READINGS IN MATTHEW'S GOSPEL (2)
READINGS IN MATTHEW’S GOSPEL (2)
Matthew 3: 1 - 17; Matthew 4: 1 - 25
JT I suppose we may regard it that Joseph was guided by the Spirit of God as to what he did in taking the little child and His mother into Nazareth. It says in verse 20, “take to thee the little child and its mother, and go into the land of Israel”. But he feared to take Him into Judea, as it says, “he was afraid to go there”. We may gather (and perhaps get instruction from it) that there was certain latitude given to him, which he took and which God approved. We may, in our time too, as occasion offers, take a certain latitude or liberty as it were, which God approves.
PL Does the possible danger, which the son of such a father as Herod (Matthew 2: 22) constitutes, afford latitude for going carefully and in wisdom?
JT Quite so. The treasure was great and the risk was great, but nevertheless he evidently was under divine guidance, and the action was approved. What he did fulfilled the prophecy, as it says, “so that that should be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets” -notice “through the prophets”, it is not simply one prophet but “through the prophets” — “He shall be called a Nazaraean”. So that there was evidently an approval of Joseph’s action. I am mentioning this because God is God, and we must not think that He does not, as it were, regard things simply, to speak reverently, and allow people to act according to what is right obviously, or can be approved obviously, in ordinary circumstances or the like. What Joseph did was approved, the words ‘so that’, in verse 23, implying that. It was an important matter that the Lord Himself should be spoken of as a Nazaraean.
PL According to Luke, “they returned to Galilee to their own city Nazareth”. So He was returning to His locality, was he not?
JT Just so. It is the idea of a locality, which has become very prominent in modern times amongst the brethren. The idea of a locality is in principle unfolded in the first epistle to the Corinthians.
TT He did not refuse to go; it says, “he was afraid”. There was no will involved. That would be important.
JT Quite so.
Ques Does not this idea of assembly latitude being allowed to assembly persons, or to the assembly, run through the gospel?
JT What you say is certainly well worth considering. I suppose you have in mind that the gospel of Matthew is the great gospel of the assembly, and therefore certain latitude may be taken.
Rem I am thinking of how much the Lord would leave to us to do, giving us certain latitude in it.
JT For instance, you might think of going to Australia, and go, and God would be with you, and perhaps you had not thought of it earlier.
WmH Would that lay the basis for what marks the assembly as intelligent persons?
JT Just so. “I speak as to intelligent persons; do ye judge what I say”. The first epistle to the Corinthians leaves the way open for many such suggestions. For example, we have in chapter 7, “if the unbeliever go away, let them go away; a brother or a sister is not bound in such cases”. That is to say, the Spirit of God would allow certain things; and so it is as to many cases in marital relations according to the first epistle. The question of marriage, of course, becomes exceedingly interesting in that sense, and serious, as to partners that we may select. At the same time God is wonderfully merciful, and comes down to us in certain conditions, and [p. 119] honours what we may do. We know in the Old Testament that God honoured certain things in His servants, in different parts, as the brethren will remember.
GMS It says, “The Lord preserved David whithersoever he went”, 2 Samuel 8: 6.
JT Just so, and He told him at one time to go to a certain place, because He had given him certain advantage over the enemy.
PL So the word to Abraham, “And they said, So do as thou hast said”, Genesis 18: 5.
AHG In this matter of latitude, have you in mind that this gospel leads up to the thought of sons moving in liberty?
JT So it is. The Lord says, in chapter 17, “Then are the sons free”, and, of course, we can understand how the principle of sonship would therefore prevail in the gospel of Matthew and work out in the liberty of the assembly, in the worship of God. The worship of God properly begins, I believe, with the Lord’s supper, and it is remarkable that in Matthew sonship is introduced. “Then are the sons free”, the Lord says. But then He says to Peter, that he is to go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that came up, and take it for the Lord and himself. So that there is liberty given in those cases, which is a very important thing to have before us.
AH Had you in mind to say anything further about this matter of locality? I was wondering whether the first three verses of Isaiah 53 might bear on it. What a delightful matter there was for God in that! It says, “he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling”.
JT Quite so. “When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him”. “He shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”. So that the Lord grows up into [p. 120] His place. But there is liberty in the position which He occupies as before God.
WC In the matter of divine latitude, is it governed by divine instruction as in the case of Joseph? You said this morning that we do not get guidance in dreams, but by the Spirit. The note to the word ‘instructed’ in chapter 2, verses 12 and 22, indicates that it is an answer after consultation. In our case, is it a question of waiting on the Spirit?
JT Yes, but Joseph went down to Nazareth because he was afraid. He was governed by fear, perhaps right fear, but still he feared. The magi did not fear.
WC In addition to fear, it says he was “divinely instructed” in going to Nazareth.
JT There was certain latitude allowed, as we have said. At the same time the two cases are not alike, because the instruction is specific to Joseph, whereas it was not to the magi, but they did the right thing because they were wise men. The word means ‘wise men’.
Ques Would you illustrate what you have in your mind as to how the matter of latitude might be applied.
JT Well, just what we have been saying, that there is latitude, that God is God and He comes down to us at times, and, you might say, speaking reverently, He sometimes changes His mind. The same is true in the Old Testament.
PL Would the expression, “thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Psalm 119: 96) allow for it?
JT Very good. That belongs to the Psalms, and the Psalms are exceeding broad because they are so extensive, and they correspond with the Pentateuch, referring to experience with God in things. The Psalms and the Pentateuch would agree together in that sense; there are five books in each, and the [p. 121] experiences of the Psalms would correspond with the intelligence and authority of the books of Moses.
AHG Does God, in that way, take account sympathetically of our feelings? I was thinking of Joseph being afraid to go there.
JT Just so. God is, as it were, implying that He agrees to it; He comes down to it. God is God, and we have to learn to increase in the knowledge of God, because He is God and He is full of love. God is love, and we must expect that He will act lovingly thus, as I was saying.
Ques Does the word, “wisdom is justified of her children”, bear upon the matter?
JT Quite so. The reference to the magi has that in mind. They were wise men; they were not governed by political fear of Herod. They went another way, and God approved it. They could have gone the way that was left to them, but they went another way. It was not very specific; God did not make it a specific thing, but they went the right way clearly. They might have taken the first way, but the other way was better.
EAL Do we see that in Jonah? He was not right regarding this matter of latitude from the divine side. The Lord really changed His mind in regard of Nineveh, because of its repentance, but Jonah did not seem to be able to change. Jehovah did not destroy Nineveh; and it grieved Jonah that what he had prophesied did not come to pass.
JT God told Jonah how many people there were in the city — “a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand”. There was no mistake in what God was saying. Whatever Jonah might have thought, there was no mistake in what God said. He said there were so many persons in the city, and should He not change something to meet all that? I mean to say that God is God, and He takes His [p. 122] own liberties, and so it was that He would save the Ninevites. The immensity of their number was in His mind, and Jonah should have thought of that.
HFN In view of what you have said regarding latitude, how does it bear on the opening of 1 Corinthians? We have there, “the assembly of God which is in Corinth”, and then, “all that in every place”. How would the thought of latitude in our assembly relationships apply?
We are just taking up, at Bournemouth, the exercise as to whether we should work together with our brethren in Poole and Parkstone. We all recall the exercise that the saints passed through in regard of local responsibility, and now I was wondering whether the brethren joining up together in privileges and administration would come within the range of the latitude of which you speak. We have been two separate towns, although, of course, it is all one place. Now the exercise is as to whether we should not work together as our brethren have done on the Merseyside.
JT The question is whether you are merely aiming at unity, or is it the case that the facts regarding Bournemouth and Poole warrant it? Do you not think you should decide yourselves, in Bournemouth, what you should do in these local matters, without the matter being made a general question among the saints?
HFN That is what we are doing.
JT I think that is quite right; and that is what we do in New York. We have five boroughs in New York and have no difficulty on that account, but in many other places they have not got such advantages. It is a question of the brethren being wise, like the magi, using the good wisdom that God gives them. “Wisdom is the principal thing”, Proverbs says. We are called to be wise in these things, and I think that, in local matters, the brethren generally [p. 123] should leave the matter to the local brethren, and the Lord will help them in due time as to what to do.
WSS I think it might possibly help to say that in the exercises that we had in the Liverpool area, we were very much helped by Matthew’s gospel, as that which accords us liberty to act in the best interests of the saints in the place. It says in chapter 17, “Then are the sons free”.
JT I fully follow that, because I have known quite a little about that district, and I think the brethren generally agree to it, and leave it with you in the meetings concerned.
WSS We find it has worked out exceedingly well, and I believe it might be an encouragement to others similarly placed, that we have this latitude to move in liberty, and the Lord comes in and supports us.
JT Quite so. In olden times there used to be much more difficulty about brethren and localities, and God has helped us to be patient with each other, and if we give time to it the right thing will be done. There was a case down in the south of England, and although the brethren there decided one thing, it was not approved fully, and I am not sure that it can be approved yet, because there is such a distance of countryside between the two localities. There is hardly the idea of a local position there, binding the two localities together. There are brethren here who know something about it.
Ques Would it not be the way of wisdom to investigate as to what basis there is for two or more meetings to join up? There would have to be some basis, not just that it is thought to be a good idea.
JT Well, when you have two meetings, and five miles between the two, is there a basis for unifying the two meetings into one? I doubt it [p. 124] very much. There is so much land between the meetings to which we have referred.
Rem That is what I had in my mind, because some suggestions have been made as to merging where there hardly seems to be any working basis for it.
GMS Chapter 4, verse 13, brings in the matter of locality. It says of the Lord Himself, “and having left Nazareth, he went and dwelt at Capernaum, which is on the sea-side”, and that fulfils another scripture.
JT Very good, and another thing that may be said about Nazareth and its position, is that it was higher up relatively. There would be better surroundings and a better neighbourhood physically, than the neighbourhood of the Sea of Tiberias. The position about the lake was not so healthy, or happy, or free as the position in Nazareth. So that the Lord, as it were, ignored His own comfort in going down toward the sea. We have to bear in mind that there are localities and localities, and the Sea of Tiberias, or Galilee, would be lower down, less comfortable, less healthy, than Nazareth.
JP We had this morning about Joseph being a righteous man; and now, at the end of chapter 3, the Lord uses the words, “for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. Everything in the assembly should be based on righteousness.
JT I would stress the word ‘all’ — “all righteousness” — which is a great matter in the things of God as to localities.
I think now we might proceed to chapter 4, to bring out the truth of the Lord’s temptations, which, is the main thought that we should have before us at this time. We have the Lord Jesus Himself carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil, so that the temptation is very serious and real, and we have to examine each one [p. 125] because there are three specific cases of temptation, but before them a period of forty days during which He was tempted. The first thing is, He “was carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil”, which is a most remarkable thing, that the Spirit of God should carry the Lord Jesus up into the wilderness. The Spirit did that, and then it says, “and having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he hungered”.
GMS You were speaking of manhood this morning. Is it significant that the Lord’s first quotation from the Scriptures here in this gospel is “Man shall not live by bread alone”?
JT Yes. Man is the word; not ‘a Jew’, but ‘man’.
AM Would the mention of fasting imply that there was no reliance on nature’s strength at this juncture? Are we to understand that in meeting the enemy?
J .T. Quite so. I think we should take up immediately this matter of the temptation by the devil, and the Lord being carried by the Spirit, for what the Spirit is doing now is a thing that enters into the present exercises of the brethren. He has been sent down here to do things, and He is doing them, and we should make room for Him.
JTJr Do you think that the Spirit might therefore lead us into any set of circumstances which might involve temptations, and the question is how we act in them, and what ability we have to meet what might be brought to us?
JT Well, now, the next thing would be whether we are always ready to overcome the temptation in the spirit of an overcomer, because that must be the case. The Lord was the overcomer in this whole paragraph. I do not know whether that was in your mind at all.
[p. 126] JTJr Yes. We have, to be guarded lest the circumstances which we might find ourselves in lead us to fleshly dealing with the thing instead of bringing in what would meet it in the power of the Spirit, the word of God.
JT The first one ought to be looked into. “Then Jesus was carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil: and having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he hungered. And the tempter coming up to him said, If thou be Son of God, speak, that these stones” — you will remember that we are now dealing with the devil’s own words in this particular verse — “that these stones may become loaves of bread. But he answering said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God’s mouth”. That is to say, there is such a thing as the mind of God, and we have to consider that before we answer any temptation. It is a question of God’s mouth and what He has said. Every one of us is to be subject to God. It is not the ‘Jew’, but it is just ‘man’, and what man should do or should not do. We should be governed by God’s mouth, which is the most precious thing which we ever could be governed by.
PL Would that link on a little with the “loin girt about with truth” — power in that sense, in the knowledge of God, to meet every exigency as it arises?
JT The loins suggest the feelings and affection that properly belong to a man, or a woman. He is pretty sure to be tested, but then he is to be girt about with truth. Truth is the great thing there “Having girt about your loins with truth”, Ephesians 6: 14. It is a question of the truth, and not simply the actual verbal truth, but the Spirit of truth.
Ques Would the trade union matter that the brethren are at present facing have a bearing on [p. 127] it; the loaves of bread, in contrast to what proceeds out of the mouth of God?
JT Very good. It is a question of circumstances. If the temptations are divided specifically, the first thing is a question of circumstances, a man’s bread, as we call it, and his family’s bread; what he can eat and what he can drink, what he has to feed himself and his family. The question of circumstances is the first thing to be brought out in these temptations, that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God’s mouth”. We are to be governed by the mouth of God, and how precious it is to have the mouth of God open to us, to speak to us.
Rem I was wondering about the verse in Psalm 37. It says (verse 30) “The mouth of the righteous proffereth wisdom, and his tongue speaketh judgment; the law of his God is in his heart; his goings shall not slide”. Are we preserved as the law of our God is in our hearts?
JT I am sure if we looked into the Psalms we should all find wonderful facts that should govern our circumstances, because it is a question of experience. The first thing you get in the epistle to the Hebrews is almost entirely quotations from the Psalms. It is for each of us to look into the Psalms, as to what guidance we can get out of them.
Ques Is there a moral suggestion in the fact that it says “Jesus was carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit”? Is there a moral elevation about the wilderness journey of the saints, if it is in the power of the Spirit?
JT Well, very likely. There is a certain position in the Acts where the apostle came through the upper districts. Well, what does that mean? There must be something bearing on heaven.
JAC Referring to the Lord as overcomer, would you link that on with the word to Laodicea, “He [p. 128] that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne”, Revelation 3: 21?
JT Just so; so it is the overcomer that is stressed in those cases, in the book of Revelation. It is all overcoming. It is the test for every one of us, and the Lord is the model. Then the corresponding thought for us to consider is, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”. That is to say, we have to understand what the Spirit says and compare it with what the Lord says, because it is a question of the government of the assembly here on earth in the book of Revelation.
AB Would the word that goes out of God’s mouth suggest fresh communications brought in, in the way of guidance?
JT I would say that. It is not a stale matter; it is not simply the Collected Writings, but the freshness of the present ministry. That would be the idea; it is what is fresh. God is constantly giving fresh things for us.
JAC Would you connect, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”, with “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”?
JT Well, the Spirit is the Spirit of God, of course, but we have to be careful as to the actual divine Persons that are in question. I do not know just what you have in mind, though.
JAC Linking on with the thought of what is said as to every word proceeding out of the mouth of God, would that be in line with the thought of the Spirit speaking expressly?
JT Well, in the latter passage it is definitely the Spirit; sometimes the expression “the Spirit” is used and not “the Spirit of God”. I mean to say, the Spirit of God is the Spirit, but then God Himself [p. 129] has also to be understood to be speaking under certain circumstances. We do not therefore always say it is the Spirit. It may be God Himself; that is to say, the whole three of the divine Persons may be involved in a matter, and They may all speak together, because They are always agreed, in that sense. On the other hand, we have the word, “One Spirit ... one Lord ... one God and Father of all”. That is, we have to decide which divine Person is speaking. We have to decide that, because it is not always the Father, or the Son, or the Spirit; we have to decide who it is. That is a thing that tests us, as to which divine Person may be speaking.
JH-s You have in mind that the speaking is one?
JT Well, the speaking is one, only that we have to distinguish, for instance, between what the Father says and what God says as God. We have to be specific in what is said, because the divine Persons are three, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, and although the one name covers all three, at the same time we have to distinguish between each of the three, in any given circumstance.
JH-s I was wondering as to the question raised by the devil at this time, the tempter, “If thou be Son of God, speak”. It is a question of what God says; what comes from God’s mouth.
JT The Lord immediately goes on to that. He says, “Man shall not live by bread alone”. The devil said, “Son of God”. He was aiming at confusing the Lord, and it was a question of what God said, what was uttered by the mouth of God actually, and whether we can say that it is so.
GMS Was the tempter insinuating here that sonship was connected with Deity, “If thou be Son of God, speak”?
JT Just so. He was, in a certain sense, saying that the Lord was Son of God, but in truth it was a [p. 130] question of man, and the devil was confusing the whole matter. It was a question of man. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God’s mouth”.
TT On each occasion the Lord says, “It is written”. What is the significance of that?
JT It is the authority of Scripture. It is said of the Lord, “Having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”, Luke 24: 27. It is a question of the authority of Scripture.
AR Would the verse that John speaks to the young men help in this matter? He says, “I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one”, 1 John 2: 14. Overcoming by the word of God.
JT We have to go back to the three gradations of persons in John’s epistle. First of all, you have the general term of children, “I write to you, children”, and that is Christians generally. Then you have, “I write to you, fathers”; that is experienced men. And then, “I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abides in you”. And then we have “Little children”. These are the three gradations into which Christians are divided.
AR The young men evidently are overcoming the wicked one by the word of God, just as the Lord in the temptations referred to the word of God, to meet the enemy. Would that not be how we meet the enemy today?
JT Just so. At the same time I think we ought to make a little more of the whole subject, because we have to begin with children, which is a general thought, and then fathers, which are men of experience, and then young men, which are persons who are young, young in the truth and young in the [p. 131] Spirit, and then finally there are little children. There are three gradations, besides the first general designation of “children”. I think John’s epistles ought to be carefully read and studied with a view to understanding how the truth is developed, especially the first epistle. The first epistle of John is a first-rate section, and ought to be carefully studied by the young people especially, because of the three gradations seen there.