MARK 7
Ques You were speaking last week about the Lord’s extraordinary movements?
CAC Yes. The end of the previous chapter is a figure of the world to come, when the mighty healing power of the [p. 72] Lord can be known of all. In the passage across the sea we seem to see the course of the testimony in the absence of Christ: He is interceding on high, and then in the fourth watch of the night we get what immediately precedes the morning. When the Lord rejoins the disciples the storm is still, and when they reach the shore we find universal healing. I suppose, strictly speaking, it applies to the time when the Lord rejoins the remnant and by His power puts an end to all the difficulties that the testimony has had to meet during His absence. But in principle it applies to the assembly, because there is a great analogy between the movements and actings of the Lord in reference to the remnant, and His movements and actings in reference to the assembly. We suggested last week the peculiar character of the Lord’s movements in the fourth watch of the night. I have no hesitation in saying that we have reached the fourth watch of the night now, so that what marks the present time is a peculiar movement of the Lord in which He presents Himself in such a way as to test the affections of those in the boat — He would have passed by. This intimates to me clearly that one may expect such movements in the fourth watch of the night. My impression is that is what is going on at the present moment; and I think Scripture warrants us in expecting what may be called extraordinary movements. In Matthew 25 there was a movement at midnight and the cry went forth, “Behold, the bridegroom”. It was calling attention to a Person, not an event, and I think what happens in the fourth watch brings you a little nearer to the morning. The Lord comes walking on the water, and declares Himself in absolute supremacy, in all the power and blessedness and grace of His own Person — He is absolutely supreme. The sea is a path for Him, neither winds nor waves affect Him. He draws near in a peculiar way to test the affections of His saints. Those who have observed the Lord’s movements have recognised a spiritual movement of that kind on the Lord’s part for many years, a remarkable presentation of Himself to His saints. I have no doubt there have been remarkable unfoldings from the Scriptures of the Person of Christ, and of what stands connected with Him in the purpose of God, a clearing up of dispensational difficulties and development of truth, but not only that; there has been a spiritual movement of the Lord Himself which did not take place in the previous watches of the night. He was there on the mountain top [p. 73] through the first and second and third watches but in the fourth there is a peculiar movement. My impression is that the test of spirituality is to a large extent ability to discern the movements of the Lord, and we shall not be intelligent as servants in the fourth watch of the night if we do not understand these movements on the part of the Lord.
The disciples were unwilling to be left behind, to face the long dark night of persecutions, oppositions and difficulties without the Lord; He has to compel them to get into the boat.
Ques Would you say that some things which have happened among us have been the movements of the Lord, some truth brought out to bring us near to the Lord?
CAC Yes, it is remarkable how conflicts have all turned on the Person of the Lord, or on matters relating to the assembly which is so near to His heart. The conflicts in the fourth watch of the night have special reference to the peculiar movements of the Lord.
Ques Would, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock” apply?
CAC It indicates the attitude the Lord has taken up in regard to that sacrificial character of things which marks the last stage of the christian profession. The Lord takes up a certain attitude in reference to it, and His attitude is to determine ours. The epistles to the churches show the Lord’s attitude. If He places Himself at the door and appeals to the affections, it is the attitude the saints should take up in regard to the self-sufficient and boastful profession; the service of the saints should be to wait on that character of things in case there should be any response.
Paul says, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”. The fourth watch is nearer the morning than the first watch.
Ques Is there a danger of our letting the Lord pass by?
CAC There is a danger of our missing the peculiar privilege of association with Christ the Son of God, outside the contrarieties and difficulties which the testimony has to face. It is possible to get outside the testimony. That is a peculiar church privilege that we should be able to join the Lord. In relation to the testimony the Lord draws near in His power to give all needed support, so the testimony is carried through in spite of all the opposition it has to meet — that is more the thought in Mark. It is like Philadelphia; there is something [p. 74] the Lord can support. The Lord says, “I have set before thee an opened door”.
Ques What do you mean by getting outside the testimony?
CAC If you touch the privilege of being in association with Christ before His God and Father, that is outside the testimony. It is spiritual privilege of the highest order; it qualifies you for the testimony, but in its spiritual privilege it is outside the toils, conflicts and difficulties of the testimony. It is just like the difference between “I ascend” and “I send”, John 20. The testimony is connected with “I send”; the privilege is connected with “I ascend”. If we ascend we are outside the testimony in holy, heavenly privilege. I think the enjoyment of privilege qualifies us for testimony; the more familiar I am inside the more competent I am outside. If we have the consciousness of joining the Lord, He is before us — “if it be thou, bid me come unto thee”. It is not exactly faith; it is a question of affection. These are the movements you would expect if the Lord loves the assembly — “Christ loved the assembly”. Just as the Father sent the Son into the world, so the Lord sends His own into the world, but He sends from the place of privilege.
In this chapter we return to the consideration of the moral state of those who pretend to have the highest privileges. This is obviously the beginning of a new section in the gospel; it begins with the complete exposure of what was outwardly in the place of privilege — that is the moral character of Jerusalem that now is. There were certain ideas of purity in the christian profession, but they are not spiritual ideas: they are things that have no spiritual value and that lead to the setting aside of the commandments of God. Human thoughts of purity always result in the setting aside of something which is obligatory as part of God’s will. The Lord would have His disciples perfectly free from tradition. It is important for us to learn this. The disciples did not need to be instructed about washing of hands, they were free from all that, and the Lord justifies them. The word of God and the influence of the Lord Jesus in the soul must have the effect of emancipating us from tradition without thinking about it. It is blessed to escape from all traditions and all that is external because we have come under the influence of the Son of God. There is a whole system of external things today that does not contain a spiritual element, and it is a great thing to be free from it.
[p. 75] How could we serve the Lord if not free from it! External purity of this kind that is of man may go along with what positively sets aside the commandments of God.
Ques “If ye love me, keep my commandments” — that is a test of spirituality?
CAC Yes, “If any one thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord’s commandment”, 1 Corinthians 14: 37. That is the test.
All this is education for us in relation to the service of the Lord; we need to be freed from all that is external and to get to the spiritual import of things. It would appear that the Pharisees had taken up such a chapter as Leviticus 11 in a literal way merely, not understanding the spiritual import at all, not knowing God. There is a contrast marked in this chapter between people with pretensions in regard to outward detail and purity, having no knowledge of God or spiritual intuitions, and a poor outcast woman with no pretensions to external purity but a remarkable knowledge of God. That is the contrast that God puts before us in this chapter. The Lord would have us with understanding, so He says to the disciples, ‘Are ye thus unintelligent?’ The Lord would have us with spiritual understanding of things, formed by our knowledge of God, so that we know what we are doing and why we do it. The great point in this chapter is understanding; the Lord says here, “Do ye not perceive?” We might go on with externals; we have all been baptised, and many break bread — all these things are externals, but the value lies in our spiritual understanding of the import of them. Everything we do should be done with spiritual understanding; without this even the breaking of bread may be external. Everything is merely external to me if I do not understand its moral relation to God. In the Scriptures all the instructions are spiritual; “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that is treading out corn. Is God occupied about the oxen, or does he say it altogether for our sakes?” When you see this you see what is in the mind of God, and see there is some precious moral instruction, some spiritual import in everything God has ordained, so you begin to be exercised to get the import of it. The assembly is composed of intelligent persons — “Judge ye what I say”. Paul regarded the assembly as capable of forming a judgment on everything he said. If a brother gives out a hymn, he ought [p. 76] to be able to say why he gave it out, and not simply to say, ‘It was a nice hymn and it came into my mind’. That is not intelligent; we ought to know why we do it. Nothing should have a place in the assembly that is not the product of spiritual understanding.
It is a blessed deliverance to see what the heart of man is; the Lord lays it bare. If I accept the Lord’s exposure, I shall never again trust my heart for a moment. Then you see a woman with a remarkable knowledge of what is in the heart of God. The Pharisees are occupied about bread, but are despising the wonderful Loaf that was among them. The woman had such a sense of the character of that Loaf that she says, ‘One crumb of that Loaf will do for me’.
The Lord retires from this scene when He has exposed the true character of Jerusalem. In this gospel He does not go to Jerusalem until He goes to suffer and die; He retires from it. He has exposed the outward pretence to purity and the inward corruption of what man is, though in outward pretence to purity — inside nothing but corruption — no appreciation of God. The Lord leaves it and goes down to the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and keeps Himself out of sight — He would not that any one should know it. It seems to me the Lord’s movements always had reference to the Father’s work in souls — “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. He had come to finish what the Father had begun; the Lord’s movements were all in view of the Father’s work. The Father had worked in that poor woman and had given her a proper estimate of her heart and of His character. The Lord puts her to the test. He goes to the house and He would not have anyone know it, but He could not be hid. You cannot hide the Lord from the blessed exercise and confession produced by the Father’s work in souls. Look what a sense this woman had of what the heart of God was. She could stand any amount of testing. Self was obliterated in the sense she had of the presence of God; she was ready to be a dog in the sense of God’s goodness. The Father works, and the Son comes in to take hold of what the Father has wrought, and to bring it out to completion.
To learn to estimate things according to what God is, is the most priceless blessing that could be conferred on man. To be able to understand things in relation to what God is would clear us from all externals at once.
[p. 77] The disciples asked the Lord to explain this parable, for they were still without understanding. They had got clear of washing by what they had learned as taught of God in the company of Jesus, but they did not understand that what entered in did not defile. Peter did not learn this until after he received the Spirit. We are often proved unintelligent because we do not look at things in relation to God, and estimate them by the knowledge we have of God in our souls. Paul says to the Corinthians, “Some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame”. ‘You ought to be ashamed that you know God so little’. If the Lord exposes a defect it is always with the thought of removing it. The Lord never works on negative lines; He always has a positive end in view.
Ques Is the Father always first in dealing with a soul?
CAC Yes. We belonged to the Father before we belonged to Christ. “Thine they were and thou gavest them me”. The Lord falls back on the Father’s work, and that is what we have to fall back on. All externals, and what the natural man can take up, will break down and fail, but the Father’s work will not.
A great deal of our religion is traditional, more than we think. Things have been generally accepted for many years, and we go on with them, but when challenged suddenly we do not know what to say. We go on in traditional lines, instead of having the knowledge of God and understanding the spiritual import of things. We do things because they were done by the ancients, and because we have always done them. There is not much for God in that.
Mark 7 is obviously the beginning of a new section in the gospel. We see the heart of man exposed with his religious pretensions. The Lord discerns it all plainly. God is looking at man’s heart. Such a state as is described is really spiritually Tyre and Sidon, and the Lord intimates this by going there. He does not go publicly, for it was not part of the public ways of God to evangelise Tyre and Sidon, but He puts the infinite goodness of God within reach of the utterly undeserving; helpless need finds out the heart of God. The Lord seeks to bring out in the Syrophenician woman the depth of the work of God. He uses slighting language — even a term of contempt — to bring to light that God could secure what truly honoured him in a Syrophenician woman while the children were full of hypocritical pretensions. It is the sovereign working of God [p. 78] brought to light in one who was not yet the subject of any public testimony, one who had no privilege of the children’s place, but who knew the Father in a way that the ‘children’ did not. She has to accept the sovereignty of God that had given the house of Israel peculiar privilege. The Lord does not speak to her of how the children were treating Him and missing everything, nor does she question the children’s privilege. But she lays right hold of what God was; her own worthlessness and undeservingness only magnify what He was. What a blessed service to uncover such a working of God in the human heart! The same One who could and did uncover all the evil of man’s heart could also uncover what God wrought there, and He delights to serve in such a way as to bring it to light. That is the character of His service here. “Because of this word”. It is really the divine value of what came out of her heart that secured the deliverance of her daughter. All the circumstances show the work to be purely of God. A heart that honours God, and that loses all its own importance in the sense of what He is, is very precious to God.
Then He returns to carry on His service in Galilee. The woman could hear and speak right; and the Lord returns to produce a similar state in the remnant that came under His touch. Taking the deaf man apart (verse 33) would indicate the intense individuality of the Lord’s service. Do not be content to be amongst christians and go on with others! Have your own personal history so that you can recount what the Lord has done for your soul. His fingers would indicate His skill. The heavens are the work of His fingers; how perfect they are! It is said of the prince’s daughter that the roundings of her thighs are “the work of the hands of an artist”. His movements are with such grace that it is evident that her limbs have been fashioned by a skilful hand. Have we sufficiently considered that the way we hear is to be the evidence of the skill of the Son of God? How much we forget! People take things just opposite to what is said! “Ye are become dull in hearing”. Then He spat; this would have more to do with the inward virtue of His Person. “Let your word be always with grace, seasoned with salt”, Colossians 4: 6. It would seem to suggest that He would make us to speak as He spoke, that He would touch our tongues with the virtue of His inward grace. “With their tongues they have used deceit; asps’ poison is under their lips”, Romans 3: 13. What a contrast to have the inward grace [p. 79] of Christ affecting our tongues! It is really what comes out of Him — His Spirit. I think the Jew had a great idea of the sanctity of the spittle of a holy man. The Lord takes all up in relation to heaven. What is it to heaven if we do not hear or speak right? The Lord takes up all the deep inward exercises of it, even as He did fully on the cross. Then He speaks the word of power.