NUMBER TWELVE
[p. 14] NUMBER TWELVE
John 3:35; Revelation 7:1 - 4; Revelation 21:9 - 16
I have in mind to say a word about administration. Now, in order that there should be an administrative agency here for God, there must be trustworthiness in those who form it, for what is to be administered is precious. It is of God; it has cost Him much and so He withholds committing it until there are those who are to be trusted. Now the ministry of John the evangelist is to bring out this very feature. He tells us that the Father loves the Son. It will be observed that this statement appears after the Lord’s ministry had begun. John does not wait for the imprisonment of John the baptist to begin his record of the ministry of Jesus. Indeed, he tells us expressly that “John was not yet cast into prison”, (John 3:24) and yet the Lord had been gathering certain ones to Him and working signs among the people. The synoptic gospels relate that John was cast into prison before our Lord began His ministry, whereas John tells us expressly that he was not cast into prison; he does not tell us at all about the imprisonment of John the baptist, and mentions nothing of his want of faith as the others do. He enlarges on his very words to bring out the glory of the Son of God.
The Spirit of God loves to use our words if they are sufficient to convey His mind, hence the voluminous quotations that you get in Scripture from believers. Indeed, in the beginning of Hebrews, where the Holy Spirit enlarges on the glory of Christ, the quotations are nearly all from the book of Psalms. The Holy Spirit could speak directly. He could use His own words to unfold to us the glories of Christ. He does indeed do that in the opening of the first chapter of Hebrews; but then he brings in a list of speakers [p. 15] from amongst the saints, as if he would honour the saints by quoting their very words to depict for us the varied glories of the Son of God. And so the Baptist’s words are quoted in this gospel for this very reason. He is quoted at length in the first chapter to show how small his estimate of himself was, and how great his estimate of Jesus. He is quoted as saying that “he who sent me to baptise with water, he said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”. And then he adds from himself, “And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”, (verses 33,34).
And so the narrative goes on to the end of this chapter, where one says to John that Jesus baptised. The Baptist answers, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven” (verse 27); he sweeps away, as it were, in a sentence the whole fabric of sacerdotal and hierarchical christianity. It is not from above. Nothing is of any value in his mind save what is from above, and so, “He who comes from above is above all”, (verse 31). You see how the Holy Spirit uses the words of the Baptist; He reserves him, as it seems to me, for this very purpose, that he might join in the great chorus of loving voices who depict the glory of Jesus. This is the time for learning to do that, beloved brethren. This is the time for learning how, as proving the Lord, as loving Him, to speak well of Him. And so John the baptist is a model for us. He says, “He must increase, but I must decrease”, (verse 30). He was a friend of the Bridegroom, and he rejoiced to hear the Bridegroom’s voice; hearing it he says, “this my joy then is fulfilled”, (verse 29). So that John the baptist does not disappear from the scene in this gospel in the prison, nor in unbelief, nor under a cloud in any way. He disappears like the setting sun, as its countless beams radiate round the western horizon. He goes down joyfully, and he [p. 16] leaves Jesus in supremacy as the rising sun to dominate the day. The Baptist’s words merge in the words of the evangelist. There seems no mark of distinction. It is as if God would honour his spirituality, although he belonged to a previous dispensation. In spirit he was in ours in his appreciation of Christ — the great link between all the dispensations; for all are held together, every family of God named of the Father is held in relation to all the others, in love for Christ. He is the binding stone of the whole structure of God.
And so as John’s speech finishes the Son of God stands out in His solitary greatness and dignity. It is said, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands”. However different it may appear at the present time, beloved friends, and however much power is in the hands of others ostensibly — government, and so on — all is delivered (not shall be delivered) into His hands. If He is not exercising it in a public way, it is because He is the perfect Administrator; it is because He would administrate what there is to administer in keeping with the mind of God. Hence in the next chapter we find Him wearied with His journey, “just as he was”, (chapter 4:6) as we are told, sitting on the well. He is the Son and has all things in His hands; the government is upon His shoulder; all that God has to display publicly is in His hands, but for the moment He could be a lonely traveller through this world. It was due to God; it was in keeping with the divine way, and so as the solitary, needy soul from the city confronts Him, He administers, He unfolds what He was there for: “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give, me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”, (verse 10). He was in possession of this priceless treasure. You see it was given into His hands and He proposes to give it.
I only touch on that — that the One into whose [p. 17] hands all things are given is loved. Why is He loved? Because He is lovable. John makes a point of lovability. Some of us forget that. If I expect to be loved I seek to be lovable. If I seek love I shall remove in myself what would hinder it.
Jesus was loved before the foundation of the world, but that is not the point here. The point here is that He had been ministering, He had been moving about in this world for thirty years and had already begun to minister. He had already begun to speak about God to men. He had already begun to speak about the love of God, that “God so loved the world” (chapter 3:16); He had already begun to speak about new birth and about His own death — that He would be lifted up ignominiously as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness. All that had come out, as it were, voluntarily. It had to come out. It was there in volume, for He was “full of grace and truth”, (chapter 1:14). John is not concerned with what preceded Christ, though the others are. It was the Son of God come into the world and He must act from Himself, and so the Father loved Him.
You say, How does that bear upon us? Well, it is that you begin to do something for God. From the very outset of your spiritual history there are instincts Godward, and these begin to act. They are bound to act. No doubt we may hinder them, but God takes note of every action flowing from His holy nature in us, and we become lovable to God. God can love before we are lovable; such is the love of God, and so it is with the christian, too. As he knows love as it is in God he can love, although there may be unloveliness in the object. The working of the divine nature in the christian is Christ reproduced. You thus become lovable; and you become trustworthy, for he that is faithful in little, however little, is faithful also in much; and “unto everyone that hath shall be given”, (Matthew 25:29). However little it may be, if you have got something, you can get more; that is the divine way.
[p. 18] I now turn to Revelation. I want to speak about the number twelve, because it denotes this very thing. It is a number much used in Scripture. It stands out from the time it is introduced right on to the end of Scripture. And what I want to say about it immediately, so that you may understand what I have in mind, is that it is a number of great flexibility. The schoolchild understands how divisible it is. It is a number of great flexibility, and denotes what the saints are as formed in the divine nature, as in the hands of the Lord for administration.
Now if I am to be in that, you can see that I have got to strip myself of mere individuality and independency. I must be so in the hands of the Lord in relation to all others who are in His hands, that He can send me at His pleasure without any question on my part as regards the rightness of His actions. I am held in relation to all the others. I am held in a company that is perfectly divisible in His hands and can be disposed of by Him. As I advance I come to know the wisdom that is in Christ as Head, and I see that He must be free to dispose of His people for the good of all. I see that He knows, and so I surrender myself entirely, as that great vessel Saul of Tarsus did when he said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6) What had Saul already seen? He had seen Christ in His people. He had come up against them in his wilful way of persecution. But what were they? They were in the hands of the Lord. The Lord said to him, You are persecuting Me. His saints were Himself in the sense that they were His body. Is Saul to be of that? Yes, he is. He is to represent the love of Christ in its administrative service, but in order to have part in it he is led by the hand into the city. He has to learn to hear from others as well as from the Lord directly.
True enough he got his ministry direct from the Lord, but as to his instruction as a christian, he had [p. 19] to learn from the brethren at Damascus. He had to go into the city and be taught, to be told what he must do. So his eyes are opened, as we have often remarked, on a brother, and that brother tells him what to do. He is to arise and be baptised. Saul is to disappear entirely. His sins are to be washed away, and he is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He is merged, indeed, by the possession of the Spirit in the company, and then he goes in and out amongst them. He is with them in Damascus. He is known to be with them, he is one of them and is dependent upon them, if he is to escape the persecuting hand of the king. They let him down in a basket over the wall, through a window. You see thus how you come into the thing. You come in as dependent under God on those who were before you. You can never despise them after that. Your spiritual history begins with them. However much you may say, ‘The Lord spoke to me’, the saints spoke to you too and so you respect them. If I am ever to serve them I must respect them. Paul was ready to say of some, “who also were in Christ before me” (Romans 16:7); that was something. We can never forget experienced brethren, aged brethren, and that is ever a sober, wholesome sense to have. It saves us from being independent. It enables us to be in our places so as to represent the number twelve; that is, I can now serve with others, or in relation to them.
You will observe in this chapter in Revelation, everything is held up in the governmental ways of God in order that this administrative company might be marked off. I only refer to it for the principle. I am not speaking of it dispensationally. It refers to the future dispensationally. It is as if God were saying to this world, I have got an administrative company of My own; I am going to bring it forward. You shall see on earth, brought out from the twelve tribes, an administrative company. God notifies men [p. 20] about this. We understand it; we wait for it; we know there will never be proper administrative government on the earth until what is thus presented becomes effective. It is not a question of the Lord’s administrative ability, but the number of the saints. They are “the bondmen of our God”; they are to be entirely under Him, at His bidding; marked on their foreheads with the seal of the living God. Life is that we enter into this.
We have often had it before us, that this book of Revelation gives us the fruits of all the roots of Genesis; and the root of this passage goes back to Jacob. The number twelve begins at Jacob, I mean in the history of God’s ways with men — whatever there may be in the heavens according to His providence. It is a family thought. They were sons of one man, of one father, and from that root the teaching connected with administration in secret is connected. The enemy sought to break it up, as we see in the history of Joseph, but God carried it through. It seemed to have been broken up, but as the family thought in Judah shone in respect of his father and in respect of the “little one”, (Genesis 44:20) Benjamin, Joseph could no longer restrain himself. The family thought reappears, and so it is in the history of the church. However much the enemy has sought to obliterate the family thought, God carries it through. The whole system around us to which I have referred denies the family thought, whereas it is that thought that underlies all that God is working out. I hope we cherish it. He has brought us back to the idea of the family, and, having the family, He has got the means of administration. In family love we are available to God. In all that arises of His gracious service we are perfectly flexible, as I said.
John’s ministry is to bring that out, so that the work of God goes on without rivalry, without contention. It is a question of God and what God would [p. 21] do, I myself being in His hands. You see here how this great administrative company is brought to light by the seal of the living God. They are to have part in this; the stamp of life is to be there, not inwardly only, but on the forehead where everybody can see it.
Now I want to point out how all the features of the twelve reappear. John goes on to show us the bride, the Lamb’s wife, the holy city, Jerusalem. Her light is most precious, he says, like a jasper, and she has twelve gates. At the gates are twelve angels, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The vessel is great enough to include in it all the governmental agencies of God. Every instrument of His government in the past is understood, and a place is made for it. Angels have a prominent place with us, and so Israel; and although our inferiors, their very names are cherished. Love for God will always lead us to value what He has used. Paul says, “Our whole twelve tribes”, (Acts 26:7). How he loved them! And James writes to them. Faith never gives them up, and so they are there. It is a feature of the greatness, morally, of the city that she includes every agency of divine government.
The assembly thinks for God, and of those whom God respects. The identification of the governmental function of the assembly with that of angels and Israel is most interesting. The golden links of divine love are seen here. It is in the number twelve. And there are twelve foundations. Now we are coming nearer home. Who are these? On them are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb; it is a question of the Lamb, they belong to Him. They belong to Jesus who suffered and died for us. We rejoice in them. It will be observed in the epistles that the foundation is connected with them; whether the twelve or Paul, the city is built upon the foundation of the apostles. The thing is given concretely. The Lord says, I will build, but it is by the apostles [p. 22] and prophets. It is indisputable, there it is, the foundation of the apostles and prophets. It is no abstract idea. It is a question of what they did. How perfectly under the Lord’s hand they were!
And now as to the precious stones — they are all employed; they reflect light as we all know. In Ezekiel the king of Tyre had only nine, but there are more now, a greater variety for the reflection of the light of God. There are twelve, and a name is given to every one of them. You see how the flexibility of things works into the heavenly city. Every feature of administration appears there, and so that it might be clearly understood that it is not an abstract matter, the measurement is a cube. It is a solid, so to speak, a substance. It is not simply a square, it is a cube, so that the Spirit of God is not presenting us with theory, but with substance — the thing is there. All that God had in His mind in the way of government is seen there. It is not a question here of our enjoyment exactly; the point is to disclose that there is a vessel in which to bring out concretely in the fullest sense every divine thought of administration. The city is thus the Lamb’s wife. She is the vessel through whom. His government is administered on earth.
My object is that there may be some little answer to this number twelve, whether locally or generally. We are being set up as possessors of the love of God; it is in our hearts, so that we love one another; we are thus together without independency or will, perfectly flexible in the Lord’s hands for whatever service He may require. It is an immense position and one covets to be in it, to be in that number, so to speak, so that one is at His disposal without a question.