THE NEW COVENANT
THE NEW COVENANT
JT I have often thought that with many Christians there is not a sense of ease in the presence of God. Although sin may be dealt with and judged, there is not ease in the presence of God, for the reason that, while God is apprehended as against sin and in His dealing with it in the death of Christ, He is not apprehended in what He is toward the believer; and I think, therefore, this second letter is to set the saints at ease before God and in relation to each other; to set the saints at ease in the light, and in an order of things in which there is transparency.
RSS Where do you get the thought of transparency?
JT In this chapter and the next one Paul labours much to establish the fact, that as a minister, he was transparent; by manifestation of the truth he commended himself to the conscience of every man in the sight of God.
HG Do you get transformation before transparency?
JT Yes, I think so. By looking at the glory there is transformation into similarity. Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image.
JD Do you look at Paul as setting that forth?
JT Yes, he is in full keeping with his ministry.
WCR How does presenting himself to every man’s conscience work out practically?
JT By manifestation of the truth. The feast of unleavened bread is a great help to transparency, because it is described to be “sincerity and truth”. It tends to reduction as to what we may be in this [p. 341] world; it reduces us. Anything that gives us a place in the world, or largeness in the world, is not according to truth. If the truth is fully admitted and fully owned it brings us to nothing.
RSS Yes, because I suppose the truth is largely that which makes known the mind of God, and when you are in the light of that you will not be very important in connection with this world.
AFM Does not the ministry of the covenant give you liberty to behold the glory of the Lord?
JT In having to do with each other it is a great thing to keep always in mind that grace is the prominent feature of the divine economy. “Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Grace comes first. That is the first governing principle in our relations with one another. You do not give up truth, but grace is the great governing principle. “Of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16).
WB In Hebrews 10 you get the new covenant before drawing near is spoken of. That corresponds with what you have been saying. The believer is established as to the love of God toward him before he has confidence to approach Him.
JT That exactly explains it. We must have God coming out, making known the place we have in His heart, before we can go in. Exodus 19 to 21 really prepare for the dwelling. Coming through the Red Sea, and all God did for the people, bearing them on eagles’ wings and bringing them to Himself, betokened His power, but then it did not imply what He is. Relationships were to be formed with God in the light. Viewing the three chapters referred to, typically, God was to be in the light, and the people were to be in the light. We are to walk in the light as He is in it.
HG You distinguish between what He is for [p. 342] us in grace and what He is in affection, and this is more the latter.
JT So the second epistle to the Corinthians is very much like the towel that the Lord used in John 13. It sets the soul at ease before God. Now in Exodus the relations were to be in the light. That is to say, they were to be according to the place the people had in God’s heart. They were to be in the light, but then where was the man to walk in that light?
BTF You were speaking of unleavened bread; is that the commencement of it?
JT I think it is as regards what we are by nature. The feast of unleavened bread, beginning in Egypt, was the beginning of months from our side, because we have not only to judge Egypt, but we have to judge ourselves, and this means reduction. The feast of unleavened bread implies reduction; it is the opposite of inflation; leaven inflates, but unleavened bread reduces. Therefore, it brings one down as regards this world and correspondingly renders one transparent, because really you have nothing to hide now. The maintenance of a place here brings about darkness in a man. In wanting to keep up appearances and all that, we are not just transparent. The positive side is that God is in the light; God is not hidden. In Exodus 19 He has come out, typically, disclosing that He wishes to enter into a covenant with the people. Typically it is the opening up of His heart in Christ. But I think chapter 21 gives us the other side; that is, it gives us reconciliation — the “Hebrew servant”. In 1 Corinthians 13 the apostle does not speak of a man that loves; he speaks of love itself. Reconciliation is seen in men who love God and each other. “If any one love God, he is known of him” (1 Corinthians 8:3). The Hebrew servant loved his master, his wife and his children. That was the great governing principle in [p. 343] that man. That is what God is pleased with, and He retains him. He sets before us the idea of reconciliation. The new covenant is what God is; reconciliation is what man is before God.
RSS Could you help us a little as to the difference between the old and new covenant in the way in which you are speaking of the latter now?
JT In this chapter it is the second giving of the law that is alluded to, but taking it strictly it is Moses coming down from the mount the first time that we must consider in order to get a right idea of the first covenant. His face did not shine when he came down the first time. It was simply a ministry of death.
RSS Why did his face shine the second time?
JT Because, I think, God had proclaimed His name. He was “merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). He would be gracious to whom He would be gracious, and show mercy to whom He would show mercy. There was an inkling of the new thing in it. The apostle says it was introduced with glory; but that glory is utterly eclipsed in Christianity on account of the surpassing glory, connected with the ministry of the Spirit, and the ministry of righteousness.
RSS Have you any thought as to God having altered His attitude in some respects in the second giving of the law?
JT I think He implied that it would be fruitless to attempt to go on with the people under pure law. I think Exodus 32 sets out fully the consequences of man in the flesh being placed under law. The renewal of the thing was on the ground of intercession. There was in a measure, reconciliation in Moses.
RSS He said he would go up and “peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin” (verse 30).
JT Yes, and he asked to be blotted out of God’s book for the people. Therefore it was on the ground [p. 344] of intercession, it was mediatorship. The first was “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator”. That was law, pure and simple; there was no special glory attached to it. Moses broke the tables outside the camp and came in and used the sword, but he had already interceded for the people, and God had accepted him. In the renewal of the law there was careful provision made that the ark should be prepared so that the tables should not be broken again. That is, Christ was to be there in principle to take the thing into His heart, so the second giving of the law was a foreshadowing of the new covenant.
AFM Is the first epistle to the Corinthians a law — “the commandments of the Lord”?
JT There is a correspondence between the first giving of the law and the first epistle, only that instead of coming into the camp Paul stayed away. If he had come he would have had to use a rod, judgment; so, showing the superiority of Christianity, instead of the Corinthian assembly being judged, the apostle stayed away, and there was recovery. In the second epistle he can express himself freely to them.
HG This chapter suggests that there was moral material in Corinth, answering to the ark of wood. I mean that Moses was told the second time to make an ark of wood and put the tables therein. I thought that in opening up the covenant here the apostle intimates there was material in Corinth suitable for the ark.
JT That is very interesting, especially in that they were an epistle of Christ, showing Christ had been written on their hearts.
WB In regard to what was written, the tables of stone would infer there would be no response whatever, while in the fleshy tables of the heart there would be response.
JT Yes, the heart is impressionable, and it [p. 345] receives an impression of Christ. That is what the fleshy table is capable of.
JD What is the outstanding feature of the new covenant?
JT Here the great outstanding feature of what Paul presents is the ministry of righteousness accompanied by glory, but as to its application to men, I suppose it is the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit.
JD He speaks of the ministry of the Spirit subsisting in glory, then of the ministry of righteousness. What is the difference?
JT Well, the ministry of the Spirit is in contrast to the letter. In verse 17 the Lord is said to be that Spirit, so that it is life. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, so that the ministry of the Spirit in that way is life-giving, whereas righteousness, I think, means a status as before God. The ministry of righteousness sets one up before God in one’s conscience. That is, one is in the presence of the glory without a tremor, but you need to live, and it is Christ as the Spirit of the covenant that engages the affections. Thus there is liberty.
AFM Would you say a little about the two sets of tables? The first set, it appears, God provided; the second set Moses provided.
JT It all, I think, goes on the same line; the second set is based on intercession, and Moses is, as it were, honoured in that way, that he should provide such tables as God could use.
AFM In application to us, does the true Moses prepare our hearts?
JT That is just it. He is the writer, too, according to John 8.
AFM Do you think Christ is the writer or God?
JT Being manifestly Christ’s epistle here, I think He is the writer through Paul. “Written ...
[p. 346] with the Spirit of the living God”. I think Christ is the writer. Of course, the first was by the finger of God; even so, while it was the finger of God writing on Belshazzar’s wall, the writing was by the hand of a man. Inasmuch as it is an epistle, it is characteristically Christ’s writing here.
JB He writes with the Spirit of the living God; the material on which He writes being our hearts.
JT The apostle says here “Ye are our letter, written in our hearts”, showing that he was quite in keeping with the truth. They had a place in his heart, as they had a place in God’s heart, and it was open. It was “known and read of all men”. It was not concealed nor held back in any way. But then he passes on to another thought, that, “Being manifested”, he says, “to be Christ’s epistle ministered by us, written, not with ink, but the Spirit of the living God; not on stone tables but on fleshy tables of the heart”. I take it that he is now referring to what was true in Corinth, and that was Christ’s epistle. They were his epistle of commendation, because he had them in his heart. He did not need another to speak well of the Lord’s people. To bring in again the illustration of the Hebrew servant, he had plainly said, “I love my master, my wife and my children” (Exodus 21:5), and so Paul plainly said that he loved the Corinthians; it was known and read of all men. While it may not have been so plain at Corinth, still it was there. The writing was there.
WB In this double ministry here in regard to the new covenant and reconciliation, the apostle seems to break off in his letter to the Corinthians. He had his heart bound up in their recovery, and he breaks off and this parenthesis continues to the end of chapter 6; then in the beginning of chapter 7 he goes back to the case of the man that was restored;
[p. 347] but in this parenthesis he takes up the new covenant and reconciliation.
JT He appeals to them in the end of chapter 6 to be enlarged, but this parenthesis is to bring about the enlargement. They had been reigning as kings without him. The unleavened bread was intended to bring about reduction; self-judgment would lead them to give up their kingly position in this world, and become the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things, as he was, but the second epistle is for enlargement in connection with God and the new order of things, so he says, “Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians; our heart is expanded”. On account of their state his heart could not go out to them freely before, but now he says, “for an answering recompense, let your heart also expand itself”. As much as to say, Be large enough at least to take me in. You have shut me out of your hearts.
EHT Why did the Corinthians shut him out?
JT They had really shut out Christ by shutting out Paul. Satan attacked the Lord at Corinth by shutting Paul out, so he is compelled in these epistles not only to refer to his official position, but, as a minister, he is competent and in keeping with his ministry. The best proof to them, at any rate, was that he had them in his heart.
BTF Would you say that they were his epistle on the ground of the fact that he had been used to them in a spiritual way, and not exactly because of their spiritual state?
JT There had been a writing there. The apostle had not laboured eighteen months for nothing. Although the enemy had come in and damaged them, the coming of Titus had brought to light that the rubbish had been removed. Titus had brought glad tidings to the apostle. In the second chapter, beginning at verse 13, he says: “I had no rest in my spirit at not finding Titus, my brother”. And again in chapter 7 he says, “But he who encourages those that are brought low, even God, encouraged us by the coming of Titus; and not by his coming only, but also through the encouragement with which he was encouraged as to you; relating to us your ardent desire, your mourning, your zeal for me”. He was coming into their hearts again, and so he says, “so that I the more rejoiced”. The whole chapter shows the effect of the first letter, so that the writing was becoming legible, as you might say, because they thought of Paul and began to renew their affection for him.
EHT Would you say that being at ease before God is the effect of the covenant?
JT Yes. The effect of it is that there is love to God and the brethren; ascending love, and horizontal love.
HG Is the horizontal love because of the place that you learn the saints have in the same affection, or is it the fruit of that affection in your heart?
JT It is both. The effect of the glory, as you said at the beginning, is transformation; but it is transformation into similarity. You hear of loving the saints because God loves them; but they are worthy of love because of what they are in themselves, and, therefore, the Hebrew servant is a representative man. He not only loved his master, but his wife and children.
HG So with Saul when he met the Lord on the road to Damascus, before the Lord expressed His own personal love to him He let Saul see what He thought of His people down here. Saul got an impression.
GWH But until the covenant is known there is more or less deception on the part of the believer.
JT Often the keeping up of appearances. Many are really living on borrowed capital.
GWH He said to Abraham, “I will establish [p. 349] my covenant ... to be a God unto thee” (Genesis 17:7). That is, He wants to journey with us in every circumstance of life. Is that the thought?
GAT What do you mean by living on borrowed capital?
JT You have no spiritual income of your own. We often see what appears to be a flourishing, prosperous business, but if you examine the books you will find it is all done on borrowed capital. You may be living on the spiritual income of others. They are willing to let you have it, but that describes the state of many.
WB What is the reason for that?
JT Well, we do not seem to be able to get at the real source of wealth.
JD What bearing would the death of Christ have on this?
JT I think the bearing of the death of Christ is that it sets forth the love of God. But what I was referring to is a little before this. There seems to be great difficulty in getting at the source of spiritual wealth. There is plenty of it. It is in abundance, but the difficulty really is the keeping up of appearances and living on borrowed capital.
HG We need healing of the dropsy, like the man in Luke 14. He was inflated.
WCR The woman who gave a place to the prophet had plenty of capital to live on.
JT Yes, although she did not know how to use it.
GAT Do you have to buy it?
JT It means reduction. “Unless ye are converted, and become as little children, ye will not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens” (Matthew 18:3). The rich young man had an abundance of riches in this world, but none as regards God, and the Lord says, “A rich man shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom of the heavens”; and again He says: “It is [p. 350] easier for a camel to enter a needle’s eye than a rich man into the kingdom of God”. Then the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved”? and the Lord says: “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:23 - 26). But they are possible in this way, not that a camel cannot go through, but that he has to be reduced to go through, and the reduction principle is the feast of unleavened bread.
BTF Is your thought that leaven goes with borrowed capital?
JT If anyone is maintaining a place in this world and is wanting to be spiritual at the same time, he is really living on borrowed capital, because you cannot get spiritual wealth by maintaining a place in this world. One has to be reduced to a little child before getting a place with God.
AP Do we get what we have by the reading and hearing of ministry?
JT That is right so far as it goes, but then you want to draw water in your own buckets. You want to get the water yourself.
WLP Ministry becomes light in one’s soul.
JT But it is only light as far as it goes. It refreshes you for the time, but if it does not reduce you, you do not get any good out of it. There will be no need of ministry nor light in heaven. The light comes in to dispel the darkness, and the darkness is what maintains you here in conspicuousness; that has to disappear.
JS Unleavened bread brings in transparency.
Ques What do you mean by the feast of unleavened bread?
JT Sincerity and truth. All your actions, motives and words are governed by sincerity and truth, and that makes you very little in the eyes of the world.
JB Maintenance of that would be on our side.
JT You have to supply the bread. God supplies the Lamb, “for also our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed; so that let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7,8).
AFM Does this prepare a way for beholding the glory of the Lord? Titus brought word of the effect of the first letter, there was repentance on the part of the Corinthians, and now they are in a position for this new ministry.
JT That is it. I think he is going to lead them on, now that there has been repentance. Chapter 7 enlarges on it, and now he can lead them on, and he begins by bringing out what God is. But it is to be noted that it is all in connection with what he was personally, and he had not altered. His first ministry among them was in accordance with this, and so they had the thing presented, not only formally and doctrinally, but it had been set forth there in him. Paul’s labours, his ministry and all that he was among them was according to what was presented in the Lord. It is an immense advantage to have a man minister among the saints who is what he ministers.
JD You were speaking of reading ministry and hearing ministry. Sometimes after you read and hear, that is the end of it, but true light brings you to prayer.
JT One often thinks in regard to these meetings, we enjoy the readings and ministry, whatever it may be, but we pass on, and when we go home, very often the whole thing is effaced by the conversation that ensues; so, as you say, if light enters a soul it leads to prayer. You want to get the benefit of that light. There is a word that has become very common lately, and that is the word “consolidate” in a military sense. That is a very good word. You not only get the ground and take possession of it, but you want to keep it; you want to be consolidated [p. 352] in it, and the consolidation comes in afterwards in prayer. You stand in the light through prayer. God is able to make you stand.
JB The true light would be the knowledge of the Lord Himself as the Spirit of the new covenant — coming in personal touch in that way.
AAT Lot had unleavened bread, but he also had quite a prominent place in the gates.
JT The presence of the angels reminded him of the need of unleavened bread. It was really the beginning of his deliverance. We have no record that he used it before. That is the beginning of a man’s deliverance. The visit of the angels reminded him of what was befitting a saint of God, and he was a saint of God. The New Testament tells us in regard to Lot that he “vexed his righteous soul from day to day” (2 Peter 2:8).
JLJ It says he baked unleavened bread.
JT But he did not have it until he recognised the need for it in the presence of the angels. It is a good thing when a brother suggests the necessity for unleavened bread in the presence of another brother.
RSS You mean in the presence of a godly brother one is apt not to feel very comfortable if going on with the world.
JT But if a man speaks about business and enlarging it, and about social status and all that, the idea of unleavened bread does not enter in. I fear such a man would relish leavened bread.
JD Do you think it becomes a characteristic of one to feed upon unleavened bread?
JT Yes, it is to be partaken of every day, and one would covet having that sort of suggestion about one; not only that one ate it oneself and lived on it, but that one should suggest the necessity for it wherever one went. Such an one suggests the necessity of it to other people that he meets with.
[p. 353] The suggestion is with him like the angels’ presence with Lot.
WB And he is capable of producing exercise in those he meets. I wish you would say more about this poverty-stricken state.
JT I am sure the secret of it is the keeping up of appearances.
WB Coming to the meetings?
JT Yes. There is not the surrender of our outward status in the world, and that is carried on parallel with a position in the assembly. There is the keeping up of appearances among the saints without the income. If you want to get the income spiritually you must surrender the outward position.
EHT Do you judge a person as to his spirituality by the unleavened bread he has been eating?
JT The part he takes in the meeting usually denotes where he is. The assembly is where your true measure is seen. That is where you manifest whether the feast of unleavened bread is kept.
BTF In that connection it is most important that what is linked with the feast of unleavened bread should ever be in our souls. That is to guard us against the allowance of evil. “Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us”.
JT That is the standard of the feast. He has undergone the judgment of God against the things you are brought in contact with every moment of the day; so the feast of unleavened bread is to maintain you in consistency with that: “for also our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed; so that let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”. Unleavened bread maintains you in consistency with the death of the Lord.
BTF But does not the thought of Christ, [p. 354] our passover, being sacrificed for us, make us exceedingly sensitive to leaven?
JT Yes, and therefore you are exercised always to have the bread. You do not want anything in your circumstances nor in your family that interferes; that is the line you are on, though there may be something in spite of you.
HG It is not called the fast of unleavened bread. It is a feast, because it really leads you into liberty. As Mr. Stoney used to say: “If I myself deny, where I could gratify, I suffer bitterly, but sweet is liberty”.
JT It is the feast that immediately precedes the feast of Pentecost. Now the feast of Pentecost is not governed by time at all. You remember that there is no limit as to days. It is called the “feast of weeks”, which means the number of weeks that should elapse between the feast of unleavened bread until the feast of Pentecost should arrive, but there is no limit to the duration of that feast. We enter into what is unlimited. Christianity is really unlimited. It connects us with heaven and with eternity; that is where you get expansion.
JD What bearing has the meat-offering on the feast of unleavened bread?
JT Some of us were speaking the other day about the difference between the feast of unleavened bread and the manna. Now the manna brings you into correspondence with the meat-offering. The meat-offering is what Christ was here under the eye of God. Everything was perfectly even; no irregularity in any sense; all was delightful to God from beginning to end. How am I to be brought into correspondence with that? The unleavened bread reduces me, but the manna brings about correspondence to Christ as He was here, so that the manna comes in suitably as food for the soul in connection with the unleavened bread, because you do not [p. 355] want to be negative. You want to be positive, and the positive is that you are like Christ where Christ was. That is the meat offering.
AAT Do the “babes” in Matthew 11 represent the first step?
JT Yes; inflation was touched on by the Lord in that chapter. Capernaum had been lifted up; it had become inflated in its privilege. But then the Lord turns to the Father and says: “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight” (verse 25). There is the company that God can use, and all the vastness of the system that He has in His mind is to be inaugurated in that company. It is as we remain little and weak outwardly that we become enlarged.
HG Saul learned this when he met the Lord. Afterwards he was led as a little child; then he is seen praying; and the next thing is, he is a baptised man in Damascus, where he preaches Christ as the Son of God.
JT He went out of Jerusalem as Saul; he went out of Damascus as Paul. Paul is little. That is the meaning of the word: “who also is called Paul” (Acts 13:9). Simon in Acts 8:9 gave out that he was “some great one”. Paul’s name seems to indicate that he was regarded as little in his own estimation. These are the kind of men that form the house of God.
WB It is significant that this feast was introduced in Egypt. Does this correspond with Romans 6?
JT Pretty much. Baptism is more positional, but the unleavened bread denotes what should be the state of those baptised.
JB The manna is food from heaven, and so it is what builds one up spiritually.
JT It brings about correspondence to Christ down here. The old corn brings about correspondence to [p. 356] Christ in heaven, but you want to be like Him here, and I think the manna is what enables us to be like Christ in every-day life. It is sometimes said that we are so many naughts, and that Christ is the One at the left hand, but that is not the idea of Christianity. Paul was little in his own account, but he says, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10); and what that something was is opened up in this epistle.
HG So a letter of commendation does not commend a man who only makes a profession, but is supposed to commend something substantial.
JT We would not commend anything but what is of Christ.
HG “I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea” (Romans 16:1).
RSS What is exactly the thought of covenant?
JT Well, it implies a bond formed. The marriage bond is sometimes used to represent it in Scripture. It was really that with God and Israel. The allusion to it in Romans 7:4 is the marriage bond: “that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”. God looked for fruit as a result of the relation He proposed to enter into with the people. If you read Exodus 19 you will find it is a carefully worded contract between God and the people. God sends His message; He makes His overture through Moses, and then the people send their reply through Moses. There is a formal contract made between God and the people.
GWH So the covenant is all that Christ was to God in His thirty three years here.
JT Yes, that He gave up that life. God gave up that life. The covenant is really in the blood. The cup represents what God is; the bread represents what Christ is. The one, I think, is the covenant, the other reconciliation. The one is what God is; what He gave up for us on account of His love;
[p. 357] the other is the order of man that came under His eye.
GWH God surrendered that precious life to establish the covenant.
JT Yes, that is the idea of it, and H would have us according to what the bread presents; carrying out His will; men that carry out His will down here.
Ques Before we get away from the feast of unleavened bread, I would like to ask a question as to the difference between it and those feasts kept at Jerusalem. After the Israelites sacrificed the passover, they were to go to their tents, and there eat unleavened bread; and then in the institution of it, it says that in all their habitations they were to eat unleavened bread. Is there any significance in that?
JT A great deal, because it is in your house that the leaven is apt to be found. All is to be sincere and true there; everything in one’s circumstances is to be according to truth. And then you come to the feast of Pentecost (Deuteronomy 16). If you are right personally in your relations and associations you are now prepared for the opening up of things by the Spirit, and these are unlimited.
LM You would say that unless the feast of unleavened bread, of sincerity and truth, is kept every day, there would be no feast for God?
JT Nothing for God, but as one is in accord with the death of Christ, the Holy Spirit opens to him the deep things of God. Enlargement is in that connection.
WLP Is the feast of unleavened bread negative, and the manna positive?
JT The manna is what Christ was for God here.
WLP I wanted to know if they go together.
JT Yes, you must feed on Christ to be like Him. You want to know how He would act in these circumstances [p. 358] that are so trying to you. Wherever they were in the desert there the manna was provided, and so you cannot find yourself in any circumstance in which the Lord Jesus has not been. The appropriation of this is food for one’s soul.
Rem You are in position for the manna as keeping the feast of unleavened bread.
JT Similarity to Christ brings about reproach. People might not say anything, but they have an attitude very adverse to you, which comes out in so many ways, and that is what is so testing. It is painful at times, but your comfort is that the Lord has been in it.
WCR And you have His sympathy.
Ques What leads to the thought of keeping up appearances?
JT You want to be something socially and spiritually at the same time. It is quite right to desire to be something spiritually; God intends that. He has a pattern, and He brings you to that pattern, but you cannot be that and something socially too. The two things cannot go on together.
AFM Many have taken a high seat at the beginning, and do not like to come down.
JT Many come into fellowship, and they do not come as “little children”; and they therefore must keep up appearances, instead of growing up in the thing according to God.
AFM Are there not three passovers, one in Egypt, one in the wilderness, and one in the land?
JT Yes. The passover is connected with our exit from Egypt, our relationship to the testimony in the wilderness, and our entrance into Canaan but in each case it is to disallow the flesh, which always tends to inflation.
JD It is not a good thing to have a reputation. Every man is in bondage if he has one.
JT It is just as well to leave it with the Lord.
[p. 359] As sure as you bring in one the Lord will bring in something that will blast it.
RSS In connection with the old covenant there was a bond between God and the people. It is simple in regard to the old covenant, but what is man’s side in the new covenant? In the new covenant it is what God is for us.
JT From our side what corresponds is reconciliation. You ought to be in accord with that. It is said of Enoch that he “walked with God, and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24), but before he was taken he had a testimony that he pleased God. It is as if God were to say, that He wanted Enoch for ever, he had pleased Him so well; and I think we ought to please God. God has come into the light; He has opened up all that is in His heart. Now, what are you going to make of that? When Samson opened up all that was in his heart to Delilah, she betrayed him. Had she been a true wife she would not have betrayed him. She ought to have treasured that, and so with us, if God has opened up all His heart, what use are you going to make of it? Are you going to barter it?
GWH You joy in God.
JT Yes, you treasure what He has opened up and what is in His heart. He has a place there for me. He loves me, and I delight to be in relationship with a God like that. But the form it takes in Christianity is that we are married to Christ, to Him that is raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God (Romans 7).
RSS And we do that by being brought into similarity to Christ. “But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are [p. 361] transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. I remember Mr. Pellatt illustrating the new covenant and reconciliation by suggesting, that in Luke 10, the Good Samaritan,
[p. 360] you have a beautiful illustration of the new covenant. It is what God was for man. In Luke 15, however, the prodigal son, now brought home and clothed with the best robe, is an illustration of what man is now for God, reconciliation.
AFM You might say a word as to the glory of the Lord which we behold.
JT I think it is that He has brought in the glad tidings and made it effective. God is in His heart. Later on in the epistle, those who carried the bounty of the saints to Jerusalem were said to be “Christ’s glory” (chapter 8:23). That which they brought was the testimony to what He had brought about in the hearts of the saints. The Lord is the Mediator of the covenant. He has made it effective. He has brought in here as a Man the light of what God’s heart is. What moral glory there is attached to all that! It is the glory of the Lord, and He was so entirely out of sight in His ministry, so entirely self-surrendered, that God was seen. He has brought God in, and that was His glory, but then God glorifies Him, and reconciliation is on that line. What a man is. If Christ speaks of God, God speaks of Him. There is nothing veiled, “not as Moses”, the apostle says. And now Paul says, as it were, I am according to all that. Christ was the Spirit of the covenant, and Paul was according to that. His ministry was in the Spirit, and it was in transparency, all was in the light. “By manifestation of the truth”, he says, “commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God” (2 Corinthians 4:2). So the whole of chapter 4 is to show how the vessel of such a treasure was wholly transparent. Paul was entirely subservient to the treasure; and he bore about in his body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body.
AFM The effect of beholding the Lord would produce reconciliation subjectively.
JT You have transformation into similarity.
“Transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”. We all become alike, but it is according to the “same image”, which is the glory of the Lord.
AFM It is brought about by beholding the glory of the Lord.
JT He was entirely free from selfish considerations, and He made God known.
RSS And that is the glory of the Lord. God is known, and we see that in Christ’s face.
JT We look at it there without a veil.
WLP And being transformed from glory to glory is like steps.
JT Yes, it is just going from one glory to another. There is no end to it, it seems.