“NEITHER WAS THERE GUILE IN HIS MOUTH”
Isaiah 53:9; Genesis 37:3-11; Luke 2:41-52;
G.J.R. What has attracted me to this statement in Isaiah 53 is the end of verse 9, “neither was there guile in his mouth”. Perhaps the brethren would help to bring out that feature as expressed in the other scriptures that we have read. Joseph in chapter 37 had the coat made for him, and it would seem that he wore it; we might enquire what that would suggest to us. He dreamed his dream as to the sheaves, and he told it to his brothers, and it drew out the reaction that is described here. Then he dreamed again, and he told the dream again. Would this suggest a certain guilelessness? I thought it would suggest something very attractive to God.
Then we see the Lord Jesus at the age of twelve, about whom we wish to enquire, and with whom we would seek to be occupied. I thought that we see again the guilelessness that marked Him when He was found in the temple and His mother rebuked Him. His reply was, “Why is it that ye have sought me? did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”. I thought that we might see that same guilelessness there.
Going back to Isaiah 53, “he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth”. The more I learn of my own heart – never mind the world or what is in the newspapers, never mind the prisons and the courts – the more I learn about my own heart, I have to acknowledge that violence and guile would be the two features that I would use to get my own will. That might sound shocking to say, but I am just suggesting that to the brethren. I would probably use guile first. But what it says of the Lord Jesus is, “he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth”.
H.T.F. He never did any violence, and nobody encountered the Lord Jesus without having good done to them.
G.J.R. Yes, it says He went about “doing good, and healing all that were under the power of the devil, because God was with him”, Acts 10:38. Every miracle except one (Matt.21:19) was for good.
R.W.McC. The Lord was always marked by grace.
G.J.R. Those who knew Him well contemplated His glory and they concluded; “and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth”, John 1:14. That was the sober distillation of His lovers who were with Him.
R.W.McC. I remember it being said that nobody was ever harmed by the Lord when He was here.
G.J.R. Yes, “holy, harmless, undefiled …” (Heb.7:26); I suppose that refers to the years of the Lord’s service. Then “separated from sinners” perhaps refers to the forty days after His resurrection as well as to His present position, but “holy, harmless, undefiled” – that was His life here.
R.W.McC. Can you help us as to what guile means?
G.J.R. I think I know it only too well. The brethren will forgive me for saying this, but when I was a boy, especially if we had visitors, when it came to bedtime and I wanted to stay up, I would either be very quiet or be very helpful in the hope that I would get to stay up. But my father was a lot smarter than I was, and of course he would notice, but I think that was an early manifestation of guile.
P.A.G. Is it significant that Satan’s first intervention that we know of in Scripture was in guile? As to what God had said to the woman, he said, “Is it even so, that God has said …”, Gen.3:1. It is not exactly a manifest untruth, but Satan brought the truth into question in the mind of the woman, and thus questioned God.
G.J.R. That puts it on a very sober level; we should keep that in mind. Satan would, if he could, cause us to do violence to the truth, but I think we know in our own hearts, and maybe in our own experience, the success he has had in undermining what is true.
A.J.McK. Is it precious that the Lord could say “the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, John 14:30. I was thinking that this scripture does not say ‘guile did not come out of his mouth’; it was not there! Is that what we need to lay hold of in the preciousness of the order of manhood that was here?
G.J.R. Yes, that is very helpful, “the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”. The idea of a foothold might be conveyed in that, but in Jesus there was no point at which the enemy could enter the thin end of his wedge. You are emphasising that “neither was there guile in his mouth”; that is very helpful. It says, “in him sin is not”, 1 John 3:5.
J.R.W. Do you think that what precedes helps in relation to what has been suggested? It is not as though His circumstances were easy, it is not as though life, as men speak, treated the Lord Jesus kindly. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted ... He was taken from oppression and from judgment ... he was cut off out of the land of the living” (vv.7,8). That is the background to the statement that you have drawn attention to. It is almost as though the prophet is saying that even after all that, there was no guile found in his mouth.
G.J.R. That is helpful. The background is, as you say, what He suffered from the hands of men, and also what He suffered under the hand of God. But in relation to what He suffered from the hands of men, Peter says, “when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not”, 1 Pet.2:23.
J.R.W. I was thinking of Jesus’ words on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23:34.
G.J.R. How direct those words were. The words of Jesus were always direct. I know in the parables that there is a certain mystery, but think of those words “for they know not what they do”.
J.B.I. Jesus said that He was “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8:25.
G.J.R. Would you mind reading the footnote as well.
J.B.I. It says, ‘‘in the principle and universality of what I am’, i.e. his speech presented himself, being the truth’1.
G.J.R. That could only ever be said of one Man. That is completely unqualified, “Altogether that which I also say to you”. This is God’s Man; He is the centre of God’s universe!
A.G.M. Paul writing to the Ephesians says, “But ye have not thus learnt the Christ” (Eph.4:20), and then he goes on to write as to the new man “which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness” (v.24). Is our occupation with Christ in this way to have an effect within us?
G.J.R. “But ye have not thus learnt the Christ”; that is a very powerful statement. We know that these things are foreign to Him. But then you went on to speak of the new man; just read it again.
A.G.M. “But ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus; namely your having put off according to the former conversation the old man which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts; and being renewed in the spirit of your mind; and your having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”.
G.J.R. The old man can only corrupt itself, but the new man is a collective thought. How remarkable that it should say that it is “created in truthful righteousness”. Surely righteousness is truthful; Mr Taylor said something to the effect that that is righteousness in all due proportion2. What a mature thought that is; righteousness in all due proportion. Because of what is in my heart, I would naturally give a lot more emphasis to this aspect or to that aspect, but no, that is not the manhood of Jesus. The new man is a collective thought, it is “created in truthful righteousness and holiness”.
P.M. The answer to that is seen in the city which comes down as “pure gold, as transparent glass”, Rev.21:21.
G.J.R. Yes, “pure gold”; well, that would be tremendous, but transparent glass – you are pointing to that being the answer. I think it will be. God will have the manhood of Jesus answered to, and it will be in the assembly which is His complement.
P.M. I feel tested by what you have set on. Even the street of the city will be as “pure gold, as transparent glass”. Mr Taylor said that should mark our walk, even in the present time3.
G.J.R. Well, may it be so!
K.M. In man’s world, pure gold is hardly workable, is it?
G.J.R. Tell us what would you mean by that?
K.M. Well, it has to be alloyed to make it useful, but there is no alloy in the Lord Jesus.
G.J.R. That is very helpful. There is one of Mr Darby’s hymns where he twice uses that word, ‘without alloy’ (Hymn 88). He was obviously very impressed by that. You are speaking of what, in man’s world, needs a little bit of mixture; some modern metals are quite complex in their composition. But you are drawing attention to the fact that man’s world requires mixture, it requires guile, it requires compromise. God does not work like that. God works with what is pure, all based on the Man of whom we are speaking today.
H.T.F. In that reference we had to Ephesians 4, note ‘d’ to verse 22 as to “corrupts itself” says ‘’or goes on in corruption’. The Greek word is used for “destroy” in 1 Cor.3:17’. What has been referred to in relation to what is useful in the world, it destroys, and if that comes into the temple, then it corrupts the temple of God. That is what that reference is to.
G.J.R. That is a very solemn word: “If any one corrupt the temple of God, him shall God destroy”.
J.R.W. I do not want to turn you aside, but I was wondering what you would think about the occasion when the Lord went in to the temple and made a scourge of cords. It says, “The zeal of thy house devours me”, John 2:17. I wondered if you would say something as to that in relation to what we are considering.
G.J.R. Well, my first thought is that it was entirely compatible with what He was. It was not an aberration; it was entirely compatible with what Jesus was because what was happening in the temple was an offence to His Father. He was marked by grace, but nothing would come between Him and His Father’s glory. Is that acceptable?
R.W.McC. Yes. He could have annihilated them, but in grace He simply drove them out. Would that bring it to their conscience?
G.J.R. Very good. Although we have not used the phrase in this reading yet, what we have here, “because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth”, is actually the moral worth of Jesus. The reason for His being with the rich in His death was not exactly because of His work of atonement, but because of His moral worth. A Man of such worth would not pass by that offence to the Father’s house in John 2.
J.R.W. I am glad of what is being said because that brings out the moral consistency that was there. Another time the Lord spoke very strongly was in relation to the protection of the person of the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29). What has been said helps to show the moral consistency of the Lord, and as has been said, it can still be said “he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth”. What Jesus did was absolutely consistent with what He was.
A.J.McK. Did Joseph of Arimathæa perceive that moral worth?
G.J.R. I think he did. He was a disciple of Jesus; what a service that was at that point. He came forward when not one of the twelve was available, not even John. It says he “emboldened himself and went in to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus”, Mark 15:43. I do not want to make too much of it, but these words “emboldened himself” are not used for nothing. He may have had some appreciation of the Person, but the moral worth of Jesus could not be hidden. Pilate, a careless man, granted the request.
R.W.McC. It may be that there was guile with Pilate, but God’s hand was over all.
G.J.R. It was all settled. Men had “appointed his grave with the wicked”; you see that with the Romans. They were organised, but God had another plan, and we are given the reason for it.
P.A.G. The Lord was met with violence and guile at His trial, such as it was. That did not cause Him to stoop to the level of what He faced. Must we learn from that?
G.J.R. He had already accepted from the Father all that that cup would involve.
P.A.G. He says, “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22:42. The will of the Lord was never separate from His Father’s, but it could not righteously be His own will to take something so awful, so vile, yet He would take it from the Father, because it was the Father’s will.
R.W.McC. In that regard He went three times to the Father about it, as if there was conclusive witness that there was no other way to proceed.
G.J.R. He had already received the commandment. “I have received this commandment of my Father” (John 10:18), but still He would go those three times, although no more.
P.M. Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus “I knew that thou always hearest me”, John 11:42. That would be everything that He said, not just what He prayed.
G.J.R. Very good; that may take us on to Joseph and his coat. Your reference to “thou always hearest me” – everything that the Lord said, the Father heard.
P.M. Not only heard, but found delight in!
G.J.R. I wonder if we see that in this coat. It was made because of Jacob’s special love for Joseph. “And Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was son of his old age; and he made him a vest of many colours”. I think that Joseph actually wore it, and if we could think of the way he carried himself while wearing that coat, it would remind us of the Lord Jesus, how He moved here consciously in the Father’s favour. I like what you say, “thou always hearest me”.
P.M. It was that coat which was dipped in blood.
G.J.R. Yes, it was. I am impressed that when Joseph knew the reaction of his brothers to it, he did not hide this coat away. There was no guile.
J.R.W. You get the impression that he would not wear it in any sense of pride or as lording it over his brethren. He wore it as accepting it from his father, and as you say, with a certain guilelessness that comes out in this section.
G.J.R. I am sure the brethren will not misunderstand me if I use the word ‘naturalness’ in relation to this, and also in relation to the Lord Jesus in the temple in His reply to His parents, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”. There was nothing forced about it, and neither was there anything held back about it. It would have been a denial of Joseph’s true relationship with his father if he had hidden this coat away.
H.T.F. Even in the description of the coat, there is an inscrutability about it that is impenetrable. Such was Joseph’s moral worth, and it seems that his brethren at this point had no appreciation of him at all. It only brought out envy, and that was what happened to Christ.
G.J.R. That is helpful. The Lord said that no one knows “the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal him” (Matt.11:27), but as to Himself He says, “no one knows the Son but the Father”. We always remember that. However freely we speak of our Lord Jesus, we always remember that as to His Person, no one knows Him but the Father.
A.G.M. Joseph’s brothers sent the coat to their father, and they said to him, “discern now whether it is thy son’s vest or not”, Gen.37:32. They knew that it was Joseph’s coat.
G.J.R. What the brothers did shows me the depth to which I can stoop, and it is from that depth that those brethren were recovered.
A.G.M. I have been thinking about what has been said as to the coat. In the life of Christ, there were glimpses of who He was, but we could not penetrate the greatness of who the Son is. I wondered if, in His life here, there would be the contemplation of that, but then there is the securing of everything in His death and that would bring us on to Joseph speaking to His brethren.
G.J.R. Yes, very good. One of those glimpses was the Lord Himself asking the question “What think ye concerning the Christ? whose son is he?”, Matt.22:42. And then the Lord says, “If therefore David call him Lord, how is he his son?” (v.45).
P.A.G. There were many colours in the coat.
P.M. Does that link with what has been said as to the Lord Jesus, that every moral feature that God loved was there in perfection, and none excelled more than another, save perhaps grace.
G.J.R. Yes, very good.
R.W.McC. Do the colours speak of richness? Jacob was wealthy, and God had blessed him. These colours would have been something special. They would give us a glimpse of the glories of Christ, the moral glories that are spoken of.
G.J.R. The purple would be there. I have read that at one time, a unit weight of purple dye cost more than a unit weight of gold. That is what Lydia traded in, and it represents the imperial glory. Joseph was going to be exalted among the nations, so morally, if not literally, the purple would be there. The Lord said to His disciples, “Thou shalt see greater things than these”, and that they would see “angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”, John 1:50,51.
R.W. Joseph would have appreciated the coat and the value of it. The Lord Jesus said of His Father, “I do always the things that are pleasing to him”, John 8:29. Joseph was directed by his father to find his brethren.
G.J.R. Yes, he was. That is another interesting thing which fits very much, because when Joseph went after his brothers, he expected them to be where Jacob had sent them. They were not there. He might have thought; ‘Why are these people not where they were sent to?’. Someone said, “I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan”, Gen.37:17, but they had gone. You see the simplicity of Joseph, in that he expected to find his brethren where their father had sent them, but they were gone. It was strange to him.
J.B.I. At the end of his gospel, John refers to all the things that Jesus did, but he only tells us some of them. At the beginning of his gospel, he writes, “The Father loves the Son”, John 3:35. He presents the coat of many colours.
G.J.R. Very good, yes. I think we are right to value those writings especially. We do not in any way set John’s gospel above other scriptures, but the fact that it was written last means that we are entitled to pay a lot of attention to it, as applying particularly to our day. “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”. Has the Father ever recalled any of those things? I do not think so. Those things are still in the hands of the Son.
J.R.W. Why does this bring out such hatred? It says, “they hated him yet the more” (v.5), and again “they hated him yet the more” (v.8). It seems to increase.
G.J.R. Well, that is the reaction of fallen man. Man by nature does not care for Jesus, but hates Him, and that is in all our hearts.
J.R.W. As we think of these things, I find Him attractive. We need to thank the Holy Spirit for that, because without His operation we would not find Jesus attractive. I was thinking of Isaiah 53; it says, “when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and left alone of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their faces; – despised, and we esteemed him not” (vv.2,3). That comes out here in relation to Joseph’s brothers. It is a wonderful thing that, with the Spirit’s help, we can think of Joseph, and of course he speaks to our hearts of the Lord Jesus – exceedingly attractive.
G.J.R. That is because of the operation of divine grace. When we speak about divine grace, we are thinking about the intervention of God in our favour, in our experience. And there has been a change, in that we do find the Lord Jesus attractive.
R.H. I have been wondering about the word in Peter; “Laying aside therefore …”, 1 Pet.2:1-3. Certain things are linked there with guile – malice, hypocrisies, envyings – which we get in this section in Genesis. Malice is often behind any speaking with guile, but then we are to desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word. Do you think we get a contrast there in the word, “if indeed ye have tasted that the Lord is good”? Does that link a little with what we are speaking about?
G.J.R. That is rather a solemn scripture to bring in, because it suggests that these things might be found in the Christian circle. They are serious things. Malice has an energy, I suppose. Then hypocrisies; that means saying one thing and doing another; pretending to be something we are not. Barnabas was carried away by certain dissimulation, which is close to hypocrisy: even a man like Barnabas was affected by this, although it did not characterise him. Characteristically he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, but for a moment he fell into this. And then envyings. Objectively we would say ‘That is not a good thing. We would not want to be like that’, but this is an exhortation to these persons to whom Peter was writing and to us. Then evil speakings – it is very close to my heart. But Peter is very gentle; he says, “Laying aside” these things. We are in the dispensation of grace, the Holy Spirit is here, and it is possible that we can lay aside these things. It is a very solemn scripture you bring in, but a very helpful one.
R.H. I have been thinking that what we have been having is the pure mental milk of the word. Milk is something, you might say, that is simple in itself. It speaks of it in relation to babes in 1 Corinthians 3.
G.J.R. Yes, it is nourishing and easily digested.
J.B.I. Would you say more as to Joseph telling his dream here? He need not have done, but he did.
G.J.R. Well, I think that even as boys at school, we quickly learned that it is better not to say certain things. But not so Joseph. Now I am not in any way denying that we need to be wise; it says, “think so as to be wise” (Rom.12:3), and “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion”, 2 Tim.1:7. I fully acknowledge that we need to be wise in what we say, but I am thinking of Joseph telling his dream as showing his guilelessness. If we think of the Lord Jesus and the way He spoke of Himself, it was the truth. As you quoted, He was altogether that which He said He was. It says, “he cannot deny himself”, (2 Tim.2:13), and He did not deny who He was.
J.B.I. It was not to Joseph’s natural advantage to tell his dreams. We often think about what might be to our advantage as to what we say and do not say.
G.J.R. I think we can see that his motives were pure; he was a lowly man. We would be reverent, but the Lord Jesus as a Man here was a lowly Man, and He would not hide who He was or why He was here in order to save Himself.
R.W.McC. That character of man was what God was looking for.
G.J.R. Yes indeed, and He is going to centre the universe on that Man.
H.T.F. “A man who has spoken the truth to you”, John 8:40.
P.A.G. That is the only time the Lord ever referred to himself as a man. If He was going to describe Himself as a man, He would describe Himself as a Man who had spoken the truth to them.
K.M. The Lord has every right to look upon us to see what kind of people we are. I was thinking that He could look at Nathanael in John’s gospel and say, “Behold one truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile”, John 1:47. That is an excellent commendation; there would be a meaning in the fact that Jesus said, “one truly an Israelite”. His profession was good.
G.J.R. If the Lord Jesus describes a person as an Israelite in whom there is no guile, they are such a person. We have no need to modify that. It is a delightful section. Nathanael confesses the Son of God; “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel” (v.49). Going back to these colours, that is the scarlet. Nathanael was a man who appreciated the scarlet, the royalty of Jesus. And then the Lord said, “Thou shalt see greater things than these” (v.50); He said, as it were, ‘You are going to see the Son of man with universal dominion’. That is the purple
When the Lord Jesus was in the temple, we see His simplicity in the way that He answered His mother, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”. But she did not know, and neither did Joseph. Jesus expected them to know. He was found in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, hearing and asking them questions. Why was the Lord there? One of the reasons He was there was that – especially according to Luke’s presentation – the truth should have been there, and that He had come as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God (Rom.15:8). He was only twelve, but that was the direction of His mind. It says, “And they understood not the thing that he said to them”, but He went down with his parents and came to Nazareth and was in subjection to them. What worth was there! As far as we know, He would remain in Galilee until He was thirty years of age, and there was no guile in Him.
P.M. He was hearing and asking. Was that another colour? He was not exactly teaching; He took the place that belonged to a boy of twelve, but perfect in every detail.
G.J.R. Yes, very good. And just to build on that, it has been pointed out that it does not say that He taught or that He learned – save that “he learned obedience”, Heb.5:8.. What Scripture presents is perfection in a Boy of twelve.
R.W.McC. Mr. Bellett wrote, in his book4 to this Boy of twelve who was everything the Father sought to find in a boy of twelve, that His character was perfectly natural in its development. It was not precocious, it was not out of place: as you say, He was not taking a place that was not His.
J.R.W. The scripture in Hebrews speaks very powerfully: “though he were Son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered”, Heb.5:8. It has often been said that it does not mean that He had to learn to obey, but it means that He learned what obedience meant in the practical walk of life, “from the things which he suffered”. Does that fit in with your thought?
G.J.R. It does, and the way that you put it is helpful. It is not that obedience was irksome to Him, but it was, we say reverently, a new experience which could not be attached to His place in the Godhead. Because He was in that place, it was His to command.
A.J.McK. Is what has been referred to part of what the Father found His delight in? The expression of His delight would be a result of approving a life in which there was no guile, no violence.
G.J.R. Yes. To resort to another quotation, the Father’s hand which struck the chord found all in tune5.
The history of Joseph is a very interesting one. We get an impression of his brothers as ten very rough men. They dipped the coat in blood, and sent it, had it carried, to their father with a cold message. There was the question of what to do with Joseph. Should they kill him? Reuben said, No, do not do that; he tried to save Joseph, but he did not. Judah said, There is no profit in killing him; let us sell him (Gen.37:22,26). Then these men lived for many years with that dreadful guilt. How hard they must have become. They were hard to begin with to have done what they did; scripture speaks of being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb.3:13). During the history that followed, how awfully hard those men must have become. Eventually they went to Joseph, and he remembered the dreams. He recognised them, but they did not recognise him. I do not think he said anything to them about their sin against their father, when that had really been the root of their departure – the way they had trampled on their father’s feelings. But Joseph worked with them in such a way that Judah spoke words which must have been a delight to the heart of Joseph; they must have represented the result that he had striven to arrive at with them. I know it was only one of the brothers speaking, and it would have taken too long for us to have read it today, but it is one of the most powerful speeches I know, from men of like passions to ourselves. It fully reflected the feelings that Joseph himself had for his father when Judah said, “lest I see the evil that would come on my father”. That was exactly the result which Joseph had looked for in his brethren, and I would suggest that it shows that guile had gone from Judah.
A.G.M. There was much moral exercise that Joseph’s brethren had had to pass through. They did not know that the testing they were going through was of the Lord, but in type His work reached through so that there were similar features seen in Judah to those which were already in Joseph. Does that bring out the glory of Christ Himself, in the way that that He works with us? We might not know it, but He works in different ways with us in discipline so that the features that are so pleasing to Him, and exemplified in Him, are seen. Joseph can speak to them as his brethren.
G.J.R. Yes. A little time before this, what Judah did not want to happen was that Benjamin, the guiltless one, should be involved, because that is what was happening. Benjamin was completely guiltless as to his brothers’ enmity towards Joseph, and yet he was becoming involved. Judah would not have that continue.
R.W.McC. Judah had been through some very deep soul exercise in the intervening years. He had known what it was to lose two sons and to act beneath the character of a son altogether (Gen.38).
G.J.R. Well, the Lord is passing us through times of testing, but His skilful hand is over all.
R.W.McC. As you say, it is when Judah thought for his father that Joseph made himself known. Benjamin was there to hear it.
G.J.R. Yes.
H.T.F. Joseph was very senior in the Egyptian court, but do you think that when Joseph could not control himself and when he made himself known, there was a touch of guilelessness about that?
G.J.R. There was indeed.
R.W.McC. Joseph’s dealings with his brethren, the hiding of the cup and so on, although intricate in a way, would not be guile, would they? Help us about that, please.
G.J.R. We see divine wisdom through a good deal of this history, and I think we also see man’s wisdom from time to time. In the butler, we see someone who was straightforward; he told his dream to Joseph. The butler had seen a vine before him. The baker waited to see what the answer would be for the butler. That was man’s wisdom, and we see where it ended. We can say that human guile never works divine wisdom.
R.W.McC. Joseph’s servants must have wondered at what was going on when he wept, but it had a purpose. Every divine movement has a purpose. The baker said, “I also was in my dream” (Gen.40:16), but Joseph was in line with what God was working.
G.J.R. Very good.
A.G.M. Does this section really bring out the deep feelings of the Lord Jesus as He sees these features coming to light in His own? Joseph could not control himself and then it says he raised his voice in weeping. That is deep feeling. Is it really the appreciation of the Spirit’s service with each one of us?
G.J.R. I am glad you touched on that because while there were servants present, there was also the man who was over Joseph’s house. It is very instructive, very suggestive. He knew exactly what Joseph was doing and worked in perfect unison with him. Is that not instructive? Joseph’s brethren had been very worried about their money being returned in their sacks; they were very uneasy about it. They brought it again and they brought other money; they were making a lot of the other money which they had brought, saying that they were honest. The man who was over Joseph’s house said, “fear not … your money came to me”, Gen.43:23. I remember Mr Jim Renton ministering in Worcester and he said, ‘That is the Spirit’s service’. We have the hymn:-
‘The Spirit now bears witness
To Christ enthroned on high:
Redemption’s work accomplished … (Hymn 332)
Everything is done. The man said, “fear not … your God … has given you treasure … your money came to me”, Gen.43:23. The man who was over Joseph’s house worked so beautifully with him. I just submit that to the brethren.
P.A.G. In relation to what was asked as to the way Joseph had acted in relation to the silver cup, did Joseph’s brethren really have to come to it eventually that they could not do without a brother? They had managed without Joseph as they thought, although they did not know that he was helping them. But they came to it through Benjamin, because the offer made to them as to the silver cup was, “let it be according to your words: let him with whom it is found be my bondman, but ye shall be blameless”, Gen.44:10. They all could have gone back home and left Benjamin, but Joseph brought them to the point where they realised they could not do without him, both for his sake and for their father’s sake.
G.J.R. We know that, do we not, brethren? There is One we cannot do without; neither Christ personally nor as formed in His own.
Grimsby
10 February 2018
LIST OF INITIALS:
H.T.F. H.T. Franklin Grimsby
P.A.G. P.A. Gray Grangemouth
R.H. R. Hutson Bedford
J.B.I. J.B. Ikin Manchester
A.G.M. A.G. Mair Cullen
K.M. K. Marshall Colchester
P.M. P. Martin Colchester
A.J.McK. A.J. McKay Witney
R.W.McC. R.W. McClean Grimsby
G.J.R. G.J. Richards Malvern
J.R.W. J.R. Walkinshaw Maidstone
R.W. R. Wallace Spaldwick