there is the lack of fidelity to Him. The married woman has no separate interest of her own: the husband and wife are one, but who is to guide? There cannot be two guides. The Head is to order, and that leaves no room for any interest for the christian but those of Christ.
Rem The wonderful thing is that a christian young or old can choose worldly companions.
FER Yes; but I see certain things in the world religiously that present great temptation to people. The idea of a clergy, and the glamour connected with it, often presents great temptation to the young. They have never proved these things, and they have not sufficiently valued the christian circle, and in a way they even ridicule brethren, not in a gross way, but they see their peculiarities and speak disparagingly of them. If the young people are to be kept they should value the christian circle.
Ques Do you not think there is a danger of that in us? We ought to be very careful; they should see that we value it.
FER Yes.
Ques Is it not a greater thing to be a brother than a servant?
FER Yes; because the servant can never be other than a levite, but the brother is a priest.
Rem It is a great thing to come together like this.
FER Yes; it is a great privilege in coming together to meet one another, but who is the centre of the christian circle? Christ — that is what gives it its character. We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren because He has laid down His life for us. We regard one another in the light of Christ. We do not want people amongst us who merely maintain proprieties, and if we were right such things would go to the wall. 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us that love corrects everything; there will be no improprieties if you have love. Where love is maintained the young are held, and there is something to affect others. A few of us are [p. 308] thrown together in this or that place, and it is excessively important to look to it that we maintain things in a way which will tend to keep the young.
Rem If we want to keep the young we must be what we want them to be. Young people find out soon enough what you are after. If the parents are in the thing outwardly, but their hearts not in it, the young see it soon enough; they see what you sanction.
FER Another hindrance is that people are really detained by the place down here, that is earth, what suits us naturally. That is met in Ephesians 2: 6, “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”; but the tendency is to be content to remain down here. But then that does not touch many people. It affects those who have escaped the Balaam snare. They have escaped the snare of association but are detained by things of earth. It was lawful in a way for the two and a half tribes to settle where they did, for they went over Jordan and fought the Canaanites. And so amongst us, a great many would go and fight if a conflict arose about the truth, but when the fighting is over they drop back to earth. The snare was that it was divinely given land, it was not Egypt nor the wilderness, but it was not up to the mark.
Ques. How was that?
FER It was not entering fully into the purpose of God.
Ques How would that bear upon us?
FER If people choose to settle down here they must, but it will not be beneficial to them. It is a good place for flocks and families, it is a divinely given land. I have men in my mind’s eye who attach too much importance to the social life; they are estimable and faithful, but they give themselves up too much to their families and flocks, and so they drop down to the position of the two and a half tribes. The things are divinely given and are right in themselves, for christianity ought to pervade the relationships of this life, but such things may be taken up in a way that hinders.
[p. 309] Rem We are safe in our place when we can say His place is better.
FER I think so. When you recognise that your place is in heaven then the only place you have here is to be a vessel for Christ and for the will of God.
Rem There was apparently a greater measure of devotedness among the two and a half tribes than in the others, they were faithful to the truth.
FER Yes, they will join the conflict, but when that is over they drop below the calling. The danger is to drop below the calling: a function of the High Priest is to meet that danger. Christ as Apostle maintains the calling at its height; but we have Him as Priest that we may be maintained at the height of the calling. That would keep you on the other side of Jordan.
Ques Why did the two and a half tribes set up that altar?
FER Because they were afraid: they wanted a memorial that they were identified with those who had gone over, whilst they were settling down here in earthly things.
Rem Returning to Jerusalem from Babylon was all right?
FER Yes, that is the point for us. Many christians remain in Babylon. If you have escaped from Babylon, the point is to come to Jerusalem, but it is Jerusalem above, which is free; not to build our own houses but the house of God. Colossians is really what sets us free, because the scene of interest is transferred to the right hand of God. We christians expect everything from the right hand of God, not from Jerusalem; it is from thence that everything for God will be effectuated.