LIFE
[p. 91] LIFE
John 3:1 - 17; John 4:7 - 14; Hosea 12:3-6; Hosea 12:12,13
JT It occurred to me that a consideration of life in its initial features in these chapters would be profitable, and the passage in Hosea serves to illustrate how life develops in the believer. Jacob may be regarded as a type of the Lord Jesus in certain respects, but in others he is a type of the believer, and I think he serves as a type of a believer from the time that a believer is born again, because we see him acting at his birth in the way of supplanting the man born after the flesh. His action in supplanting Esau at that early stage in his history I think corresponds with the initial movements and instincts of one born again — merely born again. Then later he wrestles with God, and has power, as it is said, over the angel. He wrestled with God. In his strength he wrestled with God. It does not say that in his strength he took hold of his brother by the heel, but when he wrestled with God he had strength. The instinctive sensibilities of one born again, are to displace what is born after the flesh.
WJY That is what comes out in John 3.
JT I think it corresponds with John 3. There is a clear distinction or line of demarcation made between that which is born of the flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit. They are not to be mixed. What is born of the Spirit is necessarily stronger. At the outset it may be a very little, but it is there.
Rem Would you say one born of the Spirit had life?
JT No, I should not say he had life in a scriptural sense. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”; it does not say it is life. It is of that character. There is the foundation laid in the soul of what John [p. 92] intends to develop. He intends to develop in us what corresponds with God.
Rem There is a difference between being born of the Spirit and being sealed with the Spirit?
JT A very great difference. The latter is after we believe the gospel. Jacob did not get the Spirit typically until he wrestled with God. Then he had his name changed.
Rem Further on, in John 3, John the baptist says, “He must increase, but I must decrease”. Would you say he had learnt something more of the necessity for the flesh to be displaced?
JT Yes. It is a great thing to see that John’s point of view here is taken up in relation to God. John has what is for God before him. He presents the Son of God, and the Son of God is concerned about what is for God, so that the foundation laid in our souls has God in view. Not simply our blessing. It should be for God. God is a Spirit, and hence the initial work is spirit. That is the name Scripture gives it. Being spirit, it has instincts, and these instincts work out in the displacement of the flesh.
WJY So that there is nothing for Him until He moves.
JT That is right. It is the sovereign act of God. He is acting with Himself in view.
HW New birth is God’s sovereign work, but the further development of things in the soul is dependent on the exercises of the believer.
JT That is why I thought Jacob would help us, especially the young people. The Old Testament is of such value because it affords illustrations of what we get in the New, so that we have in Jacob the exercise at this very early age. He is already concerned about the displacement of Esau. Jacob’s name signified a supplanter. That is what being born of the Spirit will result in.
HW Every believer ought to be a supplanter?
[p. 93] JT That is the way it begins. It becomes more and more definite and pronounced when there is the displacement of what is born after the flesh, so that any person can tell in himself from this point of view whether he be born again or not. If he is born again, he will have something corresponding with Jacob, because it is presented here as the evidence of spiritual energy.
WJY You mean he would be conscious of something within himself that moved Godwards?
JT That is quite so. It may be only in a very little way, as that you have an interest in the company of the Lord’s people, or in reading the Scriptures, or abstaining from earthly things. It may be very little, but a very little will show.
HW You do not think of that exactly as life?
JT No, because it is very mixed, and very spasmodic, until you get the Spirit. The Spirit coming into a believer sets everything in order, and, as the fourth chapter of John says, it is a well, it is a constant spring, and it springs up. That is the idea of what prevails. The power of the spring is well known. It may take time, but it works its way, so that there is something definite and pure for God. It springs up into everlasting life.
WW There is a distinction between being born again, and being born of the Spirit?
JT Being born again is that the first birth does not count. It is not of any value. The explanation that the Lord gives of the second makes it more definite. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. Then one is born of water, which is a suggestion of purification. Being born of God is a fuller thing. It involves having the Spirit.
HW What is the thought lying behind new birth? Is it that you begin afresh, that God has completely set aside the old, and has taken up a new line?
JT [p. 94] Yes! God acts sovereignly! The flesh has proved itself untrustworthy, as the previous chapter states. “Many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did but Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus” (chapters 2:23 - 25, 3:1). He is distinct from among all others. The fact that he comes to the Lord shows that God is working in him. God has to work sovereignly now. It reminds me of the chaotic conditions which existed in the first chapter of Genesis. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. That is, He was waiting to operate. The Spirit is operating now.
WJY I have sometimes thought that the book of Job illustrates the truth of the third chapter of John. He had to learn that in man naturally, and in all that was said of himself, there was nothing for God. He had to reach that in his soul, and then there is a new beginning for him.
JT Just so. God loves to see you develop in a spiritual way, and see that there are great things with Him. The gospel brings to light the great things there are with God. These great things are not going begging — they are offered to all, but God maintains them in their dignity according to their worth. Hence they are available to those who value them. The actual reception of things for God is by those who value them.
Rem Is new birth a need created in the soul which can only be met by God?
JT Yes, so that in Genesis 1 the first thing God says is, “Let there be light”. The soul needs light, and the light brings out what is made available in Christ.
Rem Unless you are born anew you cannot see the kingdom of [p. 95] God.
JT It gives you power to see what God is presenting in the gospel. The Spirit in this operation gives a certain moral power in the soul. Water is cleansing — moral cleansing. The two things go together — moral power and moral cleansing. These do not in themselves involve the possession of the Spirit, but in virtue of them you begin to see what great things there are. The gospel discloses what great things God has got for man. Hence you go in for them. That is what Jacob symbolises. In his strength he wrestled with God. I take that to be moral strength. He had gone through much in his soul. He had been to Syria, and had had a great deal of adverse experience, or experience with adverse things, but through all that, he acquired moral power.
HW Do you suggest that, in connection with the soul entering into enjoyment of eternal life?
JT I think so, but first it is the Spirit. The fourth chapter comes in as the counterpart of the third chapter. The third is from the divine side, and the fourth is the gift. It is still from the divine side, but it is something which is to be in you.
CSS You would say there is a difference between desiring and wrestling?
JT Yes, I would. Many have the desire for things, but they do not go in definitely for them. God loves you to go in for things definitely.
CSS The slothful man desireth and hath not.
JT Just so.
Rem Would you say the Syro-Phoenician woman was wrestling?
JT Yes, in a way. She was wrestling for her daughter. Jacob is wrestling definitely for something for himself. He says, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me” (Genesis 32:26), and I doubt whether any of us progress until we arrive at that stage, where we definitely turn to God for blessing. We have to distinguish between that which is inherited [p. 96] and that which we get. As born again we are born into inheritance. Inherited things will not suffice. There is a definite blessing, and we must go in for it. Jacob secured the inheritance for a mess of meal, but after that there was the blessing that he wanted from his father Isaac. Many are content with the inheritance. I mean what we have inherited through our predecessors, but in addition to that, there is the blessing that Jacob got through his subtlety. He got it definitely, and took it away from Esau. Jacob valued the blessing.
Ques Would that illustrate eternal life?
JT Yes. Eternal life is definitely the blessing of God. One has to get it. Jacob shows you how you get it. He wrestled with God. I am referring now to Genesis 32. The blessing is spoken of in Genesis 32.
WC Would you say a man who is born again is responsible to answer to the light?
JT Quite. He is prepared now to listen to the gospel, and then he wants to enter into the kingdom. There is more than the kingdom. There is a definite blessing that one gets by turning to God himself.
HW In John 4 the woman was told to ask. “Ask of me”.
JT That is the line. The Lord unfolds that there is the gift.
WM “Lay hold of eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:12). Would that apply to what you are saying?
JT That is a further thought, but it is all on the same line of energy.
CSS I think it was seen in the case of Timothy. Timothy was a young man.
JT Yes.
WJY I notice in the third chapter of John, that the thought of eternal life, as linked with the journeyings of the children of Israel, was not connected with other than the brazen serpent. That would indicate [p. 97] they had travelled a good way before they really entered into that.
JT That is helpful. It is in the mind of God for us at the outset, but it is brought in in the types when you are prepared for it.
WJY I suppose at that stage the springing well would indicate that they came under the influence of the Spirit leading them.
JT That is very helpful. “Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it” (Numbers 21:17). The great form of weakness among the people of God is on this line. We are not energetic enough. Seeing the wonderful things God has for us, we are not energetic enough in going in for them. Some do, thank God, and through their energy the saints get things, but getting things from others is not getting them yourself, so that Jacob illustrates the believer as going in definitely from the very outset for what is available. First he supplants the man born of the flesh, and then he gets the inheritance. He goes in for that, and then he gets his blessing, so that the man born after the flesh is shut out automatically by the energy of soul of the believer.
CSS Have we not had a false impression in relation to Jacob as a supplanter, taking it up in a human way, and not seeing the divine import?
JT I do not think he took it up in a human way when he was born. It may be said, as to the way he took away the blessing from Esau, that it was discreditable to Jacob, although he valued what he got; but, at the outset, when he took his brother by the heel, you cannot say it was the action of mature will. It was instinct. It represents more for us than for him. It was miraculous that a babe of that age should do that. Even before he was born there was energy. It refers to one that is born again, and he has these instincts and these energies. He perhaps could not tell you why, for a babe cannot tell you why, but a babe has instincts and acts on those [p. 98] instincts, and we gather from what he does that he is born of God.
WC When Jacob’s thigh was put out, what do we learn from that?
JT He was crippled after the flesh. Having the Holy Spirit you are not to allow for the flesh.
WJY The instinct Jacob had corresponded with the thought of God. “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:13).
JT That brings out what was in his mind. From the very outset, what is born of the Spirit corresponds with God. It may be very mixed, but still it is there; so that, if a young person finds himself happily with the people of God, that is not the flesh. It is something else.
LBB I suppose one born of the Spirit values that which is of God?
JT These instincts are developed. When you come to wrestling with God, it says, “In his strength he wrestled with God”. There you have moral power in his soul, meaning that there has been exercise going on. There has been progress in a moral way, not as possessing the Spirit, but in judging one’s self and judging the world. You turn to God definitely now. You want power; you have not got enough.
HW Is the Spirit given in answer to asking?
JT According to chapter 4 it is. Of course it is the gift of God. In the case of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit was given while Peter preached. God knew what He was doing, and the state of soul they were in, and He gave them the Spirit accordingly.
Ques Would you say the work was first operative in Jacob when he had the vision of the ladder going from earth to heaven?
JT The work of God was in Jacob from the very beginning. He “was a plain man”. Esau was a man of the field. A mark of a Christian is that he is [p. 99] not a man of the field, that is of the world. Jacob was a plain man who lived in tents. Abraham dwelt in tents. That brings in the thought of parents — older ones — living with younger ones. Jacob obeyed his father and mother, but then you see another thing in Genesis 27. Isaac smells him, and says, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed”. That is another thing. The Christian has a fruitful smell, a smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. There you see the potentiality of a Christian. The field is to be cultivated. It may yield this crop, or that crop, but the fruitfulness is there. The potentiality of the field is indicated in Isaac’s remark. You look at a young Christian, and you say, ‘What potentialities!’ All these possibilities are contingent on one’s laying hold of the thing, laying hold of the mind of God, and going in for it. Isaac asks that corn and wine might sustain him. God not only conveys His mind to you, but he sustains you in the pathway.
Rem The Lord says, “As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57). Is not that the means of being sustained?
JT Quite. The sixth chapter of John is the food. The third is the mind of God, the fourth the Spirit, the fifth the work and power of Christ. The sixth chapter is the food, sustenance. The seventh is the Spirit going out. You are built up now for the testimony. You are standing on your feet and sustained, and the Holy Spirit comes down for the sake of the testimony. It is a question now of being energetic.
CSS What is the thought of prevailing with the angel?
JT First it says, “In his strength he wrestled with God. Yea, he wrestled with the Angel, and prevailed”. In the prophet’s mind, God was there,
[p. 100] but He was there, representatively, in the angel. It was a man, according to the book of Genesis. It says there that a man wrestled with him.
CSS He stood the test.
JT It is very remarkable that he was allowed to prevail. I think God encouraged him to overcome. It suggests, I think, how God encourages a young Christian as he attempts to pray and turn to God about things.
CSS Would you say he is one that is especially loved? I mean the overcomer, in the language of the prophet: “Jacob have I loved”.
JT That is right. We have little idea how delightful it is to God as we insist on getting things from Him.
WJY Do you think if we allowed these spiritual instincts to prevail within us that development would be much more rapid than it really is?
JT I think so. The meetings are relied upon almost entirely, and the home, and what is obtained in the home readings and family worship, whereas these scriptures show that each individual believer has to turn to God himself if he is to come into things definitely. He has to follow the line of Jacob in wrestling with God.
Rem We get the way in which he prevailed, “He wept and made supplication”.
JT That is a condition. We do not get that in Genesis, showing that there is more than is recorded in Genesis. And then it says that God found him in Bethel. God found him. That is, your wrestling and energies and supplication and weeping bring you under the notice of God in a special way, and in no less a place than in His house. You really find yourself in the house on this line. It is a reference to Genesis 35.
WJY I think that question of personal and private exercise is a very searching one today, with [p. 101] such busy lives as most people lead. We are very apt to depend on the meetings for everything.
JT And then we enjoy the written ministry. All these things are provided for us, but they are only really helpful as we have individual intercourse with God, and go in for things definitely.
LBB They are not much use to us unless there is the wrestling?
JT It is wrestling that makes you a prince, because you come into the nobility that way. That is how we come to belong to the nobility. God alone can ennoble man, but He does not ennoble you formally until you are equal to it spiritually; that is, you are great enough to belong to the ‘peerage’. God changed his name. “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Genesis 32:28).
WW What would you say is implied in the blessing of Esau in Genesis 27?
JT That is concerning things to come. It would refer to the place that the nations will be in, subordinate to Israel in the future. It is referred to in Hebrews 11:20. “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come”. It brings out the richness of Christ in blessing. Even Esau is blessed.
WM Is there any help for us here in the first chapter of Ephesians, “After that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”? The people of God spoken of there, had in a kind of a way believed; but when there was a whole-hearted committal to God, and a resting upon what God had said, there was the sealing of the Holy Spirit.
JT That is so. It comes in in the order of one, two, three. “After that ye believed”. One would say, How long after? So long as you have that before you, I think it is right. Really it reads, “In whom also, having believed”, but the tense would show that it is in the order of believing, and then receiving. As a matter of fact, historically, the Ephesian Christians had believed in John’s ministry. They believed on Christ, but through imperfect teaching; Paul preached the gospel to them, but even then they did not get the Spirit. They got it by the laying on of his hands. We have to notice these things, because we have to leave it to God as to when He gives the Spirit. We must not make Him act automatically. It is His sovereign gift. In the Acts we have instances of that. The Samaritans did not get the Spirit until Peter and John came down. Cornelius got the Spirit while Peter was preaching. Those at Ephesus got the Spirit after they were baptised, and Paul laid his hands on them. But the gift is given to all those who obey Christ.
HW That puts a great responsibility on the gospel preacher, to bring the mind of God before people, and produce desire, so that people ask.
JT Quite. You want to make Christ attractive to souls, so that they go in for what Christ has got for them.
WJY Where do you put the fourth chapter of John, in connection with Jacob?
JT I think it would be in Genesis 32 where he wrestles. He gets the blessing there definitely.
WJY That is what he gets after he wrestles. Does not John convey the thought not only of something within us, but a link with what is of God without us? We are brought into an environment of blessing. The woman had had an environment that did not satisfy her, but God provides an environment that will perfectly satisfy her.
JT That is very good, so that the power in the soul springs up into that.
HW What is the sun rising upon him when he went over the brook?
JT [p. 103] He is now in the unqualified favour of God. The sun is a symbol of divine favour. Think of what it is to the Christian. What would the Christian be without it?
Ques Why was it that the One who wrestled with Jacob declined to tell him His name?
JT Because He wanted to tell him His name where it could be enhanced. He reserved that for Bethel. The disclosure of His name is in His house. In Bethel He reveals His name to Jacob, because He had come right down to where he was. We read of his feet resting in a certain place, so that Jacob was entirely to God’s satisfaction. In chapter 35 He comes right down to Jacob where he is. He is in His house, there by him.
Ques Is it that after the wrestling the desire to know God was produced in Jacob?
JT I think so. Certain things happened afterwards that were very discreditable, but nevertheless God would have him come to Bethel, and dwell there. You will find two histories of the event in chapter 35. One is the historic account from previous records. The other is on the divine side. In chapter 35:1 we read “And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother”. In verse 9, God appeared to Jacob again — an additional record. There God gives him his name. “Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God almighty” (verses 10,11). “And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel” (verse 15). That is a divine record of what God did. It includes really all that happened in chapter 32, but it is all brought in here as belonging to Bethel.
Ques Why did he call it a dreadful [p. 104] place?
JT Because he was not equal to it, like numbers of believers at the present time. They are not equal to the place.
Ques Would you say he was not converted?
JT I think he was converted, he had light in his soul. He was in obedience to his father and his mother, but he was not fit for the house.
Ques. Was he saved?
JT Not in the sense of being saved from the world, because he was going to Syria and he remained there for twenty years. He was not saved from that.
HW He had not found God yet?
JT God found him at Bethel.
HW I think we find God when we get there in our souls.
JT That is quite true, but the reading of this passage is, “He wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us; even the Lord God of hosts”. I think it is God who found Jacob in Bethel.
Ques What would you say about the twenty years after?
JT It is like many of us after we get light, we go in for natural things, and leave an accumulation to our families, but God never gives us up, never! He will come round and order things in His government which will force us to move, and what we find is, that when Joseph was born, Jacob feels that he must move and get out of the place. Christ came into his considerations typically.
WM It was the great plight Jacob was in that led to this exercise.
JT Yes, but God had ordered the circumstances because all the wives and children and cattle had gone over the brook. He was alone. It was definitely arranged. It brings out the importance of having to do with God personally.
[p. 105] Ques Is it affection for the Lord Jesus which enables us to prevail?
JT I think so. You get to appreciate what He has secured and you go in for it.
Ques As a prince he gets before God.
JT Yes, he belongs to the nobility. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). He goes to God about things, and God answers him. And then you have power with men. If you are praying for a brother, you are sure to get power with him.
CSS It is not only fervent, but effectual.
Rem I suppose believers have to overcome the world before they come into the enjoyment of eternal life.
JT These chapters show that eternal life is the gift of His love, and the Spirit is the gift of God. God gave His Son in order that we might have eternal life, and gives His Spirit to us in order that we might enjoy it. You want the knowledge of God. As was pointed out, and it is most important, the woman had had to do with an order of things, and she thirsted again, but now she is to be brought into another order of things, and the well in her would lead her to it effectively. The well springs up into everlasting life. You are in that way delivered from the world of sin by the Spirit in you.
Ques Is not the key to the position, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink”?
JT If you only knew, “the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink” — the light of that would encourage you to ask Him, and He would give you living water.
Ques Would you say eternal life is where Christ lives?
JT It is a sphere and order of things in contrast with what you have here. She had drunk of the [p. 106] springs of this world, and she thirsted again. But now she had come into an order of things where there was satisfaction. That is a wonderful presentation of the truth, and yet most practical, because the provision of the Spirit lets you into it. Jacob illustrates it by his energy. She left her water pot. She saw the thing was to be in herself.
Ques If He is the eternal life, we have to reach Him before we can enjoy it? That is, the other side of death.
JT Quite so. The question of burying is most important, because the flesh has no part in this at all. The thought of baptism comes in in the third chapter, and in the fourth, and there is no doubt that it has a meaning, because of the spiritual structure that is being built up in you.
LBB Would the well of water springing up be the outcome of wrestling?
JT I think so. “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me”. It is remarkable that in Romans 6 we have baptism, and in chapter 5:21 “grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life”. Chapter 5 is administration. Life is administered. It comes through our Lord Jesus Christ through righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. Chapter 6 begins with our being baptised. “So many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death”. “As Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (verses 3,4). It is a new thing entirely. The old is buried. The chapter goes on to “the wages of sin is death”. It is through Him in the fifth chapter, but it is in Him, as to position, in the sixth chapter. It is an act of favour of God, the gift of God — eternal life in Christ Jesus (verse 23).
HW Would you say God brings [p. 107] the believer into divine things before he understands the terms of the things?
JT No doubt. You understand the things by having them. You must have them before you can understand them.
Rem If it is the result of energy, we will value what is hard, and not easy to get.
JT It is those that come into it in this way that value it. If you simply accept it as an inheritance you will not value it in the same way. Of course the inheritance is to be valued, because it is on the divine side; but you have to get the individual blessing before you enter into the thing. It is remarkable in the book of Genesis how much of that there is; how the patriarchs were kept waiting for things. Hence Abraham had to wait for a son, and Isaac had to wait for a son, and Jacob had to go into Syria for a wife. They had to go after things, and thus show that they valued them.