PREPARATION IN VIEW OF THE ASSEMBLY (1)
[p. 53] PREPARATION IN VIEW OF THE ASSEMBLY (1)
Matthew 17:1 - 8; Matthew 17:22 - 27
— It seemed to me that this chapter would help us to understand how we are to take our places in the assembly according to the divine mind. I had specially in mind the transfiguration and the reference which is found at the end of the chapter to sonship. This chapter is placed between chapter 16, where the Lord speaks for the first time of the assembly, and chapter 18 where He speaks of the kingdom in relation to the assembly. We most of us know that from chapter 13 instructions in regard of the assembly are in question, and that the end of these instructions is in chapter 18. Chapter 17 would result in giving us a heavenly tone to have our part in the assembly, which is seen in chapter 18. If we have not laid hold intelligently on our heavenly part and our place in the assembly, we shall not be able to act suitably. In chapter 17 the assembly is heavenly, in the sense of administering all that is good. It says that the Lord’s “face shone as the sun, and his garments became white as the light”. It is the light of heaven, but in the sense of administering all that is good. The Lord said that God makes the sun to shine on the righteous and on the wicked. If we do not lay hold of that principle, we shall be incapable of acting suitably in the assembly in the presence of good and evil.
The sun rises day after day, month after month, year after year, generation after generation, on the righteous and on the wicked; it shines in all its strength in spite of present conditions. The Lord shines upon us to control us, and it was His thought that Peter, James and John might shine brightly in [p. 54] the same way in the kingdom. Coming down from the mountain, they find themselves in the presence of the power of Satan; but they were superior to the power of evil. Later, in the Acts, the attitude and action of Peter on the day of Pentecost showed that he had profited by that experience. Peter was able to say that they were “eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16) when they were with the Lord on the mountain. Being established by Him to administer good, they were superior to the power of evil. In accord with this wonderful outshining of Christ, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and was available to them at Jerusalem. Peter said, “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which ye behold and hear”, Acts 2:33. All the wealth of heaven was abounding at Jerusalem. We see that, from His point of view, God was acting Himself, in spite of the wickedness that reigned at Jerusalem.
Matthew presents the transfiguration in a dignified way, because he wishes to insist on the character of the heavenly administration. His face shone as the sun, and His garments became white as the light. That heavenly light shines anew from the administrators of the wealth of heaven, as we see in the Acts. In this way we learn to overcome the power of evil in order to administer good; otherwise we shall be overcome by the evil. For example, if a brother sin against me, I am going to try to gain him. Peter asks the Lord, at the end of chapter 18, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? until seven times?” Matthew 18:21. The Lord answers him, “I say not to thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven” Matthew 18:22. Peter’s question and the limit that he would suggest — “until seven times?” — show how little he had profited by the lesson of the Lord on the mount of Transfiguration. The thought [p. 55] was that Peter should serve as a model to all those who were to have part in the assembly negatively and positively. The history of Peter, as Matthew gives it, brings out the mixture that is found in us all as in Peter. On the one hand, he confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; and on the other, he would have turned the Lord aside from the only path which made the introduction of the assembly possible. And it was Peter who said, in the presence of that light: “Let us make here three tabernacles: for thee one, for Moses one, and one for Elias”. You see in Peter in chapter 16, the flesh in which Satan can act in us. It is a very serious thing, that a believer might be an instrument of Satan who would even try to divert the Lord from the only path in which He could glorify God in the presence of sin. And in that light that was shining, Peter would put the Lord on the same level as Moses and Elias. Then, he would limit the grace that characterises the kingdom of God. Nevertheless he formed in type the material for the assembly which the Lord was going to build. “Thou art Peter”, (Matthew 16:18) the Lord said; so that in Peter we see how the Lord is engaged with each one of us. Finally, Peter denies the Lord with oaths. In measure as we come to know ourselves, we see ourselves in what comes out in Peter, and we abhor what is in us. When this lesson is learned, we are ready to take our place in the assembly.
We see in Peter the two sides which exist in the same person: on the one hand the evidence of the work of God in the soul, and on the other, the capacity we have to be in opposition to what is of God.
— I am led to think: What a mixture I am myself!
— What a work is needed that these two characters may be disentangled, in order that the Lord may have the believer as a vessel at His disposal in the assembly! So that, like Paul, each may be led to say, “By God’s grace I am what I am” 1 Corinthians 15:10. Perhaps we have not fully realised that God has taken us in hand that we may have part in such a privilege.
Now, the principle that characterises the assembly is that she comes down; that is what is developed in the Acts. She is heavenly; and in chapter 2 of the Acts a sound was heard coming out of heaven; in chapter 9 a light comes out of heaven; in chapter 10 a sheet comes down from heaven; so that in Revelation 21, the holy city comes down out of the heaven from God. Heavenly grace comes down.
— She is heavenly in origin, in character, in grace.
— Here, it says, “As they descended from the mountain”.
— “He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens” Ephesians 4:10. He descended first into the lower parts of the earth; and we see that the definite thought of God relative to the assembly is that she descends; the gifts have come from an ascended Christ, but who first descended; for this reason the gifts which are here are all to be characterised by the grace of the One who gave them: apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, all for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Then, what is to characterise the servants is the principle of descending to serve.
It is a question therefore of our taking our place in heavenly dignity and grace. In this way the assembly is, through grace, morally elevated above the religious systems of the world. If in the assembly it is a matter of dealing with evil, it must be dealt with on the principle of the sun which rules in the universe of God. In the house of God, government is necessary for good, which involves the refusal of evil; we do not act with malice, nor with the idea of punishment. We learn to act as God acts in the assembly.
They come to put a question to Peter; the question is in verse 24: “Does your teacher not pay the didrachmas?” If I belong to the assembly I ought to answer questions. If in spirit I dwell in heaven, and if I come down from heaven and they put such questions to me, I answer, My master is heavenly; it is not for Him to pay taxes. Questions that are put to me I ought to answer with spiritual intelligence. Peter had answered the question: “Who do ye say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15) by saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” Matthew 16:16. And the Lord answered him, “Flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens” Matthew 16:17. It was a revelation, and not merely the result of faith in an objective truth. I must learn to be governed by the light given. Peter, having been on the mountain of glory, ought to have answered himself, but he was not yet governed by the light. He had not in his soul the sense of the greatness of Christ, and he put the Lord on the level of others. It was a question of paying the tax for the service of the temple. Why should the Lord pay that tax? The Lord gives us the particular light for the moment, but the general principle of my being is that I have light and that I respond to it.
Then, it is necessary for Peter to be afresh instructed on that point, and the Lord anticipates him: “What does thou think, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do they receive custom or tribute? from their own sons or from strangers? Peter says to him, From strangers. Jesus said to him, Then are the sons free”. He had only just heard the voice coming from the excellent glory: “This is my beloved Son”. Why then did he not introduce this light into his answer? Our answers ought to be governed by the light that we have received. May we always know how to give an answer related to the light that governs us? We can never admit that the Lord is on the same level as others. Already on the mountain, Peter would have been ready to put the Lord on the [p. 58] level of Moses and Elias; but now he would put Him on the level of those who pay taxes. “Then are the sons free”. It is blessed to see that the Lord does not say to him, ‘the Son’, but “the sons”. He would use Peter’s ignorance for his blessing, as He would for ours — we who are sons. In order to establish fully the truth of the glory of His Person, He says, “But that we may not be an offence to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when thou hast opened its mouth thou wilt find a stater; take that and give it to them for me and thee”. By this act He shows His almighty power. The truth as to His Person is presented, His power as Creator, having authority over the sea.
— That agrees with Psalm 8 where He has authority over “the fishes of the sea, whatever passeth through the paths of the seas” Psalm 8:8.
— It is a question of our being thus impressed by the greatness and glory of the Son; our souls being bathed in the sunlight that shines in that Person. The Son is seen on the mountain, and the salutation from on high comes out of the bright cloud. Then, coming down, He commands the fishes of the sea. Men can count the mountains, but no one can explore the depths of the seas and count the fishes. Only the Son is capable of that. “Yonder is the great and wide sea: therein are moving things innumerable, living creatures small and great” Psalm 104:25. He says, “a hook” and “the first fish”; that is sufficient. If it had been a net, one might have taken a hundred fishes. But the infallibility with which the Lord secured this one fish ought to impress us as to the greatness of His Person. The Lord’s intention was to make a living impression upon Peter. He was acquainted with fishing (it was his calling), and the Lord had established him a “fisher of men”, so that as a fisherman he was struck by the Lord’s knowledge regarding this one fish.
— [p. 59] Elsewhere He could say to Nathanael, again showing His greatness: “When thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee” John 1:48.
— The piece of money was in the mouth of the fish. It was the piece that was needed. But the sons are free. The epistle to the Romans corresponds to that; the truth of that epistle sets us in liberty to take our place as sons.
— This piece of money governs all that concerns our journey?
— In the epistle to the Romans we have light to pass through the world in a manner suitable to God. It speaks of the Spirit of adoption; but sonship is developed in the epistle to the Ephesians.
— And in Galatians?
— It is indeed a little on the same level, but it was necessary to recover the Galatians who had strayed from that position. The relationship is one thing, but the position is another. In Romans, as in Galatians, it is a question of sons; but in Ephesians we learn that the dwelling-place of the sons is heaven. We have been predestinated to sonship; and in the epistle to the Ephesians, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”, (Ephesians 1:3) and it is in the power of that truth that we come down from heaven to take our place down here in the assembly.
— It says of the brother: “If thy brother sin against thee, go, reprove him between thee and him alone” Matthew 18:15.
— You come down from heaven, and you see your brother at his true value.
Reading with J.T. at Livron, 5th May, 1926, afternoon.