NEARNESS TO CHRIST AND PUBLIC SERVICE (8)
[p. 274] NEARNESS TO CHRIST AND PUBLIC SERVICE (8)
JT I have been thinking of the part Satan has in the circumstances depicted here, and how solemn and searching it is that one so near the Lord outwardly should become the agent of such treachery. The part Satan has in the scene is due to the inlet he had through the avaricious state of one; it was not hatred of Christ or opposition to Him, but covetousness. There is no doubt a prophetic allusion to the history of the assembly in the case of Judas; the treachery that has marked her in that system which claims to represent her on earth. And then the denial of the Lord by Peter presents another feature of the history of the assembly — both running on to the end. In the one, the treachery that would sell Him for worldly gain, in the other, denial through self-confidence.
Rem And both these phases run on to the end.
JT Yes; and then alongside of that, the love of Christ runs on. The passage may be profitably compared with the addresses to the assemblies. Thyatira, I think, closes with a state of treachery and unfaithfulness; and Sardis is that in which the Lord is denied. Philadelphia had not denied. He said, Thou “hast not denied my name” (Revelation 3:8); it stands over against the general features of Protestantism. So that the action of Satan is very solemn, the latitude he has for acting against Christ. But the love of Christ is concurrent with all this, and remains right through. He finds an outlet for it in Philadelphia, but to Laodicea He appeals to buy of Him, and, with all that, He is standing at the door and knocking — His love remains to the end. The practical lesson is, I am sure, that there should be no inlet for Satan, in the company of [p. 275] those who seek to keep the Lord’s word and do not deny His name. The full guarantee against this is the presence of love, “love amongst yourselves”, known in Christ, but a known thing, prevalent amongst us.
EP I suppose that is what the Lord liked so much in Philadelphia, not only appreciation of Himself, but of one another.
JT Those of the synagogue of Satan “who say that they are Jews, and are not, but lie”, of them He says, “Behold, I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet, and shall know that I have loved thee”, (Revelation 3:9). There are “the depths of Satan”, (Revelation 2:24) and now “the synagogue of Satan”. Brethren ought to be aware of the awful conditions existing, the footing that Satan has in the profession. The synagogue of Satan implies an acknowledged religious setting.
Ques Do you mean the “depths of Satan” show the hold he has on it?
JT Yes; how deep-rooted the thing is. Then the organised religious thing, too, the synagogue, is not merely an ordinary one, it is Satan’s.
Rem That would be the system.
JT The religious system. Yet the Lord has got such power in His hand that He is going to make those who are of that to come and worship before the feet of the saints and to “know that I have loved thee”. They say they are Jews, that is to say, those who claim to be the ancient people of God, but they are not, they lie; however cleverly they cover it up, they lie; they have no hereditary link with God whatever. He denies their claims.
Ques You say Peter represents the assembly; do you mean the professing assembly?
JT Yes; the public body. Protestantism, as we speak of it, is marked by the denial of the Lord’s name, and taking on other names; whereas Philadelphia did not do that, “Thou ... hast not denied my name”, “Thou hast kept the word of my patience”, (verse 10).
Rem Though, of course, Peter was a genuine soul.
JT Yes; but he is a type, I think, of the history of the assembly, the public body.
Ques Is there any reason why it is said of Philadelphia in the negative, “Thou ... hast not denied my name”?
JT I think because of what we have remarked, that the others were doing that; Philadelphia was not like the mass. All around, His name is being denied, whereas those who love the Lord and know His love do not do that.
LDB Is it not to be noted that, while there was one there who would deliver Him up — and the Lord was troubled in spirit — there was also one disciple whom He loved, who was in His bosom?
JT I think he corresponds with Philadelphia; would you not say so?
LDB I was thinking that was, perhaps, how you would view it. So that the Lord has that which is particularly near Him — in His bosom — set over against “one of you shall deliver me up”.
JT John forecasts those who seize the position love opens up to us; the Lord’s supper, I think, is the door into that. He indicates an inlet to the place of love, because that is what the bosom suggests — it is a receptive thought; there is an inlet for the saints, it is available to us, and John took advantage of it, others did not. It is available to all, as has often been remarked, but all do not take advantage of it.
Ques Might you have your feet washed, and yet miss it?
JT Well, I think having your feet washed is that you have part with Christ, that is what He says. We must not assume that the actual feet-washing removes the distinction that there would be through [p. 277] spiritual stature. We all may have our feet washed and have part according to our measure, but some may have taken hold of the opened door into the sphere of love. John did that; he was in the bosom; I think in a general way, as I said, he foreshadows Philadelphia. You see what is opened up in the Lord’s supper; the truth of the assembly is entered into. Thus we are in the place of light, the place of apprehending the mind of the Lord; hence the overcomer is made a pillar in the temple of God. What is promised is in keeping with what we value now.
Ques Is that why we have the breast mentioned in the second instance — something to lean on?
JT Yes; the more you apprehend the bosom, I think, the more you lean on the breast, on the reliability of the love of Christ. What can we do now in the presence of the inroads of evil on every side, the efforts of Satan? His power is increasing, how can we hope to go on to the end, save as we learn the reliability of the love of Christ? He loves to the end, He never falters, He can be relied upon.
FI So that, with regard to John, the intelligence there was the outcome of affection.
JT That is how it stands.
FI So I suppose, with regard to ourselves, there is no true spiritual intelligence unless the affections are in movement in relation to Christ.
JT You are in the position of obtaining the mind of the Lord, the Urim and the Thummim, as was remarked last night; I suppose what God is as revealed in perfection in manhood. They have been interpreted as meaning light and perfection. God is light, but He is light in a perfect Man, and so, accessible. Paul, I think, emphasises the reliability of the love of Christ, He “loved me”, he says, “and gave himself for me”, (Galatians 2:20). “The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known”, (2 Timothy 4:17). That is, there is to be no giving in,
[p. 278] no surrender, the thing is to be presented fully; that is what is in the Lord’s mind, so that there is no compromise, whatever it costs you. The Lord sees what you are aiming at. “The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me”, he says, “that by me the preaching might be fully known”. Not simply that the preaching might be fully known, but that it might be in the one the Lord deputed to make it known. There would be much rivalry; many would set Paul aside, but the Lord stood by him, that by him the preaching might be fully known.
LDB Was it at the time of his defence?
JT I think so. “At my first answer no man stood with me”, he says, “but all men forsook me”, (2 Timothy 4:16). He stood before the emperor in whose hands all the power of the world was, a lone man standing there. “At my first answer”, he says, “all men forsook me”; he was left alone, he was brought into the position of Christ on the cross; He was left alone, “they all forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50); but then Paul said, “the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me”. Well, I think that is what the chapter would encourage us in, the reliability of Christ, that His power is available and His love never fails.
Rem I suppose a sense of the reliability of the love of Christ enables us to stand against these principles. While we speak of them as ‘outside’, they might break out among us.
JT Yes. The practical thing is to see that in none of our companies is there any room for Satan. First, he put the thing into the heart of Judas, then he came himself into that heart.
Rem You spoke of self-confidence.
JT That was the secret of Peter’s denial; pride of heart, that he would do more than the others. “If all shall be offended in thee, I will never be offended”, (Matthew 26:33). These principles may break in, even although we are christians; that fact does [p. 279] not save us. No one of us is any more a believer than Peter, yet he fell under the power of Satan.
FI Does it go to show that however near you may be to those who are near to Christ, yet unless you are near to Him yourself you will fail? For Peter was near to John, and got his information through John.
JT He got it second-hand, and that does not preserve us.
Ques Would it be in the bosom that we get the ‘word’? “Thou .. hast kept my word”. (Revelation 3:8).
JT Yes; just so. The bosom is the place where you may enjoy the love. The apostle says, “to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge”, (Ephesians 3:19). If you know it, you will rely upon it, so that the one who is in the bosom leaned on the breast. He leaned on the breast to get the light, and the Lord did not fail him.
Rem The word in 1 John 5:21 would be very wholesome in regard to all that, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols”. I was thinking of what it says in Colossians 3:5, “covetousness, which is idolatry”.
JT If one has means, and borders on the world, as people do, it leads to idolatry. That gives place to the enemy.
Rem John seems to have been occupied with the Lord’s love to him. But the Lord says to Peter, “Art thou attached to me?” (John 21:17) as if he was still self-confident; but John was confident of the Lord’s love to him.
JT Yes; while John relied on the Lord’s love, Peter relied on his own. These are very weighty facts for us in view of the activities of Satan now. We were noticing in Luke 8 how the demons that were cast out of the man besought the Lord that He would allow them to enter into the swine. If they had asked the Lord to allow them to return to the man,
[p. 280] or to enter into a man like him, it would have been a different matter; but in asking to go into the swine, no doubt there is an allusion to an unclean state; it referred to the unrepentant Jews, no doubt, and it is, alas! applicable now to christendom. We read of the sow that was washed returning to her wallowing in the mire; (2 Peter 2:22). Men have returned, although nominally christians, to what they were before christianity came in, and Satan is aware of that, and can enter into that state of things. And the solemn thing is, that the Lord allowed it; the demons entered into the swine, and then there was the rush into the lake. I believe that is the explanation of the rapidity with which things are moving now towards apostasy; the state of things is such that the Lord allows Satan scope. Later on a strong delusion will be sent.
God wants us to stand against all that as in the strength of the love of Christ. He loves us to the end, and He says, I will make them to know it, too; so that we want to know that love — it is open to us. I believe the Lord’s supper is revived for that very end, that the saints should know how to get into the love of Christ, and to rely on it.
Rem John would help us in his letters.
JT Quite so. If the saints take up that place through the Lord’s supper, I feel that, as we are proving, the love of Christ would provide what is necessary. He calls them ‘children’ here, meaning that there would be nothing lacking in a parental way.
RWG The Lord in presenting His love like this well knows what the value of His love to us is, as reliable.
JT You get all that is essential to support you locally, and generally, as the saints take up the Lord’s supper and all that it leads into. As we may “minister to the Lord” in connection with it, we shall find all needed supply. There will be a supply [p. 281] of ministry and all furnishings, so that we may continue to the end.
Rem It is very encouraging that the Lord says, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee”, (John 21:22).
JT Yes. There is doubtless the intimation that John, or rather what he represents, would continue to the end.
Ques Is not that the way in which revival of affection to the Lord would be brought about, in appreciation of His supper?
JT Yes; I think John suggests to us the place we all may take. There is an inlet to the love of Christ; it is available, and in it there is light. Those that are there get light; they know things. It is in that connection that the truth develops and the light shines; and then ability to disseminate the truth is furnished. Love will fail in nothing. Here there was one in it. It does not say the Lord put him there; it was just that he was there, meaning that he took advantage of what was open to him.
Ques Why is it that “love amongst yourselves” is connected with the thought of disciples rather than with brethren?
JT I suppose it is to be maintained outwardly; what we are as brethren is more private. Of course, we are called Brethren now as a designation, but it is really a family term. “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves”. That is how we are marked off, not by the fact that we have right order in our meetings, but that we have love in them — love amongst ourselves.
Ques What is the thought of the parental care of the Lord in relation to the children?
JT Well, the section, verses 33 - 35, begins “Children” — it is a family thing. I think it is like a father leaving his children; indeed the Lord’s supper is in that very same setting. The ‘house-father’ [p. 282] was leaving His children, and they could not come with Him then, but their safeguard lay in that they had love. That is what we want, to have the thing as a known quantity amongst us.
Ques Would Acts 20 show how it worked out with Paul? It says they ardently kissed him, but he embraced them first.
JT I think so. I think that chapter shows the love in which the assembly was to be bathed, as it were. He begins by embracing them; it is a very impressive form of expressing affection. He enfolded Eutychus in his arms, too, and then the elders fell on his neck and kissed him, as he left them; and in this chapter we have the Lord’s supper. The chapter stands out in that way. “And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread”, (verse 7). It was not a local thing exactly; there were distinguished brethren there from many parts of the world, including Paul himself. Some of the names are given, but the ‘we’ covers them all, a very impressive way of expressing mutual feeling — we came together to break bread. It is indeed a wonderful chapter; in it we get “all the counsel of God” (verse 27); also “the blood of his own” (verse 28), that is to say, God expressing at what a cost He has secured the assembly. So that the chapter, as it were, would bathe the saints in divine love; a known love, an expressed love.
Ques Is that the very atmosphere for coming together for the Supper?
JT Exactly; and it is to be continued; the Supper supports it.
LDB So that when the grievous wolves would threaten the saints, they could then lean on the Lord as having known “the bosom of Jesus”. It is in that chapter he says that grievous wolves shall enter in, “not sparing the flock”.
JT “Also of your own selves”, he says, “shall men arise”, (verses [p. 283] 29,30).
LDB They would thus be called to lean hard on the Lord, as knowing His love.
JT I think that all fits in here, for we have the parental term, ‘children’, and the wisdom of it — to learn how to love as He loved, for it is important to learn how to love.
Rem “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh”, (Song of Songs 4:6). It is suffering love. A company formed after this order would become very attractive to one seeking companionship.
JT There would be warmth in it. Mark teaches us how to do things in our levitical service after the model of Christ — He did “all things well” (Mark 7:37); but John teaches us how to love as Christ loved — “as I have loved you”.
Ques Would you say a little more about the setting of the Supper in relation to the thought of the house-father?
JT Well, it grew out of the passover; it was a household matter, and He was the Head of the house, so all communications would be from that point of view. Notwithstanding the treachery of Judas, He goes on. He was troubled in spirit, He felt it deeply, but He went on caring for His own; His service includes what we have in this chapter and chapters 14 to 17. We have all that in spite of Judas’ treachery and Peter’s denial. The Lord was not deterred; He went on. His love would not be turned aside; He went on to furnish them. He was going away, and they could not come then, and He is laying down the principles by which they should be preserved and known as His disciples in this world.
JM-n It says in Psalm 55:12,13, “For it is not an enemy that hath reproached me — then could I have borne it ... but it was thou, a man mine equal” and in Psalm 41:9 “mine own familiar [p. 284] friend, in whom I confided ... hath lifted up his heel against me”.
JT Very affecting! How the Lord felt it!
Rem Judas was not present though in those chapters to which you refer.
JT No; he had gone out.
Ques Does that mean he was not present at the Supper?
JT I do not think you could say he was not present, for Luke 22:21 expressly says he was. “The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table”. That means, there was power there to do things against Him — “the hand of him that betrayeth me”; the Lord knew that. But he went out, as it says here.
WH Does it suggest that, through the activity of love, that element would go out?
JT I think so. The light shone so resplendently that he went out. Think of what Judas carried out with him into the world! Not only was he going to turn Christ over to His enemies, but he was going to bring all the secrets of Christ and garnish the world with them. That is what enters into the position here. Later, John says, “Many false prophets are gone out into the world”, (1 John 4:1).
LDB “Mine own familiar friend”, as was said — he went out.
JT Yes. The Romish system is embellished with some of the finest expressions you can get. Terms that properly belong to the true church are made to adorn the false one. It is all through treachery; these things should not have been disclosed to unconverted people.
RWG It has been said that the most subtle form of evil is imitation of the truth.
JT Yes; and the solemn thing is that God allows the imitation of it. It becomes seemingly so [p. 285] real that many are carried away by it. Imitation is dreadfully effective at the present time.
JM-n When the Lord said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”, what was in His mind?
JT I think the work of the cross; the Lord was going to be glorified in a moral sense. In chapter 12:23 He says, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified”; that alluded, I think, to His place in relation to the whole of mankind. Here I think it is a different kind of glory; the moral glory that shone in the way He died, in the way He took the cup in perfect obedience from His Father’s hand — that the Son of man should express such holy obedience to the extent of dying. God is glorified in the obedience, in the wonderful expression of what man should be according to God, even to the extent of dying. Then He says, “If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself” — not yet the public glory, but what He has in God. And it would be immediate; it should not be deferred, like the glory in chapter 12. It refers to the present time. I have no doubt that what has accrued to Christ at the present time is all bound up in what He would have ‘immediately’.
Ques Does that follow on “it was night”?
JT It was night into which Judas went. “This is your hour, and the power of darkness”, (Luke 22:53). It was not night inside.
Ques Is there that in the saints that God can delight in?
JT Surely. “That ye love one another; as I have loved you” — that is the idea, that you love like Christ. We have in 1 John 3:16, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. That is the way we show it, and the result is we lay down our lives for the brethren. You [p. 286] not only love, but you love like Him. Then we have the quantity, the thing itself as known amongst us, that we have love among ourselves. But the Lord has to say, “The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice”.
Ques Is that the thought of a morning coming?
JT There may be an allusion to that. If it be an allusion to the dispensation, it would just refer to that. We get “Verily, verily” here. Certainty as to a most sorrowful occurrence. Elsewhere there is a reference to more than one crowing. Luke 22:34 says, “The cock shall not crow today before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me”. Mark 14:30 says, “Today, in this night, before the cock shall crow twice, thou shalt thrice deny me”. It is, I think a dispensational thing. The first crowing would be past; the threefold denial would extend on to later, I suppose.
Ques The second cock-crowing was the morning cock-crowing, was it not?
JT Yes; so the period is lengthened out in Mark. The three times is a complete thing. If we take it up in a dispensational way, it is the complete testimony to the denial, it covers the whole ground. Of course, the recovery of Peter is another matter, but the dispensational thing, I believe, means that the denial goes on to completion.