DIVINE OWNERSHIP
[p. 328] DIVINE OWNERSHIP
JT I was thinking of divine ownership, and we may look at it before proceeding in the chapter. We rightly speak of the Lord’s creatorial rights of ownership of the saints, and His redemptive rights, but perhaps have not thought much of ownership from the standpoint of counsel and election; these, I believe, form the highest plane on which the thought stands, and it fits in peculiarly with John. He has in mind the most exalted relations of the saints, and the Lord touches these in this chapter and speaks of ownership — the Father’s ownership of the disciples so as to give them to Him. If we took account of ourselves as owned in this way, it would elevate our thoughts to what the Lord is aiming at, to lead the brethren on to the divine level, not only as to divine Persons Themselves, but as to ourselves, and John’s gospel particularly has this in mind. I do not think many get beyond being purchased through the death of Christ, but ownership extends back to counsel and election. The Lord says, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. They were thine, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things that thou hast given me are of thee; for the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them, and have known truly that I came out from thee, and have believed that thou sentest me. I demand concerning them; I do not demand concerning the world, but concerning those whom thou [p. 334] hast given me, for they are thine, (and all that is mine is thine, and all that is thine mine,) and I am glorified in them”. If we trace divine ownership of the saints back to the eternal counsels of God, I think the effect would be to elevate us. Not in any way detracting from God’s [p. 329] creatorial rights over us, and His redemptive rights, there is what precedes those, so that in John’s gospel, those who receive Christ obtain the title to take the place of children of God. Then we are told that they were born of God, not that they were purchased with the blood of Christ, but born of God. It is not that our purchase in the death of Christ does not enter into it, but we must keep in mind the level on which John is speaking here.
EJMcB Is the purchase by the blood of Christ the platform that allows us to rise to this platform?
JT Yes. It relieves us of all claim against us, all encumbrance, so that we might enter on to the platform of counsel, and it is from that platform John is speaking, and he has it in mind when he speaks about the Father’s ownership of the saints.
FSM Do you distinguish between “they were thine” in verse 6, and “they are thine” in verse 9?
JT Yes. They were the Father’s obviously before He gave them to Christ. How do we take account of it? We have Peter’s conversion recorded, but he was given to Jesus as owned of the Father. We cannot say that the ownership was simultaneous with the conversion of Peter; we must date it back further than that to get the divine thought. Conversion is a great matter; the atoning work of Christ which made conversion possible is, of course, a great matter, but the thought of ownership goes back further than these, and I think the Lord may help us to see how real this is, how real the counsels and election of God are.
HH Would the previous chapters of the gospel have regard for producing men of this kind? Is it the work of God?
JT That is the trend of the gospel. This whole gospel is to lead us up to this chapter, and chapter 20 formally gives us companionship with Christ as His brethren. Here He is speaking to God and showing how He regards the Father’s ownership before the saints were given to Him.
MWB Do I understand that ownership creatorially and then by virtue of redemption were parts of the ways of God, but previous to that there was ownership in the sense of eternal counsel?
JT That is the idea. It is in God’s mind that we should rise to the level of the source of the stream, that is, that the origin is in eternal counsel. Redemption ownership is effected through God meeting in righteousness the question of sin.
AB Would Ephesians 1:4 bear on it? “According as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation”.
JT That supports what we are saying.
JOS Is that why He calls them men?
JT Yes; it is in keeping with John’s gospel: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”, John 1:4. That is, it did not go beyond men. God is saying, as it were, I am operating in relation to men, they are in My counsels. The light that shone in Christ was in relation to men; this gospel is the light in the sense in which it applies to them. “The true light ... lightens every man”.
JJ How would Acts 20:28 come in? “The assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”.
JT That comes in in time. It does not interfere with the fact that Eve was a type of the assembly before sin came in. There was no need of purchase intimated in the formation of Eve. The statement, “which he has purchased with the blood of his own”, would allude to the fact that its members have come under the influence of sin and had thus to be purchased by the blood of Christ. It is what the assembly is here in testimony. The assembly seen in its heavenly and eternal relations — Eve being the type, before sin came in — has its origin in Christ in death. It is of
[p. 331] Him and has had no sinful history. It is wholly a new creation.
EuR Does that involve God’s foreknowledge of persons as subjects of His work? We have to leave out everything but the work of God in taking account of this.
JT The work of God is the outcome of His foreknowledge. He knew each of us. It comes home; I think that with us this matter of counsel and election is just a matter of doctrine, but we must think of ourselves as the elect of God. Foreknown before the foundation of the world: what a thought that is! All must fit in with it in infinite accuracy, in the full result. God has His number and there will not be one more or less, nor will there be anything but what is in accord with His thoughts. John has that in mind in the way he brings in the saints at the outset, stressing their birth: not, who were converted, but “who have been born ... of God”.
MWB Then you would expect there would be a perfect result from the knowledge of this.
JT I think you would agree that there is. It elevates you to link up your genealogy with God. What can be higher than that?
MWB Then as to circumstances, according to Romans 8:28, you know that all things work together for good according to that eternal purpose: is that the line?
JT Quite so: “to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose”. We must not forget that it is not only that we love God, but that there is something that antedates that — “called according to purpose”.
Ques Is the apprehension of this necessary to put the saints in liberty for the service of God in the assembly?
JT Yes; to set us in liberty for the ground that God intends us to be on — the ground that, in His mind, we are on as true believers. God will effect all [p. 332] His mind in time, but it is a question now of our apprehension of it, and the Spirit is always working to bring us to it.
EJMcB Your point is more connected with what God has for Himself in the saints than what they have got from Him?
JT Yes; His ownership of them, according to His counsel, what they are as the fruit of His work. In Chronicles and Kings, Solomon builds the temple, and generally, what is there refers to the saints. God is there too, of course, but I mean that in the woods and metals and the furnishings used, the saints are in mind, and the time comes when the priests do their work, and do it well, and reach a point in unison in the singing and the music, and then God fills the scene. He takes charge of the whole temple, and His glory fills it. Well, the question arises, What is God occupied with now? What does all that mean? Why is it the priests cannot serve there? Obviously, it is that God has the saints typically there according to His counsels. He gave David the pattern by the Spirit, and all the things presented in the temple speak of God in relation to the saints. God would say, as it were, I want all this for Myself; there is no need of priestly ministry for the moment; they are now before Me according to My own thought. God is surely entitled to clothe us with His own thoughts. He is entitled to think as He did when He took counsel. Whatever there may be wanting in us in detail in formation or growth He can regard us in that light, and delight in us as before Him. Balaam’s prophecies help us to understand this. In Ephesians we are said to be raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ. God will have us according to His eternal purpose, rejoicing in us, but not simply as priests, but sons, that is, in family relationship.
AJG Is that involved in the word of the Lord in verse 7: “Now they have known that all things that thou hast given me are of thee”?
JT That shows how He is clothing them in His own thoughts. “Now they have known that all things that thou hast given me are of thee; for the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them”. The Lord here is occupied with the most exalted thoughts of His ministry amongst them, with the most precious and exalted things that He had before Him, and He is clothing them with having received those thoughts, accrediting them with them. They were the Father’s property. God is entitled to look at me as a converted sinner, that I am His property; He has bought me with the blood of Christ. He is entitled to do that, and He does; but He is entitled to take account of me as in His counsels before there was any sin, and the Spirit being here enables us also to do that, to take account of ourselves in that abstract way. It is essential that this should be understood and acted on — to abstract ourselves from what attaches to us that is extraneous to our heavenly calling.
JS-t Would you say that when they took up the twelve stones out of the bed of Jordan and carried them over and put them down, they were then coming to it?
JT They came up out of death, where Christ lay; quickened and raised with Him. Their origin there is from Him in death, their wilderness history terminated there. But we are speaking of the counsels of God which go back further. The Lord is here speaking to His Father from the standpoint of the persons. You can understand how He would take up the most exalted thoughts as to them.
Ques When the Lord says in verse 10, “I am glorified in them”, is that as clothing them with those divine thoughts?
JT That is right; they are looked at in that way. He says, “I demand concerning them; I do not demand concerning the world, but concerning those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine, (and all that is mine is thine, and all that is thine mine,) and I am glorified in them”. It is all from this standpoint, and surely it is due to the Lord that we should allow Him to take account of us as in the divine counsels, and to make us sensible of it.
HH J.N.D. speaks in the note of “the words” in verse 8 as “divine communications”. That is helpful, is it not? The Father communicating to the Lord on this line, but having the saints in view.
JT The words are communications that the Lord would receive at different times from His Father, and He would impart them to His own. One can understand, as He went out from Jerusalem at night to the mount of Olives, how such thoughts would come from the Father, and how He would impart them to His own, and what joy He would have in looking at them from that standpoint, what dignity too as connecting them with the eternal thoughts and counsels as to them. Then in His company they would be drawn into the atmosphere of it.
WJH The apostle Jude seems to have touched it a little when he says, “to him ... be glory ... from before the whole age”, Jude 24,25. It is as though he had understood something of what was “before the whole age”.
WCG Does what you say show the contrast between Luke and John? In Luke it says, “This man receiveth sinners”, but in John you have persons who receive this divine Person, the One whom the Father had sanctified and sent into the world.
JT That is right. “As many as received him”. The Lord speaks of them here as viewing them in that way: “they ... have believed that thou sentest me”. The Lord as regarding them, undoubtedly was calling to mind the happy times He had had with them unfolding divine thoughts to them. No doubt the Lord would recall those things and view them in that way, and know too — as He only could know — that there [p. 335] was some little response to what He was saying, which made them so much more precious in His eye.
LM Does David correspond at all with this in 1 Chronicles 29, when he emphasises that all the store secured for the temple belonged to God?
JT “All is of thee, and of that which is from thy hand have we given thee” (1 Chronicles 29:14); it is on that line. 1 Chronicles rises to the idea of divine headship, and that God is the source of all, and it is crowned with the thought of the Son, all subject to the Son. The chapters in the end of 1 Chronicles open up to us in type what we are speaking of, because David received things by the Spirit, and he speaks of the temple in a most exalted way. When Solomon built it, it was not said to have been anointed like the tabernacle, because the idea of anointing does not go into eternity. The Spirit is there, of course, but the anointing is for testimony. In the temple it is a question of intrinsic worth — what God delights in as typifying the saints, as we have been saying.
EuR Does it link on with Zion in Psalm 87:6? “Jehovah will count, when he inscribeth the peoples, This man was born there”.
JT It does in a way, but it is more the thought of “born of God”, as John says in the beginning of the gospel: “who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God”.
Ques “For this my son was dead and has come to life” (Luke 15:24); does that bring the thought in?
JT Well, yes. The father always regarded him as his son, but he “was dead” and had now “come to life”; and he is clothed with the very best thoughts, and those best thoughts include the counsels of God, because the best robe involves the best thoughts of God for a man, and he is clothed with those. Christ in heaven now is the full expression of them. John greatly supports this great feature of the truth.
MWB You have distinguished between [p. 336] the thought of born of God in contrast with the work of God in regard of this question of counsel. Would you say a little more about that?
JT Being born of God links generatively with God. New creation is not generation; “born of God” implies the latter. Not that we have a personal origin before we are actually born, but there is the thought of divine lineage; it comes out in Genesis. God’s people were His people before they went into Egypt; they were His people before they left Egypt, before they were redeemed. “Let my son go”, He says (Exodus 4:23). All that bears out what we are saying, that before redemption we have the idea of divine ownership. There is more than a mere creation in connection with Abraham’s seed; there is birth; Isaac was typically Christ.
Ques Does the thought of “Jacob have I loved” (Romans 9:13) enter into this?
JT I think so; it is how they are regarded before the children knew anything.
MWB I would like to get it a little more clearly. The epistle to the Ephesians touches the thought of counsel and new creation, and the greatest work of God is referred to there. Would you distinguish between the two?
JT I would. We are said to be chosen in the Beloved. It is the persons in the mind of God before the world was, and new creation, it seems to me, is not enough for that; it is birth that is needed for that. Sonship is higher than new creation.
EJMcB Is the Ephesian epistle more the way counsel is reached by ministry through various servants, and this more the mind of God that was behind all that?
JT Yes. John supports Paul. We have often said it, but perhaps we have not had it just in this way, but John supports Paul on the family line. The family line must be a limited thing. We were chosen in the Beloved and predestinated unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, and I believe if we look into Genesis [p. 337] more from this point of view we shall see that God was working on this level in calling out Abraham, because it is a question of parentage that is in mind. His name was Abram, meaning ‘high father’, but is changed to Abraham, “a father of a multitude”, Genesis 17:5. It is to bring out what answers fully to the mind of God.
Ques Would you say a little more as to the distinction between new creation and being born of God?
JT I do not know that I can, but there is certainly a great distinction to be made. As born of God, I am of the order and character of God in a moral sense, and what can be greater than that? In new creation all things are of God, but the idea of creation includes inanimate things, the idea of birth does not. If I get on to the line of God and an offspring of God, I shall see that is the highest thought, and Christ is the expression of it: “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Mark 1:11. God will bring all of us to that. Its source is in His counsels, and all must rise to that. The millennium is not on that level; it is for testimony, God in it meeting conditions that have arisen. We may have part in it, but it is not on the level of God’s eternal counsels, although it merges into the eternal state of things.
Ques Is it important then for us to be able to take account of ourselves from the divine side?
JT It is indeed. In our chapter the Lord is, as it were, speaking to His Father in our hearing, and He is taking account of us as a gift to Him by the Father, which plainly shows that we belonged to the Father before He gave us to Christ. Before He gave Peter to Jesus, Peter belonged to Him. You might say that he belonged to Him just because he was converted, but that will not do. John does not give his conversion, except his second one in the last chapter. In the gospel of John, Peter comes to Jesus, and the Lord says, “thou shalt be called Cephas”, John 1:42. He speaks of him at once as related to [p. 338] divine thoughts.
AAE Do you take what you are saying as referring to the saints of all ages?
JT Yes, the relation in which they will be brought in. There will be families in eternity. Those in whom God wrought from the outset will be included. Each family will appear according to the testimony in which it was developed.
AAE I was wondering whether new creation is something distinctly christian. Could you speak of new creation in the Old Testament?
JT It is anticipated, although not definitely named, while God was going on outwardly with man in the flesh, things effected in view of His counsels were not named formally, but we can now see them. They are indicated in Hebrews 11. You can trace what was new in the men and women mentioned. The nearer you come to the New Testament in reading the Old, the more it strikes you. God says definitely in Isaiah, that He is going to make things new (Isaiah 65:17).
DLH Would not the Old Testament saints come in on the final resurrection line: Scripture speaks of the dead in Christ being raised? Now, in the New Testament, it says, “if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”, 2 Corinthians 5:17. That would seem to link the Old Testament saints with the idea of new creation.
JT I am sure that is right. What God created in the six days of Genesis 1 was spoiled through sin. What is He going to do now? I believe God began again on the line of creating. It awaited redemption for public establishment, but it was there. The spirits of just men are regarded in Hebrews 12 as “made perfect”.
Ques Is there a similar thought in Romans 9:23, where Paul speaks of “vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory”; and then, he immediately brings in the thought of ownership in “My people” and “Sons of the living God”?
JT Yes. God prepared us for glory. As has been [p. 339] remarked, the dead in Christ — although the apostle is mainly occupied with christianity — includes all, and not only are they born of God, but there is a work of God which is called new creation.
EuR Does “of him are ye in Christ Jesus” involve the heavenly family? It is persons, “ye”. Does he not seek to elevate their thoughts in that way?
JT Quite so.
JJ Would you say that the sphere where all these high thoughts are enjoyed now is the assembly? It is lifted above the individual.
JT That is exactly what is in mind, and is, I believe, what God would press upon us as instructing us in it. You enjoy it in company with the brethren. You enjoy it as light and knowledge in your own soul at any time, but it is realised in the company of the saints. Ephesians contemplates that we are raised up together; that is, the spirit of christianity leads to that, that we enjoy things together, and this chapter helps us as regards the assembly in this sense, that it contemplates the love that the Father has for the Son and that that love is in us. That is what I consider is the highest kind of love. There are three kinds spoken of in regard of divine Persons. There is the love of Christ, and the covenant love of God, and the love of the Father for the Son. I think the latter is the highest thought of love, and that love is to be in us (verse 26). That is, according to the Lord’s mind here, we are to be able to love Him with the kind of love with which the Father loves Him. That is what I think the Spirit would lead us to as together in assembly. There is the love of Christ in the Supper, and there is the covenant love of God also in the Supper, but beyond that, there is this that we are speaking of — the Father’s love for the Son, and that is to be in us. It is there, I think, that we come into this line of things and we date back our origin to the counsels of God. What an elevation that is! What a wonderful thing it is that we are on that platform!
The Lord’s words here would build us up in the thought of it. We belonged to the Father and He has given us to the Son. And He says, “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”, meaning that His present position answers to the divine thoughts for us, and that through the truth we should be brought up to that level. That is what the Lord has in mind; it is a question of the amazing truth of Christ’s present place as Man in heaven being the measure of ours.
Ques So, would you say, in the contemplation of that, “whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not”, 2 Corinthians 12:2?
JT If you think of God and all these thoughts it does affect you in the way of ecstasy. The Lord in saying, “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”, has in mind that He has taken the most exalted place for us, that we might be sanctified through the truth relative to it. The Spirit coming out from Him there unfolds the truth of it and leads us in apprehension and conformity to that point.
SJBC Would being born of God imply the communication of a new moral being in the soul?
JT Yes, and hence you are enabled to take in divine thoughts. That is what comes out here. Our origin being from God, we have ability to take in divine thoughts, and so the Lord says, “the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them”. Think of the capability they had from His point of view!
JJ Would you say why only the Lord’s voice is heard here? No one speaks to Him.
JT It is the Lord’s prayer. He had been speaking to the disciples, but now, He lifts up His eyes to heaven and says, “Father”. So that our ears are to be supremely attentive to follow what He means. What is He saying? What is in His mind? And if you follow what He means, your soul becomes elevated and enlarged, and you are drawn into the divine current of things. That [p. 341] is really the effect of apprehending how the saints are regarded there.
MWB Would you say a little more about sanctification by the truth?
JT It is a question of the level to which we are to be brought. Some of us recently were speaking about sanctification in Hebrews 2, backward from chapter 13 to chapter 10 and to chapter 2. In chapter 2, He came in in this way: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings. For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Hebrews 2:10,11. I think that links on with verse 19 of our chapter: “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”; He is going to take a place far beyond the millennial thought, far beyond anything that attached to Israel. He is going to take the place that God designed for man in His counsels, and the truth is to come out as to that; because you cannot have the truth of it until He is in it, until He is there. He is there now as Man, and the Holy Spirit comes out, and mainly through Paul’s doctrine and ministry we have the development of this truth, so that we might take up this heavenly position. That is what is meant by our sanctification by truth. Then, He says to the Father, “Sanctify them by the truth: thy word is truth”; the whole opening up of the mind of God is truth, and our sanctification is in the sense spoken of here. Verse 3 is not on this level, it refers to eternal life. It is “Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. Eternal life is said by the Lord to consist in the knowledge of the Father as the true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He sent.
JOS Does the first part open up what the Lord says when Judas had gone out, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be [p. 342] glorified in him, God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall glorify him immediately”?
JT I apprehend the Lord has in mind that the going out of Judas would mean that He would be glorified morally in glorifying God in death, that He would carry out the will of God even to death, and then God would glorify Him immediately. That is, He would not have to wait for the millennium. I suppose He glorifies Him in relation to the assembly. The present period is in view in the immediate glory.
HFN Would you mind saying how chapter 20 bears on what you have been remarking?
JT This really is the top stone of the doctrine. Nothing can be higher than what the Lord had in His mind in saying, “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”. He has in mind that He is taking a position in heaven, and the Spirit coming out would unfold the truth of it to us. But then, in chapter 20, the Lord says, “I ascend” — “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father ...”. There you have a divine Person in manhood ascending, and the message going in the meantime to the brethren. It is the message of the ascending One; He is in principle ascending, and He says, Tell them that it is to “my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, John 20:17. That gives us a definite relationship with Himself. You do not get that relationship formally in chapter 17; it is just “the men” there, but in chapter 20 it is His brethren. That is, there is a definite relationship intimated that is to exist for ever. Ascension is the ground of christianity. Sometimes brethren assume that the ground of christianity is resurrection. If it be a question of dealing with the adverse power it is so; we are impregnable on that ground, but if it be only resurrection we shall not get beyond resurrection. The millennium is in principle resurrection, but we are on higher ground, and I think chapter 20 intimates the ground, that it is an ascending Christ that calls us His [p. 343] brethren. Ephesians 2 corresponds: the great love of God takes us into heavenly places — raises us up together and makes us sit down there together.
MWB That would impart a richness to our praise and worship.
JT That is what is intended. When you think of what the Lord had in His mind as about to die, and how He speaks His mind to the Father — and how the disciples are called men, in keeping with the first reference to men in the gospel, and then that they were the Father’s, and that they were capable of taking in divine communications, that they were the Father’s and the Father’s were Christ’s — you are impressed with the greatness of being admitted into such thoughts.
WC Is the idea seen in Acts 10, in the sheet let down from heaven and taken up again?
JT That is the thought. We have to regard the creatures in it as symbolical of men.
JJ Would you regard the Lord as Head in relation to the assembly in this chapter, or would you connect headship with chapter 20?
JT Well, as regards the actual service, you might say He is the High Priest here in chapter 17. I would connect headship with chapter 20 because He conveyed His mind in the message to them. He is not speaking to us here, but to the Father. He is the High Priest with the saints on the breastplate.
HFN You made a remark recently with regard to the difference between the immediate mediatorial system and what is mediatorial in all its richness and fulness, entering into the final state of things.
JT There is what we might call the official mediatorial system, and I think there has been a tendency with us to restrict all mediatorial service to that, but the more you think of it, the more you must admit that without the principle of mediatorial service we could not be in relation with God at all, as He dwells “in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”. There must be One between us and God, and that will subsist eternally. We can know God and be in relationship with Him, only through and in Christ.
Rem So the service of the High Priest is mediatorial in that way.
JT It is, but in the eternal state of things it will be the Son, and all that we shall know will be through Him, and thus will be in measure compassable. We shall not be lost in infinitude; all will be intelligible, because it is in a Man.
SJBC It will be seen in manhood.
JT In 2 Chronicles 5 we are told that the priests could not stand to minister as the divine glory filled the house. But that does not mean that the persons are shut out from the scene, for the things in the temple refer to persons, but persons viewed according to the eternal thoughts of God, not in their official capacity. There were a hundred and twenty priests, and their service as such was manifestly acceptable, but they could not serve at a certain point. That is, God is occupied now, not with the official side of our position, but with us as representing His eternal thoughts in men.
MWB Then, would you link that with the thought of what is morally divine in nature — before Him in love?
JT That is right, Christ being the Leader of that and the full expression of it. God does not open the heavens and say, Thou art My Servant. He speaks of Christ elsewhere as Servant, being well pleased with Him, but at the Jordan, it is “Thou art my beloved Son”, Mark 1:11. It is not only what He was doing, but who He is “in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 3:17. His work and walk were delightful to God, but it is “in whom I have found my delight”. It is the Beloved, as in Ephesians.
EuR So, whilst the priests could not stand to serve, may the same persons (speaking of christianity) be there in the liberty of sonship?
JT [p. 345] Certainly. The priestly side is dispensed with for the moment; there is no need, God says, I want you on another ground altogether, I want you to take account of yourselves according to My purpose for you, and that is sonship.
EuR We are privileged to pass over to that realm after the breaking of bread, after getting the gain of the covenant.
JT Quite so.
JJ Practically this is very little reached.
JT That is true, but let us ponder it. God is entitled to view us in that way, and we also should be free to so regard ourselves, even if only for a moment. When He said to Jesus, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, it was the Person — not the Servant, but the Person — and so, as He looks on us, it is what He has in us in this sense. Even if only for a moment, He is entitled to it.
DLH When we are conformed to the image of God’s Son, there will be no need of priesthood.
JT That is so, and how delighted God will be with us!
DLH The Spirit would lead us into the good of that already.
JT That is the next thing. If the Spirit be not here, all we are saying is only a matter of doctrine, but the Spirit will support us in abstracting ourselves according to what we are in the purpose of God.
JSE Would you say a word as to “the glory which thou hast given me I have given them”?
JT That is what is conferred or given by the Father. But there is a glory which is incommunicable, which is in verse 5: “now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”. But there is the glory the Father has given to Him. Whether it is wrapped up in the voice from heaven at the Jordan, or on the mount of transfiguration, it is glory conferred on Christ as [p. 346] Man which He could pass on to men. I suppose it involves sonship.
Ques What is the force of the last sentence: “that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”?
JT I think He is at home in us as possessed of that love. It is the kind of love with which the Father loved Him.
DLH Does that not correspond with the thought in Colossians: “Christ in you the hope of glory”?
JT Pretty much. The stress there is on “the hope of glory”, but here, it is on “in them”. The Lord has a restful place amongst us as the Father’s love is in us.