THE EXEMPLIFICATION OF THE TRUTH (1)
THE EXEMPLIFICATION OF THE TRUTH (1)
JT What I think is apparent in the Acts is that the Lord in employing different vessels in the promulgation of the testimony, and in operating in different sections and countries, involving sectional feeling, maintained practical unity and caused the truth to spread; and in causing it to spread He caused it to be exemplified in those who spread it, as He had exemplified it Himself as recorded in the gospels. The apostles, being the children of wisdom, exemplified the truth, not only in their service but in their general walk and ways, corresponding with the testimony. The disciples are said to have been called Christians first in Antioch. They stand out there as followers of Christ, and it should be noted that this is in connection with the service of Barnabas and Saul.
In meeting the difficulty mentioned in chapter 6, the Lord took up others besides the apostles and carried on the work; it was carried on effectively in Stephen and Philip particularly, and in others. Then we find the Holy Spirit, in resuming the record of Peter’s service, brings forth certain facts that would show he had profited by the experience. The Lord evidently taught His servant, by the very difficulties that arose, what was needed at the moment. The first person who received blessing through Peter, as his service is resumed, is one who had been a paralytic, Aeneas was raised up and ordered to make his bed for himself, as if to intimate that the circumstances now required that the believer should know how to act for himself, Acts 9: 34. Then in the case of Dorcas, the facts suggest that she, although an active woman and efficient in her service, died. In what followed the apostle Peter emphasized life. She is given back to the saints and widows as a living woman. All this, I think, is intended to give colour to the section from which we have read. Light goes out to the Gentiles [p. 72] and they are admitted into the kingdom through a man whose service is marked by these things. I mention all that to indicate the exercise I had in suggesting this section. I wanted to show (referring to the types) how the parts of the tabernacle were set up and divinely held together.
RSS What is the analogy between the tabernacle and the assembly as at the beginning?
JT I think the tabernacle was intended to represent the full effect of the testimony in this dispensation. It was not intended to represent simply what the twelve did. I take it that it more particularly referred to Paul’s service, including the twelve of course.
R.S.S. In what way?
JT It was made in parts and then set up. In effecting this, as at the beginning, wisdom is put to the test. It triumphed in the apostles. Wisdom is emphasized in Exodus in the two men who were employed in its construction — Bezaleel and Aholiab. It is a question largely of love, but love acting wisely, and I think these chapters — Acts 11 - Acts 15 — show how wisdom acted to hold and maintain things according to God.
WHF Does not the tabernacle express what is more extended than the assembly?
JT It was a figurative representation of things in the heavens and includes the world to come, but all this is held now, tentatively, in the church; thus we have “Christ being come high priest of the good things to come, by the better and more perfect tabernacle”, Hebrews 9: 11. I think some of our brethren present had an exercise as to the vital side of the truth. Things are to be held vitally or they are not really held at all. Divine things are to be held in love.
AFM You referred to Antioch just now. What particular feature of the tabernacle appeared there?
JT It was what we may call the independent action of the Holy Spirit. It was the fruit of those that were [p. 73] scattered through the persecution that arose in Stephen’s time. Generally speaking, the service was carried on in relation to Jews, or Jewish proselytes, but some went on and spoke to the Grecians, with the result that many were turned to the Lord; and then the church that was at Jerusalem, recognizing a new feature had come up, wisely sent out Barnabas; and Barnabas, being an unjealous, good man, full of the Spirit, went and sought out Saul, and Saul being brought there, he and Barnabas assembled with the saints. The word ‘assembly’ is used, and the word ‘crowd’ is used, Acts 11: 24 - 26. The fact that they assembled with the saints would show they were on tabernacle, or assembly lines, and they remained for a year in Antioch. So the full thought of the assembly comes into evidence, as the beginning of chapter 13 shows, but all was linked on, Barnabas being, so to say, the golden link that the type suggests; he linked all on with Jerusalem. The time was coming when the full truth of the church would come out, the mystery, when all should be linked up with heaven, but in the ways of God Jerusalem was still recognized and unity maintained. The enemy was defeated in his effort to introduce sectional or party feeling and room was made for the Holy Spirit. So we find, “the Holy Spirit said”, chapter 13: 2.
AFM In connection with the thought of the tabernacle, how would you regard these christians at Antioch — as boards or curtains?
JT Both. The presence of Paul and Barnabas was used. They were taught the truth of the assembly which involves the boards and curtains of the tabernacle. I think Romans is that which brings in the boards.
EPL When the Holy Spirit appeared in times of revival such as we have in the Acts, and is pleased to open the door to the Gentiles, it seems He acted simultaneously in different places; and it does not appear that those in Antioch had knowledge of Peter’s action in receiving [p. 74] Cornelius.
JT The Holy Spirit was acting simultaneously, still there was a formal action by Peter which must take place so that the Gentiles should be admitted. He had the keys of the kingdom.
FL There is a moral line which underlies all this and which in a way gives a suggestion as to where what is vital is to be found. In chapter 6, to which reference was made, the apostles said it was not right for them to serve tables; in a sense it was beneath them, and it suggests they had made but poor use of the time when they sat with the Lord over against the temple and the Lord puts His valuation upon what a certain widow was doing. That is, she was putting all her living into the house of God, and the Lord estimates that, He assesses it, and they were with Him. When it came to a question of the widows they say in effect, it is beneath us and we will give ourselves to the word of God and to prayer. The answer of the Lord to that is in Stephen and Philip, and then again later on, when the door is open, as we get it here, and Jew and Gentile have to be brought together. Saul and Barnabas are distinguished in this; in their ministry they have committed to them, as it were, the serving of tables. They gathered the bounty and carried it to Jerusalem, and in that act, so to speak, of vitality, gave practical evidence of how the Lord was bringing together the Jew and Gentile, so making of twain one new man.
RSS The fact that they sent the ministry by them to Jerusalem showed affection.
JT We notice that in meeting these contingencies that arose the effect was increase in a vital way. The word of God, it says in chapter 6, increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. These are the results, and so in the attack through Saul on the assembly the effect was that the assemblies were edified and multiplied, and had the comfort [p. 75] of the Spirit.
JD Is it not just as great a part of the truth that the Holy Spirit is down here in men as that Christ is in heaven?
JT Quite.
JD So, if He is down here, consequent upon Christ going up there, what He will maintain here will be Christ.
JT It is wonderfully interesting to see divine wisdom meeting adverse conditions. Do you not think so?
JD Yes. Reference was made to what took place in the preceding chapter. Peter in discussing it said, “and the Spirit said to me to go with them, nothing doubting”. Then he goes on to say that as he spoke “the Holy Spirit fell upon them even as upon us”. In Peter there was the divine nature. Christ’s sensibilities were there, His feelings, hence he was available for the Spirit.
HG In that connection, I was wondering whether the constituent parts of the tabernacle, the gold, silver, brass, blue, purple, etc., were not really the product of the covenant? In Exodus 15 you get the people delivered, in chapter 20 the covenant comes in and is amplified in the chapters that follow; but the result of Christ being written in the heart in covenant character was that you get all these various glories of Christ in the saints, and under the skill of these men of wisdom there is a place for them all. Through the wisdom of the Head one’s exercise would be to make room for all that is of Christ.
JT Variety marks the Lord’s endowment of the church. He gave some apostles, some evangelists, some prophets, some pastors and teachers.
HG In the tabernacle everything seems to be normal. I mean to say, there is no failure in connection with the material there apparently. It is all the positive work of God, the effect of the positive writing of Christ [p. 76] in the saints, knitted together. We have in these chapters, no doubt, the adjustment necessary in view of what might have caused distance in these servants.
JT I think that under the Lord’s hand that which was vital was preserved. In spite of the presence of what was extraneous, what was of God was preserved. That is the wonder, you might say, of christianity, that under the Lord’s care and the constant activity of the Holy Spirit in us, what is of God is preserved and linked up together in spite of contrariety in me, and in spite of contrariety in you.
WCR In the sheet let down from heaven there is variety; they come down together in the sheet, suggesting I suppose that we are to dwell together. Normally they would prey upon one another, but it is that which God has cleansed, and so He brings in adjustment so that they can be together.
JT Just so; and you notice it was “knit at the four corners:” there is the intimation, it seems, of universal or general security. All is securely held.
WCR Peter had gone to the housetop to pray and ecstasy came upon him; in this state God reveals His great thought to him. Peter had been adjusted for the new service he was to render. It seems to me there is great teaching in that for us — as to our being adjusted to one another. God brings elements together which naturally would not be together. The presence of the Holy Spirit explains this. As you say, it is wonderful how we can be together, the Lord maintaining us.
JT Well now, the enemy would use certain of the attendant circumstances of this great movement to bring in division. That is what this chapter opens with. It says, “The apostles and the brethren who were in Judaea heard that the nations also had received the word of God; and when Peter went up to Jerusalem, they of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and hast eaten with them”. Now that was true but it was not all the truth. It was the enemy’s effort to use an attendant circumstance to the testimony to make a breach among the saints.
GAT Would you say the brethren in Jerusalem were not open for the movement of the Spirit?
JT They were. You see the binding spirit is in the apostles, “The apostles and the brethren who were in Judaea heard that the nations also had received the word of God”. That was evidently news which they valued. But it says, “When Peter went up to Jerusalem, they of the circumcision contended with him” — not the apostles and brethren.
GAT What class are they?
JT They were religious men after the flesh.
JD And that is what we have now, the fleshly official class will always oppose the moral, and the movements of the Spirit.
HG They of the circumcision were not in correspondence with the materials of the tabernacle at all.
JT No, but the apostles and brethren were, because the apostles represent the cherubim in the curtains, a most essential element. The brethren may be said to represent the links of affection in the system.
AFM What do you mean by the cherubim in the curtains?
JT The authority of Christ, which can never be abrogated.
AFM It is very instructive to see how the apostle, in his explanation, saves the situation.
JT He is a child of wisdom. It is one of the greatest exercises one has, and I am sure brethren have generally, how to meet difficulties that arise. The situation here was delicate and this was a skilful attack. The opposers do not state the whole case; they do not say what happened; they merely mention one thing. Job says, “How hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?”
[p. 78] When you do that you have the truth. Peter states the whole truth and the whole truth carries the consciences of those who were exercised.
HG Peter does not stand on his dignity. Our brother was speaking of the Lord’s appreciation of the woman who served. He saw in her the product of Himself — “I am among you as he that serveth” — and one feels, as serving one another, we have to divest ourselves of our dignity. In view of conserving things, as we see in Acts 15, Paul did this.
JT I think that is a good word. Peter did not stand on the fact that he was a great apostle and had the keys of the kingdom.
HG No, nor on the mere fact of his vision.
FL Nor on the mere fact of his being right. I think that sometimes, when we have a consciousness of being right, we fall back upon the sort of dignity of that, and say, I do not care to go into things any further. But what is suggested in reference to Peter here, and to Paul later on, is that when there is a good conscience in the inquirer he is perfectly willing to be put on his defence and give the fullest explanation. I suppose that where there is not a good conscience in the inquirer, and you feel there is malice in the attack, one is justified in leaving the issue with the Lord; but where there is a good conscience in the inquirer there would be willingness and humility to give an explanation; and I think it is helpful to see that in times like these, when we have questions coming up constantly.
JT Peter’s patient, humble defence of his actions and position affords a very excellent object lesson for every one of us.
JB Ephesians 4 brings before us meekness and lowliness. As I understand it, that is what characterizes those among whom God dwells. These came out pre-eminently in the Lord Jesus when here, and now we see Peter manifesting those moral qualities in making his defence. Paul’s being content with what one might call a menial service is meekness and lowliness.
RSS The Lord’s consideration for His people is seen in what He did in regard to Peter. I refer to the vision. And is it not a very striking illustration of the fact that seeing a thing in type and figure has a tremendous effect upon our minds and moral being? Peter recounted this whole matter. It had convinced him that God was making a new departure, and now his recounting it had precisely the same effect on the others. If he had said, ‘the Lord spoke to me’, or ‘the Holy Spirit spoke to me’, there might have been a question — ‘Were you not mistaken. Peter?’ But he recounted the whole thing exactly as it happened, and the effect on his spirit was reproduced in theirs; it says, “When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life”.
JD Do you not think praying would lead to ecstasy, and ecstasy to revelations?
WCR What do you mean by ecstasy?
JD I suppose the man was carried beyond himself, and I think it is quite possible to be carried beyond yourself if you are available for the Spirit, and then you get visions, real true ones. There was a state in Peter to which communications could be made. The Lord is very glad to make known His mind if there is a state to make it known to.
JT And prayer, as you said, leads to it.
WBs It is very noticeable that the marked events in the Lord’s life took place in connection with prayer: His baptism, the transfiguration and His death; and it seems to have been the same with Peter here.
JT What you are impressed with is the wondrous patience with which God treats His servants so as to bring them to a state where He can communicate to them; here He was fitting Peter to use the keys divinely,
[p. 80] as you might say, in moral dignity. He might have used them otherwise, but now God has brought him into complete sympathy with Himself in using them.
FL Peter was hungry and desired to eat. There was the state beneath that longed for something. It was not satisfied with what had been. Then there comes the prayer and the ecstasy, and the enlightenment from God, leading to the use of the keys, which leads on to Paul’s line of the one new man.
JD In the beatitudes the Lord said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness”. Possibly we have not given Peter credit enough for the desire for righteousness he had. He must have had wondrous impressions as to the Lord’s mind when he became the vessel for the opening out of the mind of God in regard to the Gentiles.
AFM In regard to his explanation here in this chapter, do we not have the importance of testimony? The Spirit had spoken, saying he should go, doubting nothing, and then the six men who accompanied him are mentioned.
JT It says, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in an ecstasy I saw a vision, a certain vessel descending like a great sheet, let down by four corners out of heaven, and it came even to me”. He goes on to say in effect, what else could I do? — God was working and I worked with Him. He impresses upon them that he was acting with God. He says, “on which having fixed mine eyes, I considered, and saw the quadrupeds of the earth, and the wild beasts, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the heaven”. He fixed his eyes on the vision and considered.
FL It suggests in Genesis 7 God had put the creatures with Noah in the ark in preparation for a new order of things, a new sphere in which those quadrupeds and creeping things were to develop.
JT And do you not think Noah helps us as to [p. 81] discrimination? He sent out the raven first, but it did not return; then he sent out the dove and it returned to him. Noah thus learned by experience. He knew the clean animals and the unclean ones.
WBs These creatures as seen in the sheet would be objectionable to the natural mind, especially of a Jew; he would not admit that they could be brought into connection with God.
JT Although he fastens his eyes on them, and considers them, Peter is not left to his own resources as to how to act or what conclusions to draw. It says, “I heard also a voice saying to me, Rise up, Peter, slay and eat. And I said, In no wise, Lord, for common or unclean has never entered into my mouth. And a voice answered the second time out of heaven, What God has cleansed do not thou make common. And this took place thrice, and again all was drawn up into heaven; and lo, immediately three men were at the house”. He has thus the mind of God before he has to say to the three men.
HG Before his praying he is brought to the house by the seaside, which is suggestive. The Mediterranean lay before him, which possibly may have suggested to him the Gentile world. We can hardly think how a man who had the Holy Spirit could have his affections hemmed in. They must of necessity go out to all men. He needed instruction. Even the divine nature in a man needs enlightenment. If you and I do not understand each other it might not be flesh working — it might be the divine nature in you, or myself, or both of us, that needed instruction.
JT You mean that it required that Peter should come to the Gentiles to get help?
HG Yes, and then his affection might have been going out to them, but his Jewish prejudices held him back. That is, the work of God in us is sometimes beyond our light.
JT Coming into contact with each other makes [p. 82] such a great difference. When giving this account of the matter, Peter had already had intercourse with Cornelius and his company. It makes such a difference when you have had to do with a man instead of hearing of him or from him.
JB Would you say that God was making known to Peter in this way a “greater and more perfect tabernacle”?
JT Well, quite. Peter was a fisherman and he would have remembered, doubtless, that the Lord had in an emergency controlled the sea, finding the piece of money in the mouth of the fish. He would have recalled the possibilities of the sea for God.
HG The Roman world lay before him there. The Mediterranean was simply the basin of the Roman world.
FL As a fisherman he was familiar with the Jewish lake. Now he has that which is the expression of the wide world. God says, I will show you that it is all clean, “What God has cleansed”.
EPL I wonder if you would connect what you have been saying with the Lord’s words in the last chapter of Luke, that they should preach to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the Jewish centre, and here we have the different steps by which God’s centre was removed from earth to heaven. Antioch was not an earthly centre as Jerusalem was: the real centre was Christ in heaven.
JT Peter would be impressed with the place heaven had in the vision.
GWH He would go back to Matthew 16. “On this rock I will build my assembly”. It is the Lord’s operation from heaven here.
RSS And it was there He committed the keys to him that he is using now.
WCR The four corners would suggest the universal dominion of the Son of man.
JT What I would very much like for myself, as well as for my brethren, is to see how all is held together,
[p. 83] because if you look at the church as it is today you can hardly conceive of anything that is outwardly more fragile, and yet it is held, and the point is to see how it is held. It is not held by outward formalisms. Our brother spoke particularly of things being vital, which really means the work of God in our souls, and I think Peter had come to John’s line when he resumed his service as recorded in chapter 9. That is, he had come to life. He presents Dorcas to the saints alive.
JD The coming down of the Spirit of God, consequent upon redemption, must have all men in view, because, as you have been suggesting, He is here not simply on behalf of the Son of David, but also on behalf of the Son of man, so that all have come into the view of God; and what Peter needed instruction in, I suppose, was the full extent of the redemptive work of Christ. I do not know whether you see the truth of Matthew 16 in the sheet or not, but you see greater than that: the Son of man, who is over all the works of God’s hands.
WCR It is because reconciliation has been accomplished, otherwise God could not approach men, as indicated here.
JT As our brother remarks, the nations come into the view of God. Simeon remarks: “A light for revelation of the Gentiles”, Luke 2: 32. The veil is taken off so they are now before God and taken up tentatively in reconciliation. “What God has cleansed” is abstract. We know that was not subjectively true of the Gentiles as a whole, but it was in the abstract.
JS The fact that it came out of heaven has a bearing.
JT I think it has a very great bearing because the Son of man is there. It is a representative title. God had raised Him from the dead and given Him glory. He is there representative of men, as I understand, and all are in that way taken account of [p. 84] abstractly.
FL It has to be regarded abstractly because the passage speaks of quadrupeds, etc. Divine cleansing would change them and render them suitable to God. The power of death had to come in, “Arise, Peter; slay and eat”. The cleansing involved a change from what is presented in the sheet. The gospel would effect this change. Cornelius and his company had none of the features of the wild beasts.
JD In the world to come the lion and the lamb will dwell together. I do not suppose the Spirit of God has any particular delight in letting us know what the beasts will do then. I would rather judge that is setting forth the moral elements found in men. Neither of these things will be found there. Men will be found together; and what marks the world to come is now seen in the assembly.
JB Is it not significant that Cornelius was a soldier of the most terrible beast of all?
GAT I thought that what the vessel contained represented the church from God’s side, and Peter saw what we were naturally.
JT Yes, it is not that they were to remain in this state. As our brother points out, the lion and lamb lie down together, “The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den”; no doubt it will be seen literally in the future, but if one of us is naturally a lion and another a lamb, we will be together. That is the moral victory of christianity: the natural features are displaced through the work of God.
GAT What did the vessel actually contain?
JT What the Gentile world presented. As the apostle says: “For we were once ourselves also without intelligence, disobedient, wandering in error, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But when the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared, not on [p. 85] the principle of works which have been done in righteousness which we had done, but according to his own mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us richly”. Titus 3: 3 - 6. That is how things are brought about — what we were and what we are. It is through the redemption-work of Christ and the pouring out of the Spirit.
WBs The assembly is viewed as derived from Christ, apart from the sinful history of those who form it. There is also what we have in Ephesians 2: 3; “and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” — what we were. Is the latter the view taken in this sheet?
JT Yes; I think it is the Roman side of the truth. Romans 1 and 2 describe what we were. But now God was making no difference and was cleansing the Gentiles. What the church is as derived from Christ is Ephesian truth. Strictly, union is found only in Ephesians, but Romans is historical. It is what I have been and what God has made me through redemption. It is not a question of new creation, but what is brought about through redemption; whereas Ephesians is what I was in His counsels, so my history, in that sense, begins with Christ.
JD It does not seem to me to be a question of individuals here at all. It is that the nations as a whole have come into the view of God; the nations stand on the ground of reconciliation, so Peter is free to go out to them.
JT Quite so, the nations were to be offered up as sanctified by the Holy Spirit, Romans 15: 16.