"IN THE MIDST"
“IN THE MIDST”
It seems to me that we ought to seek to arrive at the truth of what the Lord had in His mind when He uttered these words. Did He take account of the assembly in the light of God’s purpose, or did He also include in His mind the wilderness circumstances? My conviction is that the latter was not in the Lord’s thought; but that He contemplated the saints as gathered around Him consequent on His death and resurrection, and so viewed as outside of wilderness conditions. To apprehend the thing in a concrete way, I think we have to go back to original conditions. We have to do this to rightly understand any assembly truth; and I would say that, when the saints came together ‘in assembly’, the Lord came to them and this was realised. The Spirit does not record, or give examples of the inward working of the assembly viewed in this exalted position after Pentecost. I think it is left to intelligent affection to find out. The scene after the Supper when they sang a hymn, is the closest analogy as to the singing, but this was before the Lord’s death and resurrection; they were then on Jewish ground. Afterwards, the disciples would be regarded as His brethren before the Father, as now made known, but, referring to Hebrews 2, it is well to remember that it is not the unfolding of assembly truth, but primarily to show the humanity of our Lord. Therefore, it is not to determine when He sings, but shows that He sings in the midst of the assembly; it is a characteristic function, as also declaring the Father’s name to His brethren.
It seems clear that the primary thought of the assembly is that those who form it should be together; and its distinctive privileges are thus enjoyed; this will be true literally when we are “caught up together”.
[p. 566] Much may be said of the wilderness as involving God’s ways, but it is incidental. Though our wilderness condition cannot be ignored, yet I am sure it is not right to apply to us as “in the wilderness” what Scripture connects with us viewed as “in the land”.
My conviction is that the Lord, in using the precious words recorded in Hebrews 2: 12, did not contemplate the saints as in the wilderness, or in incidental circumstances, but rather as gathered together as the glorious result of His death. Were one to take the assembly as viewed only in the light of this passage, we would think of it in no other circumstances than as surrounding Christ to “go no more out”. That is, we should not think of the wilderness. I am therefore afraid that, if we make the praise here to include what may ascend from individuals, as such, we lower its character. I believe it refers to the assembly as outside all here, and that it extends beyond the present period. Indeed it does not specially refer to any period. From another point of view, I believe the words “in the midst” in their ordinary force, mean that the saints are together.