MARK 12
This section of the gospel is leading to the fact that we have a company in the midst of an unfaithful profession in which the prominent men refused the Lord. The builders, the active energetic men of the profession, refused the Cornerstone; but there was a company who recognised the Son and said, “This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes”. It brings us to this that we see Christ in His glorious exaltation and eminence as Head of the corner; we have reached a fine point then.
[p. 132] The Lord goes on with His arraignment of the profession. It is solemn to remember that this is not man in his natural darkness, but man illuminated by God with the sacred oracles, with the temple and the services of God. It corresponds precisely with the present condition of christendom, where we have people who profess to carry on divine service and to be doing what is pleasing to God. It is striking what we get out of these parables; we do not take sufficient account of them. Who but the Lord could have put such a simple picture that a child could follow it? There are great moral questions involved in it.
It is wonderful light on the character of the blessed God that He should lay Himself out to acquire pleasure from men — that is the idea in planting a vineyard. It is not a kind of arbitrary exactingness, but the desire of the blessed God to have pleasure in men. He planted a vineyard, He brought a vine out of Egypt and set up a vineyard with everything that is suitable. He put a fence around it; Israel has been encircled by divine protection. As long as they were faithful to God, they were not harassed by enemies; it was only when they became unfaithful that God let down the hedge and let the wild boar ravage them. Normally He put His protecting hedge around them, in order that they might be perfectly free to minister joy to the heart of God. We are something like that; we have not been hindered from ministering to the pleasure of God by any outward hindrances. At the end of Psalm 80 when they turn to Christ they speak of themselves as a vine made strong for Jehovah. That vine had been wasted and trampled down by the boar from the wood, and then they say, “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself” — they fall back on Christ. If there is to be any fruit for God, it must be by Christ getting His place.
And he “dug a wine-vat”. I think God, in putting His sanctuary among His people, provided them with a wine-vat; He gave a place where all the sweet affections and praises of His people might flow out to Himself. His sanctuary was among them; that was like a wine-vat.
And he “built a tower” — God set His name among them; there was a spot where Jehovah set His name. That meant that all that lay in that name was available for them to call upon and utilise, so that they were ever under divine protection.
[p. 133] He did everything so that they might be pleasurable to Him. “The name of Jehovah is a strong tower” — God in setting His name in the midst of His people provided them with a strong tower that would resist every foe; it was a source of strength in every weakness, so that the wine-vat might be filled right up with wine to cheer the heart of God and man.
Ques You mean that all should contribute?
CAC Yes, God meant all His people to express their love to Him; His was a well-earned love. He did everything for them, He calls attention to that in Isaiah 5: “What was there yet to do to my vineyard that I have not done in it?” He has done everything, and in a certain sense all that He did in a typical way for Israel He has done actually for us. They were redeemed and protected externally, but with us it is a spiritual thing. What about the fruit? What about the wine-vat? The Lord has provided that His people should always be gathered together in common joy with Him, so that He might have His pleasure in them.
The Lord says, “He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others”. To whom does He give the vineyard? The church has come provisionally into that place, to yield fruit in which Israel so miserably failed. The church, viewed as a public profession, has failed as miserably as Israel did, but, as there was a remnant in Israel, so now in the christian profession there are those in whom and from whom God is getting the desired fruit that His heart longed for. It should be our exercise to “follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”, 2 Timothy 2: 22. God never gives up His desire for fruit. He has provided everything so that fruit might be brought forth; therefore we are left without excuse. It is wonderful the pleasure God finds in those who judge themselves and appreciate Christ, and there is no other way of producing fruit for God — all fruit for God is summed up in that. If a man judges himself God gets great joy — look at the joy God gets in Luke 15 in the sinner repenting. If a man appreciates Christ there is fruit for God, because if one appreciates Christ there must flow forth praise and thanksgiving and joy in the presence of all the blessedness of Christ; and then God gets what makes His heart glad.
We come into the value of every ministry and servant that God has sent. There was not a single servant He ever sent to [p. 134] Israel whose ministry we are deprived of, and we are brought into the good of His sending His beloved Son. Every visitation of the ends of the ages is met on us; every divine appearing to man is brought to bear on us with the view of our being fruitful. We find that the gentiles, if they did not continue in the goodness of God, would be cut off; being fruitful for God depends on continuing in the goodness of God. The same thing will happen again. The place of testimony, of fruit-bearing will pass on to another company; the christian profession has failed as the Jew has failed, but God is maintaining His testimony and getting His portion, and He gets it from those who recognise what has happened in regard of Christ. He has been killed here and has been cast out of the vineyard; men have taken the vineyard as their own, and come into the state of which Hosea spoke: “Israel is an unpruned vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself”. That is the condition of things generally in the christian profession, an undisciplined, unsubdued state, all seeking “their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ”. If we recognise the place of Christ as cast out and disallowed of men, we shall see the place He is set in as Head of the corner. What a joy for God when a few saints can look up adoringly and see the wonderful place God has given to Christ! Is there nothing for the divine pleasure in that? Yes, there is every thing for the divine pleasure. All hangs on that Stone. God is working in His powerful grace to bring about that in His people now, those who are born of God and indwelt by the Spirit, and the exercise for us is how far these characteristics are being developed in us so that there is fruit for God in us. Are we set for exalting the things that are of man here, or the Man whom God has made Head of the corner? Babylon is set for the exaltation of the man who is here, but the Spirit of God is set for the exaltation of the Man who is there. In the recognition of failure there is fruit that is very pleasurable to God. If I go to God and tell Him that I do not appreciate Christ a tenth part as much as I should like to do, that is very fragrant to God. I hope every one here tonight would say with sincerity in the presence of God, ‘I do not appreciate that blessed Christ of God a tenth part as much as I ought or should like to do’. What is wonderful in our eyes is the Stone — the One disallowed of men but chosen of God and precious. When we think about that wonderful Stone, we get near to God and to His thoughts of Christ, and we do not even get occupied [p. 135] with the small measure of our thoughts about Him; we are occupied with immense delight in Him. The Spirit of God would give us an extraordinary sense of the place of Christ — He is qualified to be Head of the corner, and to give character to the whole structure that God is building up to His praise. We see the glorious pre-eminence and suitability of Christ to be chief ornament of that structure; He is the chief Cornerstone. The Jew and the gentile are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit in order that there may be a structure in which Christ is recognised as the chief Cornerstone — that is something for God’s pleasure. We come among a few people; they may be a despised and illiterate people externally, nonentities as to this world, but we find those people uniting in saying, ‘Christ is the One to be honoured’. The wisdom and power of God will give character to the whole structure which God is now building, and Christ will give character to the whole universe of bliss which God will dwell in eternally. If we recognise that, there will be some wine in the wine-vat.
Christ is disallowed of men, and the previous chapters show that if we appreciate Him we must follow in His pathway, and that is the cross. If we follow Him we shall not be accredited with a place accorded us in this world; we shall have a place of reproach, but that is the place where there is joy in ministering to the heart of God.
I think we see the Lord here as the embodiment of divine wisdom in bringing the light of God to bear on the present conditions. The first twelve verses of this chapter seem to bring Him before us as the representative of the rights and authority of God in the pains He had taken to secure fruit for Himself. There was fruit for God in those who judged themselves and who recognised the wonderful place of Christ; they were those whom God could delight in. I am referring to those who could say, “This is of the Lord, and it is wonderful in our eyes” (verse 11). They recognised the wonderful place Christ had with God; though, speaking generally, there was no recognition of that. There was no recognition of the complete failure of man after the flesh, and therefore no appreciation of Christ; but there were those of whom it was prophetically spoken who would discern the place of Christ as the Head of the corner, “the stone which the builders rejected, this has become the corner-stone; this is of the Lord and it is wonderful in our eyes”. All that God has secured for His pleasure now is found in connection with the recognition of the utter fruitlessness of the man after the flesh, but the delight and the appreciation of Christ which we have will put some wine in the wine-vat. All the product of divine work is outside the man after the flesh.
Ques Is that the way fruit is being developed in this chapter?
CAC Yes, and it is that which God is bent on getting, because we find that He will give the vineyard to others. The idea of fruit is not abandoned; it passes over to another company. The Lord never abandons any thought He has once entertained. We see in the chapter before us how He secures fruit in resurrection; all is secured by the power of God, so that faith delights ever to say, “This is the Lord’s doing”. The wisdom of God comes in in contrast to all the thoughts of man. There is a great analogy between the position in which the Lord is found and in which we are found. The Lord was here at the end of a profession which was originally of God, but which had come into a thoroughly fruitless state; that is the position in which we are found. We are at the end of the history of a profession which was originally of God, but which has proved fruitless. At such a time as this it is an immense gain to have the light of the wisdom of God upon the situation.
Ques Why does this incident of giving tribute to Caesar come in?
CAC It suggests that the true state of things publicly must be recognised. It is a most important result of divine wisdom that we recognise the public condition of things; there has to be confession of failure, and all that is pretentious must be destroyed. The fact that they were tributary to a gentile power was evidence that they were not fruitful to God. If they had rendered what was due to God they would not have been tributary to a gentile power. Yet instead of being exercised along moral lines they were exercised in seeking to catch the Lord in His words. The Lord emphasises the question of what is for God now. Divine wisdom always leads us to consider for God. “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom”, Proverbs 9: 10. The first element of wisdom is that it sets you in relation to God. God gives us the spirit of power and love and wise discretion, which is very necessary at the end of the day. The effect would be that there would be consideration for God.
Rem The pennies had Caesar’s image upon them, which showed they belonged to Caesar, and man has the image of God and belongs to God. While Caesar is getting his pennies, God is also getting His, and there is fruit for God.
CAC Yes. Whatever exercise comes on the saints in the government of God, if accepted, would lead to fruit for God. This condition was the result of the government of God; I refer to their having to pay tribute to Caesar. If that had been owned, and they had been submissive and subject, it would have opened the way for God to show the character of His blessing in a resurrection order.
Ques What answers now morally to being under Caesar?
CAC I suppose the Christian profession has fallen under the power of the world, has been delivered over to it governmentally on account of the way the lordship and headship of Christ and the presence of the Spirit have been set aside. As a governmental consequence the Christian profession has come under the authority of man. If that were felt and owned, and there was a recognition of God, we should learn the secret of what God has secured for His own pleasure in resurrection.
Ques In a sphere where the flesh is excluded and set aside and dealt with, and Christ is enthroned?
CAC Yes, if there were no resurrection, there would be nothing for God at all.
Ques Is it in that way that Christ is a stone of stumbling?
CAC Yes, the prophet said long before that He was either a stone of stumbling or a sanctuary. If we are not brought under the influence of Christ He is simply a stone of stumbling; if we give Him His place He becomes a sanctuary. Peter says, “sanctify the Lord the Christ in your hearts”, 1 Peter 3: 15.
Ques You were speaking at the beginning about the way wisdom comes in. What had you in your mind?
CAC The light of the wisdom of God is thrown on the whole position. Wisdom consists in giving God His place, and having regard to that which is due to Him, and which He has secured for Himself. He is working in wisdom to secure His own ends. He will secure them and does now morally, as we see in the widow who loved Him with all her heart. She cast into the treasury all she had; she kept nothing back everything she had was devoted to God.
There was exposure of the whole situation in which they [p. 138] were found, but there was light in Christ and Christ exalted; that comes in in David’s Lord.
Rem The earlier chapters were connected with the temple; but instead of in the temple seeking to get God’s mind they were bringing these charges and foolish questions.
CAC Quite so, but all comes out nevertheless. The Lord would lead to a spiritual apprehension of the Scriptures. The Sadducees, in saying there was no resurrection, greatly erred; they were altogether on the line of the natural, but the Lord would bring in the spiritual.
Ques Do you think we might become Sadducees by not giving up the natural?
CAC I do. All that is under death cannot afford pleasure to God. He is the God of the living, and if things are to be for His pleasure death must be set aside.
Ques What do you mean by death set aside?
CAC How could God have pleasure in men under death? He is the living God. To think that God could be satisfied to leave men under death shows an entire ignorance of God and of the whole purport of Scripture, which is that man must be for God. How could he be for God when under death? What good are the promises and everything which God has committed Himself to for four thousand years if man is under death? What is the good of making promises to creatures who would never see them fulfilled? They simply had never taken account of the whole spiritual bearing of Scripture from the start; they wanted chapter and verse, as they always do when they are wrong. The divine judgment was on the man after the flesh, and that man is under death, but God suggests the principle all through the Old Testament that His thought was to relieve man of death. All the sacrifices spoke of that. If a man finds a place of forgiveness and acceptance with God, it is on the ground of death; that is an intimation to all those of spiritual discernment that God intended to relieve man of death, and that involved resurrection. What God had in view was a spiritual order, and it is remarkable that the Lord brings in the angels in order to give the full light of it.
Ques I suppose they knew something of the spiritual beings in the Old Testament economy?
CAC Yes, they knew there were those who were made spirits — He “maketh his angels spirits” — they were heavenly beings, and spiritual beings, and holy beings, and the Lord [p. 139] says that for the pleasure of God there must be a race morally like that. When you come to the full truth you find a Man going up above all angels: “the last Adam a quickening spirit”, and “the second man out of heaven”, 1 Corinthians 15: 45, 47. But the Lord takes the Jews up on the ground of the knowledge they had of a spiritual and heavenly order; and He says, God will put His raised saints in that kind of order to be like the angels. The Lord suggests in that a spiritual order, all the fruit of God’s election, for the angels are elect. The angels are a wonderful family; they are sons; they are elect sons; they are holy; they are intelligent; they do not die; they are marked by obedience, strength and sympathy; they are able to appreciate redemption; they are able to understand the worthiness of the Lamb. What a wonderful company of sons the blessed God has in the angel family, what a delight to God to have a company of unfallen sons who are elect! They are maintained in integrity in their first estate by the mighty power of God. The thought of God is to put man into a position which corresponds with the angels, and if there was nothing more that would be enough to set us up — to be equal to angels! The Lord says, “are as angels”. We have not considered enough what the angels are. The Lord suggests it to us for contemplation when He brings the angels before us in this connection. They are a deathless order of intelligent and holy beings, who are maintaining the blessed God’s original thought by His own power. There is no possibility of defeat; they answer intelligently to the thoughts of God, and appreciate the ways of God which are outside their own experience. What a wonderful family they are! One likes to think of them.
Rem It would be well for us to think over their characteristics.
CAC Yes, and the Lord would lead us that way in the apprehension of that new order which is for the pleasure of God in resurrection. If the Lord leads us by way of the angels it is not fanciful.
Rem In Hebrews 2 it says, “he does not indeed take hold of angels ... but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham”. It shows there is a higher order.
CAC Yes, the whole point of Hebrews 1 is that the Messiah has come into manhood, and inherits a name greater than that of the angels.
Rem Angels minister to the heirs of salvation.
CAC Yes, they are seen then as serving spirits; they [p. 140] are not looked at in that scripture as sons but as servants. It gives a wonderful idea of the assembly and of all the heavenly families, to see that all those who are raised are sons. The Lord says in Luke 20, “they ... are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”. That applies to all the Old Testament saints, all the raised family are raised for heaven, not earth; and they are raised to be in the position of sons, to have the intelligent sympathy of sons with God, so that there may be pleasure for God. God called Israel to sonship, but all failed in Israel, and must fail in the man who is under death, but the power of God comes in and introduces an entirely new order, and brings into effect every purpose of His love. All who are spiritually conversant with the Old Testament ought to understand that God is going to have delight in man.
Rem I suppose it is worked out in 1 Corinthians where Christ is spoken of as the wisdom and power of God. The wisdom of God has displaced in the cross that element of corruption connected with the first Adam condition, and a new order of things is coming in. The apostle says, “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified”. The Spirit of God comes in on that line, and anyone accepting the cross gets the help of the Spirit at once. The temple is connected with the pleasure of God.
CAC Yes, we learn the power of God in 1 Corinthians; it is like the firmament of His power. We get the expansion of His power by the saints being set before Him in resurrection; we shall bear the image of the heavenly One. What a firmament of power to be introduced into spiritually now in order that the wine-vat might be full! The firmament is the saints: every star and constellation sets forth the wonderful way in which God will bring out His glory in the effectuation of His purposes in the saints. It is all done in the power of resurrection.
It is beautiful to see the calmness of divine wisdom with which the Lord deals with the Sadducees. The working of the power of evil must bring out divine resources to meet it; God being what He is, it is a necessity. All through the Old Testament every phase of the power of evil was met at its appearance with the power of God. I suppose the Lord connects all this with the promises when He refers to what God said to Moses “... I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living”. If the Sadducees had thought for a moment, what a [p. 141] foolish thing it would have been for God to make promises for four thousand years and for faith to go on and suffer and triumph for four thousand years in the light of the promises, if the saints were never to see or touch one of them! It is the most absurd thing to think of, that faith should suffer and triumph in vain. If there was no resurrection, then God had promised in vain, the whole thing would be worthless, and the Scriptures worthless. The Lord would instruct us to read the Scriptures spiritually, and have ability to read them in the light of what God is, so that we might learn God and what He has before Him for His pleasure. If we see that, we are bound to be affected by it.
Rem In Hebrews 11 we see that God gave the light of what He was, and Abraham accepted that God was able to raise from the dead.
CAC Yes, and Adam, in calling his wife Eve, calls her ‘life’. What a powerful sense he had of what God was, for though death had come in he could call his wife the mother of all living: there must be a generation of living persons for God.
Rem Many christians do not get the benefit of the Spirit because they are working on wrong lines. If I am on the line of self-improvement and my own efforts, the Spirit of God will never help me. If on the other hand I am in the light of the cross and the setting aside of the first man, Christ becomes the object before my heart, and then I get the support of the Spirit.
CAC Yes, because the Spirit must come to the support of every divine thought, so that when we are on that line we get His support. How could He support us on any other line?
Ques Does wisdom come in that way?
CAC Yes, in learning the activities of God in the scene of death we begin to love Him. I think the enquiry of the scribe was a very intelligent one, and it gave the Lord great pleasure to be asked which was the first commandment.
Ques The Lord brings in the principle of resurrection to indicate that there was to be fruit for God on that line?
CAC Yes, “From me is thy fruit found”, Hosea 14: 8. In the widow we see one entirely free from self-consideration; there was only consideration for God, not a moment’s for herself. She must have been in the light of the blessedness of God to be so absolutely free from every thought of self-consideration. What beautiful fruit there must have been! The Lord sets forth that to love God with the whole heart,
[p. 142] soul, strength and mind is the great commandment; it is the one thing God is set for, and He makes it clear that He will get it. He has it in one Man, and the fact that He has it in one Man secures that He will have it in millions.
Rem The widow did not say she loved the Lord her God, but she acted on it.
CAC Yes, what people say does not count for a minute. These people at the beginning of the passage said beautiful things of the Lord, and true things, but they were all mocking.
Ques Why does the incident of the widow come in in this section?
CAC I thought that the moment we get the light of Christ’s present position in exaltation everything is assured. The exaltation of Christ is come. He is above everyone; He has the place of supremacy, and there is no-one above Him; and that assures that everything will bend under Him. If you were lifted out of this room and taken to heaven, the one fact of importance to you would be that Christ is universally supreme up there. If you were to come back to this earth you would say, ‘I shall carry out on earth what they do in heaven’. That is the kingdom; everything flows from that as being under Christ as supreme.
It would appear that the Lord was taking occasion to bring out the character of what had abiding value for God as a kind of contrast with the external system which He speaks of in the next chapter, “Seest thou these great buildings? not a stone shall be left upon a stone, which shall not be thrown down”. There seems to be a marked contrast suggested between the outward system which was going to be thrown down, and those conditions in which God would secure man for His own pleasure, and to answer to the thoughts of His own heart.
Ques What are the conditions?
CAC The Lord intimated that God had been pleased to identify Himself and connect His name with them. The fact that God has done that involves resurrection: that is, in a world where sin has been and death has come in as a consequence of sin, man could only be for God on the ground of resurrection. God proposes to relieve man of death, and to deal with all that which had brought in death, so that God may have man in the power of affection.
I think this scribe was an intelligent man; he was able to perceive the wisdom with which the Lord had answered the [p. 143] Sadducees, and he was able to perceive what was involved in this, and if God was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, if God had definitely connected His name with men, it was not possible that man could be left under sin and death. They must be brought back to God, and in a world under sin and death, that could only be in the power of resurrection. The scribe had been exercised as to what was important in the mind of God in reference to man, as to what had the first place in the thoughts of God in regard to man. God has come in in redemption to secure a people for Himself. It was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who spoke to Moses. The whole book of Exodus shows us that God had come in in grace and power and in the actings of His own love by way of redemption and deliverance in order that He might have men for Himself. The great objective of the gospel is that God is seeking man’s love. God begins by covering man’s transgressions: there is a proverb which says, “He that covereth transgression seeketh love”, Proverbs 17: 9. God is seeking love, we see that in the first commandment. All through the Old Testament we find God acting in love. Moses tells the children of Israel that it was not because they were great or mighty that Jehovah chose them, but because He loved them. Then we have, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him”, Hosea 11: 1. He loved the people.
Ques Was the scribe one of wisdom’s children?
CAC Yes, I should think he was. God has come out to us in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ: He has shown there His way of relieving us of death and of all that brought in death. What an infinite expenditure divine love has made! We often sing, ‘O blessed Lord, what hast Thou done?’ We should never forget that God has not reached His objective with any one of us until we love Him with all our hearts; we do not stand in the proper gain of the gospel until we do.
Then the Lord brings on the scene a practical illustration of one who put her all into the treasury; and there is not one of us here tonight who cannot do that. The Holy Spirit has come in in order that there might be a divine spring, because redemption and God’s delivering power, all His promises and His thoughts for man, are set up in a risen Christ. All this was in order that the Spirit might be given to men so that there might be a divine spring of love in the heart of man. Those [p. 144] who do not love Christ in christianity come under a curse, just as they did under the law if they did not love God. “If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema”, 1 Corinthians 16: 22. It is a moral necessity that the creature who does not love is under a moral curse. The designation which Paul uses in describing the saints is that they love God “those who love God, ... called according to purpose”, Romans 8: 28. It is very affecting. It touches one to think that the blessed God should care for our love; it is the first thing in His thoughts. It is the blessed result of the service of Christ to bring to pass in the saints what was so perfectly and fully expressed in Himself. We see it exemplified in Him; He loved God with all His heart, with all His soul, understanding, and strength, and His neighbour as Himself. It was all there in Christ. It is a great thing when we begin to love Him in that character. The Lord Jesus becomes the Object of affection because we find in Him everything that we lack in ourselves.
There is something here that cannot be thrown down. In the next chapter we see this wonderful building and great stones, a great external system which makes a show in the world, but it is all coming down; “Not a stone shall be left upon a stone, which shall not be thrown down”. But the Lord is building up a structure that is not coming down and it is built up in the power of resurrection and the affections of the saints. If we love God, will that come down? No, never! The wonderful thing is that what was true in Christ is now worked out in the saints on the basis of resurrection. It is not building on what man was in the flesh; that man has come under death.
I think practically this brings about unity among the saints and delivers from every form of idolatry. “To us there is one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him”, 1 Corinthians 8: 6. That chapter speaks of the importance of love. “We all have knowledge”, the apostle says contemptuously; that is not what counts. “But if any one love God, he is known of him”. That is what attracts God’s attention, that a person loves Him. Is not that an attractive proposal that God proposes? It is the end He has in view in His ways with man in all His blessed workings by the Lord Jesus Christ; it is what the Lord Jesus can bring to pass in us.
These are just the principles that rule in the kingdom of [p. 145] God. The Lord at the end of this chapter takes up a deliberate position. He sits down over against the treasury. We read of Him looking round, walking in the temple, teaching in the temple; but here He sits down. He takes up an abiding place to see how people cast into the treasury. In what way, and in what degree are we committed to the interests of God? The Lord is sitting there still; He has never ceased to have that position, and He takes account of how we are committed to the interests of God.
We see here the inward and spiritual contrasted with what is external. It is a great thing for us to understand the contrast. We are just at the end; in the same kind of position as at that moment. It was just at the end of what had been a divine profession, but it had become fruitless for God. We are now at the end of what was originally set up for God, but it has become a great system of which every stone will be thrown down. Now the great thing is for us to get to what is inward and spiritual and what has value for God; nothing has value for God but what flows out of the affections. All the external system will be swept away, but everything built up in the power of holy affections and appreciation of Christ will abide; all is perfectly set up in Christ. The moment I appreciate Christ it begins to be built up in my soul, and that is an imperishable structure which will not be thrown down.
It is quite possible that the whole heart should be characterised by love to God. The heart represents the purpose, and I should like to think that it was the definite purpose of every heart here to be for God — “we for him” — because we see that of Him are all things. Every single thing we enjoy, that there is any true value in, is of God: nothing else is of Him. Everything that gives us happiness and forms the subject of our fellowship is of God, and in result it becomes the purpose of our heart to be for God.
Then all the desires go that way, “with all thy soul”. Desires are connected with the soul — we desire to be for God in the sense of the wonderful love of God, the way He has moved because He wanted our affections. There was such an expenditure. God has come to seek our love and to get it.
“All thy understanding”. God has made known all that was in His mind connected with man; that is, you do not need to go outside the blessed things of God to find something for your mind. The mind can be wholly taken up with what is [p. 146] of God, with every part of His precious truth. It is possible for all the understanding to be taken up in a blessed and satisfying way with that which God has communicated to us.
Rem The mind was that which was alienated from God.
CAC Yes, man had a mind void of moral discernment. “The kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared” (Titus 3: 4), and He has saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. God has brought about an entire renovation. The widow, as part of the external system was of no value. There were rich people who contributed to the external system and the Lord knew how to value everything rightly, but here was a woman who had no place in all that. Her two mites were no support to the external system, but the point is she put her all into the interests of God, and therefore what she contributed was of more value in the Lord’s estimation than the great gifts the others had contributed. What the Lord is concerned about is that our all should be put into the interests of God; the question for all of us is, Are we putting our all in and not having any side lines?
“With all your strength”. Whatever abilities you have are entirely consecrated to God, absolutely dedicated to God’s interests. You have the thought that there is that down here which is of God and for God, and whatever abilities one has are devoted to God without reserve. We ought to consider these things; what affords pleasure to the blessed God is that we should be wholly for Him. It is a beautiful word, “we for him”. That is the God we have before us, the God of whom are all things and we for Him; every saint can say that. If that is the divine intent I want to pursue it. It is “of whom are all things”; everything has flowed out from God. There is nothing whatever about me that I have not received from God except sin and death. We were all under sin and death, and anything I have of value comes from God and from the Lord Jesus Christ, and is known by the Spirit in our hearts.
The first and second commandment go together, because if you are wholly for God you love your neighbour as yourself; that is, everything you possess you want your neighbour to have too. You are not selfish — how could you be, for instance, about the forgiveness of sins? You want your neighbour to have it too, and so with every spiritual blessing. That is the spring of all service in the house of God; whatever you have, you have no thought of keeping it to yourself. Whatever you [p. 147] have for your own heart, you want your neighbour to have as far as your ability lies by your prayers and service. You love him as yourself, and want him to have what you have and more. You would be delighted that your neighbour should have all you have, and delighted if you found he had more; it would give you real joy. What a happiness it is to the saints to recognise movement and growth and spiritual power in a brother or sister! What a thrill of joy it gives to see spiritual prosperity in a fellow-saint! That is loving your neighbour as yourself. It is something new and divine and it belongs to the system that will never be overthrown.
Ques Is the neighbour a practical test?
CAC Yes, the neighbour tests us. John puts things in that way; it is all very well to talk about loving God, but what about your brother? Whatever you have spiritually in relation to God can have not the smallest element of selfishness about it; you are concerned that your neighbour should have it and share it. It is a real spring of unjealous and unselfish joy to see the prosperity of a saint, to see a man getting on better than oneself. It may produce exercise and lead to self-judgment, but it is a source of joy; and you can go to God and thank Him when you see your brother prospering better than yourself.
Ques What is the force of the Lord saying, “not far from the kingdom of God”?
CAC I think the Lord discerned the spirit of moral understanding; and, if we want to understand the system that cannot be overthrown, we must learn to take account of things morally and according to God, and to recognise the truth of the present position. The Lord brings in the thought of His sitting at the right hand of God; that is an important element in connection with it. Christ is rejected here, and is sitting at the right hand of God, and you are conscious you are in the place where His enemies are; and now an interval has come in, filled up by the presence of the Spirit here — Christ is known at the right hand of God; the system which is being built up by Him can never be overthrown. There is a circle here where love is found in activity; there is the knowledge of God in love and of the Lord Jesus Christ. All the activities that go on in that circle are for everyone to participate in. There is no idea of things being put into a narrower limit than that, and it comes about by understanding what is the thought of God.
The widow spirit indicates a character of things that will be [p. 148] available in the greatest possible outward weakness; she was a true Philadelphian. You may say, I have got so little, but this is specially encouraging for those who feel their measure is small. You can put it all in; it is open to every one of us to be wholeheartedly for the present interests of God. It is not having great gifts. Many in the outward order of things may have a great place and splendid gifts, but that has not the value attaching to the wholehearted affection that would put everything in. That is the point. The widow cast in all her living — no reserves, no side-lines. One has come across brothers and sisters who you feel have put in all; their all is committed to the interests of God. They are always responsive and sympathetic, and always interested in any interests of God and ready to further them in every possible way. They may be quite simple, with no outward place in the assembly, but they are ready to give to the interests of God. Those are the persons of value, and the system characterised by that kind of thing can never be thrown down.
Rem It is an exercise as to how one’s thoughts and time are engaged.
CAC Yes, it brings in everything, your purpose, your desire, your intelligence, every ability you have, and your strength, what is it for? The great privilege is that they should be all for God’s interests here. We are here in a peculiar moment, the moment of Christ being at the right hand of God and His enemies here, and we have the unspeakable privilege of being wholly for the interests of God, and for those who love Him. You may say we are feeble, and I suppose every one of us would say how feeble we are, but is this the line we are on? It is the only line that gives pleasure to God.
Rem Paul said, “for me to live is Christ”, Philippians 1: 21.
CAC Yes, he put all into the treasury; everything he had was unselfishly used for the benefit of the saints. Whatever we have has to be used, and we shall lose the joy of it if we do not use it for the benefit of the saints. You cannot keep your blessings to yourself and retain the joy of them. You can only retain your joy by loving your neighbour as yourself, and that involves cost, because, if you want persons to be brought into the enjoyment of things, it involves labour and suffering.
The scribes were all for the eye of man, long robes and prominent seats, all for man. The great thing is to see that the Lord is sitting over the treasury, and what is done is for [p. 149] the eye of the Lord. We see in the verses previous to this that along with religious pretension there may be great moral depravity. Someone said the other day that he thought he was more affected by the brethren than by the Lord. A person might do certain things that he would not do if the brethren were there; but we should have the sense that the Lord is sitting over against the treasury, taking up this calm deliberate position, and taking account of how much every one of us is committed to the interests of God. The Lord is not deceived by what seems large pretensions, He knows the exact amount of affection in which everything is done, and what is not done in love has no value in His eyes.