THE DIVINE STANDARD OF SERVICE (4)
[p. 414] THE DIVINE STANDARD OF SERVICE (4)
2 Corinthians 4; 2 Corinthians 5:1 - 9
JT We looked at chapters 2 and 3 this morning, the former bringing out the level on which the relation between the apostle and the Corinthians was maintained in the Person of Christ, not that to which the local leaders apparently would drag it down, but the Person of Christ. The enemy was set to take advantage of the breach that existed between the apostle and the Corinthians, not indeed because of anything in the apostle, but because of the conditions at Corinth. He was concerned, therefore, that anything he did in the way of forgiving should be according to their forgiveness; he forgave in the Person of Christ. We noted, too, the triumph in which he was led. Although disconcerted in not meeting Titus, he was led in triumph, God manifesting the savour of His knowledge through Paul in every place, and he was himself a sweet odour of Christ to God. Then in chapter 3 we had the ministry of the new covenant, looking at which we saw that the apostle had the Corinthians in his heart as his letter of commendation which he produced generally. He would speak well of them as they were the epistle of Christ ministered by him, written on fleshy tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God. Then we also noted that the Lord was the Spirit of the new covenant, involving all that in figure passed before Moses on the mount, and which is now embodied in Christ. The Lord thus makes the love of God effective in our hearts by the Spirit; as it is said, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5:5); that is, under Christ, so that the spirit of liberty pervades the saints normally, and we all, looking at the glory of the Lord,
[p. 415] whose face is unveiled, are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Lord the Spirit. It is the Lord’s doing. The Lord is the Spirit of the covenant. Moses in some little way reflected what the covenant was when his face shone, but it was a mere suggestion of the greatness of the thing as it is in Christ, of what God is in His love in Christ. The Lord is the Spirit of it all, making it effective through discipline and otherwise in our hearts.
HH Would you connect the personal love of Christ to the assembly with “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image”?
JT It works out in the assembly being made like Him. “We all”, would mean that it is general. The change makes us similar. It is a complete change, a ‘metamorphosis’, which is the original word used.
HH Moses went up with a ‘peradventure’. All Israel knew what was in the heart of Moses in relation to them.
JT Quite. He would do what he could, that is, he was so far like Christ. It was ‘peradventure’, but it was a wonderful thing that he could wish to be blotted out from God’s book for the people, so there was a suggestion of Christ in it. But the Lord could take on the responsibility; He was made a curse for us.
HH Then how do you understand the change from glory to glory?
JT It is from one glory to another, so that it is endless, as you might say.
Rem It is an ascending path.
JT Yes, “glory to glory” would be morally that. “From glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”, that is, it is His unceasing service until we are brought to it. “Beholding” is what we do; that is our part.
JJ Is it like John 1? There are various glories there.
JT Well, quite. It is “by the Lord”, however. Beholding is our side, but then the work is really by the Lord. It is His work “By the Lord the Spirit”, as it reads.
EJM Is Stephen an example?
JT Exactly. He looked stedfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus. He was certainly like Him then.
WC Does it refer to full liberty so that the city has the glory of God as coming down? Is that the full result of “from glory to glory”?
JT It will culminate in that. The city is being invested now with the glory, and it is the Lord who is doing it. The holy city, coming down from God out of heaven, will have the glory of God.
Rem So in a way it has been an accumulation from the beginning, glory being added to glory in view of the heavenly city.
JT The thing goes on — “from glory to glory”. It suggests continuance and the ceaseless activity of the Lord the Spirit. It is not the Holy Spirit; it is more the Lord as the Spirit of the thing. It is taken up from verse 6, “Not of letter, but of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens ... Now the Lord is the Spirit”.
RB Do you connect the change with what is wrought in discipline?
JT The Lord has recourse to all that may be necessary to bring us to it, and much is necessary with all of us to effect subjection.
As to the Lord being the Spirit of the covenant, no doubt most of us have realised what it is to be in a meeting where the Lord has His way and there is subjection. You feel it is the Lord. His influence in subduing is wonderful, but then, that influence is not binding, it is rather loosing; it does restrain our flesh, of course, but we feel at liberty. There is a spirit of liberty among us. It is the Lord. It is a [p. 417] spirit accompanying the presence of the Lord, and it marks those present. That is how the thing works. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”.
Rem His impressions and characteristics seem to be upon all.
JT On the first day of the week, after the Lord rose, you can understand what activities there were. The angel had come down (Matthew 28), and he was sitting on the stone rolled away from the Lord’s tomb; he invited the women to “Come see the place where the Lord lay”, and he sends them with a message to tell His disciples that they should see the Lord in Galilee. Then as they went it says, “Jesus met them, saying, Hail!” He would set them up in service as carrying the message; they would take it up in a different way after He met them. They were under orders of the angel before, but now He meets them as if to impart His Spirit to them in what they were doing; they would go with a different feeling to His “brethren”, for He changes the term from disciples to brethren. The Spirit of the Lord, as active in the way in which He met and spoke to and dealt with the disciples, would have a liberating and changing effect.
ER Do you suggest that we behold in company?
JT I think we do, but it would not be limited to that. “We all”; it is to bring in similarity in all through the change.
Rem Thinking of the two going to Emmaus, the Lord gives no explicit word to them, but they are under His Spirit, and they rise up the same hour and go back and join the company.
JT Just so; and the things they were saying as gathered show the transforming effect of the Lord’s service.
CGR Is this any peculiar glory or the whole scope of it?
JT I think it is the glory He has in administering [p. 418] the covenant; it is a delightful service to Him. What is in His heart shines in His face. We see in Revelation and elsewhere how in judicial services His face will be different.
MWB In what way do you distinguish between the glory of the Lord and the glory of Christ in verse 4 of the next chapter?
JT The glory of the Lord in chapter 3 is, as I was remarking, the service He renders. It is a delightful service to Him to administer the covenant and to make it effective. It is not a dead letter; it is a living thing, He being the Spirit of it, so that it is a delightful service which He carries on in coming in among the brethren. There is the sense of authority, but the authority all tends to bring in the love of God, to make the love of God effective. That is what He is engaged in doing, and I think that is the glory that shines. The glory of the Lord as seen here is apprehending Him in that light. As Moses came down, so He comes down; not personally, of course, as Moses did, but mediately, as through Paul and others. The Lord comes in by the Spirit to make the love of God effective. There is authority in it, but delightful liberty, because it is to bring in and to make the love of God effective among us.
Rem I think you have suggested a beautiful thought. The Lord when He was here on earth could not go inside the holy place or the holiest; but all that is over now and He ministers as the “Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man”, (Hebrews 8:2). It touches our hearts that the Lord should now have that pleasure.
JT We want to yield ourselves to Him, and the more we do, the more we realise the liberty, and that it becomes a liberty of love in our hearts — a very tangible thing. The love in our hearts is placed there by Christ. It is by the Spirit, but still [p. 419] by Him.
HES Is your thought that all divine service is in liberty, and the character of it is seen in Christ?
JT Quite. It is not the priest here, but the Lord; it is Christ in that light, but embodying in Himself all He is ministering. It is the “love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”, (Romans 8:39). It is all there, but not only is it there, but it is to be in us; and what He is aiming at is to bring it into our hearts.
Ques Would John 2:11 bear it out, where the Lord manifested His glory and the disciples believed on Him?
JT Just so; He “manifested forth his glory”. They were affected by that.
HFN Would this have a relation to what is your peculiar exercise in regard to service? Would the servant come out imbued with what is found as beholding the glory of the Lord?
JT I think so. I suppose the seventy (Numbers 11), on whom the spirit of Moses was placed, would take on the character of Moses in their service. What the apostle is showing here is that he is representative of that himself. “Ministered by us”, he says. But when you come to chapter 4 it is a question of endurance, having received such a ministry. The ministry is set out in its magnificence in chapter 3. It is the glory of the Lord who is the Spirit of the covenant. But He said in coming among the brethren, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me having”; it is not the idea of a spirit, but rather that He is tangibly the thing; one well known to them. “It is I myself”, (Luke 24:39). He is that One, so that it is known to us in the manner in which the Lord deals with us. Now the next thing is, “having this ministry, as we have had mercy shown us, we faint not”. It is a question now of endurance, involving that such a ministry should be seen in persons in whom, though yet mortal, there is the power of endurance. That is what chapter 4 brings [p. 420] out.
JJ Is that why Gideon is virtually brought into the chapter?
JT I think he is alluded to from the outset; “faint not” alludes to that, it seems.
JJ He had power to endure.
JT Yes; he was faint in a way, but did not give up; he endured. One is struck with the wonderful power he had, after capturing the Midianites, to come back and execute judgment on those who refused to obey him.
Rem The whole generation of faith is said to endure, so that Gideon is characteristic in that way.
JT Quite, and so Timothy is enjoined as a good soldier of Jesus Christ to take his share in sufferings, not to take his share in the conflict and fighting, but in sufferings. It is a question now of ability to suffer and endure.
JK Is that the way the apostle learned it himself on the road to Damascus? “I am Jesus” (Acts 5:9), and the Lord told him how many things he should suffer for His name.
JT The Lord referred to how he persecuted Him, and spoke of how much he should suffer for Him. Paul was to be the example of suffering. “What persecutions I endured”, he says (2 Timothy 3:11).
FHB Do you think all the apostle passed through in the way of suffering was necessary discipline, that his ministry might be effective in the Corinthians? He says, “Death works in us, but life in you”.
JT That is, clearly, how it works out, and so he begins by announcing that “we faint not”. He rests on the greatness of the ministry. He valued the ministry, and there must be no giving way, whatever the pressure. This was the attitude of his mind: “we faint not”.
Rem I suppose it is presented in a broader aspect in regard of the whole assembly when he says, “I fill [p. 421] up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh, for his body, which is the assembly”, (Colossians 1:24).
JT It is. There he is thinking of the assembly, filling up for it what is “behind”, but here the point is the power of endurance, and that must begin with the attitude of one’s mind, that you value the thing you have, “this treasure”, as he says. There must not be any giving up; the thing is too precious.
JRS Is the power for this endurance found in the previous chapter? Is that where the power is?
JT This chapter shows how “the excellency of the power” was of God. The first thing is the attitude of your mind, as to whether you value having this ministry, and having mercy shown you. There is no limit to the power available, and so there must be no surrender of the testimony.
JHT Naboth (1 Kings 21), valued the inheritance of his fathers and endured to death.
JT And so here it is a question of the value of “this ministry” — such a ministry.
HES Is that seen in Christ in Philippians 2, where we begin with the mind which was in Christ Jesus?
JT Just so. It was the attitude of His mind.
HD'AC And mercy would consider all the difficulties of his service so as to enable him to move on and not to faint.
JT Yes; he had already tasted that. “Therefore, having this ministry, as we have had mercy shewn us, we faint not”. This chapter opens up that he had it in a fragile vessel, the kind of vessel in which he had it, so that it is God who is doing it. The excellency of the power is of God and not of us, he says. How beautifully He brings in the thought of God in all this!
HH Moses learned mercy in a peculiar way. After the golden calf and the breakdown of the [p. 422] people, he had the consciousness of how God would go on with His people.
JT It is excellent to look at him as he entered into the camp having the golden calf in it. He took his life in his hands. Think of what he had to face there! But then he knew what was at stake, and God carried him through in a most marvellous way. It is there really that Moses reaches the zenith of his glory, in the way he stands for God at all costs, and God carried him through. The instances in which God honoured Moses after this form a most interesting study, especially his talking with him.
Rem Well, if a man has the spirit to die for his brethren as Moses had, he can walk thirty-eight years with them. He started with that, that he would be blotted out for them.
DLH Is there not a point of great consequence for us in the word, “By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God”? In ministry there should be the corresponding manifestation of what we are preaching or speaking about, that is, that the minister should correspond with what he is ministering, and thus he commends himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
JT You can have no power with men if you do not commend yourself to their consciences.
DLH And every man refers to just what it says, everybody, so that the public testimony of the truth was exemplified in the conduct and way of the man who was ministering it.
JT And Paul never shrank from any danger involved in the testimony. At Ephesus he was ready to throw himself into the theatre. He was ready to go forward whatever the danger; he was ready to put himself in the front to defend what was of God.
HFN Would you say a word in regard to the three expressions? The treasure is spoken of as [p. 423] being in an earthen vessel; and then the life of Jesus is shining out in his body; and then we have the reference to the thought of his mortal flesh. What would be the feature of each of those?
JT The treasure is, of course, the ministry, and what follows shows his endurance. Whilst it was an earthen, that is, a breakable vessel God watched over it. We have to distinguish between his “body” and his “mortal flesh”. The body is alluded to as the vessel, that is, it is a complete thought. Mortal flesh is the condition, which is not to continue. Inasmuch as it is mortal the condition ceases, but the body is a complete thought, and it will be raised.
HH Gideon’s pitcher would typify the earthen vessel. The vessel was broken so that the light should shine out.
JT Quite. He says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us: every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue but our way not entirely shut up; persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed”. All this shows how God was looking after him. The pitcher, in principle, was being broken, that is to say, that which might mar or hinder the light was being done away with, but the vessel remains, showing how marvellously God watched over him. For instance, he is stoned and drawn out of the city as dead; Acts 14. It looked as though that was the end of his service, but it was not. You see how great your exposure to man’s violence is, like a worm on the street to be trampled under foot, and yet you are not. That is the marvellous thing. It is nearly so, but it is not so. That is what he makes out here. He is drawn out of the city as good as dead, but then the brethren surround him and he rises up and goes into the city. What a complete change! He is ready for the work, the vessel evidently unimpaired. He [p. 424] entered into the city and went the next day with Barnabas to Derbe and preached and taught there. It was the power of God.
HH It shows the devotedness of the man, and how he was willing to lose his life here for the testimony.
JT It does; but then he brings out what God is to the servant. “As we have had mercy shewn us, we faint not”. He had already proved that, and then he goes into detail as to having the treasure in this fragile vessel that Satan might do away with at any time as far as outward appearances went. How truly he had proved the Lord’s word, “There shall not an hair of your head perish”, (Luke 21:18).
Ques “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” — is that apostolic, or do the Lord’s servants prove it today?
JT It is true in measure in principle today in all who truly serve. It is the attitude to be taken up; you have something. He begins by saying, “We have this ministry”, the ministry he had opened up in the previous chapter. No one had it as he, but then the thing remains and it must enter into all ministry according to God.
Rem Might we not say that the testimony has been handed down for well-nigh two thousand years in fragile vessels, in bodies subjected to persecution and the like, but it comes down unimpaired; it has been preserved in earthen vessels.
JT That is what the Lord would bring us back to — if we have not been brought to it — that is, the agreement of the vessel with what it contains. That is this chapter, and so the apostle begins with, “having this ministry”. Then he shows how the gospel he preached was such that if any one did not believe, if it was hidden from any one, he was lost — so perfectly did the glad tidings come out in this wonderful vessel. Then he says that the god of this [p. 425] world had blinded the eyes of unbelievers, showing both in chapters 2 and 4 the unceasing opposition of Satan to what is going on, whether to bring in cleavage in the local meeting as in chapter 2, or here to prevent the light shining into men’s souls. In the latter case it is the god of this world and he has “blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth for them”.
Ques Where was it shining?
JT Well, in the face of Christ, but through Paul, so wonderfully transparent was he, renouncing the hidden things of shame, manifesting the truth to commend himself to the consciences of all men, that the radiancy of the glory of the glad tidings of the Christ, who is the image of God, should shine. It was a marvellous thing and it was coming out through him, so that we have the idea of representation in Christ who is the image of God.
Ques Would you think this continual breaking up process is in line with the changing from glory to glory?
JT No doubt it is. I was thinking of the discipline one comes under. What a marvellous thing is opened up here as that in which we may have part in some little way! for God would bring us back in every way to what was at the beginning. So every servant is to have part in this, that he is here in relation to Christ who is the image of God; the full idea of representation is in Christ, and it is to work out in the servants, hence the correspondence with Christ in the apostle here.
JJ Do you think the change-over from Moses to Gideon would bring the idea of the first days and the last days before us?
JT That is a good suggestion; we are in the book of Judges, as you might say.
JJ “We faint not” — would that come down to Philadelphia as having a little strength?
JT Just so. What I think we ought to see here in these chapters is the magnificence and greatness of the things we are dealing with, so as to maintain them on the level on which God has started; to get back to that, so that “the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ” might in some measure shine out. It was shining in Paul; “Because it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. And then he brings in the fragility of the vessel. He had already begun with the mind, that he was not fainting; he never gave up; it is a question of the attitude of the mind, and then God saw to it that he did not have to give up.
MWB God can see if the mind is in that direction. It is almost a necessity that God should come in, otherwise it might be found in circumstances that lead the body to perish.
JT As regards one’s limits, for we have to reckon aright and soberly, one often wonders whether we may not tempt the Lord in going beyond our limitations. But you begin with this, that there must be no fainting, no thought of giving up. The ministry is so valuable that the attitude of your mind is you are not going to give up, and God sees that you do not have to give up. You may be brought to great straits, but God sees that you do not have to surrender. Hence the servant’s life is one of constant dependence on God. “Preserve me, O God”; in this attitude God will never forsake us.
WL Do you think the apostle travels to the very end in verse 14, not only in regard to himself, but also to other vessels? “Shall present us with you”; is that the final end?
JT Quite; but he would link himself with [p. 427] the Corinthians in this. The body goes through. For the moment it is mortal, but “He who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you”.
DLH Is that the idea in “There shall not an hair of your head perish” (1 Samuel 14:45)?
JT I thought so. Dependence on God is the great thing; momently dependence on God in regard of every part of one’s make-up — spirit, soul, and body.
Rem One is impressed with the way in which the Spirit of God connects the beginning with the end: “God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine”. There was a principle laid down which ever afterward became a governing principle for the people of God.
HES Is your thought that if these things are to be maintained on the divine level, God is the only One to bring them through?
JT Yes. That is the idea of the earthen vessel, and Paul virtually says he would not have it otherwise. His very bodily condition is the occasion of bringing God into evidence — “that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us”. In every moment of the day and night you are consciously dependent on God, because among other things you have such a fragile vessel.
MWB Do you link up that with the idea of the thorn-bush?
JT Exactly. The bush burned, but it was not consumed. This was the “great sight” to Moses.
Rem Timothy was a weak vessel.
JT I was thinking of that a moment ago, but through him Paul’s ministry was to be maintained and passed on. “The things thou hast heard of me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, such as shall be competent to instruct others also”, Paul says, and then adds, “Take thy [p. 428] share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”, (2 Timothy 2:2,3). That is the thing. If the testimony is to go through, if I am to pass it on to another, I must endure. It is a question of passing the treasure on without adulterating it, and it has come down in that living way to us. Of course it is through the Spirit of God, but He works through persons.
EuR He says Timothy had followed up his doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, and so on.
JT That is the same suggestion exactly, and so he reminds him of what persecutions he endured.
WCG Would the quotation here, from Psalm 116:10 support what you say? The writer further says in the psalm that he would return to his rest in God, and would walk before God in the land of the living. It is the spirit of both that the apostle refers to.
JT Quite so “by these things”, as Hezekiah said, “men live”, (Isaiah 38:16). The whole of Psalm 116 is in the spirit of our chapter.
Rem I wonder how many of us have any sense that we are passing things on, or whether we live beyond the moment in which we are. We have all received, but there is the passing on.
JT And you pass on the thing unimpaired; here it says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” — we need to be sure that we have the treasure. Then we get what the body, the vessel, has to go through: “Every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up; persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed” — that is a remarkable set of circumstances. And then we get the attitude of Paul’s mind again as to his body; he says, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus”.
FHB He does not say the death of Jesus, but the “dying of Jesus”; it is a continual process.
JJ Do you connect the “outward man” at the end of the chapter with the “earthen vessel”?
JT Well, the “outward man” is the condition more, but the vessel is really the man himself.
JJ Would the “outward man” be the body?
JT The body goes through as a vessel. Its present condition is that it is mortal, but what is mortal will be swallowed up in life, and so it goes through. He is dealing here with the mortal, fragile condition, that is to say, you are so exposed to adverse, opposing elements that you seem to be gone, and yet you are not gone. That is what he brings out, but then the attitude of his mind was that he bore about in his body “the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body”. God saw that, and rolled in circumstances, “For we who live are always delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh”, as if God would have it in both ways, in the vessel — the body, and in the condition — the condition in which I am.
HH 1 Corinthians 15 shows that the body goes through. I mean, God claims from the grave the vessel in which His work was accomplished here on earth.
JT That is what I was thinking.
PL Does the dying of Jesus suggest the Lord’s purpose to die, and the element of endurance woven into the very being of the apostle?
JT That is how it worked out. The dying of Jesus involved He went the whole way. The Lord went the whole way to carry the testimony through.
Rem “He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”, (Luke 9:51).
JT Quite.
HFN Would John 11 bring into peculiar evidence the thought of the dying of Jesus?
JT Yes. You can enlarge on that [p. 430] for us.
HFN The thought of the dying of Jesus came into special view, so that Thomas could say, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (verse 16). Was there not such a moment in the Lord’s ministry when His dying came into peculiar evidence?
JT I think so. You see in chapter 10 it is said that the Jews surrounded Him, meaning that His way in Israel was shut up, and God no more intervened to open it for Him. The way was through death; there was no other, as He had undertaken the work of redemption. Chapter 11 brings out that He was going to die. The resurrection of Lazarus was on His way to death; the Lord’s emotions showed that He was going to meet and deal with death. It was the only way out, if we were to be with Him, and He went out that way.
Rem Mary understood that.
JT She did; she anointed Him before His burial. She knew He was going that way, and that is what the apostle had in mind in “the dying of Jesus”; it was a question of manifesting the life of Jesus in his mortal flesh.
JHT Is it seen in Paul at Ephesus? It says, “God wrought no ordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even napkins or aprons were brought from his body and put upon the sick, and the diseases left them”, (Acts 19:11,12). I wondered whether the life you spoke of would have its fragrance and healing power towards men in the saints.
JT That is very good. The life evidenced in the healing, is there, you mean?
JHT Yes; I was thinking of the body going through. I would like to ask, in connection with Epaphroditus, as to the meaning of the expression, “For the sake of the work he drew near even to death”.
JT It is the same thing. It does not say [p. 431] that he died, but he drew near to death, he had that experience.
JHT Would for the work’s sake be his impression of what he had received from Paul as to the greatness of it?
JT Well, quite. For the work’s sake, as over against John Mark, who “went not with them to the work” (Acts 15:38); he did not then go the whole way. He did afterwards, thank God.
Rem In that same chapter in Philippians Paul was ready to be poured out; he was bearing the dying of Jesus there. Timothy was like-minded.
JT It was all in keeping with the mind of Christ, coming down and dying, which Philippians 2 presents.
PL There was no other way of enhancing the ministry in himself, and in others, save in this spirit of sacrificing love.
HD'AC So in resurrection you find the whole treasure is carried through.
JT That is right, so he says, “Having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I have believed, therefore have I spoken; we also believe, therefore also we speak; knowing that he who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you”. As already said, Psalm 116 is beautifully linked up with this chapter.
DLH Would you say a word showing the connection between the resurrection on the one hand, and the clothing with the house which is from heaven on the other hand?
JT Well, chapter 15 of the first epistle deals with the resurrection. It is a question of the identity of the persons coming out, so that the victory is here on earth. It is the power of God here on earth, bringing us out of our graves. Here he brings in the thing from heaven, “Our house which is from heaven”. It is not that it comes down in any material or visible sense, but that it is from heaven in character.
[p. 432] As they come out of the grave it will be seen that their origin is heavenly. “As we have borne the image of the one made of dust, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly one”, (1 Corinthians 15:49). The bodies, therefore, in which we shall come out of the graves are morally out of heaven; we come out. Already we are heavenly in the same sense as in new creation.
DLH So there is no contradiction, but perfect adjustment between the resurrection of the dead and our being clothed with our house which is from heaven.
JT None whatever. There is perfect adjustment. It is a question of what God does. How can we explain? The fact is we come out with spiritual bodies: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”; “It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power”. But then this epistle would sum all that up in a house from heaven, so that we are fit for heaven. We are heavenly now, but as yet we have not got “our house which is from heaven”. The identity remains, only the body will be made heavenly by the power of God, as we are already so as to our “inward” man.
MWB In the reference in verse 14, “shall raise us also with Jesus”, what is the distinctive meaning of “with Jesus”? Why is that name employed, which has reference to His personal path here?
JT I think the allusion is to His dying; what the Lord was in relation to this treasure, the testimony of God, and we go up with Him. There is a correspondence with Romans 8:11, “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you”.
HH Would you say a word about the relation of the one to [p. 433] the other?
JT The dying of Jesus, as we have remarked, implies that His way was entirely shut up (the Jews surrounded Him), and God did not open it up for Him, although they did not take Him when they wanted to. So that the way out was death. As definitely rejected the Lord went to Jerusalem to die. It was anticipated by Mary when she anointed His feet. Of course He could return to heaven without dying by personal right, but He would carry out the will of God.
HES Is the idea in verse 5 of this chapter that God is going to show the whole thing carried through? “Now he that has wrought us for this very thing is God, who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit”.
JT That is the idea. He has wrought us for it already and given to us the earnest of the Spirit. What He has done in us already is to fit us for this wonderful house which is from heaven; our present house is not equal to what we are inwardly. What wonderful beings the saints of God will be! As the Lord says, “They who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage for neither can they die any more, for they are equal to angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”. The Lord intimates in this what great persons believers are.
HH It brings us actually up to the level you have spoken of.
JT Just so. As risen, we shall be as to our bodies what we are now in our inward man by the work of God, that is, spiritual and heavenly. We shall be raised in incorruption, glory and power; (1 Corinthians 15:42 - 49).
Ques Would it be right to say the house from heaven is that which God has a right to reserve to bring [p. 434] in?
JT Well, quite. Whatever He does, He has a right to do, and He has designed for us “our house which is from heaven”. In the working of it out, this mortality (in those still living) shall be swallowed up of life, and if we are in graves, we shall be brought out as spiritual and heavenly, as already said.
Ques Is the Spirit given to us as the pledge of it?
JT “The earnest of the Spirit”; exactly.