HOW DAVID WAS ACTUATED IN REGARD TO CHRIST AS SEEN IN THE ARK
[p. 284] HOW DAVID WAS ACTUATED IN REGARD TO CHRIST AS SEEN IN THE ARK
JT This book opens with David at Ziklag. We are told in chapter 1:1 that “David had abode two days in Ziklag”. I refer to that because it indicates a certain progress made. He had recovered everything at Ziklag, and then remained there two days, which suggests the establishing of the soul in the truth of recovery before moving on. The two books of Samuel, taken together in that way, help us, as showing how we move on in our souls. There are stations, so to say, by the wayside, Jerusalem being the final point reached. There are certain stations by the way in which we consolidate ourselves in the light so far acquired. You see what I mean; abiding two days in a place is a period in which a thing is tested.
TMG You test the light received before going on.
JT Yes; if you do not consolidate yourself, to use a military expression, in acquired ground, you are likely to lose it.
TMG There is the moving on, but you have to make good the ground as you proceed.
RL Is there any significance in David waiting two days for guidance from the Lord?
JT Well that comes out in chapter 2. On the third day tidings came to him regarding what took place at Gilboa, tidings of what had befallen Saul and Jonathan, and the fine spirit that David manifests indicates how much he was in accord with Ziklag; because Ziklag is, I think, typically, the epistle to the Romans.
JMcF It would answer to what we have in Romans 8:37. “We are more than conquerors, through him that loved us”.
JT I think that is a very apt scripture. And one can readily read into the situation here what communications and conversations must have passed during those two days between David and his followers. It would be a remarkable time; typically a time, I should say, of soul triumph.
WH After recovery there is a little time for consolidation, and for the assurance to the soul of the ground gained.
JT Yes that is what I thought exactly. It is a matter that ought to be looked into as to whether we have consolidated the ground acquired in the way of light. The fact that you have reached a point mentally does not prove that you have got possession of it. We have to take possession of things.
Here we have David engaged with Saul and Jonathan; his spirit is very noble; he is even speaking of them in poetical language; and these were no vain sentiments, they were real. They are like what we find in Romans 12, showing the spirit of the conqueror overcoming evil with good. In Romans 8 we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, whatever the elements of opposition, but in chapter 12 you overcome an enemy, but you overcome him in order to recover him. It is not proving yourself more able in argument, but overcoming evil in him with good.
JM One feels the necessity of our souls being established in what Romans teaches in that way, before we can take care of the ark of God.
JT Well that was what I thought in suggesting it. So in the beginning of 2 Samuel 2 David seeks guidance of the Lord as to whether he is to go up. “Shall I go up”, he says, “into any of the cities of Judah?” We find the kind of man that goes up described in the Psalms. “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psalm 24:3). That is a man who is adjusted as to evil, the man who goes up.
TMG That is the man of Romans; the adjusted man.
JM It is not simply that you are justified and an overcomer of evil, but you overcome evil with good. Many are contented to be justified with God, which is an immense thing, but then Romans also adjusts us in connection with everything that is here in regard to God.
JT There are certain things here ordained of God; they may be provisional things, and so passing away; but whatever they are we are to have respect to them.
TMG “The powers that be are ordained of God”(Romans 13:1).
JT Really it is that you are so fortified in righteousness that the enemy cannot touch you in any of your circumstances as a man here upon earth; he may attack you in another way, as in Ephesians 6:12, but that is another matter. So now David says, “Shall I go up”; he is the dependent man, but his exercises are upward. I touch upon those points because they show the course the soul takes. David had no family in Ziklag, that is another point to be noticed; he had wives, but no family.
JM What is your thought as to that?
JT The increase is of the heavenly man. When you get to Colossians you are elevated. It is not that you are in the heavenly places, but you are on the road to them; your mind is there. It is the heavenly man that is increased and multiplies now. In chapter 3 we get the names of David’s sons born [p. 287] in Hebron.
JMcF What does Hebron answer to?
JT I think Colossians answers to it. Colossians suggests that which was before the world’s existence. Christ is the beginning in Colossians. The idea of beginning is not in recovery as in Romans; the latter is recovery from a past state of sin; but the beginning is in Colossians. Hebron is said to have been built before Zoan in Egypt; (Numbers 13:22). It had typically a divine origin; it was before man’s world.
JM As set forth in Egypt.
JT Yes.
JM I think the distinction you make between Romans and Colossians is important, because you get the increase in Colossians.
Ques. What was recovered?
JT God’s thought in man. He had His own thought as regards man, and Satan had robbed Him of that. Just as Ziklag had been destroyed and all carried away, so Satan had robbed God of man through sin, but now in Christ all is secured. David’s triumph at Ziklag is a type of this.
TMG In Proverbs 8 we get indicated what God was to have in man.
JT Yes.
JMcF Do we find the same kind of spirit in Ziklag, Hebron, and Zion.
JT I think so; only in chapter 6 David is thinking of the ark. This corresponds with Ephesians, where the apostle is labouring that Christ should have His place in the hearts of the saints; “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (chapter 3:17).
JM It is only those who have the gain of what is set forth in Romans that can be led into that.
JT One is not fit for the structure unless he is in the good of Romans. Romans provides material for the structure. “Quit yourselves like men”, the apostle says (1 Corinthians 16:13). The men [p. 288] are supplied by Romans.
EM You are freed from cowardice through Romans.
JT Yes, we are more than conquerors. Think of an army like that!
RL Does that come out in 2 Samuel 3:1? We read, “David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker”.
JT Yes, only the waxing “stronger and stronger” is Colossians, I think. The full testimony to David’s strength was at Jerusalem; that was where David had taken the head of the giant.
RL Is the head of the giant being brought up to Jerusalem a figure of resurrection?
JT But the giant’s head taken to Jerusalem represents more than resurrection. Jerusalem I believe answers to Ephesians. Jerusalem is the centre of light and rule; for us this is heaven. According to Ephesians Christ is said to have gone above all the heavens, and to have led captivity captive and given gifts to men. One would like all to get hold of the new beginning in Colossians. The soul begins to see that things did not start in Eden; they began in Christ. He is the beginning.
TMG God had ever Christ before Him.
WH Outside the responsible man in the flesh.
JT Yes; you get to see that things began before Eden; that is Colossians; whereas in Romans it is recovery that God has brought about. The moral thought of Christ being the beginning is what we need to understand. He is before all things and by Him all things consist.
TMG You refer to Colossians?
JT Yes. In Colossians the Father has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. The heart is attracted at the outset in Colossians. The Son of the Father’s love is introduced undoubtedly to attract [p. 289] our hearts.
WH You mean that Colossians is to produce in our souls the appreciation of Christ as the “beginning”.
JT Yes. There is a good deal said in the word about the beginning, especially by John. David remains a long time at Hebron; seven years and six months.
JM What would be the moral force of that?
JT I think it takes us a long time, as a rule, to get into the idea of Christ as the beginning.
JM And that would be I suppose because we are not sufficiently established in what precedes, the truth of Romans.
JT I think so. David, being a spiritual man, would not be ignorant of the fact that Hebron was built before Zoan, and that fact would impress itself on him. If you go into a city you see different styles of architecture, and an architect can distinguish between them; he knows the different styles. Well David would say of a structure in Hebron, ‘This is not an Egyptian design’. Typically, the designs in Hebron were after Christ.
TMG The designs there were before Egypt.
JT Yes. In keeping with this, David himself had architectural designs. After this he gave to Solomon the pattern of the temple. He had it “by the Spirit”, (1 Chronicles 28:12). There was nothing in that pattern at all borrowed from the heathen nations around. In 1 Chronicles David is seen as head. One would like to see the saints exercised about Christ being the beginning.
EM The apostle, in writing the Colossian epistle, refers to the saints having faith in Christ Jesus and having love to all the saints; was that something like the necessary moral preparation?
JT Faith in Christ Jesus is not simply the faith that justifies, as in Romans 3. Faith in Christ Jesus is faith in Him as the anointed Man. And [p. 290] then they have love for all the saints; that means they are not partial or local, their love for the saints is general.
JM That would follow as the result of Christ being known in the soul as Head.
TMG Having God’s Man before the soul.
JM “Who is the beginning”. Every question is settled and every difficulty overcome as He is held in faith in our souls.
TMG Do we not get that coming out in Colossians 3?
JT Christ is said there to be “everything, and in all” (verse 11). You see Romans leaves things here as they are. It is not to overturn the world, that is not the idea in Romans. In that epistle the Christian is justified, adjusted, as we have been saying; but Colossians means the ultimate overturning of the world as it is; that is to say, all power is in the hands of Christ and He must give character to everything. So that the headship of Christ implies for faith the overturning of everything that is in this world.
WH You say the Head must give character to everything.
JT Yes; you could not think for a moment of Christ taking a pattern of anything from any nation. He is Head; He would not borrow anything from anyone.
RL Behold I make all things new.
JM So that the saints in the good of the truth of Colossians would take things up from Christ. They would not borrow from what is around.
JT No; that is the great aim of the apostle in the epistle, that there should not be anything added to Christ. The thought was that philosophy could be added to Christianity.
TMG Colossians leads us outside the world altogether; our minds are to be on [p. 291] things above.
RL Risen with Christ.
JM It is an order of things outside the world. Romans shows that we are justified and fulfil every obligation according to God, but Colossians brings us into a sphere where Christ is everything.
JT It is illegal to introduce anything of the world there; and that settles the question as to whether modern inventions and devices will have a place in the millennium. They are not needed. “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9,10).
WH “In him” is a new and distinct order of things.
JT I wish we could get a hold of it, because the principles that should govern the saints now are the principles that will govern in the future; and if worldly principles will not be admissible then they should not be admitted now.
JMcF God’s great thought is that Christ should have the prominence in all things, and that puts everything else out of court.
JT If the Lord were here who would think of going to any legislature in the world for law? You would not think of it. Well, I think that is the lesson we learn at Hebron, and it is a good place to stop at, provided we have Jerusalem in view all the time.
JMcF It would be worth while to stay the seven and half years at Hebron.
JT I think so, provided you keep your mind on Jerusalem.
RL It has lately been much before me how the Lord simply passed through this world; He never touched the world’s system.
JT You see the Lord’s attitude in relation to the world in Luke 20:21 - 26. Looking at the penny He says, “Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar’s”. Well, He leaves [p. 292] it there. But on the mountain in Matthew 5, He had a law to formulate, and it is a law that is to govern the world in the future. I think Colossians and Ephesians are pretty much like the latter; whereas Romans teaches us the import of the former.
Now in 2 Samuel 5:1 it is said: “Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake saying: Behold we are thy bone and thy flesh”. You see that is a truth that has come into the soul now concerning the One who is the beginning; the idea is there at least, that we are Christ’s.
TM We are of that order of man.
JT Quite so. And then the tribes say, “in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leadest out and broughtest in Israel: and the Lord said to thee; Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be captain over Israel ... and they anointed David king over Israel”. There is a full acknowledgement of the supremacy of Christ, presented typically in David at Hebron; and the groundwork is there for the truth typically of the body; that we are “his bone and his flesh”.
TMG The headship of Christ is fully owned there.
JT Yes. And then there is the passage in chapter 6, where we see how David was engaged with the ark, which I think takes us to Ephesians 3:17 “that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love”. There it is that Paul tells us that he knelt down: “I bow my knees”, he says, “to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 14). That was the great end of his exercise. In Colossians 1:27 the mystery is “Christ in you the hope of glory”; but the exercise in Ephesians is, “that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”.
EM There is to be intelligent response to the great light afforded in [p. 293] the epistle.
JT Yes. And you look at the Christ now, the One who accomplishes things for God. He dwells in your heart. The ark here is symbolical of Christ as the person by whom God effects things.
JMcF Does the Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith take in the whole sphere of His glory?
JT I think it does. You are strengthened by the Father’s Spirit in the inner man “that the Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye might be filled even to all the fulness of God”, (Ephesians 3:17 - 19). The One who is dwelling in our hearts will accomplish everything for God.
JM So you are let into the secret of God in that way; you have the One by whom everything will be brought about.
JT Yes; it is “the Christ”.
RG Did you say that was the end of all exercise?
JT It is the object of all exercise. I do not mean that exercise stops there. I think Ephesians 3 is the greatest expression of exercise you have. Paul’s concern corresponds with the Lord Himself. We do not find in the Acts that they knelt down; but the expression here is: “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Paul was like David; he wanted the ark to have its own proper place, and that was in the hearts of the saints, that was the dwelling place. David speaks of his afflictions in this connection.
TMG They correspond with the exercise of the apostle.
JT The ark was in the house of Obed-Edom for the space of three months. The ark had a place, but it was a provisional place, a place by the way.
JM What would answer to [p. 294] that?
JT The Lord will come into any heart. You may get a lodging for a night if you are on a journey, but that would not be a dwelling-place. The house of Obed-Edom was only a temporary dwelling for the ark. The Lord will take a place wherever it is accorded to Him. Ephesians 3 is collective. It presents the full divine thought.
JM The presence of the ark brings blessing wherever it is.
JT Yes; the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom.
JMcF When they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces David sacrificed oxen and fatlings.
JT That was a very fine scene. The idea is that Christ is progressing in the hearts of the saints. The ark is not stationary. He is going on to the final place. I think the epistle to the Colossians is to lead on to completeness. They were not to stop. The danger is in not going to the full divine thought. The apostle rejoiced in their order and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ. That was like David dancing before the ark. It is a very great encouragement in any locality where the Lord’s people are, to see Christ acquiring a greater place with them; the spirit of Christ in our souls will rejoice in that even though it is only a small advance.
JM I suppose we can see in David’s wife here how Christ is really refused by the natural heart.
JT Yes. It is the daughter of the man after the flesh. It is not the ordinary flesh here, as we speak. Michal represents another royal line. It is the flesh seen as in its dignity perhaps, as in its religious character. But it is very encouraging to see that that line becomes extinct, there is no increase on that line; there is increase on the divine line, but not on [p. 295] that.
JMcF Will you say a word about the offering of the oxen and the fatlings after the ark had gone six paces?
JT I think it is the great expression of what was in David’s heart, of his appreciation of the Lord.
EM They are not counted.
JT No; it is the kind of offerings; an ox is a very big offering, and a fatted beast would speak of what is of intrinsic worth.
Rem When the ark reached Jerusalem David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. These are increased.
JMcF It marked his increasing apprehension of the value of the ark.