TRANSPARENCY

^[p. 435] TRANSPARENCY

Revelation 21:11; Revelation 21:18; Revelation 21:21; Revelation 22:1; Mark 2:3-5; ; Mark 2:11,12; Luke 8:43-48

I have in mind to speak of transparency, a subject which is emphasised in the book of Revelation. You will have seen that in the four scriptures read in Revelation this idea is presented. The shining of the city is clear as crystal, like jasper stone; the city itself is pure gold like pure glass; the street of it is pure gold as transparent glass; the river that issues from the throne is bright as crystal. Transparency appears in each of these features, indicating to us what God is about to end up with, and how transparent everything will be in the coming world. But what is thus to shine is being formed now; each of us as believers is to have part in it. There will be no formation then, as far as I apprehend; all that is God’s present work.

Now this is an important matter, and what suggests itself to my mind in the Old Testament is that which appeared to Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel as they ascended to the mount to meet God. A wonderful privilege was opened up to them; and, as ever, God gives abundant testimony as to what He would have us know. This incident proves it when there were seventy of the elders beside Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, called up. It says, “They saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire” (Exodus 24:10), God thus indicating at that early date how things are to be transparent, and that that which was under His feet was thus marked. He had walked earlier, and He was about to walk again, as He says later, “in a tent and in a tabernacle” (2 Samuel 7:6) with His people. He ^[p. 436] required from them no such flooring as paved work of a sapphire stone, no walking-place like that. His love would lead Him to walk with them in the wilderness; indeed He had already been walking. He is the first to have walked, as Scripture presents things, here on earth; He walked in the garden, as you will remember. And Enoch walked with Him later for three hundred years; and in the most touching manner He, as walking in company, arrived at the tent door of Abraham, in whose family the whole thoughts of His love were to be developed. We are told that Abraham sat at the tent door and “behold, three men standing near him”, (Genesis 18:2). One of these men, marvellous to say, was Jehovah. As they stood near him, he discerned at once the Lord and the other heavenly visitors, discerning also that they were passing on. And so he says, after proposing to fetch a meal, “after that ye shall pass on”; he did not wish that he should be the terminus, but rather that he should minister to Jehovah and those with Him as in the divine way. And so Abraham prepares a meal, and Jehovah Himself, with the other two, awaits the preparation; marvellous condescension. But they were passing on. They partook of the refreshment and the two men passed on, but Abraham stood still before Jehovah and spoke to Him. Then ensued a wonderful conversation in which Jehovah intimated remarkable interest in the patriarch; it was personal. He said, “I will certainly return to thee ... and ... Sarah thy wife shall have a son”, (verse 10). The conversation went on until completed, and when Jehovah had finished speaking with Abraham He departed; He “went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham”, (verse 33), and Abraham returned to his place. God passed on but He had taken Abraham into His confidence. “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” (verse 17) and then He gives the reason, “for I know him that he will command his children and his household after him”, (verse 19). But God was on His way to the great result of which I read in Revelation. He “went his way”.

And so, as Israel is to go out of Egypt into Canaan, He is to walk with them, but before He does this He calls up abundant witnesses who, as it says, “saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire”, (Exodus 24:10). These are the divine circumstances; we shall see in due course the answer to all this in the heavenly city. Already all these features are being worked out, for God is dwelling among His people and walking among them, so that we might learn something of Him, of His manner, of His ways, the manner of His dwelling, and the manner of His walking.

Now I want to show you from these passages in the gospels how this principle of transparency is worked out in each one of us. I say in each one, because that city is composed of the saints of this dispensation; myriads of the redeemed — and not only redeemed, but each by himself the handiwork of God. And so the record in Mark as to this palsied man is intended to show how the believer begins with the principle of transparency. It is said that the man was “borne of four”, meaning that his condition had elicited sympathy, and that the ability to sympathise had been extended. In the ministry of Christ the atmosphere became impregnated with the spirit of compassion. Mark presents to us such a personality in Christ (”Jesus Christ, Son of God”) in the service, that the influence extended, and an evangelical spirit sprang up, so that the state of the man drew out the sympathy of four — which suggests general sympathy. You do not get that in John. John contemplates a different state of things; he presents us with a man who for thirty-eight years lay by a pool, nobody undertaking to help him; whereas the wonderful servant that Mark presents,

^[p. 438] the wonderful personality that was there, created an atmosphere of sympathy, an evangelical state of things, so that the man is borne of four and the roof is dug through. But what I want to point out particularly is that the bed on which he lay comes down. You say, ‘The man came down’, but the scripture says here, “the bed on which the sick of the palsy lay” came down.

Now this is a very elementary side, but most important. If we are to begin with transparency, the whole position has to be brought into view. It is not simply that the Lord is told about the man. It is not like the case of the centurion’s servant, for the Lord never saw that servant as far as the scripture shows; it was a question of the power of His word. But here we have a different thing entirely, a matter which every believer, every exercised person before God, should take notice of, that all the circumstances in which the man rests are brought down. You can see the roof opening, you can see the light coming through, and here is this thing, this bed — the bed whereon he lay. We are very likely to hide the beds; they are indeed private things generally: but if they represent my secret circumstances, if they represent my secret relations, my secret affiliations, it is of all importance that the bed of each of us should come into view. It came down before the Lord; did He not see it? Thus it is that all that man’s circumstances came into the view of the Lord and of others too.

Blessing is present in Christ for him, but it says, “when Jesus saw their faith”; their faith lay in this, that they would get him into the presence of the Lord. But was it an accident that they could not bring him in through the door? Not at all; it was necessary that he should come in through the roof, that the whole circumstances should be seen — that bed, the bed whereon he lay, he was on it, so that ^[p. 439] the manner in which it supported him could be seen; and when the Lord saw their faith, He says, “Child, thy sins are forgiven thee”. The whole truth is out. Many are suffering governmentally because the whole truth of their position is not out. There are secret relations and affiliations and practices which are not of God, and which they are leaning on and resting on because they cannot do without them. Their condition is such that they cannot do without them; it is a paralysed condition. There is no spiritual power, and the secret of it is the bed — the couch — the kind of thing you are resting in. But now it is all out, and the Lord owns the man as a child; he is recognised as a member of the family. The youngest in the family is as much of the family as the eldest; in fact, the babe and the invalid get most attention. So the Lord would indicate now that all that is in the house, all that belongs to the family, is available to you.

These four had done their work, but look at what is in Christ for the man! Those present insinuated that He spoke blasphemies; how could He forgive sins? But “the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins”. He says, “Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?” and so He says to the man, “I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed”. To thee I say, Take up thy bed. He is occupied with that man, with the “child”; he is to be in the city by and by, he is to reflect Christ there. He is not to be an opaque element; his shining is to be clear as crystal, like a jasper, and this is where it begins. Is it not worth while to begin thus? Or will it pay to go on with these secret things, these secret worldly things that are eating the very vitals out of your soul? Bring them all out and let them be known, and the brethren will help you; the Lord will help you through them.

^[p. 440] You need to be helped, you have no power in yourself, and so the Lord says, “To thee I say, Arise, take up thy couch and go to thine house”. Now you are to go into your house carrying those circumstances, and if I can carry them, I can lay them down. Making your bed is another thing. AEneas had to do that, but that is not what I am speaking about; carrying my bed is that I have power, I am superior to the thing that once held me. The whole thing has come down and has been brought into view before the Lord, it is seen as it is, and He owns you as a “child”. Is it not worth while to be recognised in that family? Is it not worth while to give up these things that you have been resting in in secret for the sake of coming into the family of God? All that belongs to the family is yours, the very best, hence He calls this man “Child”.

I want to go on now to the woman in Luke. With her it was a question of concealing, not what was bad, but what was good, that is to say, virtue had gone out of Christ and she would keep this a secret. She had come up behind the Lord in her malady. According to Mark she had suffered much, under many physicians; according to Luke she could not be cured by any one; the most renowned specialist could not help her; though she had spent all her living on physicians, yet she “could not be cured by any one”, it says. And so she comes behind the Lord and touches the hem of His garment. She had faith in what she was doing. But then whilst you may have faith for yourself, and act in your own faith, and whilst the Lord gives you credit for it, yet the result of faith is not to be kept secret.

Secreting things that are intended to be used in testimony will not do. John speaks of secret disciples; Joseph of Arimathaea was one. Secret discipleship may be of some value — it is of value — but it will never bring you into the assembly, and Luke has the ^[p. 441] assembly before him, the component parts of it. In this chapter we have the man who had been possessed of demons “sitting ... clothed, and in his right mind” — that is the intelligent side, which is most essential. And then we have the woman, and the result of the Lord’s dealings with her is that she is transparent. Women are naturally secretive; and so the Holy Spirit takes up that feature to show the danger of it, as carried into the spiritual realm. Jesus said, “Some one has touched me”. Now the Lord will not allow you to be a secret disciple; He has His eye on you. He says, “Some one has touched me”.

The disciples say, “The crowds close thee in and press upon thee, and sayest thou, Who has touched me?” Yes, He says, “Some one has touched me, for I have known that power has gone out from me”. It was something gone out of Him; it is a substance, so to say, gone out of Him — “virtue”, “power”, as it is called, and it had gone into her, and she was made whole, and she knew it, she knew it in herself; but then why should not others know? The virtue that is gone out of Him is to shine here; it is in principle the assembly. We are to shine, but it is in the effect of the power that has come out of Christ; all this enters into the truth of the body of Christ. “The body is of Christ”, (Colossians 2:17).

There is nothing in the body that has not come out of Christ, and there is nothing in the heavenly city that does not come out of Christ; it all issues out of Him, but it begins thus, that healing virtue comes into my soul. It is not now a question of forgiveness, it is a question of power, the power of the Spirit of God, by which I am healed inwardly. This woman was conscious in herself that she was healed. And so the Lord said that some one had touched Him; He knows and He will bring it to light, and He knows how to do this; He insists upon it, whatever others may say, that some one had touched Him. Then the ^[p. 442] woman, seeing that she could not be hid, falls down before them all, and tells all the truth.

Now let me appeal to you, dear brethren, in regard of this matter of having to do with the Lord and keeping the result secret. It belongs to the assembly really, for you are being formed for it. And so, as she declared the truth He called the woman “Daughter”. She belongs to the family. He says, “Daughter; thy faith has healed thee; go in peace”. It was her faith, but it was the power that went out of Him, and the power by which she had been healed inwardly that was to develop and give character to her, so that she should reflect Christ; that is the thought. She “declared before all the people”; you can see the importance therefore of being transparent with the brethren, of having things out, whether they be the bad things or the good things. The assembly is to be transparent, and we begin now to learn how to be transparent, and then we shall fill our places in that city whose shining will be “clear as crystal”.

What comes out in this chapter in Revelation, among many other things, is the very best that God has in the way of material. I was speaking here last night of the best thoughts of God. The apostle John gives us these, and shows us at the end of his gospel how they are conveyed to a woman, to a sister. It is said, “The first day of the week ... Mary Magdalene” (John 20:1); she stands out there in the forefront of that wonderful picture of what suggests eternity to us, what God has in view of it — “the first day”. It refers to what is before everything material — to the thoughts of God “before the world was”, (John 17:5). Think, beloved, of being admitted into those thoughts! Who can admit us into such thoughts save the One who is conversant with them — the One who was in the beginning with God, and who was God? He was in all the secret counsels; what was before the world He was perfectly ^[p. 443] conversant with, and hence He is the Word. He has brought out all the best thoughts of God, and it is a question of who can receive them, and so John brings in a spiritual family.

From chapter 11 to 20 you have the forming of a spiritual family; Mary of Bethany represents that formation, one who, as we saw last night, learned to measure, and to have the best, so as to expend it on Christ. I cannot be in the heavenly city save as formed and instructed in this way, as understanding measure and what is most excellent in quality. The component parts of the city are spiritually intelligent beings, and Mary represents such. She understood measurement; she had a pound of ointment, and it was the best. That is what spirituality signifies; it goes in for the best there is; and she had that. It was not a question of the quantity. We are living in an age of quantity. It is wonderful the quantity there is of things, of money, commerce, religion, education. Today it is the vastness of the scale on which things are carried on. It is a question of volume, and men become inflated according to their volume, whereas with God it is a question, not of volume, but of quality.

If you look at the material universe, you get volume. Think of the volume that there is in the worlds! The Holy Spirit uses that word, not only world, not only the universe that we are accustomed to, but worlds — think of the volume! It is beyond us. If it is a question of volume, why there it is; as God says, The cattle upon a thousand hills are Mine (Psalm 50:10). But it is no question now of volume with God, but of quality, and that is spirituality. Mary understood that, and she kept a pound (a measured amount), and the odour of it, we are told, filled the house; and so, from that point in the gospel of John you have the bringing in and forming of a spiritual family, represented in Mary Magdalene.

^[p. 444] She was a wonderful trophy of grace, no one like her in that respect. Mark tells us that the Lord had cast out of her seven demons; Luke tells us that seven demons went out of her. Mark attributes the thing to the Lord, Luke evidently attributes it to the untenableness of the position — the position became untenable and the demons went out. Satan will never give up a position until it is untenable. They went out, for something had taken place in her that rendered their position untenable. But Mark says the Lord cast them out — a wonderful change in her! It was not a mere malady that she had, but the possession of seven demons. Think of what grace is — that she should be in the very picture that suggests to us the eternal thoughts of God! May we not say with the apostle, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us”? “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God”. But He has “quickened us together with Christ ... and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”, (Ephesians 2:4,5; Ephesians 2:8) That is what God has done, and here is Mary Magdalene in the very forefront of the picture in chapter 20.

“On the first day of the week ... Mary of Magdala”, we read, came to the sepulchre, and then she went off and told Peter and John. Then she looked into the sepulchre and saw two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain; and then she turned herself round and looked backwards. She is not now possessed of seven demons, they had been cast out of her; she is spiritual — not yet intelligent, but spiritual. She has instincts, she looked round and saw the Lord. She did not know Him yet, but He knew her, He knew her well, and He had wonderful things in store for her. She is the very consummation of the subject, and yet she had been the abode of seven demons in ^[p. 445] her day. Think of the marvellous grace of God! And of what the heavenly city is being composed!

She thought He was the gardener, but then He says, “Mary” — a well-known voice — He calls His own by name. How precious that is! Every name known to Him, every one of us, the myriads of the redeemed all known by name; how blessed! And then she turns herself completely round, the position is changed; she is now in the presence of the most wonderful things. The Lord says, as it were, I have got wonderful things for you, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father”. Think of that! a divine Person who was with the Father before the worlds talking to a woman who had once been the abode of seven demons, telling her about His Father, and that He had not yet gone to Him! Think of that, beloved! Had He been talking to Gabriel we could have understood it, but here is a poor woman, once demon-possessed, whom He calls by name, “Mary”, and talks to her as to a friend. He says, “I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. (John 20:16,17). Think of her, Mary Magdalene, favoured woman — blessed indeed! As the Lord Himself said, when some one spoke of His natural mother, “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it”, (Luke 11:28). Mary Magdalene is truly the blessed Mary.

And then it says she went and told the disciples. How beautiful! There was no ostentatious bearing, as if she were the great woman with the message. No, she went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord; how simple! She told them; it was the simple word of a woman who had heard the Lord Jesus speak to her about His Father and about His brethren. She was qualified. Is she not fit, is she not worthy to be in that picture! Shall we not see her in the reality ^[p. 446] of it in the coming day, and many like her? ‘Nor what is next Thine heart’, one says who understood it, ‘shall we forget, Thy saints, O Lord, with Thee in glory met’. (160:8) So the Lord would have the assembly on the first day of the week; that is the setting of the breaking of bread, for it leads to this; it belongs to the first day of the week. John 20 sets forth what we may enter into. That is where the Lord has set us at the present time. We do not come in at the tail-end of anything, we have the best things that God has to give; we are “blessed ... with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies”, (Ephesians 1:3). Are we capable of receiving them? that is the point. Mary was; for she went simply and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things unto her.

Now you can understand that we can have the very best things in Mary and in those whom she communicated to. They are the handiwork of Christ, the best that the earth ever had upon it, as the Lord said, “The saints that are on the earth, and to the excellent thou hast said in them is all my delight”, (Psalm 16:3). They were that; not now merely the excellent of the earth, may I not say, beloved, they were the excellent of heaven? That is indeed what we are, far beyond any thing on earth — the excellent of heaven. Hence it says, “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”, (1 Corinthians 15:49); so that we, the excellent of heaven, await our house which is from heaven.

And so this wonderful chapter in Revelation is to bring out the excellence of the thing. We have to dismiss from our minds literality in speaking of the heavenly city. It really refers to persons, such persons as I have been depicting; persons who, in their heavenly dignity, will come down invested with the glory, every one of them transparent — clear as crystal their shining will be. And then if you look ^[p. 447] at them, and examine their texture, what you find is, the city is pure gold; the more you look into the thing itself the more the excellence of it will appear, it is all the handiwork of God. And the street, that is to say, where we walk, is pure gold transparent as glass; there is not a shade, nothing hidden, all is open — the transparency of love, of the divine nature, for she is invested with it; she has the glory of God.

Then the river flows out from “the throne of God and of the Lamb” — government is there, the earth awaits it — the government that God has set in the assembly, the throne of God and of the Lamb. Out of the throne issues a river of water of life “clear as crystal”, that is to say, the influence (for that is largely the idea of a river), the mighty influence that issues forth universally from the throne is clear as crystal. There are no hidden motives, no politicians or Herods with their hidden selfish motives. The government is the government of love. Authority will be there, but in the Spirit of the Lord, and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17), all is in the liberty and transparency of the love of God known in Christ. There is understanding of what God is doing; for the assembly has grown into a “holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21); the government is intelligible, and it is as clear as crystal. Authority is there — in the throne — but there are no dark selfish motives in those having part in the kingdom; all is the outcome of what God is, in whom is no darkness at all.

May the Lord help us in regard of transparency. Every one of us can begin, as I said, in a simple way, as illustrated in the palsied man, and thus qualified for the heavenly city.