GOD HONOURING HIS SON
[p. 194] GOD HONOURING HIS SON
Matthew 22:1 - 14; Matthew 25:1 - 13; Revelation 22:16,17
JT What is in mind is to show that the idea of the bride and Bridegroom runs actively through the dispensation from the beginning to the end, and that it particularly enters into the service of God as presently constituted. Matthew, as these passages show, brings it in perhaps more than the other evangelists, although the idea is in all of them. It may be helpful to remark that, in the types, the thought is connected with God: the marital thought has its origin with God. God thought of it in regard of Christ and the assembly: Abraham thought of it in regard of Isaac: Isaac thought of it in regard of Jacob: that is, the fatherly or parental feature of the truth enters into it. So that as in assembly service, that part of it that is referring to the Lord includes that God would make much of Christ and have Him honoured, as He says Himself, “That all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father” John 5:23; and that links our first scripture with God making a marriage for His Son in type and figure, and the thought is to make it the most felicitous occasion possible; joyousness spiritually belongs to such an occasion, and this is to be reflected throughout the dispensation. Chapter 25 presents the marital thought from the side of affection in the virgins to show how it had lapsed and become revived. So at the end of Revelation we have both bride and Bridegroom: the bride is not in view in the gospels formally, but she is in Revelation and speaks with the Spirit.
WW Is it that Matthew brings in this sort of ministry more than the other writers on account of his being an assembly gospel?
JT Well, I had that in mind. The assembly is what I suppose we might call the prime thought in [p. 195] relation to Christ in the gospel of Matthew, and these marital parables — as we may call them — come in after the assembly is spoken of formally; first of all, Christ’s assembly, viewed thus as the assembly in administrative function, so that it is obvious the bearing of these parables must be toward the assembly. We have similes of the kingdom of God before chapter 16 and then, after chapter 16, we have a series of similes which contemplate the existence of the assembly — these parables of the kingdom of the heavens contemplate the existence of the assembly; in fact historically the joy contemplated in the wedding feast, as it is called, necessitates the assembly. There was no Jewish thing capable of such a feast as this, for it is a question, not of the wedding, but of the wedding feast; it is real satisfaction that is in mind. God would have us to understand that it is to honour His Son, that He does it for His Son; it is a most joyous time, and the place for it suggests the assembly; conditions for it are not found elsewhere any more than they are for the house in Luke 15, which is a parallel thought and contemplates the assembly.
WC Would wisdom’s house in Proverbs 9, where similar language is used, confirm what you are saying as to the assembly preceding the feast?
JT I think that is good. “Wisdom hath builded her house” Proverbs 9:1 — there is everything there that is needed for such an occasion. Where could you find conditions suitable for such a joyous occasion when you consider who it is — it is God preparing for His Son — save in the assembly?
Ques The king made a wedding feast for his son; would that speak of the movements of God in time?
JT It does. It took on a supremely joyous character and it could only do so because there were conditions.
[p. 196] JS Would it be right to say that the kingdom of the heavens being made like to ten virgins would suggest the way God has come in in latter days and wrought definitely?
JT Well, historically, chapter 25 dates back to the beginning, but it would not go as far back as chapter 22, because the foolish virgins, that is, professors of christianity, are contemplated in chapter 25 God, as it were, brought this about; He would give mere professors, as we say, and they were only that, full credit for the profession they made. Their own negligence is to be credited for their great disaster, not that the oil was not available, but that they were negligent about it.
WW What is the significance of its being a question of the lack of the garment in chapter 22, but the lack of the oil in chapter 25?
JT There is only one man lacking the garment in chapter 22. It says, “The king, having gone in to see the guests, beheld there a man not clothed with a wedding garment”. It is an exception, it was a very exceptional case. But in chapter 25 half of them are foolish, so that this chapter evidently alludes to a morally later period when the profession had taken on, you might say, unreality; and yet they are accredited with being virgins. Now the wedding garment would correspond, I suppose, with the wise virgins, with the oil, but I think it is a word for us as to our part in the assembly, whether we understand what a wedding garment means, how serious it is to be without one!
JS Would the thought of the wedding garment refer to an individual, as in Romans 7, where his body is to be to another?
JT Yes, it is not simply that you belong to the bride, but you know what an occasion it is. We have different occasions; an occasion like this, for instance, requires a certain garment; it requires that [p. 197] I should be very alert and ready to participate in it as obligated to make it profitable. If it be a meeting for prayer, there is another garment needed, more priestly: if it be an assembly occasion, then all are to be intelligent persons, not members of a congregation simply; all are to be intelligent persons knowing what is on hand and knowing what to do. If it develops into an occasion, as it ought to, of real pleasure, and there is One present who has the status of the Bridegroom, He is to radiate over the whole affair. If it be God in the occasion honouring His Son, He is to have to say to what is there, and He discerns whether I am in accord with this great matter; He is honouring His Son and I have to understand that part of the matter. There may be other features, for Luke 14 would mean that the man made a great supper, which would be the celebration of something for himself; it would be God Himself; and so chapter 15 would be God Himself, “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad” Luke 15:32 — everybody. But here it is a question of God honouring His Son and of whether I have this wedding garment; it is a marital affair and it must have its reflection in the assembly service. It is the greatest affair really as bringing personality in, how a person is at his best as the bridegroom; that is how the Lord Jesus shines upon us as He takes account of us as the bride.
Ques In Matthew the bride is not specifically mentioned, is she? Would you say it comes in on the line of the Lord saying in Jeremiah 2:2, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals”, and then again in Hosea 2:14, “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness”, as He set out in Exodus to do; they were to hold a feast to Jehovah in the wilderness? The bride is absent in Matthew, but it is the guests invited that are in [p. 198] prominence; is your suggestion that the assembly meets the idea of the guests invited?
JT Well, the bride is not formally mentioned, but a wedding feast must comprise her; but the point is that there is a person with ample means to make such an occasion a great one on account of his son; that is the point, it is what he is doing on account of his son — not on account of the bride, but on account of the son. And it is not exactly the wedding but the feast; that is, all are to have part in it, but it is a wedding affair and therefore is to carry with it the best possible features in the personnel.
JS Would it involve more place being found for the passages of love in the Canticles?
JT Well, the Song of Songs is the book in the Old Testament for the mutual exchange of feeling and affection between Christ and the assembly, or between Christ and Israel, as the earthly bride.
Ques Would all this be in happy contrast to the previous chapter? Would this come in on the line of the assembly, the grace of Christ and joyousness in the place the Father has given Him?
JT Well, it would be that in the sense that we are in accord with the occasion, not so much our response to Christ’s affection as that we see that God is honouring Him, that there is a part in the service in which God honours Him, as there is, of course, a part in which He honours God. He makes much of the Father in John, as we know, but in this parable the point is that the Father makes much of the Son, and those who are guests, ourselves together, are clothed with what is suitable to that, that it is no less a matter than a marriage, it is a wedding feast, no less than that, and the question is whether I am equal to it; that is what we should get hold of, I believe, whether I am equal to that personally, for the King came in. We say, it is the Lord in the beginning of assembly service, and it is, it is [p. 199] a question of the Lord, but then there is a point in which God has to say to it too, not for His own sake, but for the sake of Christ. He is concerned about that, for there must be the honour of the Son in every relation as the Father’s honour. So that it seems as if this particular parable would come in as making room for God to look around to see the guests. I have to say to God in all this; I have to say to Christ too from another point of view, for it is the Lord’s supper; but then there is a linking on between the Lord’s supper and what attaches to the Father, and it seems the Father and the Son meet, the One honouring the Other; that is, both must be honoured, the One will honour the Other.
WCG Would Psalm 19 apply to honouring the Son? It says, “A tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race”. Psalm 19:4,5.
JT It is a wonderful figure really, but it is to bring out, I think, what we are saying, what the Bridegroom is. What a radiance, what heat, what joy, the sun brings as it rises. It is a remarkable figure as showing the strength of affection in Christ.
WCG What is the idea of the tabernacle for the sun?
JT As you say, I suppose it is a figure of Christ, that He has what belongs to Him in a private way. Who can give an account of the sun? Carrying the thought to Christ, it means He has His private relations, coming out of His chamber; there are the secrecies, the secrets connected with Christ’s inscrutable relations; but when He comes out in His light, one feature is the effect on the creation. That is how it is in the assembly: the sun, as denoting Christ’s affection and relations comes out and beams on us; not simply that He comes, but that He beams upon us because of whence He comes, and the relation He is in. John the baptist rejoiced at His voice,
[p. 200] which is that of the Bridegroom. The Lord as here in His ministry had that voice, the voice of the Bridegroom; in all His services there was the Bridegroom’s voice. All did not understand that, but there it was; what was deep down in His heart in all He was doing there was that joyous thought. John the baptist had discernment enough to see that that was the voice, not simply of a great Preacher and Friend and Teacher, even God Himself, but that He was a Bridegroom — the peculiar touch of that relation.
Ques Would this suitability of clothing be seen in Psalm 45:14? “She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of embroidery”.
JT That is right. Then she is all glorious inside. We have first of all the tribute to the king there, “I say what I have composed touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer”. Psalm 45:1. After that you have the queen on his right — that is a great general abstract thought — in gold of Ophir; that which is discerned as the full thought; she is a personage of that kind, she is the queen: But when you come down to details in, “Hearken; daughter, and see, and incline thine ear; and forget thine own people and thy father’s house: And the king will desire thy beauty; for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him” Psalm 45:10,11, the individual christian comes into the great abstract thought, I think, in that way. And then she is inside in the royal apartments, she comes in raiment of embroidery; she is inside the royal apartments suitably attired, all glorious inside there, suitable to the position.
Ques Would the type of Mordecai come in, the man whom the king delighted to honour? Would that correspond with your thought of the king making a marriage feast for his son? Mordecai was the outstanding man at the moment, as the son is here.
JT That is a good figure, I think. It is the man he delights to honour, but Mordecai was honoured [p. 201] as the one who had served the king, saved his life; but here it is the case of a man honouring his son, it brings Christ in in a beautiful way and He is honoured by a wedding feast made for Him by His Father, the king being His Father.
Rem So we want God’s thoughts of His Son.
JT That is right. He could honour Him in other ways, of course. Mordecai is a type of Christ as He whom God delights to honour; there it was that he went round the city. God has honoured Christ in a variety of ways: He has greatly exalted Him, set Him down at His own right hand far above all principalities and powers and every name that is named, not only in this world but in that which is to come. And in various other ways God honours Him, but this is a peculiar thing into which affection enters, that He is honouring Him by a wedding feast.
Rem Satisfying the heart of Christ as Man with the affections of the assembly.
JT Yes, and satisfying Him with such guests; it is to bring out too that God’s grace enters into it, God’s wonderful patience with the Jews enters into it, as if God would say, ‘This is the very best thing I can devise and. I want you to be there’ — that is what He says to the Jews. John the baptist heard His voice; the Jews ought to have heard it, but they did not. And He says now there is an invitation to ourselves, and the gentiles have come, the wedding feast is furnished with guests, good and evil. The good and evil, of course, is one thought, but the wedding garment covers all that; it alludes to the work of God that fits us for the place.
Ques Do you suggest that the Spirit of God would make room for all this in His service at the Lord’s supper?
JT That is what I think we ought to get to. It is right to have the general thought, for God includes [p. 202] grace in what He has in mind in the parable, He includes the wonderful voice of Christ in His ministry among the Jews, that it was no less than the Bridegroom’s voice John the baptist heard. But nevertheless it is a wedding and it runs down to us gentiles, and the solemn fact is that there must be wedding garments; no one can be there without a wedding garment.
Rem So that all might honour the Son even as they honour the Father.
JT Just so, that is how the matter stands that the Father honours the Son and the Son honours the Father.
Ques What is your thought as to the fact that only the king observes the absence of the wedding garment?
JT Well, it is his matter, he is doing it, and it is a solemn thing that God inspects us as we sit down to the Lord’s supper; it is something into which honour for Christ enters, and God is concerned about that. It is God’s assembly and He is concerned as to all that happens in it, although the earlier part of it refers to the Lord. It is God’s matter.
WC So does the scrutiny of the King work out at the end?
JT Well, it is most solemn; it is not only discipline, but it is eternal punishment. The passage shows we are dealing with eternal things in every sense. How serious our position is; there is nothing optional at all in assembly service; we are having to do with God, whether in the beginning or middle or end of the service: the assembly is God’s matter and His eye is upon it in the most scrutinising way. It is true discipline is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11, that we are not to be judged with the world, but then, we may be judged with the world and it is a most solemn thing. We have to do with God.
[p. 203] Ques In the service of the assembly would the affections of the bride be given effect to, or is it that the Bridegroom is held in her affections?
JT It is more the Bridegroom we are dealing with now. God is making a marriage feast for His Son and He is concerned that there should be nothing out of keeping with Him; so in our whole service we are having to do with God.
WW Does that raise the question as to how we come together as clothed in features, so that God can appreciate our presence as those that are together?
JT Certainly. You do not want to mar the occasion. There are many who sit down to the Lord’s supper and go right through the service just as members of a congregation; God has no pleasure in that; He wants the garment.
Ques Would the garment link with the thought, “With joy and gladness shall they be brought”? Psalm 45:15.
JT Quite so, it is a most felicitous state of things, most delightful, it is the best sort of thing, as it were, that God could devise to present in the gospel — nothing less than that. So there is the voice of the Bridegroom in His teaching; there is a wedding in prospect and the idea is you should come into it. So it is today, the gentiles are brought into it, the wedding is furnished with guests, but there is this scrutiny which goes on, and if is really brought into every service: Am I there suitably, or in a restless way with no interest, merely as a member of a congregation?
Rem You would stress the personality of the guests.
JT Certainly; each is to be intelligent as to the position, what he has been invited to. These functions, as they are called in the world, have a suitable dress for each one, and society people know it and they know what to wear. Why should not we, when [p. 204] we come to divine things, the greatest possible things, know what to wear, know the suitable attire, and how to take account of the position?
Ques That is extremely important; it is the assembly of the living God. We have been lax in our appreciation of that.
JT I think that is good; it is God’s assembly and we are to behave ourselves in it, “that thou mayest know how one ought to conduct oneself in God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God”. 1 Timothy 3:15.
NKM Would what Peter says to Simon Magus be like the man who had not on the wedding garment? He says, “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God”, Acts 8:21.
JT A very solemn illustration of what we are speaking of. He had no wedding garment at all; it was a question of his attitude of mind, what his thoughts were, that the Holy Spirit could be bought with money. Think of that, of a man who could say that! So the apostle exposes him, and hence the scrutiny with which we are regarded: He came in to see the guests; there is this infinite scrutiny as to what is going on in my soul as sitting there.
Rem “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat”. 1 Corinthians 11:28.
JT Quite so, “So let him eat”; it really means we are to judge ourselves, disallow all that is unsuitable to the position.
FSM Would the idea of the chaste virgin enter into the thought of the wedding garment? Paul says, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”, 2 Corinthians 11:2.
JT I think it is parallel; that really belongs, as I am sure you have in mind, to chapter 25, but chapters 22 and 25 run parallel. The man without [p. 205] the wedding garment is in keeping with those who have no oil; he had not got the Holy Spirit, in other words.
We may now go on to chapter 25, and the apostle tells the Corinthians in the second letter, not in the first, that he had espoused them to one husband; that was in his mind just as in the Lord’s mind. The apostle was conveying to them that there was a Bridegroom; he refers to the earlier ministry that he had espoused them to one husband that he might present them as a chaste virgin; that was in his mind, but then the facts showed that the state was not there, that there were rather the characteristics of the foolish virgins among the Corinthians. So that is what we might look at, these ten virgins were professedly believers in early times when defection began to be prevalent; God regards all as virgins, but in a most ironical way shows some are lost sinners shut out forever from the presence of God. So it is all very solemn as to the scrutinising character of this marital matter, how God is concerned about it; so that chastity is a point to be raised now. We may profess to be part of the assembly as espoused, but then what about our affections? Is He supreme in them?
Ques Would Rebecca illustrate the thought? She is said to be a maiden “very fair in countenance; a virgin, and no man had known her”. Genesis 24:16.
JT Quite so, she is taken up to represent the thought underlying the assembly; she represents the thought in youthfulness. Abigail is corresponding in type, a person who had been to another, but whose husband is dead; she is an experienced woman, and she is introduced to us as a woman of “good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance”. 1 Samuel 25:3. It is not said of Rebecca that she had a good understanding, but she was very comely in all she did, ready to serve even the camels; but Abigail is a woman who [p. 206] comes in and stands in the breach in a great crisis, and she saved the position and becomes David’s wife after her husband is dead. There is not the idea of virginity with her, but experience. That is to say, the saints viewed in the Acts as having been brought in in relation to Israel and all the affections of the saints would be in that connection; they were to be to Another; but, under Paul, that was all given up and Abigail represents the saints viewed as turning their backs on judaism altogether and taking up a position in relation to Christ entirely.
WCG The description of Abigail is very similar to that of David.
JT She corresponds — that is very striking. She had been a wife already, so it is no question now of a chaste virgin, but of good understanding, that we know what to do.
Ques Is that why Abigail is so often referred to, after she became David’s wife as “the wife of Nabal the Carmelite”? 1 Samuel 30:5, 2 Samuel 2:2, 2 Samuel 3:3.
JT Yes, “if the husband should die, she is free from the law, so as not to be an adulteress, though she be to another man”, Romans 7:3 because the law has settled that matter. Nabal died — God saw to that — so Abigail is released to be for David, as in Romans we are to “be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead”. Romans 7:4.
Ques You have in mind the way we arrive at that experimentally?
JT Exactly.
Rem And her affection would be shown by her willingness to wash the feet of the servants of her lord.
JT Just so. In the parable of the virgins they all slumbered and slept. God is accrediting them all with the virgin status, but five of them are at the outset classified as foolish virgins, not sinners — for that is not the point; they are foolish because they [p. 207] do not avail themselves of what was obviously necessary. It was obviously necessary that if they had torches, which are oil lamps, they needed oil, otherwise of what use were the vessels? So it was obvious they should have looked after that part. It shows the folly of people who are not prepared for what they profess to have in mind, for they professed to be going forth to meet the Bridegroom, yet here is something that is absolutely necessary, and they have neglected it.
Ques Was the thought of the cry to show that the truth as to the Bridegroom had been neglected or overlooked?
JT I think the truth of the Spirit had been overlooked; if we have not the Spirit, we have nothing, however much we may profess — one is just shut out as a lost sinner.
Ques Would Achsah be an outstanding example of that? She had a south land, but we will never get on without the Spirit.
JT Just so.
Ques Would what is said to the church in Sardis, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead”, Revelation 3:1 fit in?
JT I think it does; the one who has not the Spirit does not live; the one who has does live characteristically.
Ques Are you making a particular application in regard to this matter, not only a general one; not only the virgins viewed as covering the whole profession, but any one of us who may be foolish?
JT That is what one would like to do. We are so neglectful and careless, regarding things as optional, as if we had no responsibility in the matter, and here are divine eyes looking into our hearts as to what may be going on there — the King came in to see the guests. And now the whole position is exposed; these people have not oil, they have not got [p. 208] the Spirit, and they are shut out. I want to have a suitable attitude of mind. The Scriptures abound with references to this, and they are intended to impress me, and, if I am impressed, my impressions will come out in the assembly. Those impressions are wealth and they become active as we sit together in assembly.
Ques Is it that without the oil we are not equal to the movements of the Bridegroom?
JT I think that is just what it is. If one has not the oil in chapter 25 the Lord comes in and I am not ready for Him.
Ques There was oil in the lamps of the wise virgins and there were vessels that accompanied the lamps; would you say they suggest reserves?
JT Well, the wise virgins were fully furnished. There is no middle ground at all: it is either the wise or the foolish; and the foolish virgins are shut out, and shut out because of their own negligence. There is much negligence and sluggishness in our assembly meetings.
Rem So that the Lord would honour us with a touch of His presence and that brings all to light.
JT It does. It is the Bridegroom’s movements that expose everything. It is the King in chapter 22; but it is the Lord’s movements that bring to light where we are in chapter 25. Then in Revelation the bride is there and she is in full accord with the Spirit. It is a very fine passage in that sense, what we reach at the present time.
Ques Do we see in Simeon one who could fittingly take part in the service as giving place to the Holy Spirit?
JT That is a good illustration, alluding to Luke 2. The Child is brought in and he is ready for Him; he takes Him in his arms and knows what to say. He came by the Spirit into the temple; he is a spiritual [p. 209] man; in truth he is a real priest ready for anything of the kind. He knows what to do in the temple.
Ques Does chapter 25 show how God honours the Spirit, and chapter 22 how God honours the Son, and the wise virgins, in principle, honour the Spirit and provide themselves with the oil?
JT Quite so, they are really in accord with the truth of the dispensation. Profession is of no value whatever; it is worse than nothing unless I have the Holy Spirit. We are dependent on the Spirit, and that is what marks the wise virgins; they value the Spirit; they have Him in readiness, as it were.
Ques What were you going to say as to Revelation?
JT Only what has been said: it is a signal tribute to the work of God in the last days, that is, in our times, and we want to be in it, that the bride has come into distinctive evidence. The Lord announces Himself as “the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star” and she, in unison with the Spirit, says, ‘Come’. So it is no longer now only the Bridegroom, but the bride herself, and it is in the midst of a dark gloomy state of things that she discerns His voice, and says, Come. The allusion, I think, is to John’s gospel and Matthew’s gospel: the root of David would be John’s gospel; and the offspring, Matthew’s gospel, which covers a good deal of ministry we have had on the Lord’s own Person and what He is as Man. The assembly characteristically understands; she has good understanding like Abigail; and, as He announces these things, she is with the Holy Spirit and says, Come.
Ques Is it striking that this immediately follows the thought of testimony in the assemblies? Is that, so to speak, the local gatherings each contributing to the thought of [p. 210] the bride?
JT That is the thought exactly, I believe. The seven assemblies were local assemblies and represent the idea of them, and the bride represents the one idea.
Ques I was wondering whether the first two parables have peculiar reference to the way we sit down together locally, and, as the result of that adjustment, we may form part of the great general thought the Lord is securing for Himself now.
JT Quite so. The three great servants who had to do with the Service of God were Moses and David and Solomon, and we see how the idea of the spouse appears in each. In Moses she is brought to him by her father at a particular time: in David, we have Abigail, as we have been saying, according to the description given of her: and in Solomon we have her just in relation to a gentile progeny, not giving us more than the idea of such a thing, but it is the spouse of Solomon for whom a house was built, corresponding to the porch of judgment. That corresponds with what we were saying that the marital idea stands out so prominently in relation to the service of God and it must enter into it now in relation to its present setting.