PRIESTHOOD (5)
[p. 545] PRIESTHOOD (5)
1 Corinthians 15:24 - 28; 1 Chronicles 29:10 - 20
JT The verses read in 1 Corinthians show clearly the end, in a general way of course, but inclusive of our subject, that is, God is the end — “that God may be all in all”. The operations of Christ mediatorially as Son, His services, are all to that end, in regard to each of us, to the assembly, then to Israel and the nations.
The passages read in 2 Samuel yesterday afternoon and which we were unable to dwell upon, were in chapters 7 and 15 which we may profitably touch as we proceed. Particularly that in chapter 7 because it brings out the thought of sonship for the first time in the types we have been looking at.
Our subject from the outset of these five readings has been priesthood as seen in 1 and 2 Samuel, but particularly in David. We saw it first of all in Hannah, who shone in prayer and faith and poetic contribution in the service of God. Then we saw it in Samuel who exhibited the qualities of a priest. Although not formally installed as a priest (not being of the sons of Aaron he was scarcely qualified to be a priest), he was a priest actually and practically, and in more ways than one he influenced Israel. He led them to repentance, offered the sacrifice of the sucking lamb, and prayed for Israel so that God came in against their enemies; showing how priesthood brings in deliverance for the people of God. Then there is no longer an official place as the judge of Israel. We saw him in 1 Samuel 19 exercising leadership, or presidency, over the prophets, and great power was present to overcome evil, even to the extent of overcoming Saul in his murderous opposition to David.
Then we saw in David himself how he had liberty to appropriate the priestly food — an important matter [p. 546] for us as entering on priesthood to know how to appropriate priestly food, the shew-bread. Then we saw how he had liberty to speak to God and to use the ephod brought to him by Abiathar and how he used it later at Ziklag and brought in deliverance again.
Then, in 2 Samuel, we saw the seemly, considerate spirit toward Saul which belongs to priesthood, especially in his regard and respect for the anointed. Then there was his petition asking Jehovah whether he should go up to one of the cities of Judah, and, finally, the bringing of the ark to Zion, which occupied us largely yesterday, and his priestly energy displayed before it.
All these instances are examples of priesthood and show us how we enter upon it and exercise it, and how it is available to believers; David illustrates the liberty that believers should have to appropriate what is available to sustain us in and fit us to exercise the priesthood.
Now, the passage in 1 Corinthians 15 is the end which we have to come to finally in our reading. It will be noticed that sonship and lordship are prominent in the passage and that sonship in Christ — Christ as Son — serves in view of bringing all into subjection; and that He, so as to be the Leader in this subjection (for it is perfectly seen in Him), is Himself placed in subjection finally. Wonderful fact for us, that we have a Leader in this permanently! “Then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”. If we link that on with 2 Samuel 7, we shall see how it worked out in the types. Verse 14 says: “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”. And then he says in verse 16: “And thy house and thy kingdom shall be made firm for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David. And king David went in and sat before Jehovah”. That is the position. David is now in the house, but how?
[p. 547] He is there as king but then he is there in the light of sonship in Solomon. Indeed it applies to him in Psalm 89 where it says: “He shall call unto me, Thou art my father ... And as to me, I will make him firstborn” (verses 26,27). We see here the working out of priesthood in David now in the light of sonship. He enters into the house and sits there, or, as the note suggests, tarries there; he had liberty to stay. It is a great point as regards privilege that we have liberty to enter the presence of God. There is no invitation here; he was not invited, but he goes in. He has the liberty with which, one might say, Christ sets us free, and inside he is at liberty to stay, and to speak.
JD “Now the bondman abides not in the house for ever: the son abides for ever”, John 8:35. Does that come in here?
JT I think it does. It is the liberty that belongs to it.
JD Is your thought that there might be something like that reached by us as in assembly?
JT That is what is intended. Apprehending sonship in Christ, because that is what is spoken of in David, we have liberty to enter and tarry there, and speak there, too. Anyone can see by looking at what he says that he is full of God. Marvellous richness in speaking to God! Let us just look at the titles that he uses here: in verse 18, “Lord Jehovah”; in verse 19, “Lord Jehovah” and again verses 20 and 29; in verse 22, “Jehovah Elohim”, a richer and fuller title; in verse 23, “the one nation in the earth that God went to redeem”; in verse 24, “thou, Jehovah, art become their God”; “Jehovah Elohim” again in verse 25 and in verse 26, “Jehovah of hosts is God over Israel”; in verse 27, “Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel”; and then in verse 28, “Lord Jehovah, thou art that God”, or, as the note reads, ‘Thou art the Same, — God’. The brethren will see how priesthood leads up to the soul being filled with God in all the [p. 548] great appellations in which He is pleased to reveal Himself.
EGMcA Which denotes liberty.
JT I think it does. There is great intelligence in the use of the titles, and he has such liberty to use them inside.
SMcC Would the use of Jehovah Elohim show how extended David was in his thoughts, not merely confining himself to what God was to Israel?
JT Yes. It is His title in creation with “Jehovah” prefixed.
SMcC It is used a good deal in the second chapter of Genesis.
JT Yes; more there possibly than in any other chapter of scripture. It is God creating man and entering into relationship with him.
GAT Has he reached here the point you brought before us this morning about God being the end?
JT That is what I think we may see, connecting it up with 1 Chronicles 29 and the wonderful speech that he makes there, really amplifying what he says here. As Paul says, so wonderfully and beautifully, “For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen”, Romans 11:36.
GAT We used to think that the Father was the highest thought in worship. Is it right to say that God is the highest thought?
JT Obviously. “O depth of riches”, says the apostle, “both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways! ... For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen”. That is, I think, the doxology characteristic of the New Testament. The doxologies of the epistles all help in that direction. The most spiritual men of the dispensation were worshippers. They had the right thought and we get it from them.
JC [p. 549] In what way does priesthood touch the thought of God “all in all”?
JT The use of it, the service it renders, is to keep our minds clear from other thoughts. Priesthood is really a provisional thing. As far as I see, it is not final, it is not eternal. It is eternal in the sense that there is nothing coming after it like it, but it has in view the conditions surrounding us in which we are here as in the flesh. It involves intelligence and holiness so that we can keep out what is evil and all that is contrary to God. “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge” (Malachi 2:7), for instance. They are under a charge as was said last night. The exercise of priesthood is in view of present conditions. What will remain is sonship. Of course it is a son who is priest now, but when there is no evil, when there is no hindrance, when there is no double-mindedness, when all is perfect there is no need for priesthood at all. It is a provisional thought to meet all these conditions that we are conscious of as in the flesh.
JC That is very helpful. I wondered if, in priesthood, we arrive at the thought of God as being filled with God (as suggested in David) in His presence. It is only in priesthood that we can enter the presence of God and thus be filled with God.
JT Quite so. You will observe that the ephod is not in evidence in his last days. In his last great service of worship, the ephod is not in evidence. It is all there but he is filled with God, as you say. The great end is God “all in all” (not ‘all and in all’). He is all as filling us so that there is nothing else.
EGMcA Is that a kindred thought in 2 Chronicles 5:14: “The priests could not stand to do their service because of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God”.
JT That is a kindred thought and needs to be elucidated. Who are there, then, if the priests cannot enter? The answer is that the things of the temple,
[p. 550] the material and the fittings, simply allude to persons. Persons are there, both in the temple and in the tabernacle. They are not kept out in that sense. In the tabernacle, only the idea of authority was kept out, as that was not then needed; in the temple, the idea of priesthood, as that was not then needed. In the divine, eternal habitation there is no need of what is official but a great need of persons. God must have persons and He has them in sonship. That is the great idea in the temple.
JD Otherwise it would be Deity filling somewhere with Itself and there would be no advance with that. The advance is that it is God “all in all”, but in men. Would you be free to give a moral application to, “then the end”, as a point reached in the assembly today?
JT You reach that point, that what is official has gone and you are absorbed with God. He says, ‘This is what I have had in mind from eternal counsel’. It was not what Moses was personally that was excluded — it was what he represented. The priest is the official side, but the persons are there. As you say, God is enough for Himself. He inhabits eternity, we are told, and the Deity of course is satisfied in Itself, speaking reverentially, but revelation implies that He has something else. The Deity has taken up the relationship of Father and Son in order to bring man in and when that is secured, that is all. God says, ‘I want all this Myself’ — the glory filling both the tabernacle and the temple.
JD Would the mediatorial service of the Lord be seen in the morning meeting in that way in bringing everything into subjection, so that there might be a touch of that now in the assembly?
JT I think so. The Lord is recognised as we discern Him. He is apprehended on our side and from then on is to lead us on to the light of God through the Father. First the covenant-God, then the Father, and then God, as represented in Elohim — God in the [p. 551] absolute, because we shall never lose that thought. Although He dwells in light unapproachable, we know He is there.
JD Is it the knowledge of the covenant-God in connection with the Son here where David merges in it, that enables us to sit?
JT It is the perfect love that casts out fear, first of all. There are three kinds of love that enter into the assembly as convened. The first is the love of Christ, that is, in the bread, “This is my body which is given for you”, Luke 22:19. The second is the covenant-love of God, which is in the cup. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you”, Luke 22:20. That is the covenant-love of God and, as John says, “perfect love casts out fear”, 1 John 4:18. So that we are set free. Then there is the love that the Father has for the Son which He alludes to. The Lord says in John 17:26: “That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”. That is manifestly greater than the other two — the love that the Father has for the Son. That is love by itself, and that love is to be in us. We are to love the Son as the Father loves — with that kind of love. These are thoughts that should be before us in the assembly; and although we would not make compartments in the assembly we move, if we are subject and intelligent, in that relation. I believe that the Lord, as looking down upon us, takes account of all the saints from the time they leave their houses until they reach the meeting-room. The anointing is the first great thought and it has to do with my spirit in the house in getting ready for the meeting; looking after the children and getting them ready, and walking up the street. The anointing is to be upon the saints. Then the coming in and sitting down; there is beautiful moral order and the anointing marks off those who have the Spirit. There is a dignity about them and a distinctiveness that no others have. Then it says that the Lord “placed himself”,
[p. 552] Luke 22:14. That includes the anointing, the way He would sit. He “placed himself”. That has to do with our coming into the room and sitting down. Then there are the announcements which have to do with the public testimony. The anointing has to do with what is public; it is connected with the tabernacle which is the public position. The temple is what is inside spiritually. If I give out notices, they are for the information of the brethren but they belong to what is public and they should be anointed; they should be in dignity. They are not common. Everything is under the heading of the anointing. That is how we sit down and heaven is complacent in all that. The apostle says in view of all that, “I speak as to intelligent persons”, 1 Corinthians 10:15. What I am going to say to you now requires intelligence. That is the next thing. Well, I give out a hymn. What am I giving out? What is in my mind? What am I thinking about? Is there intelligence? “I will sing with the spirit”, says the apostle, “but I will sing also with the understanding”, 1 Corinthians 14:15. That is most important, that the hymn I give out, the giving of thanks, or whatever part I take, should all be in intelligence. And hence the thing proceeds and these great divine thoughts as to love fall into their real places.
JB When the Lord says in Psalm 22, “And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”, is that the end in view for the Lord with regard to the sufferings before Him?
JT I think so. We were speaking of that a little this morning. Before that you have Psalm 8:2 in which it is said, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established praise ...”; that necessarily enters into Psalm 22. He speaks of the deepest things — the atoning sufferings — but “thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”.
JB He surrounds Himself in His dwelling place with His beloved people to praise [p. 553] Him.
JT The eighth psalm prepares us for the twenty-second: “And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”. Someone has been praising — the praises of Israel are assumed to be there, but then He goes on in verse 22 to say, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee”. That is the new thing. You must have the assembly and what I have been saying about the anointing is a most important thing because we are so common in our thoughts, so mean and natural, whereas the Lord intends a great and holy vehicle in which to place them.
SMcC The anointing would imply that things are not done merely in a formal way; feeling would enter into the matter.
JT The anointing means that you have the Holy Spirit and He affects you in your external demeanour and ways. It is the same Holy Spirit “whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15), but the anointing is affecting you outwardly — how you meet the public, how you walk down the street and meet men without being defiled.
JB Solomon was anointed with the oil of the tabernacle. We proceed from that into the temple; the anointing is not there — it is the dignity of the persons inside.
JD In view of what is stated here: “then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him”, is all service in the assembly mediatorial, or is a point reached where that service ceases today?
JT It is a question of what you mean by ‘mediatorial’. Generally I think it is too limited. The idea is that we always need Someone as with God, even eternally. We shall not see God in His essential Being. I believe many have the thought that they will see the Deity, the Trinity, but it is all wrong. We see Christ; He is the One we see.
GAT There has been quite an exercise in this [p. 554] meeting in connection with that remark. We all hold that there are three Persons in the Godhead, but some of us are confused as to how they are divided. God came down and became Man.
JT We shall not see the Persons, I apprehend, save as in Christ. The Deity must stand. One of the Persons becoming man does not alter that great fact, so that as that Person is here, we have a voice out of heaven. That is the voice of the Deity but it is the voice of the Deity in Fatherhood, that is, in a relation that is intelligible to us. Fatherhood is intelligible to every person. Each one has had a father and God has taken that relationship. As the Son becomes Man and is baptised, the heavens are opened to Him and it is, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 3:17. That is a voice out of heaven. The apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15:27: “But when he says that all things are put in subjection, it is evident that it is except him who put all things in subjection to him”. But the Deity is not subject to the Son. It is manifest, as the voice comes out of heaven, that that is the voice of the Deity, but it is the voice of the Father and, therefore, another Person besides the One that is here. So that you have the voice of the Father and then the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove. That is another Person, and He rests upon this Person that is in manhood. There is the Trinity. It is manifest. It is not categorically stated — it is really there — it is manifestly there. That is how we come into the truth. We absorb these great facts — they become part of us.
JD When you address the Lord in worship, you are not speaking to the Father. The Father is a distinct Person in revelation.
JT Surely; quite so.
GAT I am not yet clear in regard to this matter. I hold that there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead. You just remarked that when the Son was here the Holy Spirit came down upon Him. Does that mean [p. 555] there were two of the Persons of the Godhead here at the same time? And was there just One in the Godhead in heaven?
JT You are touching the inscrutable. We are not capable of understanding all these things. We have to have our minds formed by what Scripture presents. The Deity is inscrutable. While the Son was on earth, it is “the Son of man who is in heaven”, John 3:13. You cannot explain that. It is a statement of Scripture. Also we cannot say that while the Spirit is on earth He is not in heaven. All we can do is to use the language of Scripture and let our minds absorb it. Our thoughts are more or less common, but the great thing is to pay attention to Scripture and be formed in our minds by the way it speaks.
EGMcA You made a remark when you were here a short time ago that when you were speaking of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you were speaking of the three Persons in deity; but when you were speaking of God, you were speaking of all three Persons as seen in the absolute.
JT That is right. The Father may be presented to us as “one God, the Father”; whenever you use the term “God”, you cannot exclude any of the Persons. The abstract thought has to be left.
SMcC If we can only understand and intelligently enter into what God is relatively, what part does God in the absolute have in connection with our worship, as reaching what you referred to in the assembly?
JT As you proceed, you proceed to increasing greatness. God is the end. You cannot get beyond that. David indicated that was what he had in mind — increasing greatness. The Lord puts the Father first: “... my Father and your Father, ... my God and your God”, John 20:17. That is a progressive thought. The thought of Father is more intelligible to us; He has entered into that relationship in order to be intelligible to us — in order to draw out our affections intelligently,
but God is the great end. “My God and your God”.
Rem “The Father seeks ... worshippers”, John 4:23.
JT Yes. He says, “God is a spirit”. He does not say the Father is a Spirit although He is, but “God is a spirit”. Remarkable that He should say that.
JD With reference to the mediatorial service of Christ, does His service as Mediator govern the saints viewed as in tabernacle conditions or in temple conditions?
JT I think in both. Paul is a figure of Christ in relation to the temple although he is outside, but it is the Son who abides in the house for ever, and in eternity we need Him. We shall be dependent upon Him. He is One that is between you and God. God dwells in light unapproachable. How am I to touch Him? I touch Him because the One that has come from my side as Man can touch Him. That is what I understand, that we are dependent on Him not only now but eternally. We need Him. He takes the place of subjection, according to this passage: “then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him”. He is within my range when He is in subjection because that is not deity.
JD Does the service of Christ in the tabernacle condition have to do more with the covenant and possibly with the saints’ apprehension of Christ as sacrifice as we have in the first four chapters of Leviticus? Leviticus follows the end of Exodus where God takes possession of the tabernacle, and then is the temple character of the saints more in connection with the counsels of God?
JT The tabernacle belongs to the wilderness properly, and the service that Christ renders there has to do with the Supper which implies the covenant. I have to be brought into that. It says in 1 Corinthians that the cup is the covenant. That is what it is to me [p. 557] objectively, but in the second letter it is what is effected in me, in the christian — that the love is there. The love is brought into my heart. The Lord does that.
JD Is that 2 Corinthians 3?
JT Yes. The Lord does that. The apostle says in verse 6 of that chapter, “For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens”. Then he has a lengthy parenthesis in which he speaks about the glory of the covenant and the ministry of the Spirit; then he reaches the end of the parenthesis and says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit”. That is where you get the thought of the Mediator in the sense in which He effects the covenant in the saints. He makes it a practical thing that God’s love is effected in our hearts. The authority of Christ is in the service, but the Spirit is in the service too.
EGMcA Does the covenant set me free to move out of the wilderness?
JT That is right. It is perfect love.
JB In the new Jerusalem no temple is seen, “for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb”, Revelation 21:22. Is that not the condition of things?
JT Just so. “The Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb”. These are not, properly speaking, terms that enter into eternity; they are connected with time.
JWD Paul says, “But my God shall abundantly supply all your need”, Philippians 4:19. What do you understand by that expression?
JT It would simply mean the God he knew. He knew God in the sense in which he was speaking — God who furnishes the service so perfectly and liberally. I think it is on those lines. “My God” is a beautiful expression. I think it is Paul conveying what God had been to him. He would speak experimentally.
JWD Would it be the Father in that sense?
JT It would be; it is the way He provides for you. It is always well to be able to speak experimentally.
JWD When you use the expression in prayer,
“our God”, it is God in His absoluteness. But we often refer to the Father as God relatively, and rightly so, do we not?
JT Yes, but “our God”, what do you mean by that?
JWD We use that expression meaning the Father. Our brother spoke to “our God” this morning. It does not always convey the idea of absoluteness, does it?
JT Well, “our God” — of course it is God. “For also our God is a consuming fire”, Hebrews 12:29. That is a relative thought. The God we know in all His love to us is nevertheless a consuming fire and when we say, “our God”, I am not so sure that the Father as such is meant because there it is judgment. “For also our God is a consuming fire”. I am not sure that I get your thought fully. Perhaps you will enlarge on it.
JWD Do you think we can speak to God in His absoluteness in that sense?
JT I think so, if it be Christ’s God; that is, “my Father and your Father, ... my God and your God”, John 19:17. When it is Christ’s God it is not the covenant God. It is distinct from the Father, too. There you touch absoluteness, what He is in infinitude. He is Christ’s God. If I am alongside of Christ I can get some thought as to His God. He has access to the depths of the Deity. So that it says He “has passed through the heavens”, Hebrews 4:14. He has gone into an uncreated sphere but we cannot get out of creation in our minds, nor shall we ever get out of creation. But the Son goes beyond creation, beyond all the heavens. What is beyond all the heavens is uncreated. The Son has access there and that is, I apprehend, how things are — that God is God. “My God”, he says. That is deity in the absolute.
GAT Is that a higher thought than the third heaven?
JT Oh, yes. No creature can get outside of creation, but the Son of God is a divine Person and He [p. 559] passes through the heavens in going there. That enables us to understand how He is the medium through which we know God.
SMcC I do not quite understand your remark, ‘If we get alongside of Christ, we may get some thought as to His God’, if what He is in absoluteness is inscrutable.
JT You cannot compass Him. You enjoy the air, but you do not compass it. You enjoy God and understand that He is absolute, that there is only one Person that can know Him, and when you get alongside of Him He gives you an understanding. Infinitude is always infinitude. The creature is always the creature.
JC How do you explain, “the Father seeks ... worshippers”, and worship to God?
JT The Lord explains to the woman in John 4 that “God is a spirit”. He was that always. The Lord lets us into that and it is to show that He must be worshipped “in spirit and truth”. “In spirit” means that I have my spirit from God. I did not get it from my parents, but from God. It is the link I have with God; by that I am in touch with God as He is. He is a spirit. The lower creature has not that; God gave it to man.
GAT Romans 8:9 says, “but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him”.
JT That would be more the characteristic spirit, the kind He had, but then you have your own spirit. “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”, Romans 8:16. You have a distinct spirit of your own.
WB That is helpful. It says in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man”. There is the counsel of divine Persons and then, as you say, the link with God in our spirits. “Let us make man”. The inscrutable Godhead is in view there.
JT Then He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”, Genesis 2:7. He has a spirit now, and he gets it from God. You have it in Proverbs 20:27, “Man’s [p. 560] spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the inner parts of the belly”. It is the avenue through which He can get in and through which you can get to God. The spirit is the highest part of man. That is the basis really in us; that God is a spirit and it is in virtue of us having spirits that we can worship Him.
JD Basically in your soul you have the knowledge that this is inscrutable, but you are governed by the fact that He has come into revelation. He cannot be compassed but you know Him in revelation.
JWD “There is no other God save one”. Then it goes on to say, “yet 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”, etc. (1 Corinthians 8:4,6).
JT That is revelation manifestly — God in revelation — and does not touch the inscrutability of which we have been speaking. It is God in revelation. We are baptised to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The Father retains His place in the Deity. He never gives it up. We address Him in that way but we do not exclude the other Persons. Another passage of Paul’s, “awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13), shows that Jesus Christ is in the Deity. We are awaiting Him. That also helps us to see that we have to take things as Scripture presents them. If God presents Himself in graded relations, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that does not set aside the infiniteness and inscrutability and absoluteness of the Deity as composed of three Persons. All that is beyond and outside the realm of revelation. The apostle manifestly is dealing with paganism and he is bringing in the revelation of God to meet it. We have one God, the Father to address as in the Deity, and one Lord, that is, Christ in manhood exercises authority, and then “by whom are all things”. John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with [p. 561] God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”, John 1:1 - 3. There it is. The Lord Jesus in manhood is the same Person; “by whom are all things, and we by him”; the word ‘by’ meaning that we, every one of us, have come into being through Jesus and yet it is Jesus in manhood that he is speaking about.
JB Would Luke 10:22 help us as regards the revelation of God as Father: “no one knows who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal him”, and also Matthew 11:27, “no one knows the Son but the Father, nor does any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal him”.
JT Quite so. That passage in 1 Corinthians 8 should be kept clearly in mind that, whilst the Son is there in a mediatorial position as Lord, everything is by Him. God is the Creator of everything. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, Genesis 1:1. He did that. That helps what we are saying. While He is spoken of here in manhood in an inferior position, things that are said indicate that He is God.
EGMcA Is it correct to say that the mediatorial service of Christ helps our spirits to touch God in worship? His service does not end in bringing us to the Father, but as He is what He is, the Mediator, does He not help our spirits to worship God?
JT He does.
EGMcA Regardless of how inscrutable the term “God” is, it is through the mediatorial service of Christ, the Son, who brings us there, so that it seems to me that, while the expression “Father” is a marvellous one, God Himself as God has recovered for Himself, or for the Deity, all that He had lost. So that God, [p. 562] the inscrutable, incomprehensible, is worshipped by His creature.
JT He has been pleased to come into a relationship intelligible to us to secure what He has in His mind.
EGMcA The terms, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are relative terms. In the morning meeting it is possible to reach that which is not only relative, which has distance and limitation in mind, but by Christ the Son, we are brought into the illimitable.
JT That is right. “Then the end ...” That is the way it moves. The mediatorial service of Christ in the tabernacle is in relation to the Lord’s supper, the covenant, but then we change our ground. All that is in the wilderness. We change our ground in the apprehension of Christ’s Sonship. They went to the Mount of Olives, a manifest change of position, after the Lord’s supper. That is a spiritual thing; it is not a public, anointed thought. It is a spiritual, inward thought. They went to the Mount of Olives and as there, what would come into the mind of any intelligent disciple at that time? The Lord used to be there every night, Luke tells us. He taught in the temple during the day but at night He went to the Mount of Olives. What was His occupation there? That is what a spiritual inquiry would be. What would His occupation be? “And every one went to his home” (John 7:53), “But Jesus went to the mount of Olives”. It is an out-of-the-world state of things. Olivet is outside of Jerusalem, of what is religious, and the Lord was in communication with heaven. That was His holy employ. We are here and what is our employ? We are alongside Him and He alongside us and the thought is that we should be occupied with God; first as the Father in the term in which He is intelligible to us, and then led on to Christ’s God — “my God”. Well, suppose we are able to take in the feelings that went on in His heart when he said that! He is speaking of God in His absoluteness. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”;
[p. 563] the word is plural which means the full thought of God.
EGMcA How does David use the statement in regard of God in 1 Chronicles 29:12: “and thou rulest over everything”? Is that God?
JT We have to make due allowance for the dispensation under which he spoke. By adding this on to what we have in 2 Samuel 7, we see how completely free of himself he was and what a sense he had of the greatness of God! It is the first time you get the thought of Head attributed to God. David represents the thought himself but he says it is from God. Everything is from Him and reverts to Him. So that it says, “And David blessed Jehovah in the sight of all the congregation; and David said, Blessed be thou, Jehovah, the God of our father Israel, for ever and ever. Thine, Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the splendour, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is thine: thine, Jehovah, is the kingdom, and thou art exalted as Head above all”. First the creation and then the mediatorial kingdom and headship attaching to it and then “riches and glory are of thee, and thou rulest over everything; and in thy hand is power and might; and in thy hand it is to make all great and strong. And now, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name”. And then in verse 17, “And I know, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness”. Then verse 18, “Jehovah, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and direct their hearts to thee!” And verse 20: “And David said to all the congregation, Bless now Jehovah your God. And all the congregation blessed Jehovah the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and did homage to Jehovah and the king”. I think it is wonderful when you consider that old man! In 1 Kings 1 he was a decrepit old man but here he stands up, according to this passage, and says all these wonderful things. What [p. 564] is it but the supernatural, a man taken out of death and set up to speak in this wonderful way to God! He has reached the end. Solomon takes his place but he has reached the end in his soul, and every one of us should have that before us.
AB Is that why he says in 2 Samuel 7:19, “And is this the manner of man, Lord Jehovah?”
JT Quite so.
JD Referring to your point in regard to the Mount of Olives, do you make that the summit, or John 20? Is the mount of Olives John 20 spiritually or is it on the way to it?
JT It is on the way to John 20. John 20 is ascension. I would take the Mount of Olives as the turning point, the new position; making way for the ascension, for the heavenly position. The point is, to be spiritual at that stage of the meeting; to have our spirits under control so that the Holy Spirit gets His place amongst us.
GWH Is the Mount of Olives and the Colossian position the same?
JT Pretty much.
EGMcA Any covenant that God makes with men has need in view.
JT Yes, I think so.
EGMcA The covenant is that we need to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, which is done. John 20 carries us beyond a sense of need into a spiritual realm where no need is felt.
JT “I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, John 20:17. That is in mind. You must notice the word, it is not only the relationship but the Person — “I ascend”.
JD When the queen of Sheba visited Solomon, she noticed “his ascent by which he went up to the house of Jehovah”, 1 Kings 10:5.
GAT In connection with the atmosphere referred to in Solomon’s temple, would what you have been bringing before us produce that atmosphere amongst [p. 565] us?
JT Spirituality is the great thing. I may be just a member of the congregation, but as to the change of position and the intelligence that enters into it, that is different.
JWW Does the apostle’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14 - 19 help in regard of what is knowable and what is unknowable? “... that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God” (verse 19)?
JT That is always the point. There is what is knowable and also what is unknowable; “and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”. The love of Christ — the first love you get — you cannot compass it, but strengthened inwardly by the Spirit enables you to grasp “the breadth and length and depth and height”, that you are in a wonderful place — a large place.
GWH Why is the Spirit mentioned so much in Ephesians?
JT That is in relation to a new domain.
GWH In Colossians the Spirit is mentioned only once, but in Ephesians He is mentioned eleven times.
JT Yes. The point in Colossians is formation.
EGMcA Would the remark made in regard to Ephesians 3 be in line with what is said in 1 Corinthians 15:28, “that God may be all in all”?
JT I think so. Being “filled even to all the fulness of God” links on with that.