THE FATHER WHO IS IN THE HEAVENS
S.D.P. The thought in Matthew’s gospel was that we might get an impression of how the Father, who is in the heavens, is in a sense beyond all; not affected by evil. I think it is something wonderful. The Lord says, “Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. It is an idea of likeness to the Father, “that ye may be the sons of your Father”, and it is the character of the present dispensation. But in Hebrews it is wonderful to me the kind of persons who have part in the divine system, which is established now in Christ but will be displayed at the Lord’s coming. The persons are formed in the present time and they are this family, “the assembly of the firstborn who are registered in heaven”. It is something we all have part in. It belongs to the privilege of a family. As we know, Hebrews takes up Christian privilege and this is one of them. I was impressed too with Christ as High Priest. There are two qualities we find fully in Him. The first is that He is faithful and the other is that He is merciful. These are two wonderful qualities you find in Christ and we need them; so we are exhorted to be “looking stedfastly on Jesus”, to be attracted to the Lord Jesus. Perhaps we might get a touch about the “joy lying before him” and how it is connected with the thought of despising the shame; and then perhaps to have a short touch about what is involved in the thought of “partaking of his holiness”; then the impression of the order of things, the divine system of things, we have come to. It says, “ye have come to” them. We have not only a mount, the mount Zion, but we have a city. It is all an order of things which is established in Christ. As we know, there is no divine speaking after the Son because it will be display, and you have an impression that you have come to that. I would suggest that the persons who have come to that – it is something you reach in your souls – are those who have gone into the holiest. It is not at the same level as Ephesians because you are in the wilderness, but it is the outlook you have, and we need to have a right outlook; first Jesus, and then you see that you have come to an order of things, the divine system, which is in contrast with the present order of things. In Ephesians 3 everything is in you and you are in the land, and it is in you. Somebody said Ephesians 3 is like the basket, and the fulness is in the basket – “filled even to all the fulness of God” (v.19). Here you do not go so far but still you have come to that. You can identify things and first of all you come to mount Zion and, as we know, mount Zion links with Psalm 87 where we have forfeited everything – I know for myself – and you come on the ground of divine mercy. God brings in His own thoughts and the world to come will be the display of His mercy.
P.L.J. Mount Zion is in contrast to mount Sinai.
S.D.P. Yes, you explain that to us.
P.L.J. I think what you are saying is good. I just wanted to contrast those two. As you were speaking of mount Zion, it is the contrast with mount Sinai.
S.D.P. Mount Sinai would be something God would still use to speak to man in the flesh, in the sense that Christ is the Head of every man. All will have to answer to Him.
P.L.J. It brings out what man in the flesh is.
S.D.P. And Mount Sinai was made to appeal to man in the flesh, but God got no answer from man in the flesh so He had to revert to His own purpose and He comes to mount Zion, which involves the resurrection of Christ. You reach what is permanent in the resurrection of Christ and it is a selective resurrection. It is affecting how God is moving. He is unaffected by what man is doing. He is beyond everything. It is amazing that man in his wickedness does not alter God’s attitude. It has come to me lately that God has His own thoughts. Whatever man may be doing, God is going on with His own thoughts but then if we are in relationship with Himself, He has to do with us and we have to do with Him. It is because you are sons and it belongs to privilege. For me it is a privilege which is as great as going into the holiest to be subject to the discipline of the Father of spirits. What do you think?
P.L.J. What do you think is involved in that expression that you read in Matthew, “be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”?
S.D.P. What have you in mind?
P.L.J. I was thinking the word ‘perfect’ may be interpreted in different ways, but it does not just say, “Be ye therefore perfect”, but “as your heavenly Father is perfect”. That is the standard. It is even as He is.
S.D.P. Do you not think that shows that it does not belong to us naturally, but that it means that any act towards you does not alter or change whatever the condition of man and we all know how quickly we are affected by and how we react to the way things come within our reach. I understand that to be “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” means that you are unaffected in this sense.
P.L.J. So the Father is who He is and what He is regardless of what happens and we are to be the same.
S.D.P. Exactly.
P.L.J. That is what I feel.
K.M.P. In character, would you say? In verse 45 it says, “that ye may be the sons of your Father who is in the heavens”. Is that what you have in mind, the character of the Father? You mentioned that what is characteristic is derived from the Father.
S.D.P. Yes, no doubt it would involve being begotten of Him. We are of His family. Is that what you mean? There is no doubt about it because it does not belong to us naturally, however nice we may be.
D.M.W. Is that why it says that God accepts no man’s person. He does not accept us on the basis of personality but takes us up for His own will. I think the Father of spirits and the heavenly Father seem to go together. It is not the spirit known here of what we are naturally as persons who are not affected by whatever we say or think, unaffected by the evil, in that sense, except to have the Father’s view of it. It says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy”. That is what this scripture begins with: “it has been said … But I say unto you, Love your enemies”. I do not see how we could do that unless we were perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. He is not affected by the evil.
S.D.P. No, He is not, so it is in this way that there is an expression of the characteristics of the Father who is in the heavens. The law was all-constructive and, how you behave regarding God’s requirements. The Lord says, No, the way you get things now is from God’s point of view, and He just takes up something very simple about the sun and the rain to explain what He has in mind. He uses creation to explain something to the disciples, to us.
S.S. Would you say though that there is a difference between what the Lord Jesus brought out when He commanded us to love one another? That was a command for love amongst each other as brethren, but this is different when it says, “Love your enemies”. He is giving us instruction as to how to proceed in the world so that the features of the Father are seen in us.
S.D.P. Yes, and no doubt to love your brother would be the evidence of the divine nature (see 1 John 3).
K.M.P. It may be easier to love your brother than it is to love your enemy.
S.D.P. It might be, but I suppose here it does not necessarily mean that there is something lovable. To have love among ourselves, in John’s epistle, would be that there is something lovable in the person. The simple fact is that he belongs to the same family; whether he is a father or a young man or a little child, he is one of the family. The very fact that he belongs to the family means he is loved but here it is that I do not react or I am not moved according to what is done to me. I know it is very difficult even among the saints, but I was impressed and wanted to share that it is what the Lord has in mind, as you said before, not only that we should be perfect but “as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Mr Darby said you cannot be perfect as the heavenly Father if you are not perfect with Him. It is what God said to Abraham, “walk before my face, and be perfect”, Gen 17: 1.
D.M.W. Is this part of the whole matter in Hebrews 12?
P.L.J. You mean being perfect as your heavenly Father?
D.M.W. And the chastening is necessary to bring us through to something far outside our natural thinking and feelings. The Father’s heart is in love towards us to bring us to His likeness. We sometimes say we are being conformed to the likeness of Christ, which is also true, but maybe we need this more. We would be towards others as the Father would be towards them and therefore He chastens us that this might be the outcome.
S.D.P. Yes, in view that we might be partakers of His holiness. I think it is most wonderful to see what is in view, but you see the pathway in which we are and in which the family, the assembly, the personnel of the assembly, is between the two comings of Christ. In the first verses you have the first coming of Christ and I thought perhaps that there is a link between “Jesus the leader and completer of faith”, and the beginning of the creation of God, even if it came out in His pathway. All God’s thoughts for us in the present dispensation have been set out in Christ; He is the pattern and you see the finality in Him. It is very important to have a right beginning and a right view of what is final and it is all in Christ.
D.M.W. Do you think if He Himself is “the beginning of the creation of God”, He is the one faithful Witness to the creation of God? You get that title in Revelation 3: “the faithful and true witness, the beginning of creation of God” (Rev 3: 14), so what was set on in the beginning of the creation, we have one true Witness. We can see the beginning of it and we can see all the way, through but we cannot see the end of it, and know that it is all filled out in Him. The divine intent therefore is, through chastening, that we be in the creation of God by Him. It is not theoretical.
S.D.P. In a sense Hebrews 12 would link with Philippians 3, and Hebrews 10, the access to the holiest, would link with Ephesians 2, not at the same level, but still the very same idea. One proof that you are running the race, I have felt, is that what is unseen is what is real because it is established in Christ and we see that what is unseen becomes more real than what is seen and it is the proof that we are going on in the race, do you think?
P.L.J. Yes, I think that is the focus. It is remarkable how Christ is prominent in this portion you read in Hebrews – “the leader and completer” and “consider well him who endured so great contradiction”. It seems that the writer would desire to have their minds and sights set on Christ and not occupied with circumstances.
S.D.P. I do not know what your understanding is about this thought of “the joy lying before him”. What is your thought about that?
P.L.J. To my mind it all connects with what I feel is really the primary object, that their eyes should not be on present circumstances and trials and difficulties which may be there, but on Christ and the joy lying before. All that is the positive side. It seems to me that there is a tendency to get on the negative side rather than the positive of what we have and what we are and what is ours. I think that is what really edifies, do you not?
S.S. Would you say, to use a modern term, that this first part of Hebrews 12 really keeps you in focus?
P.L.J. That is right: that is the focus.
D.M.W. Do you think that “the joy lying before him” has anything to do with the thought of the creation of God?
S.D.P. Yes, I wondered if it involves the platform of resurrection. I wondered if there was a link with John 14, “if ye loved me ye would rejoice that I go to the Father” (v 28). I was linking that with Psalms 16 and 17. In Psalm 16 it says, “thy countenance is fulness of joy” (v 11). It is the language of Christ. In a sense you see when the Lord speaks about “your Father who is in the heavens” (I am sorry that I have difficulty in conveying the impression but if we can get it, I think it would be good), the Father is beyond; He is unaffected by things; and what the Lord had before Himself was an order of things where everything is of God. Down here, even in the assembly, we suffer from all that is of man, the flesh and whatever form of the flesh, but still God is using that because we need the discipline ourselves in view of being partakers of His holiness, in view of having the same language and entering into the same joy which was before Himself. In Psalm 16 it says, “thy countenance is fulness of joy” and when the Lord spoke to the disciples in John 14 it was what He had on His heart for the disciples, “If ye loved me ye would rejoice that I go to the Father”. What it meant for the Lord to go the Father, to be raised and to ascend! What it meant for Him, and not alone because in Psalm 17 it says, “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (v 15). Beloved brethren, it is what we aspire to, this final condition where everything is filled to the glory of God and with Christ. But there is all this process. The Father is taking care of forming the greatest family, all this divine system. Think about the greatness of this divine system! We are not just in the wilderness. We have come to the divine system which is existing today.
K.M.P. Could you link it too with the apostle’s sentiments in Philippians 3 where he says, “stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. As many therefore as are perfect, let us be thus minded” (vv 14,15). The thought of the goal here and the prize is not personal, not in any way, but the word you used, the wonderful aspect of this divine system, all being what he could enter into now but would culminate in that day. Would that link?
S.D.P. In Philippians Paul was sharing what was on his heart with them and he wanted them to go into what is excellent, refined. I think it is part of the formation of the assembly in the last days that any resistance, if I can say this, to the attacks of the devil, is involved in the thought of standing, defending the position. It means that the way you act is because you know something of the purity, the beauty, the glory of the presence of God, and you aspire that everything will be permeated by Him. And it will be so soon: we have come to mount Zion and not only do we have a mount but we have the city of the living God.
K.M.P. Would you say, though, that the end that God has in view when He deals with us as sons is “in order to the partaking of his holiness” (v.10). Then it goes on from verse 12, the responsible side and verse 14 says, “Pursue peace with all, and holiness” so that brings in our side. God has holiness in view. The characteristic of holiness itself, I take it, is what verse 10 is, but in verse 14 it is the action that leads to it.
S.D.P. Yes, I think what you say is very important because it is a matter of subjection to the Father of spirits. It would not be possible to follow up what is in verse 12 and so on if we were not in subjection to the Father of spirits and if we are not exercised by it, by the chastening, but you trace things to the Father so you do not feel that the Father is against you. He wants us to be on His side. Do you think so?
K.M.P. Well, the Father has an object in view in taking you up and it is for “the partaking of this holiness” and also “the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it” which lays the responsibility on us, do you not think? That there has to be exercise on our part to be subject to God’s dealings with us, whether that be how He deals with us personally or assembly-wise. In a reading meeting such as this there may be a word that comes forward which could be chastening of the Lord, do you think?
S.D.P. Yes, it might be. Here it is the chastening of the Father. I suppose it would link very much with John 15, where the Lord says, “my Father is the husbandman” (v.1)?
P.L.J. As to the branches and so forth?
S.D.P. Exactly.
D.M.W. So the titles in verses 5 and 6 really belong to the Father. It is not the Lord Jesus; it is the Father.
S.D.P. Yes, it is the Father, but the Lord of the heaven and the earth.
D.M.W. Just so, the way the Lord Jesus addresses the Father.
S.D.P. Exactly.
P.L.J. Sovereignty, you mean?
D.M.W. He is supreme as to this matter of chastening.
P.L.J. Yes, that is the thought of the Lord of the heaven and the earth.
D.M.W. It is not the Lord Jesus, but the Father who is supreme in the economy.
K.M.P. “For also our God is a consuming fire”. You would be impressed with His holiness.
S.D.P. He will never allow anything which is not according to Himself.
K.M.P. Does that link back to your initial introductory comments as to the Father in the heavens? He is there unaffected in one way and yet He would not in any way lower the heavenly standard. I am not trying to confuse the thought of God here and Father, that the Father is first a term of relationship, endearment, and we would be sons in that relationship, but we have one God the Father; which would link the two in that way. What do you think about that?
S.D.P. That is true, but it says too that the Father judges no one. Then you come to what cannot be shaken: “receiving a kingdom not to be shaken, have grace”. It is a divine system of grace. You see it in the Person of the Lord Himself. Grace makes nothing of man. Mr Darby says that quite often. When you preach pure grace, man rejects it because it makes nothing of man. Law makes something of man. It means that you are able to do something, but grace makes nothing of man, so as to all this divine system we have come to, we have done nothing, but it is wonderful to see how the Father of spirits has to do mainly with our spirits. He forms the family which belongs to “the firstborn who are registered in heaven”, who have such a place of distinction in this divine system in the world to come. It is not an eternal setting, as we know, the world to come, but it is wonderful and there is divine speaking. I thought lately you cannot have divine speaking in a human order of things. Divine speaking is always connected with the divine system and this is very clear in Hebrews. Do you think so?
D.M.W. You mentioned holiness. It is what is in view in chastening, “partaking of his holiness”. It seems to come by God’s righteousness, not man’s righteousness. Can you help us a little more on that?
S.D.P. On the thought of righteousness? Well, you know better than I.
D.M.W. I was wondering if it gives permanence to the divine system. God’s righteousness has been established; it has been declared. I think it embraces the way in which God moves to carry it out.
S.D.P. Yes, it would link with what was said before in Philippians 3. Paul was so absorbed with God’s righteousness. He said whatever I have done, it would be my righteousness. It might be a Pharisee of Pharisees, but it would still be man’s righteousness; it would not be God’s. Only God can provide righteousness, His own righteousness.
D.M.W. Is it something we look for? It has been established and declared as something we look for as we undergo this chastening so that there can be the peaceful fruit of it and we can be partakers of His holiness. It has, I suppose, in our minds, evil in view but yet good, abhorring evil and delighting in good, but maybe holiness goes further than that because it is certainly not arrived at by faith. I think it is arrived at through what we have here in Hebrews 12.
S.D.P. Yes, “partaking of his holiness”. Do you mean it is more than being set apart? It involves formation in the divine nature. By calling we are set apart. I find it interesting because this epistle makes a lot of priesthood and, as we know, only Christ has been called priest and He is the Son and the sonship of Christ too is quite stressed in this epistle and we are priests because we are related to Him, not because we are called to be priests but because we are kindred to Him, and it involves a moral process. It is not only a matter of purpose, even if it is based on it as those who are sanctified.
P.L.J. What are you referring to by moral process?
S.D.P. In chapter 5, before the writer unfolded the greatness of the priest according to the order of Melchisidec, he first of all stressed obedience which would be a moral feature. Then in chapter 6 there is the thought of being “imitators of those who through faith and patience have been inheritors of the promises” (v 12). “Through faith and patience”: do you think they would be moral characteristics of priests, obedience, faith and patience? In chapters 5 and 6 the writer reverts to their state. It shows the writer was very careful. He cannot bring in the truth without taking into account the state of the people to whom he was speaking that they might fully understand; so he is free in chapter 7 to say “such a high priest became us” (v. 26), evidently it is not the ground of God’s purpose but still there is something which has been worked out in persons.
K.M.P. Would you say that in 1 Peter it is very clear that we are all priests, “a holy priesthood” (chap 2: 5) and yet what you are bringing out as to the activity to carry it out rightly is a moral process?
S.D.P. Yes, I came lately upon a remark of Mr. Raven’s where he said, I do not care too much for evangelical movements making much of saying that all believers are priests, even if it belongs as a privilege for each.
K.M.P. you would not take being a priest lightly, would you?
S.D.P. Exactly. It involves that you learn to be on God’s side, but in favour of man because the priests has been taken from among men that he might be able. Christ had to go through a certain pathway in view of demonstrating His qualifications, if we can say, to be priest.
K.M.P. Would you say though in Hebrews it says of the Lord Jesus as priest, “For such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens” (chap 7: 26)? Are we to be exercise to take on His features? We are to take character after Him.
P.L.J. You think it might be features of the priesthood of believers?
K.M.P. Christ is unique in His priesthood in one sense because it is “according to power of indissoluble life” (Heb 7: 16), so He is unique in that sense, but we are to take character after Christ.
P.L.J. He is the High Priest and we are a priestly family. Is that what you mean?
S.D.P. Yes, and He is High Priest as being raised form among the dead. The only reference to His priesthood before death is in chapter 2.
P.L.J. He was not that when He was here on earth.
D.M.W. I think what you are saying is that His moral qualifications came out here for Him to be High Priest on the other side of death as we see in chapter 7, verse 26 as quoted. This is your exercise that He “learned obedience from the things which he suffered” (Heb 5: 8), and He is “the leader and completer of faith”. “The patience of the Christ “ (2 Thess 3: 5) is spoken of, in a different context, of course, but these three moral elements of obedience, patience and would seem to be worked out in our experience which oft times requires chastening.
S.D.P. Yes, the Lord did not need that, but we need it, and it is wonderful if we can look at chastening in this way because it is not against us; it is for us. It is in view that we might be nearer to God.
D.M.W. Is love behind that? So, as has been said, even it if is severe, His love is behind that. It is not cutting off our heads but it has an end in view.
DENTON
22 July 2001
Key to Initials:
P.L. Johnson; K.M. Pearson; S. Selman; D.M. Welch, Denton; S.D. Perret, Vevey
(I am sorry if there is inaccuracy in the attribution to remarks. Ed.)