INDIANAPOLIS DECEMBER 1925, READING (5)
INDIANAPOLIS [p. 319] DECEMBER 1925, READING (5)
Ephesians 2; Ephesians 3:14 - 21
GWH-n Going back for a moment to what we had yesterday morning from Colossians 2, namely, that we are filled full in Him in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and circumcised, buried, and quickened — does that give us moral suitability to enter into what we have in Ephesians?
JT I think it does. The ‘therefores’ of Scripture are very interesting. Colossians 3 begins “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ”. Chapter 2 has, in the main, a negative bearing; chapter 3 is the positive based on that, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above”. Colossians qualifies us, sets us free, for what is above, where the Christ is sitting and Ephesians develops what is above. Colossians is intended to release us in mind and affection, so that we may enter into the things above.
AFM Would you enlarge on the difference between Colossians 2 and 3?
JT Well, it says, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above, where the Christ is sitting at the right hand of God ... for ye have died”; it is a hypothetic statement, being dead being dependent on being risen, as in John 12, “where was the dead (man) Lazarus”, as we read, “whom Jesus raised from among the dead”; that is, Lazarus is taken account of as having died. As risen, he has passed out of this world, but he is now ready for another world; so Colossians 3 is that we are dead, “If ye then be risen”. It is not that we are risen simply, but if ye are risen.
WM In this sense you could not be dead unless you were risen.
JT [p. 320] That is it, you are not practically free from this world. You cannot be dead to this world, and all that makes it up, except as you are risen with Christ.
Then, to go on, he says, “Your life is hid with Christ in God”. We have the positive thing, outside of what we are here altogether. It is hidden and “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory”. There is the most positive thing, you might say, that we have — life. We are dead as regards all here, but we have a life hidden with Christ.
AFM Following that, “And have put on the new man”. Is that also positive? The qualities of the new man are then dwelt upon.
JT That is what we are as down here; he turns to the sphere of testimony. The new man, I suppose, is for the sphere of testimony here, but the opening verses of chapter 3 are really to make room for Ephesians.
AFM The “putting on” is positive.
JT Yes; and there is the putting off also.
AL Do I understand, in connection with your question, that your thought runs back to Luke 15?
GWH-n I thought there was an analogy, that the result of Colossians 1 is chapter 2. The saints are clothed, or vested, in chapter 2. Then the lovely fitness found there is the qualification, or suitability, to enter what is heavenly.
AFM The illustration you gave us of Lazarus, I think, is good. It helps us to understand the opening of Colossians 3.
JT Yes, the door is open into heaven, but then another thing arises there, and that is that what goes into heaven came out of heaven.
Ques You mean in the Person of Christ?
JT Yes, viewed as in Ephesians. Ephesians gives us the full divine thought of a Man in heaven.
JB-[p. 321] t Is that what you get in chapter 4:10: “He that descended is the same also that ascended”?
JT Yes.
Rem We get in Colossians 1:27 what came out of heaven, “Christ in you”.
JT Yes, but Ephesians gives us more fully what came out of heaven: “He that descended is the same also that ascended”. I think we have to understand that what goes into heaven came out of heaven morally.
WM You do not apply that exclusively to the Lord? It is true of the saints as well.
JT It is true of the saints also.
WM There is a general thought about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and getting to heaven when you die, but that is not the thought.
JT No, it is that which comes out of heaven. Redemption sets us up before God, clears us, but the eternal thought of God was, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:48). “Such are they” — there is no discrepancy between Christ and the assembly; that is to say, it is not exactly the Colossian believer that goes in. It is the same believer, but he has to be adjusted; he is hindered on the way. The full thought in Ephesians is that “He that descended is the same also that ascended”; resurrection is not formally mentioned in Ephesians 2. It is mentioned in chapter 1, but by the one stroke of divine power Christ is taken out of death and set in heaven, and the assembly with Him.
It is not a question of His being brought back here, raised simply, but God “Set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:20,21); and then in chapter 2 we are quickened with Him and then raised up together. It is the same stroke of power; the [p. 322] saints are raised up together and set down in the heavenlies in Christ.
AFM The first two words in chapter 2 really link it with the first. I mean the little words, “And you”.
EHT Is that the full assembly position, sitting down together?
JT Yes. You have the whole thought of God in Ephesians.
GWH Having reference, would you say, to the testimony in the coming day; that is, the display of the surpassing riches of His grace and His kindness toward us (Ephesians 2:7)?
JT Yes, having that testimony in view, but principally in the age to come. Then, in the end of the chapter, it is what we are now as a habitation of God through the Spirit. These two things hinge on our being set down in heaven. What is to be observed is that Colossians is a corrective epistle. Romans adjusts us on earth in regard to God. In Ephesians the Spirit of God is free to develop the assembly as really of Christ. It is of Him; that is, as Eve was of Adam. Her origin was there, so she is morally on the same level. The assembly is on the same level in that sense as Christ.
RSS Would the message to Mary in John 20 involve that?
JT Yes, I think John 20 is parallel.
JB-t Is there any difference between the body of Christ and the assembly you are speaking of?
JT No difference. The body is of Christ, only there I think it is more in the sense of the substance. In Colossians the body is mentioned; it is set over against shadows (Colossians 2:17).
AFM In Colossians it is of Christ.
JT There the prevention of ceremonialism is in view, not the heavenly side, as here.
[p. 323] It is to be noted that in John 20:17 it is not that we are simply the brethren of a risen Christ. We are the brethren of an ascended Christ: “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God”. It is on the ground of ascension.
GWH Thus we are in special relationship, are we not?
JT Quite; Ephesians is the enlargement of this great truth.
GWH-n “Raised up”, in chapter 2, is that more the thought of ascension?
JT I think it is — elevation.
RSS You were saying that we are not only brought into association with a risen Christ, but an ascended One. What is the difference in your thought?
JT Well, resurrection does not take us off the earth. This has often been remarked, and it is an important remark; it is very wonderful that we should be the brethren of a risen Christ, but John 20 contemplates the brethren of One who is ascended. It is as One who is ascended that He comes into their midst.
GWH It is a further thought, is it?
JT Yes; it shows the greatness of our position.
RSS It connects us with what is heavenly. I think that expression is but little understood. I do not know that I have had very clearly in my mind just what is the import of “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended”.
JT There were to be no relations with Him save as ascended.
RSS And so He was not going to resume earthly relationships.
JT If it were a matter of Israel’s blessings Mary could have touched Him, for these will be on the ground of resurrection on the earth. See [p. 324] Ezekiel 37.
GWH In point of time, when did He ascend? Is the account given in the end of Luke and the beginning of the Acts?
JT Luke gives us the ascension in his gospel and in the second treatise. Mark 16:19 also states it, “He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God”. Mark and Luke speak of His being “carried” or “taken up”, but John quotes the Lord as saying, “I ascend”.
AL I understood you to say before that John 12 - John 16, inclusive, were in connection with resurrection, and then chapter 20 came in on the line of ascension. I thought that was the distinction you made then; is that what you are making now? I thought you were bringing out that “part with me”, in connection with Christ in the place He had with the disciples here on earth, was in resurrection; I thought you drew the distinction that in chapter 20 it was the ascended One who came into their midst.
JT I do not remember. What I understand is that the assembly is a heavenly vessel here. It begins in heaven, and if you take up John 13, “part with me”, it would include what the Lord is going on with here now in testimony.
AL That was the way I understood it, but perhaps did not express it properly.
JT Well, I think that should be made clear. The ground of the assembly is not only resurrection; it is ascension. We begin with that, but then we are left here in testimony and all the instruction that you get in John 13 and 14 to the end of chapter 16, would fit us to be here in His absence, not simply on the ground of resurrection — involving that, of course, but we are never less than heavenly here. He is going on with that which is here in the way of testimony, and we have part with Him in it. Even in John 13 the ground is not that the Lord should die and rise [p. 325] again (although included, of course), but that He should depart out of this world to the Father.
JB-t Is it not noteworthy that the Lord does not speak of His resurrection in John 20, but connects Himself with His brethren as ascended?
JT That is the whole point, and so Luke 15:22 speaks of the “best robe”: “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him”; it is out of heaven. We must go to heaven for the best.
Rem Luke 10:20 says, “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven”.
EAS They could not touch Him until they had the Spirit; it needed the ascension for the Spirit to come.
WM The origin of the assembly is heaven.
JT Certainly. When it is to be developed by Paul, Peter is instructed by the sheet coming down. The time now had arrived for the full setting out of the assembly according to divine purpose, and so Peter is thus instructed, because he had the keys, that he might open the door with grace and intelligence; so the sheet comes down. This took place thrice, and all went up again into heaven; that is, it came down and went up again.
WM How do you connect that with the responsible assembly on earth?
JT This is to give character to it. Our part in what is heavenly is known to ourselves, and it gives colour to the public assembly; as we see in the tabernacle — the blue always spoke of the heavenly. Outwardly, it was small; it was insignificant, and marked by badger skins, an altar, and sacrifices. All these things were public, but inside it spoke of what was heavenly. And indeed Numbers 15 shows that the heavenly was to mark the people of God publicly.
WM When you think of the assembly as in the purpose of God, every national and natural distinction [p. 326] is abolished, but in the actual assembly on earth there are men and women.
JT Just so, it is quite intelligible. We are here before the world to represent the order of God, and so what we are is in evidence, but inwardly we know we are heavenly, and so before Paul finishes his first letter to the Corinthians he brings in the great truth of resurrection, but in dealing with that he says, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:48) — not that shall be heavenly, but “are heavenly”. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven” (verse 47).
WM That is the most difficult thing to maintain.
JT Quite; but without it there is no clear testimony according to the dispensation. Without the heavenly, the testimony is not according to the mind of God.
GWH The testimony seen here in the Lord Himself was the testimony in a heavenly Man, and there was to be a perpetuation of that here.
JT That is what he says: “He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13); and “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” (John 6:62).
Rem The testimony is that we are heavenly.
JT Yes, and that God would set out the best in this dispensation. He sets out the best, so the prodigal is clothed with the best robe.
AFM Is the thought of the house that follows, that in which the testimony is seen?
JT Yes, it is a qualified vessel as come down from heaven; it is qualified to set out what is in heaven. Because it is heavenly, it is fitted to set out what is in heaven.
WM The Lord, being here in flesh and blood, was not hindered in presenting Himself as a heavenly Man.
JT Not at all, the ‘blue’ was always [p. 327] there.
GWH It seems very essential that the vessel in which the testimony is found is a heavenly vessel.
JT Certainly, you cannot have the heavenly without a heavenly vessel, and so Peter is instructed in what is heavenly; things come out of heaven and go back into heaven. Then the prodigal comes into evidence in Acts 10. I mean that the actual thing that corresponds with the prodigal is in that chapter.
GWH The Gentiles received, you mean?
WM I have often thought of that, because God gives them the Spirit before Peter could receive them by baptism. He “ran” to meet them.
JT Just so, and the same word (’fell’) is used as in Luke 15, “The Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word”; it was God embracing the Gentiles. That is what is meant; the Gentiles were embraced by God, as it were.
WM It was indeed the reception of the prodigal.
GWH Then there is the vessel here, Cornelius and his company composing this heavenly vessel. Is that what is in chapter 3 — “fellow heirs, and of the same body”?
JT Yes, we are reconciled; He has reconciled “both unto God in one body by the cross”. It is of great moment, I think, to understand what is best. Luke 15 corresponds with Acts 10 because Cornelius and his company represent the Gentiles embraced. They had not come into what was set up at Jerusalem; what was set up at Jerusalem was in keeping with the Old Testament. It was, of course, the assembly, but it was in a Jewish setting. In chapter 9 you have a light from heaven and the announcement, “Why persecutest thou me?” It was a light from heaven, and then the sheet from heaven, so that the prodigal is introduced into what is heavenly; he is not exactly introduced into what was at [p. 328] Jerusalem.
AL Do you mean that the prodigal himself becomes the house?
JT In principle he did. It does not say he went in. The prodigal becomes the house, as it says here, “In whom ye also are builded together [p. 334] for an habitation of God through the Spirit”.
AL We want some help on that particular verse this afternoon, because of what is involved in such a marvellous statement in regard to God and the assembly.
JT Well, it is well to see that the thing is heavenly, at any rate, as symbolised in the sheet — something that has come down from heaven. You must see the dignity of it so as to understand how God can dwell in it.
WM It is the prodigal that is seen here: “In whom ye also”.
JT He was the house himself, in principle, as I remarked, so that immediately after the elder brother comes up, the house is there, and the music and dancing inside.
GWH You get the two thoughts. Christ is glorified in the Gentiles, and then there is the dwelling of God in this company brought out from the nations.
EHT Where does the change take place in connection with the prodigal? You speak of that only going into heaven which comes out of heaven. The prodigal in the far country had rags on, but there was a change took place, but you still speak of him as the prodigal.
JT That is just for convenience. He is not a prodigal now; he is a habitation for God by the Spirit.
WM “This my son”. The “prodigal” was left outside.
JT That is right; he is a son now, and owned to [p. 329] be such.
GWH And then he is fit for the testimony of heavenly things.
JT He now represents a fit vessel in which God will display His thoughts and love, and in which He lives. You can understand how God can live with people whom He can kiss.
GAT It is not very easy to take in how this man has become a house. I want to get it right.
JT The thing is to get hold of the principle. It does not say that the prodigal was brought into the house, because the idea is that he is the house. Historically, you have God coming out to the Gentiles; that is, Cornelius and his company; He could live with them. You can live with people whom you love.
GWH The word to Peter was, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common” (Acts 10:15).
JT Well, that precedes it, but to live with persons you must love them.
WM You really live in love.
JT That is the idea, He dwells in love. God kissed them, as it were. It was the love of God, the Holy Spirit laying hold of them. It was the Father’s kiss to the prodigal; there was the expression of affection. Well, God can live with those whom He loves.
WM That was what made the elder brother so angry. The younger was so hungry he could not stay out, and the elder was so angry he would not go in.
AL As I understand it, this last verse of chapter 2 informs us spiritually as to how God can be with us, and we with Him, because if God had remained in His own dwelling-place I presume we should not have had this verse. We have God’s dwelling-place here among men, and it is public, is it not?
WM But it is not permanent.
JT This is a provisional house, but the thing to get hold of in all this inquiry is love. The Father loved the prodigal and He kissed him, consequently [p. 330] He could easily live with him. He could easily live with one He loves, but then He says, virtually, If I live with you, it is that you are to be clothed with what is of heaven; you are to be made in every way heavenly. So Paul’s ministry was to take up Cornelius and his company (the principle I am speaking of) and clothe them with divine thoughts and form them through the Spirit in the very state of heaven; that is what this epistle means.
WM He really takes them out of Peter’s hands and gives them things “hard to be understood”(2 Peter 3:16).
JT Well, he was bringing in the heavenly thoughts. Paul invests us with the mind of God, with the dignity and blessedness of heaven, so that we might be here the habitation of God. Paul’s ministry invests the Gentiles with what fits them to be the habitation of God.
EHT What did you mean when you spoke of the state suitable for the habitation of God in Cornelius?
JT This epistle explains it. It points out what we were (’you’ meaning Gentiles) and where we were, and how God has come in on account of being “rich in mercy”and “for his great love wherewith he loved us”. That has to be laid hold of, because love underlies it. And now the investiture: He has quickened us with Christ and He has raised us up together — that means all of us, because if love is in us we want all the saints with us. We want all the saints to go up, and so God raises us up together and makes us to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ. Now, we are invested; we are set up in heaven according to God, and it is on this that the following things are based, that we are qualified to be “an habitation of God” down here.
WM In connection with that, have we not got to view ourselves in an abstract [p. 331] way?
JT We have to view ourselves in relation to the work of God, and this chapter contemplates it — not historically, but in its completeness. The work of God is contemplated in the first ten verses of this chapter; that is to say, it contemplates the whole assembly from Pentecost to the rapture; the whole assembly of God is contemplated in that which is set down in the heavenlies. We are not set down there piecemeal, so to speak; it is the work of God in the assembly in its entirety.
WM Nothing less would satisfy love.
JT No, every member of the assembly is set down there.
AFM Speaking of the house, would there be two thoughts in it? For instance, in verse 18 we have the words “Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father”. Would that be one feature of the house, and then another that the character of God is to be displayed here, as we have in chapter 4?
JT Just so. How great a thing it is for God to have an institution here that is great enough for Him to dwell in! The Gentiles were to understand that they were equal to that, “Ye are no more strangers ... but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”.
WM I wanted to ask about that. Do you think that the foundation of the apostles and prophets is the foundation they laid, or are they the foundation?
JT It is their testimony, I think, therefore the foundation they laid.
RSS Going back to Luke 15, is the best robe Christ formed subjectively in us?
JT I think it is, but it is the Christ that is in heaven. That is the thing, I think, that we should get hold of, that it is Christ as He [p. 332] is in heaven.
RSS Would not that answer our brother’s question?
JT This epistle is to show how we are invested so as to be a habitation of God by the Spirit now and the vessel for His glory in the future.
Rem So that it is no longer a house made with hands, but a house built with heavenly material.
GWH As a matter of fact there is one Man in heaven now — that is Christ. But we look for the elevation of the assembly when the complete company will be there. That represents the completion of the divine thought.
JT It does. This passage is anticipative of that. Mark you, it is not what He will do here; it is what He has done. It is what God has done.
RSS Then how can it be anticipative?
JT Because God “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17).
GWH-n It is necessary for one to apprehend what God has done. Then does the work of God in you fit you to correspond with that?
JT Quite so, you are thus in accord with the mind of God.
AFM In that sense Christ has not to wait for His pleasure; the whole thing is there.
JT That is right, and so when we come together in assembly we ought to be in the light of this. We are not simply a company on earth, but the assembly is brought to Christ, where He is, as Rebekah was brought to Isaac.
WM In assembly we ought to be at our best.
JT We ought to understand what the best robe is; there is nothing better in the whole universe of God than that in which we are invested.
AL And it was always there.
JT Well, it is there in that Christ is there. It is Christ having gone in there — that is the idea, I think.
AL How touching it is to think, in regard to [p. 333] the bringing in of the Gentiles, as we have touched on, that God should prepare this habitation for Himself in order that He might be approached and worshipped! I am bowed in the presence of that divine Being in that structure.
JT Then there is the Spirit’s power opening the heavenly door, where we are with God according to His eternal thought, the purpose of His love, as Christ is, “Accepted in the beloved” — a most wonderful thought.
GWH Holy and blameless before Him in love.
WM You can see the necessity for Colossians here, where everything has been set aside — every dignitary, philosophy, worship of angels, every element that would intrude.
JT So I think it would help if we note how all this came out historically. First, the light out of heaven shining round about Saul, and then the sheet out of heaven to Peter. All that preceded the reception of Cornelius and his company. You see how they are received, not simply into the kingdom nor into the system set up at Jerusalem, but into the heavenly thing. They were introduced into that, but then it required the ministry of Paul to make all that plain, because he was the minister of the assembly, as he tells us in Colossians, and indeed here; it was to him the ministration of the thing was committed.
WM The service of Peter came to an end in this respect.
JT There was little or nothing said about him in the Acts after that. Indeed, what you get of Peter after that is in confirmation of what God was doing in Paul. His epistles make for the confirmation of Paul’s ministry.
Rem Cornelius and his company are still here in principle.
JT You are one of them. We are all of that company: “In whom ye also are builded together,
for an habitation of God through the Spirit”. The Gentiles are not a mere appendage, “Ye also are builded”. We are built by ourselves, not independently of the Jew, of course, but nevertheless we are built. There is a Gentile structure.
AFM Do you view this expression here “habitation of God through the Spirit” as that which is principally for God in this epistle?
JT Well, this epistle is what is for God now and eternally.
AFM We were speaking of it being heavenly in character, but it is on earth, and that is for God.
JT The first statement is the whole building. That would include all, but so as to emphasise the Gentiles’ part in it he changes the thought (”ye also are builded”) because really, historically, the main building was among the Gentiles. The assembly really came out among the Gentiles; there are very few Jews in the building now.
WM The temple will come out in the millennium in its fulness.
JT I think the rule of Christ in the millennium will be intelligible. It will not be arbitrary. Things that are done will be known. It is a holy temple in the Lord, but the rule is not arbitrary. It is an autocratic rule, an imperial rule, but nevertheless people will understand the meaning of things, that everything is done in wisdom. The “temple in the Lord” will involve light as to the kingdom.
AFM Do you think it refers to the inner shrine of the city?
JT Oh, I think the city itself will be the temple. You or any of us, as we shall be functioning in that day, will be able to give an account of things. You have the principle of inquiry in Revelation: “What are these?” Well, the elder knows (Revelation 7:13,14).
WM “Sir, thou knowest”.
JT That is it, and he says, “These are they”,
[p. 335] etc. The assembly will know what the meaning of these things is. We are learning now, I hope, so that in that day we shall be able to give an account of anything that arises.
AL I understood you to say on another occasion that the temple leads to the house.
JT That would be the Corinthian aspect of it, where you inquire, but Ephesians contemplates things in their completeness in view of the future. That is what you get all through Ephesians, and so we have the temple, not in its local character as in Corinthians, but in its completeness in relation to the coming kingdom of Christ.
WM Any person in the light of the temple today could answer inquiries from saints who were anxious to know these things.
JT It is a very rare thing to find a man who knows, and so John meets that because he presents the Lord as saying, “We speak that we do know” (John 3:11). That is the principle, and so in his epistle, “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding” (1 John 5:20). A believer according to John knows the mind of God about the things he has to do with.
WM It is very important to meet inquiries in the light of the temple, to be able to tell what is right.
JT I think in the millennial day members of the assembly will be distributed throughout the world and they will give account of things according to the mind of God.
WM We will be sent to enlighten people, I suppose.
JT I think so, so that you see how important it is to be instructed now for that day.
AFM The increase goes on. I suppose that is the idea that should be seen amongst us.
RSS But chapter 2:21,22 refers to what is here on earth now, does it not, to what is spiritual?
JT It does, and it is growing, that is to say,
[p. 336] growing in spiritual intelligence, growing in the knowledge of the mind of God.
WM The habitation is not presented as such as growing.
JT No, the thing is growing to a holy temple.
WM But in the meantime there is the habitation for God.
JT And that, I think, hinges on the best robe; God loves His sons. You cannot have Him dwelling without love. He dwells with those He loves.
Rem There are some strong statements here in view of what they were. Their former connections are brought up in verse 11.
JT It is a balancing thing to remember what you were. It humbles you, then it enhances the richness of divine mercy and the greatness of divine love that took you out of death and put you into heaven.
Rem Do you think the prodigal would ever forget what he was?
JT Not in his position down here. I am not so sure about that when we are above.
WM We will not have the same kind of memories there. We shall think by the Spirit then.
JT Yes, old things will be no more, all things will be new and of God.
Ques What about the elder brother?
JT He is outside. His father came out and entreated him to come in. That means, I think, the ministry of Paul. Great emphasis is laid on the fact that he went to the Jews first and that he went up to Jerusalem to suffer for his brethren’s sake. It was the divine entreaty, the Spirit of God operating on the affections of Paul in relation to the Jew. He says, “I have wished, I myself, to be a curse from the Christ for my brethren” (Romans 9:3). Could anything express love more effectively? But they would not be entreated. They would not go in, and so in the next chapter, Luke 16:23, the “rich man”, I suppose, is the elder brother; “And in hell he lifted up his eyes”. That is the only alternative to refusing to go into this wonderful thing that Paul presented in his ministry.
EGMcA In principle he could not go in because he had not dwelt in love.
JT No, there was no love at all. It is important to see the place love has in all this.
Ques Are the assembly and the house the same thing?
JT They are the same, only viewed in different aspects. The idea of the assembly, I think, is that it is formed in intelligence. The house suggests love and family relationship.
WM Do you think the house is presented more in the form of a household?
JT Well, it is here, but then you have a further thought — “habitation”.
EGMcA You lay great stress on the best robe. Do we find in the assembly all the best that is of God?
JT Yes. As we had yesterday, I suppose the best thoughts are in chapter 1, what He had before Him before the foundation of the world. What were His thoughts then? The thoughts of His love.
HPW Would the gift of the ring to the prodigal indicate that?
JT Yes, that is the token of love, that the love is to continue, I suppose. The kiss conveyed to the prodigal the Father’s love, but then the ring is a seal that it is to remain.
AFM Do you think the thought of the best robe would suggest that the assembly has the first and the best?
JT Undoubtedly. Now going on to the end of the next chapter, in the light of all this, the apostle bows his knees to the Father, because it is now a question of the saints coming into it; that the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole [p. 338] family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man”. It is a question now, not so much of the spirit of wisdom and revelation, but power — power in the soul, in the inner man, that we might be able to fully comprehend “what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye [p. 341] might be filled with all the fulness of God”.
GWH He says, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”. Would you say something about Christ dwelling in the heart by faith?
JT I think it is apprehending Him as presented in this epistle; He dwells thus in your heart by faith.
EGMcA Does the “fatted calf” come in here at all?
JT In that there is again the thought of something special. It is a ‘fatted’ one, not an ordinary one. This is in keeping with Ephesians.
AL Does what we have in chapter 3 refer to the mystery, or is there a difference between the mystery and the assembly?
JT The mystery involves the assembly; this is what he speaks of in chapter 3:4 - 6, that “ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body”. He is treating of the Jews and Gentiles being brought together in this remarkable way; that is, he is treating of what comes out, as has been remarked, from Acts 10 onward, but then in chapter 1 the mystery of His will is to head up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth, “even in him”. It is more of a political nature, so to speak, whereas [p. 339] the saints by themselves are brought together in one body in this chapter.
AFM This comprehending seems to be a most marvellous thing — “comprehend with all saints” these wonderful things. What does all this involve?
JT It is well to look at the verses following those I read. He says: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the assembly the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:9 - 11). That is what He is working out here, what God has brought about, and I again refer to the Acts, because it is well to see how the thing works out historically, what God has brought about in the body that He has formed by the glad tidings. It has all come about by the glad tidings Paul preached. He preached the Son of God, and in the preaching of the glad tidings, he gathers out a company from among the Jews and among the Gentiles, that God formed here in intelligence, in such intelligence that the all-various wisdom of God was seen in it by principalities and powers in the heavens.
WM God’s masterpiece.
JT Exactly, and so it reminds you incidentally of what early Christians were, what Paul’s converts were, as at Antioch and all the other companies formed by Paul; how instructed they were, and what love they had! So the example is given as in Acts 20, for there we see the full height of Paul’s ministry. The point was that they loved. They had intelligence, for they had the whole counsel of God declared to them; but they loved.
WM Do you not think that the apprehension [p. 340] of the great universe of bliss depends upon the Head dwelling in our hearts?
JT That is what Paul is coming to, because he would have this continued. I have no doubt that what he contemplates here already existed through his own personal ministry, but the thing is that it should continue. For this cause Paul wished Timothy to “abide still at Ephesus” (1 Timothy 1:3). There was need that Timothy should be there so that the thing should be continued. It was a great thing; it was, as has been remarked, the masterpiece of God. Paul brought it about under God. Well, now, thinking of all this, as we have it in these verses, he says, “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. What could he do more than enlighten them? God alone could work in them, and so he prays to the Father; I do not think “our Lord Jesus Christ” should be there, because it is a question of the Father — of whom every family is named.
Ques Does this wonderful work of God and faith go hand in hand, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”?
JT Just so. The apostle now shows that all he could do was to pray, and, of course, we can do that even now. We can all do it as having the light, because this epistle teaches us that God does “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think”, and therefore Paul gives us a lead in that direction. He says, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God”. His prayer was very comprehensive, and I think God greatly values prayers that are comprehensive, that make great demands on Him. He loves to have great demands made on Him, and Paul bowed his knees, which is a very peculiar thing — I mean, it is unusual.
AFM Was it excessive exercise?
JT I think so.
AFM It was work that only God could do.
JT All Paul could do now was to bow his knees and pray.
WM He wanted this family to be in the fulness of blessing. There are many families in heaven.
JT The prayer was that they should be subjectively equal to their position.
EGMcA In regard to “All the fulness of God”, is it that God’s thought for the assembly might be fully seen in the assembly now?
JT It is the only way that I understand how we shall be in eternity, because as finite beings we could not be there save as filled “to all the fulness of God”. There is no room for speculation or anxiety. We cannot comprehend what He does; that is beyond us. Only God can take in eternity, or even ordinary space — physical space, we cannot take that in — so that, being filled unto all the fulness of God, there is no room for any speculation. You are filled, and there is nothing more needed.
WM Simply a vessel for the display of God.
JT And a full vessel, “filled to all the fulness of God”. That, I think, is the solution; it is the only way I can understand how we shall be with God eternally. There will be one Person there whom we can love, whose love we know, the love of Christ, a Man. We know a Man’s love, the love of Christ. We know that and then “filled to all the fulness of God” we are steadied. There will be nothing to cause speculation or unrest.
AL And that leads to the doxology.
JT That is it. Paul has come to that here. It is now a question of God with him. He is moved to worship in the contemplation of what God is in the accomplishment of His counsel in Christ.
AFM It is like the verse “And filled with Thee, the constant mind, Eternally is blest”. (Hymn)
JT That expresses it perfectly — the “constant mind”.