THE NEED FOR MAINTAINING A PERSONAL LINK WITH CHRIST

Joshua 3: 1–13; Luke 24: 13–35; Colossians 1: 12–23; 2: 8

RDP We have been reading recently in the epistles to the Corinthians, and then Galatians, and it has been quite instructive to see not only the dangers in each of those epistles of turning away from nearness to Christ. To the Corinthians you find that Paul writes that they might have been ready to listen to another gospel, or he said if someone comes and preaches another Jesus, they might well bear with it (2 Corinthians 11: 4). And whilst we are familiar with the errors that come in at Corinth and Galatia, and often speak about them, perhaps the significance of that verse has eluded me. They might well turn to a different glad tidings and listen to another Jesus. When you come to Galatia you find a similar thing. He speaks again about the danger of a different gospel (Galatians 1: 6–9). And he speaks at one point of the fact that if the Galatians were proceeding with righteousness by law it would mean for such that Christ had died for nothing (Galatians 2: 21). What a serious thing it is, that at the end of the days, there could be that which has all the trappings of Christianity, and yet is in danger of going along without Christ. The Laodicean assembly that we often speak about was marked by the Lord Jesus as outside. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door”, Revelation 3: 20. They were proceeding with a form and order of things and yet Christ was outside of it. It just impressed me that it is most important, that with all our professed knowledge of Christian teaching, we do not arrive at a situation where we have all the knowledge, all the teaching and the doctrine, but in fact we have shut Christ out personally. That is just my simple exercise.

In this expression in Joshua God says to Joshua, “This day will I begin to magnify thee”. I would like to follow that line really as to what the magnifying of Joshua is. We know Joshua is a type of Christ at times. Sometimes he is a servant of course, and sometimes he fails. But he seems here to be a particular type of Christ, not exactly the same as Moses, but he represents leadership in a different way. We have been taught it is inward. It might be interesting to recall that the first time Joshua comes on the scene is in Exodus, at the time of the smitten rock, which typically speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the death of the Lord Jesus, as being necessary that the Spirit might come. That is Exodus 17 and immediately following that a new enemy comes into view, and that is Amalek. And the one who takes up the war against Amalek is Joshua. So it is striking to me that Joshua comes on the scene and he represents, I think, not so much the side of things seen in Moses but Christ as gaining ascendancy and an increasing place in the hearts of the saints, as Amalek, speaking as Satan operating through the flesh, seeks that ascendancy. What we see in the teaching is that at the end of the day, authority, Moses’ authority and that line of things, is not sufficient to see them into the land. When they come into the land it is Joshua. In other words it is this great matter of Christ getting ascendancy in us, not so much by commandment, or ministry and that side of things, but Christ we may say answered to in the affections. That is just what I am trying to get at.

So I refer to this expression in this well known passage in Joshua where God says, “This day will I begin to magnify thee”. What a thing it would be, beloved brethren, if we could come into the joy of this, that we begin to magnify Christ working inwardly through our affections. I have read a remark somewhere that Christians generally seem to prefer things coming to them in a mediatorial way. In other words it comes through others. And of course that in certain circumstances can be cut off. It may be that if it were so, we could feel deprived and perhaps lost. As a simple little test for us, some of us have felt over this winter period, when we have had no fellowship meetings and so on, that we really felt that we needed some fellowship. And that is right, it is good. But it is a little test to see as to whether we have this link with Christ, we may say, personally, so that there is resource flowing, not exactly from an outward source, but from an inward one. So we can become dependent upon ministry, but the true aim in Christianity, I am sure, is that Christ should become ever more precious to the soul, and ever more the resource for the soul. We are occupied so much of our lives with our blessing and our salvation, and all that Christ has wrought for us, but all the time God has one great objective in mind I think, that Christ might be magnified in the believer’s life.

Now I read at the end of Luke because you have these two in their disappointment and so on, and you get this reference, “him they saw not”. They had a whole area of things in which they had knowledge, they were good people, they were not worldly people, they were disappointed, but they really needed a touch from Himself. We have been taught that ministry of itself will never change the direction of your feet. The only thing that will change that is as you have to do with the Lord Jesus. Maybe we might get a little help as to that. Then Colossians is linked with Joshua, the magnifying of Christ. Chapter one is the magnifying of Christ in a unique way. Not only now you may say, Christ is my Saviour, but Christ in relation to the vastness of the divine thought; Christ in relation to creation for instance. Not only in relation to me and my sins, but the heart opened so that you come in Colossians to this great matter of headship. And throughout all this there is something in mind as to the beginnings of this matter of headship. Where we are moved, not by an external commandment exactly, but we begin to be moved from an internal source, as Christ, we may say, is resident in our affections. Now the Colossian error was worse than Corinth or Galatia, because it really involved the promotion of man, philosophy and vain deceit, that man contribute by his mind and body; it is man walking in an orderly way, but promoting himself in the things of God. So he says in effect, ‘I will give Christianity a little help along’. ‘I will provide my own little impetus to it’. So it says, “Not holding fast the head”, Colossians 2: 19.

DTP You have certainly given us a full outline of your thoughts and we need that. There is no question that we really could so easily become orthodox in our outlook and thinking. Really there is not just the closeness of attachment to Christ which is so vital. Everything is in Him, is it not? God has set it out that way, “in him is the yea, and in him the amen” (2 Corinthians 1: 20), and that is to govern our whole lives, how we live and what we do, and that is a challenge to us all.

RDP I believe so. They had all these thirty-eight years or so of ministry and direction and help through Moses and we have had what corresponds to that. But they were not going to complete the journey on that basis. The taking up of the fulness of the divine thought was not to be on the basis of the authority of Moses. If we have known what it is to have to do with the matters of the flesh, the experiences set out in Romans 7, then we know something of being moved by what is inward. At the end of that experience the man says, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”, Romans 7: 25. He did not get that by instruction exactly. He got that by an internal sense. Now, I am not now speaking about Christ being promoted in relation to dealing with the flesh, although that is the great object in that. I am speaking of the same One, but now promoted in our hearts in relation to the realising of the greatest and fullest thoughts of God. But there is something in that experience, referred to in Romans 7, that sets out what I am speaking about. So much of our time we respond to ministry, we respond to commandment if we do, but what is in view in Colossians, “perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Colossians 4: 12), will not be reached until the soul is moving, on an affectionate impulse, in relation to Christ Himself.

TDB It says at the beginning of this book, “for thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land”, Joshua 1: 6. I was thinking of the word ‘cause’ as the power of that coming in.

RDP That is good. So Paul says, “For for me to live is Christ, and to die gain” (Philippians 1: 21), and “But in that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2: 20), and he speaks about being complete in Him. These are some of many expressions in which you see that he has become almost detached from things here, and is drawing all his resource and sustenance from Christ above. Now we use this word ‘headship’, and it is something that we do not speak about very often, but it is to be known, where Christ is working through the affections, so you are not having to depend upon external stimulus, however right that might be. But there is response to the One who is the Head of the body. Here it speaks about holding the Head.

RG Do you think John was one that would exemplify what you are at? He was attracted to Christ at the beginning of his gospel, but then he was in the bosom of Jesus, as we proceed in the gospel, and he is the one who may remain until the end as the Lord says at the end of his gospel. Would that be a word of us, to be like John? RDP I am sure that is right.

RG Attraction leads to attachment does it not?

RDP Yes, I think John’s gospel links with this subject. Remember those at the beginning of John’s gospel, when John the baptist says, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1: 36), and they said to Jesus, “Rabbi ... where abidest thou? He says to them, Come and see. They went therefore, and saw where he abode; and they abode with him that day” (John 1: 38, 39). It is left, it is mysterious in that sense. It is like something operating in the soul of the believer in attachment to Christ, which is more than authority. We never lose sight of what is authoritative, the believer will always respond to authority as it is in Christ—always. But the filling out of the divine thought is in relation to attraction and in relation to affection. So in Colossians you get “the kingdom of the Son of His love”. You often get the kingdom presented in relation to man’s conscience, but in Colossians it is the kingdom in relation to the Son of His love. This is the area of things where there is another power operating in the believer, and the mediatorial side whereby we receive things through others, in that sense, recedes, and there is increasingly direction and impulse coming from the One who is the Head.

NJH Is the ark Christ objectively, and Joshua the Christ working operationally in the heart of a believer?

RDP Yes, well that is good. So the ark in Joshua was to be contemplated by them. This is a new phase in the history of the people. This is a big move for them. When you see the ark he says, “go after it”. The ark is a type of Christ personally, but Joshua seems to represent the way that Christ gains territory and place in my heart, so that He becomes the impulse for what I do. Not only to know things about Him, and that is what had brought them to this point, but now there is that impulse within, that is working in relation to this new step where they were going to enter into the fulness of God’s thoughts for them. This is not coming out of the world, coming out of Egypt, this is going into a new world, into a new area.

NJH In the first day they had to prepare themselves victuals, that is chapter one, then in chapter two he sends the spies. That is, you might say, to assure them that the way was going to be cleared for them. Then in the third chapter the ark comes in. It is all very operational power, is that right?

RDP Yes, it is very striking, and it is also interesting that you get Rahab, who represents a work of God that had come about in God’s sovereign ways without ministry— the work of God of itself, which is a very pure and precious thing. We are speaking now about the work of God in a believer, and with an immediate link to Christ. Pardon my little illustration as to the fact we may have missed the meetings because of circumstances, and I do not want anyone in any way to think I do not enjoy this, because I do, and I am sure that the brethren do, but do you sometimes feel that so much of your Christian life is dependent upon meetings, upon ministry, upon brethren serving, and so on? If you do, then perhaps there is a word for us in this, that the thought of God is that there will be a resource that you will draw on and you will become spiritually independent. That is this matter, I think, of headship. The believer will come to know something of impulse and affection as in nearness to Christ that relates to His pleasure, and then he will find the area in which it is.

RT Is the change of position always a test for us? The ark had been in the wilderness, and there had been the manna that had met all their need, but now He is going into His own sphere, is He? Is that a test for us as to whether we are prepared to follow Him where He is going?

RDP I think that is right. These changes test us. Perhaps that is why you get the three days. This was a big moment, and if they looked back over the wilderness, they would be aware of how they had come out of Egypt, and, in type, to the coming of the Spirit, and all the experiences they had known in the wilderness. But now there was a new movement. They were going in in the strength of another power. Even the ark itself ceases in a sense to be the centre of testimony, it becomes the object of the believer’s heart. We have been taught that. So at one point in Deuteronomy it speaks of it as the ark of wood. So things are changing, and now is a change of step. I just wondered, beloved brethren, whether we are conscious of that, a change of step. If we are going to enter into the fulness of Christian privilege and blessing it involves a change of step. But more than that, or additional to that I should say, there is also a danger, in that if we do not go this way, that we could end up in a form of Christianity that shuts Christ personally out. Christ’s work we have spoken about, the knowledge of Himself and all these things, but He is the One whom God had in His heart that He should be the centre of everything, and not be set to the side.

RT So it is not a historical Jesus. It is knowing Him where He is, and as He is, is it? The word here is, “go after it”. The Lord has already moved from what He was here into His new condition, has He not?

RDP Yes, and that is one of the reasons I read in Luke, there is something about the forty days where He was accustoming His own to that new condition, it seems to me, and so you get an intimation in Luke 24 of the headship of Christ. There is an intimation of it in the way He operates with them, and finally He does not tell them what to do, but they do it anyway. Now that is what we are speaking about.

JDG In Joshua 3: 5 it says, “And Joshua said to the people, Hallow yourselves”, and then in verse 9, “And Joshua said to the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of Jehovah”, there seems to be a sympathetic line in Joshua to seek to help us to go over to this new position.

RDP Say more please.

JDG Well just that he is considering what they need to do to help them to move, “Hallow yourselves”, then as John says, “I became in the Spirit”, Revelation 1: 10.

RDP That is good, “I became in the Spirit”. There is some deliberateness there. Jehovah does not say exactly ‘I will magnify thee’. He says, “This day will I begin to magnify thee”. I will begin to do it. There is some preparation in this, involving moving to a different level of things. I would just ask the brethren, the younger ones especially, Do you find you are only responding in divine things to external prompts? You are only responding to commandment, perhaps to an outward programme and order of things. I am not saying it is wrong, but I am asking you if that is what you find? And if that supply were cut off, beloved brethren, and it could be through circumstances whatever it might be, would you be at a complete loss? Would you become completely detached? Or is there some element in which you are already proving Christ as the resource, and He is becoming increasingly greater with you, and there is a flow coming down? However small it may be we find we are responding to Christ personally, not through the ministry, although the ministry is like a bonus and comes from a glorified Christ, but there is something coming down from Christ direct and the believer is becoming independent in a right way.

CKR This magnification is in the Jordan, say a word on that. It must always bring us back to some glorious view of the work of Christ, which is going to separate us from one scene and take us into the sphere of divine purpose. So there must be some great lever always about the impulse of the death of Christ and my grasping of it.

RDP Yes I think so. We know the different types of the death of Christ in the Old Testament, and this is a very special one. At the Red Sea when the people went over, it has been suggested that possibly they went across in single file, and the waters were heaped up on each side of them. We may say the mighty power of God had operated in His authority to set His people free. But here the waters had gone right back. And it went right back at one glorious moment when the feet of the priests touched the waters of the Jordan. The water went right back until you could not see it. That is a type of the glory of the movements of Christ. It is not exactly presented as His death as dealing with my sins. Of course it is all one death, but it is the glory of the One who went into it. This is a view of Christ as in Colossians, a view of Christ we may say that is wider relating to creation, relating to the whole created sphere. It is Christ moving and going into death and abolishing death in its extent. The time when the Son of God went into death, death was finished. That is the truth. That is the greatness of Christ. Now this is the One who is to grow in my affections.

GCMcK So in Colossians—He is said to be “the beginning, firstborn from among the dead”. There is a whole new world really for God’s pleasure in One who is risen from among the dead, and there is a road through for us to that realm where the divine pleasure is.

RDP I believe so—where the divine pleasure is. This is where God always had in mind to bring His people. He would relieve us from the pressure of sin, and from its guilt. He would relieve us of all the things that lay upon us, but that was not the end of His thought. The end of His thought is that He would bring us into an area of things where Christ would be established, as the absolute centre of everything for God. He is the centre of God’s entire universe. Is that not wonderful?

RT Colossians says, “If ye have died with Christ”, Colossians 2: 20. Is that what tests us, whether we have died with Him so that we are able to enter into His thoughts? RDP Yes, that word “with” is I think important; it is “died with” Him. There is something very precious about that. It is that word “with”. Romans goes so far and gives us what God has done in Christ, and we come into the benefit of it in His death and His resurrection, but this is more.

RT Mr. Taylor remarks that His death determines my position in the world. He has died here, but His place in glory determines my position there. Is that what attracts us over? He has gone in there for us.

RDP Yes that is right. So he says, ‘when you see it’ go after it. This is a view of Christ that we will never forget. We will never forget what He is as our Saviour. If you go to Ephesians, you go to the highest written expression of the truth, and you will find it is continually interspersed with references to that, “ye are saved by grace”, Ephesians 2: 5. But there is something that is greater. There is something in Christ that is far greater than my salvation, and God would bring us into the joy of all that.

JTB(Ed) “Israel served Jehovah all the days of Joshua”, and then it goes on to say, “and all the days of the elders whose days were prolonged after Joshua, and who had known all the works of Jehovah which he had done for Israel”, Joshua 24: 31. The personality of Joshua really sustained them did it not? Do you think that is right? As Christ is magnified in our affections it becomes our sustenance in that way, do you think?

RDP I believe so. I would just commend this to the brethren, especially the younger ones, to study these Old Testament scriptures. You get much teaching. I have been struck of late of the coming of the Spirit necessitating the death of Christ. That is the smitten rock. And as soon as the water flowed Amalek appeared. That is the flesh. We would remember Moses on high, and Joshua in conflict with Amalek below in the battlefield; when “Moses raised his hands Israel prevailed, and when his hands were lowered then Amalek prevailed. You get that reference that “Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17: 16), and his hand is on the throne of God. That is the flesh; it would seek to displace God from His throne.

There were times when Joshua was prevailing, and there were times when Joshua was not prevailing. That is like the exercises of the believer. Now what we are proving in that struggle with flesh, it seems to me, is something introductory to this line, because we are learning to prove what Christ is to us apart from external resource, internally, spiritually, that is not now the flesh. It is taking up the fulness of God’s thoughts.

RJC There is a distance of two thousand cubits between the people and the ark. We do not get this by casualness, do we? We have to enter into it and keep our eye on Christ, and He is the One who will take us over, is He?

RDP Yes, I believe so. The two thousand cubits would preserve the distinctiveness of Christ. I am very touched with that reference, as soon as the priests feet touched the waters at the edge of the Jordan the water went back. This is a type of the devil in his concentrated power against Christ, and yet as soon as those feet touched the water, his power was gone. That is the greatness of Christ. Now that is Christ and Christ alone. No one else could do that. Then your heart is expanded in the fulness of that and Colossians speaks about the range of glories that belong to Him.

GAB We have a beginning here. I was just thinking of John’s gospel; at the end of all that wonderful gospel it says, of the things Jesus did, “the which if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written”, John 21: 25. The glory of Christ is something which transcends the created sphere, does it?

RDP Yes, I am sure that is right and yet how much do we know of this? It would be sad if we fell short in our Christian life and experience, of any touch of this fulness of God’s thoughts as to Christ. What you find in a man like Paul is that Christ eclipsed everything else. Everything else was completely irrelevant to Paul. He says, “that I may gain Christ; and that I may be found in him”, Philippians 3: 8, 9. And all those expressions that we find in scripture, “for me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1: 21), “and ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2: 10), but how much do we know of it in our experience. And also how much are we aware of the fact, that if we do not get to this we are in grave danger of becoming side-tracked. There are people who got side-tracked at the Jordan. The two and one-half tribes decided they would not go over they would stay on the other side. They were still in divine territory, they were not unchristianised as we would say by what they did, but they decided that they would stay on the other side of the Jordan and they would stay there with their cattle, their goods, their flocks, and their families; they would live there, but they would miss the great opening up of the glory of Christ. Now, beloved brethren, we are in a day in which there is a danger that our flocks and our cattle and our families, and all these things, will stop us short of the fulfilling in us of God’s thoughts for us.

RG Do you think Paul sets this out for us? He heard a voice from heaven, from the Man in the glory. He did not go to make the acquaintance of the apostles but he went to Arabia. Do you think that that is an indication that he went to dwell with the Man in the glory? and then his whole outlook was related to the glory, to the Man in the glory?

RDP Yes, that is very fine. He says, “I took not counsel with flesh and blood”, Galatians 1: 16. It is mysterious actually as to when it happened. You look over the accounts and you wonder how he could fit it in, at least I do. But as you say there was something formed there, and Paul became independent of all that was here; not in a wrong sense but his resource was drawn from another place.

RGr You have spoken once or twice about the Spirit. What would you say about the Holy Spirit as working in us in regard of these things you are speaking about?

RDP Well I would like your help please.

RGr I was thinking of what you referred to earlier as to John, who was one who was alone, cut off, but he says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”, Revelation 1: 10.

RDP Yes, he became in the Spirit, and we have been taught that the Spirit is not prominent in Colossians. The Spirit’s work, really His whole service, is in view of bringing forward Christ, is it not? Everything is in relation to Christ. I suppose if we come to the area of things that Colossians envisages, we may say that the Spirit has receded from the foreground, because He has paved the way, He has made a way through. As John says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1: 10), it was almost an enabling service at this point.

RGr I was wondering about the way in which we follow on after the Supper. Christ is pre-eminent, He is first and foremost before us. In time we go on to the worship of the Father and the place of sonship, but along with that there is a reference in worship to the blessed Holy Spirit, who really is the bond in all these things, do you think?

RDP Yes, well that is very good. And of course in Genesis 24 Rebecca had said, “Who is the man ...?” (Genesis 24: 65), and He said, “That is my master!” It really magnifies the glory of the service of the Holy Spirit; such a long and arduous service, and yet when Christ comes into view He recedes into the background. It causes us to be more appreciative I think of such a selfless service as that of the Holy Spirit.

JCG In Corinthians Paul speaks about following after love and being envious of spiritual manifestations. That would be an appreciation of Christ, but we need to have affection for Christ to receive them, would you think?

RDP Yes, I believe all that area of things depends upon that. There comes a point in Colossians and Ephesians where the apostle speaks not exactly to them directly, but he speaks to them about his prayers. It is almost as if there is an area in divine things that cannot be reached by ministry. Paul addresses his prayers in relation to it. It is almost as if there is an area that is beyond the side of authority and ministry and so on, and so he prays. He prays twice in Ephesians, and in Colossians he says, “we also ... do not cease praying and asking for you, to the end that ye may be filled”, Colossians 1: 9. It is almost as if he does not know where to go now so he prays about it. This is something that we must find out experimentally for ourselves, and know what it is to draw resource increasingly from Christ. Now I suggest that the matter of meeting the flesh and the struggles that we have, which involves the Holy Spirit’s work contains the germ of the thing. Because there you are learning to appreciate Christ just for Himself, and you are finding a resource in Christ. Not a resource from even from the Scriptures, you are finding a resource in Christ, which serves you and is powerful in your life. I believe we are now talking about the extension of that, not only in relation to the flesh, but in relation to the full thoughts of God.

GBG So in Romans 8 it is “if Christ be in you” (Romans 8: 10), is that the line that you are on? That is enjoyed in the affections of a believer, preparation for this further move, do you think? “If Christ be in you ... the Spirit life on account of righteousness”. Is that right?

RDP Very good. “If Christ be in you”. Are we ready for this? I hope the brethren can understand what I am saying about ministry, that we can become over dependent upon it, and we can almost present it as an end in itself, we can almost implicitly suggest that if you are to be spiritual then you need to follow the ministry. Of course you cannot rule that out, it is a divine provision for us, but to enter into the full spiritual side of things what we need is a direct link with Christ. That I believe is the truth.

RG Does this involve communion? That involves the Spirit that has been referred to, but it also involves time. To be in communion with the Lord you have to set yourself time to be able to abstract yourself, by the Spirit, to learn from the Lord what His mind is in relation to anything. Is that right?

RDP I think so. So to come back to what was said, “I became in the Spirit” (Revelation 1: 10), I do not believe that was the first time that had ever happened. There were other things that would occupy him. I do not know what he was having to do on the island there, some have thought he was serving some kind of hard labour, but John says, “I became in the Spirit”. I think there is a deliberateness about it.

GCMcK Would Paul be like that too? He said, “whether we are beside ourselves it is to God”, 2 Corinthians 5: 13. Do these men in their spirituality have the ability to move over into another realm and leave behind what is here?

RDP Yes. I cannot say I know much about this, but I would like to. There is a man in Colossians named Epaphras and that was his exercise. His exercise for the brethren in the place was that “ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God”, Colossians 4: 12. Now what is “all the will of God”? It cannot be complete unless Christ is supreme in the soul, as the source and resource for everything. So John’s disciples had an interest in where Jesus was abiding; they followed Jesus, and they abode with Him that day. We do not know what it meant, but they entered into an area of things that was aside from what was received from another. Perhaps we are happier that way, beloved brethren. I think generally, Christians are happy to receive things from someone else. Perhaps we enjoy fellowship meetings, and I do. You get the impression from someone else, and that is profitable and good, and perhaps you prefer that. But this involves, I think, we may say direct communication with the Lord Jesus. I suggest that is in this type of Joshua being magnified.

JS Do you think it might help us in relation to this, to see the objective that is in mind in this line? Paul says, “that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”, Ephesians 3: 17. I wondered if that gives us some impression of Christ in relation to the great thoughts of God, the whole sphere of what is for God’s pleasure? We have to begin somewhere, but is this where it is leading us?

RDP I believe so. Paul had great desires. Even at Ephesus it was his desire that they might be strengthened, that they might have wisdom and knowledge, and that they might enter into the full thoughts of God. We speak about it as the full expression really of the truth that we have, and Paul was exercised that they might have the “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him”, Ephesians 1: 17. And so these things are an exercise for us all, but my current exercise is that not only we may miss the best, but we might miss it all. If we do not move into this then we shall find that man and man’s opinions and man’s will and man’s piety, and all this kind of thing becomes prime with us, unless Christ grows in our affections. And so, if you remember, Paul says in Colossians, “And when the letter has been read among you, cause that it be read also in the assembly of Laodiceans”, Colossians 4: 16. And we know what happened to Laodicea. They proceeded with the whole outward form of religion and Christ was left out of it.

RG Would you agree that we are not denigrating gatherings of the saints together, nor reading the ministry, but these are prompts, so that when the Lord is spoken about by others we would have a greater desire to know Him ourselves, and be in communion with Him ourselves, and gather from His headship for ourselves what He has in mind for us.

RDP Yes, I believe so. And that when God works in us through new birth and the gift of the Spirit, I believe there is a germ there of wanting that. I believe that true ministry encourages the spiritual side in us. We used to speak about the gifts being like scaffolding on a building and the scaffolding will one day come down. What will be left is the work of God. Ministry and all these things is in view of the promoting of the work of God. The work of God begins to shine of itself. That is what I am trying to get at really.

TCM The two on the way to Emmaus that you referred to, their hearts were changed from heavy hearts to burning hearts, and things happened very quickly after this direct touch from the Lord. Could you help us on that?

RDP Well we often refer to them but they came under the sound of the greatest ministry of all, the ministry of Christ. It says in Luke 24, “And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”. This was the ministry of Christ to these two. And the result? Did they turn around? No. They carried on going the way they were. Now there is a salutary lesson in that. We get disappointed that there is not more direct effect from ministry. It may, and should, make your heart burn as it did with these two, but the only thing that will have a lasting effect upon us is when we have to do with Christ personally. That is what makes the change.

TCM So a quickening touch from the Lord Jesus personally is a wonderful matter to get us going, do you think?

RDP Yes, He made Himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. There was something there that is suggestive. It is a bit on this line of headship, is it not? He took the loaf, and although we have been taught it was not the Lord’s supper, but there was something about the way that He did it that caused them to recognise Him. He made Himself known to them in the breaking of the bread and then He disappeared from them. Again, it has been said, that Emmaus is not really the place where headship was to be known, but there is a little touch of it here. He did not tell them where to go. He did not say now afterwards they should really go back to Jerusalem and tell them everything, but they went. They moved unerringly to the right place in relation to the touch of Christ.

RG I was thinking about Luke 24, they said, “But we had hoped that he was the one who is about to redeem Israel”, all their prospect was an earthly inheritance and what might be set up here, but He says to them, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?”. That is what the Lord is after is it not, that we might be with Him on the other side of death and see the greatness and expansiveness of the inheritance as a heavenly inheritance, with Him at the centre, do you think?

RDP Yes, they had missed His glory. They missed the thought of resurrection really, and they missed His glory. They said “we had hoped”. What are our hopes? Are they on the same level of what He is going to do. And so they moved in relation to this. I respectfully suggest to the brethren that there is something worth looking at in the forty days as pattern for this dispensation. There is something there because of the way He appears to them in the different gospels. This is very interesting to me that He comes and appears in this way. He does not tell them where to go and yet they are moved in relation to His impulse. I just think it is striking that we should get that in the forty days.

JAB Is the exercise you are bringing before us intertwined with the Spirit’s service of quickening? This is not a matter of faith, is it? we will know when this happens to us. Is that your impression?

RDP I think so. They crossed the Red Sea by faith. That is a matter of faith, you believe God. But we are now moving into an area of things where, whilst faith is still there, it recedes and you get the Holy Spirit’s operations, and you are moving into an area of things, we may say, that almost works for itself.

JAB The experience of these two that has been referred to, it actually happened to them. Something happened inside them that made them different. It was related to the ministry of Christ but He had that place in their hearts that caused their hearts to burn. That is an essential experience for every believer is it not?

RDP Yes it is, and as you say it was there. These were not persons who were going off into the world, they were basically good people. There is nothing to suggest that they were not, perhaps their own thoughts had become prominent, perhaps they were a little defective in teaching, but there was something there that could be acted upon. There is something in every believer. I wonder if we believe this, that every believer is capable of responding to this matter as to Christ.

JCG The Lord is quite patient with us, is He not? He accepts the position at Emmaus before they return to Jerusalem. But after this interpretation of the Scriptures they constrain Him to stay with them. That was a step forward from depression and despondency, was it not? They really wanted Him in their presence even though it was at Emmaus.

RDP They wanted Him to stay and He waits for a while. He takes the bread and blesses it, and broke it and gave it to them; and their eyes were opened and they recognise Him and He disappears from them. They wanted Him to stay but He disappears from them. We have been told that the element of headship that we have here actively has its own sphere. That sphere was not their own house at Emmaus. So they go back to the eleven. They go back to Jerusalem, they go back to the eleven do they not, and there they come into an area where there is a more extensive experience, because it speaks of His headship. He is Head of the body—that is the setting of headship. But I think holding the Head begins personally.

CKR So these experiences lead to what is collective. We all need to see that, including the younger ones. It is not going to lead you away to an evangelical Christianity. It is going to lead you inwardly to the truth of the body and of the headship of Christ and the great truth of the assembly. These two would possibly merge into the one hundred and twenty, and become ready recipients of the gift of the Spirit in Acts 2 would they not?

RDP Yes, I am sure what you say is right and important. It says He is Head of the body and Colossians is helpful in these things. I am not able to open it up but it speaks about His headship and expands upon His headship there. He is Head of the body which is the assembly and that is the area where headship is known. It is interesting that they returned to the company. It was a broken company but unerringly they returned there. Is that what you have in mind? They are able to speak and they are able to share with others, and that is in the area where His headship is to be known.

CKR To continue this forward then, that becomes the ‘me’ of Acts 9, when all this begins to open up, do you think?

RDP Yes, but I think it is true to say that holding the Head begins individually. We come into the company that way and that is where it is to be known. Now our time is gone but I just wanted to touch again on the danger at Colosse because this is just my exercise, “See that there be no one who shall lead you away as a prey through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the teaching of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ”. This is the danger of the Colossian error. You may say, Well surely the greatest error was Corinthian. Some would say perhaps the greatest error is Galatian, but it has been said that the greatest danger is this one, because this is where man would introduce his own strength and his mind to help out the things of God, or presume to, and that is the greatest error because that is an attack upon the glory of Christ.

RG Is it significant that when he writes this Demas is still with him, but later he writes to Timothy “Demas has forsaken me”, 2 Timothy 4: 10. He had not got the gain of this. The second epistle to Timothy was written after this, and it is obvious that Demas would have known what the apostle was saying here in relation to going after other things. Demas did not leave Christianity, as we have been taught, but he left the height of Christianity that Paul was introducing and working towards so that we might know the headship of Christ, do you think?

RDP Yes I think that is right and what you say as to the height of Christianity is important. Many believers live at a lower level than the height of it. That does not unchristianise them, but they fall short of God’s thoughts. Now we have a very great opportunity to come into the fulness of God’s thoughts. Perhaps our time has gone but if the brethren could consider what we have spoken of, that we not only have commandment and authority, which are important, and without which they would not have got to the Jordan, but the fulness of divine things involves our personal attraction and attachment to Christ.

JSp Peter makes reference to the hidden man of the heart, is that where it begins? I was thinking of your reference to headship, which leads us into the Lord’s company, but it must begin with that inward affection for Christ. It feeds on Him and learns to feed on Him, do you think?

RDP Yes, I believe so. I like the reference to affection this is an affectionate link with Christ. This is a matter of love really and these are the impulses of love. Not any more we may say moving only on the ground of conscience or responsibility, but moving in relation to love. It is far away from moving through things here and using the expression, which we have often heard and perhaps used, ‘There is no harm in such a thing’. This is a close link with Christ that determines my movements and determines my life.

Reading at Kirkcaldy
6 February 2010

KEY TO INITIALS

T. D. Beveridge	J. C. Gray	D. T. Pye
G. A. Brown	J. D. Gray	C. K. Robinson
J. A. Brown	R. Gray	J. Spinks
J. T. Brown (Ed.)	N. J. Henry	J. Strachan
R. J. Campbell	G. C. McKay	R. Taylor
R. Gardiner	T. C. Munro
G. B. Grant	R. D. Plant