CHILDREN AS MATERIAL FOR THE ASSEMBLY
[p. 146] CHILDREN AS MATERIAL FOR THE ASSEMBLY
Matthew 11: 25, 26; Matthew 18: 1 - 5; Matthew 21: 15 - 17
JT It is possibly known to many of us that the references to children are comparatively numerous in this gospel. We are not concerned this afternoon with the subject in a literal sense — children are alluded to literally, of course — but the teaching in mind refers to christians. In view of its peculiar significance as the assembly gospel, it is important to consider the bearing of the subject of children on the assembly as presented in this gospel, whether those who are represented as children have part in the assembly service, and whether, if we see that they have, it may not bear on the teaching of children, that is, literal children or young people. Whether the point reached, for instance, in chapter 21, should not be in mind in our instruction for young people, or young christians, because the chapter contemplates them as praising, thus carrying on divine service, when those from whom it should have been expected officially were not carrying it on. It is touching that Matthew in chapter 2 brings in Rachel as weeping for her children, showing that the subject is not treated literally but in its spiritual bearing. In the murder of the infants or young children in Bethlehem, sorrow is connected with Rachel; and then there is so much made of the Lord Himself in that chapter as a little Child. Luke speaks of Him both as a little Child, and as a Babe, and as a Boy of twelve; but Matthew speaks of Him as a little Child and shows Him, as a little Child, to be the object of the supreme care of heaven. That is, not only because of what He was personally — though there was that — but relatively, because all children viewed spiritually are the objects of heaven’s care. As it says in chapter 18, “Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” (verse 10). These remarks are only to bring out the importance of the persons in mind, viewing children literally, whether they are in our minds in the instruction accorded as to them as standing in relation to God and the assembly, or whether we regard them potentially as having that in mind.
HFN In the prophet Isaiah 11: 6, we read, “A little child shall lead them”. Does that bear on what you have in mind?
JT It does. I suppose it is brought in there to show what will come about in God’s holy mountain, and what should now, I suppose, come about in the assembly; that is what a little child may do, and they should not be segregated in our minds in their instruction.
HFN Have you in mind that the children are really viewed as assembly material for the service of praise?
JT That is exactly what I had in mind, and chapter 21 shows how that comes about normally, as you might say. There is no fleshly effort to bring about anything in them, no special pressure brought to bear upon them, but the word is the children were “crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David”. That is, they were using a term which spiritually is a very great term in this gospel. The blind men in chapter 9 say, “Have mercy on us, Son of David”. It is an acclamation attaching to Christ that these children use. Where did they get it? It is not put into their mouths; apparently it is there by instruction.
WJH Do you suggest they got it in the temple itself though they were children? The Spirit of God has recorded that they were saying it in the temple, the place of light and [p. 148] instruction.
JT How did they come to raise their voices in the temple? It is no question of a Sunday-school; it is the temple. How did they acquire the instinct and the courage to use such terms in the temple of God?
WJH Is not the indication that the Lord had heard, also very encouraging, “Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus says to them, Yea”.
JT He heard it. I suppose the leading men there would have assumed it was out of place. That seems to be the inference here. The Lord says, ‘I heard it:’ there is not the slightest hint that He resented their part in the thing; in fact they were supplying what the priests and scribes should have supplied.
Ques Is there any significance in the fact that the blind and the lame were coming to Him at that time? I was thinking of what you said, that those who ought to praise were not there; was it because they were blind and lame morally?
JT Well, they came to Him in the temple and He healed them; we have to connect the healing of the blind and lame with those who were praising. But we are anticipating. What has been said about this chapter is only to bring out what is in mind in the subject in this book. The first thing is to have before us what a child is in the mind of heaven. What a blessed holy Child Jesus was in the mind of heaven, the “little child”, as He is called in this gospel. Chapter 11 brings out that the disciples accepted the public reproach as not knowing anything, for that is what is meant, and that the Father reveals things to them. He hides some things from the wise and prudent and reveals them to babes.
Ques How does Hebrews 2: 13 link up with this, “Behold, I and the children which God has given me”?
JT I think it links up with it. Of course it is a quotation from the prophet Isaiah; the Lord speaks of them clothed with those thoughts. They had that great dignity of being His children. But chapter 11 of Matthew shows that they are small and of no account. If it be a question of knowledge they are not worth thinking of, yet God selects them for His revelation.
PH In the previous part of the chapter there is a reference made to a little one in the kingdom of the heavens (verse 11); then in verse 19 there is the mention of the children of wisdom. Do these two thoughts bear at all upon your suggestion?
JT Yes, they do. The Lord is surely alluding in verse 11 to the new order of things. Greater than John the baptist is a very wonderful thought. We read in Zechariah 12: 8 of one being like David among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The thought of the children of wisdom, of course, is simple enough; it refers to christians characteristically, I suppose, fully unfolded in the Acts of the apostles: “Wisdom has been justified of all her children”. Then the word the Lord uses in speaking to His Father is a very diminutive word — ‘babes;’ it alludes not surely to literal babes, but to persons who would be regarded by the leading religious class as incapable of knowing anything. That means that the saint has to accept reproach; it means that we have not to be vying with our neighbours in regard to learning, when it is a question of the things of God. I think learning is doing a great deal of mischief amongst the saints, and it is often because there is a desire to make a show on those lines.
AJG Is this intended to make us realise how far superior the saints are, as having the light of divine things, to the world and all that is in it?
JT I think that is what is meant by the Lord: “Yea, Father: for thus has it been well-pleasing in thy sight”. The Father has thought it out in that way, and He has taken up very unlikely persons to unfold His things to. There is no accounting for it save by the sovereign mercy of God. You cannot account for it because of the persons themselves for they are just babes.
McL. Is the point in regard of this matter, the extent to which the human mind can go; it leaves all these things hidden? The range of things that belongs to heaven and to the interests of God on earth is entirely due to a movement on the part of God.
JT If God hides, as He does here, it is not presented as if they were incapable of taking things in, but it is a judicial action on the part of God. The refusal of christianity in modern times implies that God is acting judicially. Where the light of christianity was, it exists no longer to a very great extent. It means God is hiding, hence the great need for the acceptance externally of the babe attitude, that there is no pretence to know, no pretence to dig into the originals (not that any one who can should not, but making no point of that). The point is the sovereignty of the Father in selecting such persons whom the Lord calls babes.
Rem It says in John’s epistle that the babes know the Father, but that could hardly be said of the wise and prudent.
JT Quite so. “I write to you, little children, because ye have known the Father” — that alludes just to their stature in christianity. I mean to say, it has to be understood contextually. John’s epistle opens up the subject of ‘children’ perhaps more than any epistle, but the idea formally attaches to christians. He begins his second and third epistles by speaking of himself as an elder, an elder that is entitled morally to speak of christians in that way.
Ques Then they have an unction from the [p. 151] Holy One and are independent of the learning you are speaking of. Have you in mind that we are to get things by impressions?
JT Well, the Spirit dwells on “yourselves” in that verse in John’s epistle, as much as to say, ‘You christians, just pause for a moment and think of yourselves, think of what you are as compared with what others are’. And, if you stop to think of it, how wonderful it is that you have the anointing which teaches you all things and is the truth. We christians do not stop much to think of what we are, what we are called to, what we are by the work of God, and what we are by the anointing.
PH Babes would have development in view all the time.
JT I think so; they are not grown up. There is a word for children that includes the grown-up in John’s epistle, and in this gospel too. But the word ‘babe’ is relative, it is used to remind us that we must accept the stigma of not knowing much; we must accept it, for from their point of view we do not know much.
HFN Is that the beginning of the material for the assembly as coming out in chapter 16 — the thought of the babe?
JT I think so, it is a question of the Father’s choice. The Lord Jesus is praising about it; He is jubilant about it that God is now on this line and using persons like this. Well, I want to be in that. “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Yea, Father, for thus has it been well-pleasing in thy sight”. It is a most beautiful position at this juncture; the ground is so beautifully cleared and the position of the saints set out and the Father’s sovereignty, and all now is to be worked out on this line.
[p. 152] Ques You have spoken about learning and education — would the babes come to light as those who come to Christ and learn from Him?
JT They are viewed here as capable of having things revealed to them. It is not so much the power they have of reception, but that the Father has approached them and caused things to be made known to them. But then we have other passages that show that the christian characteristically comes to Christ, like Mary of Bethany and many others; the man, for instance, in Decapolis who was sitting, clothed and in his right mind, at the feet of Jesus, which would mean he was ready to learn.
Ques Do you take it that the babes in Matthew 11 refer to the spirit that should abide with us from the beginning to the end of our days?
JT I think so. What I find is, the nearer I get to God, the more I say, What am I? Why should I be taken up? The babe attitude precludes, at all times, arrogating anything to oneself; it is a question of God and what He has done. That is what eternity will be, what God has done; He has brought about a world for Himself, and that is the attitude of the saints, they give God His place. The Lord is giving Him that place here, He says, “Father”. If the Lord were pleased to say, ‘You children must go and learn and take up a certain curriculum for your education in these things’ — well, that could be done, too. But God does not prescribe that; christendom does, but God does not, and I do not want to interfere with that. I want to give God His sovereign place in the selection of the persons to whom He will reveal His mind.
Ques Do the words in Ecclesiastes 12: 12 bear on that, “Much study is a weariness of the flesh”?
JT I think so. It is not that we should not study; from another point of view, we are told to [p. 153] give ourselves wholly to these things. Laziness is abominable to God. But it is a question of the way things are done, the divine standpoint; how His sovereignty selects a certain way, and the Lord rejoiced in it! That is the position today.
Ques Is not the object in view oftentimes the difficulty in learning?
JT Well, the object in view often defeats the end. Perhaps we have in view to acquire knowledge and to be able to take a lead amongst the brethren; but God would not have us on that line. It is a question of what God sovereignly reveals. He has revealed things to babes, and the more we get with God the more we say, ‘God has done it’.
Rem When the Lord asked Peter, “Who do ye say that I am?” he said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens”.
JT That is in keeping with this; it is in the same gospel. The more you know God and the nearer you are to Him, the more you attribute to Him and the less to yourself. The knowledge of God is the great thought unquestionably, one is to glory in this, that he understands and knows God; but there are things also, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes”. There is a great range of things opened up to us in the teaching of God, and babes are able to take that in.
HFN Peter refers to the “pure mental milk of the word” as the appropriate food for new born babes.
JT Let us not forget that babes are supposed to have a mind, for this matter we are dealing with is constitutional, it is a question as to whether there is that in us which is contemplated here that God can reveal things to, so the mind comes into it. Romans [p. 154] makes a great deal of the mind. In leading up to it, the apostle says, “I myself with the mind serve God’s law” (Romans 7: 25). It is the mind being subject that is morally the great thing that underlies all this, the mind being subjected to the teaching of God.
Ques Is that how we enter into this, by the mind being subjected?
JT There is no other way; subjection must come in before you can have a teachable mind.
McL. Is your thought that in this first passage, while there is a certain mind from which things are hidden, there is another to which things can be revealed; and the Lord has great delight in this thought of babes, for they suggest what might come to light as assembly material?
JT That is what I am thinking of, for we have in chapter 11 the basis of chapter 21. Where did these children get such thoughts about Jesus? Who conveyed these thoughts to them? That is, I think, what we have to keep before us, so that in chapter 18 the question is raised, “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens?” I picture the Lord saying, ‘Is there anybody here to exemplify this thought?’ Well, a little child will if he is here. So He calls one to Him and sets him in the midst of them. Spiritually that would mean a brother who was advancing on those lines.
McL. That is what we become, is it not? The point is, if this thing is to come to pass we have to become little children.
JT To be converted and to become as little children.
Ques Is it your exercise that we should discover how to fill out the purpose for which we have been formed?
JT That is how it works out. The Father selects His pupils: “They shall be all taught of God”. Then there is the sovereign selection which the Lord alludes to here, and any of us can say spiritually, ‘For this cause I was born: my birth was not an accident’. If God has begun over again, as John says, in new birth, then everyone is born for a purpose.
LM Will you say a word as to the difference between teaching and the Father’s revelation, what the Father reveals?
JT I think it is important to call attention to the distinction, for revealing is not teaching. Teaching in the case of God, or of Christ is, of course, based on what They are as divine Persons, but teaching by any of us is based on gift. Revelation is entirely confined to divine Persons, They only can reveal, but many can teach. Teaching is a power, it is gift, but it may be by divine Persons; it is the same principle, I think, that a thing that is intended to be in your mind is forced into it by power. Revelation is revelation: I may not understand it; Peter did not understand the full bearing of the revelation, I am sure, though he confessed that the Person before him was the Christ, the Son of the living God. But teaching is that the thing comes into my mind logically, as it were; that is, I understand the logical bearing of the thing, there is a reason for it. So in approaching the thought of the assembly in this gospel it is said that the Lord left the Pharisees and Sadducees and went away; then He says, “How is it that ye do not understand?” It is a question of the understanding. They thought He was speaking to them about bread; they were unable to seize the thought. You might say the whole environment was filled with the thought that He was the bread, and they were thinking of ordinary bread. “How is it that ye do not understand?” He says — and that is a voice to us — that you are to be no longer babes in the sense of being unable to use your minds. So I [p. 156] think that leads up to the revelation to Peter. The idea is that you have a mind capable of taking in the things and, in due time, understanding.
Ques Is that why the word is changed from “a babe” to “a little child” here, and then later to “children”?
JT I think that is right. The word used in chapter 11 is the most diminutive of all, and rightly translated “babe”. But “little child” in chapter 18 suggests a boy; it is sometimes used of a girl, too. As far as I understand it there is a sense of responsibility connected with it, a person available for service being implied, though young; still you can make use of him. And I think that it is very suggestive that the Lord set him in the midst, not by Himself here, but He can put him right down amongst the brethren; as if He cast about, as it were, ‘Is there anyone here who can be used to exemplify this great thought, what the kingdom of God is, the kingdom of heaven, and who is the greatest in it?’ The “little child” suggests a subjective work in the person.
JT And I think one available to Christ, He can put His hand on him.
PH Would it be the outcome of a babe in Matthew 11 holding himself available for the work, having realised he has been selected sovereignly?
JT Just so, the attitude of your mind, I think, which works out in exclusiveness of what would hinder you, what is not in keeping with the attitude of God operating sovereignly. Our safest position in that sense is in the hands of God operating sovereignly.
McL. Is not that the great thought of, “Except ...” (Matthew 18: 3)?
JT Yes, being converted is the turn round of the mind from the things that have operated before [p. 157] to the God that is now before us, and we become little in our own eyes. I think that is the idea of the word ‘converted’, meaning that the little child was not always like that.
Now, to come on to chapter 21 as the point to be reached in this reading, it is a question how children normally come into service in the temple. You cannot expect them to if you do not keep the temple before them, and if you do not from the outset accustom them to the idea of the temple of God. Why should we not regard them as capable of taking in temple thoughts, though in a hazy way?
McL. Is not that why the Lord cleared away the elements that would hinder the children seeing the beauty of the temple; He cleared away the tables of the money-changers, the commercial side of things, the buying and selling; He opened the avenue to divine things.
JT The assumption is that they were witnesses of all this. It is said in verse 12, “Jesus entered into the temple of God, and cast out all that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those that sold doves”. It seems to me that that would eliminate all thought of gain in the things of God, and children are to come to see that; that there is no monetary gain in being in the house of God. That is not proposed; the Lord said, ‘All that must go’.
Ques In Psalm 8 the expression used is that they established praise, whereas in Matthew 21 the expression is, they perfected praise. What would you say as to that?
JT “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established praise [or ‘founded strength’, the note says] because of thine adversaries, to still the enemy and the avenger”. I think it brings out there strikingly how God may turn to account in the testimony what young people do in His service.
[p. 158] What is there more impressive than the first lisping of a young brother in giving thanks to God in the assembly! What victory there is in it!
AHR The first thing it says of Samuel is that he worshipped the Lord in the temple.
JT Quite so. So it is, I suppose, the Septuagint, or translation of the seventy, which the Lord uses and uses it knowingly. They heard the children crying in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David”, and they were indignant, and the Lord said to them, “Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” In other words, He just said to them, ‘Have you not read Psalm 8?’ Our brother referred just now to the necessity of preserving the spirit of the babe. If we are to get revelation to the end of our days, we have to keep the spirit to the end of our days. The Lord is not reproaching people here with being babes, but this spirit should be cultivated to the very end and then the Father, in His sovereignty, can give revelation.
JT I think that is right. It is a question of the attitude of your mind though you might be a father spiritually, for it is really a question of the Father’s sovereign choice.
Rem So really the beginning and end of the thing is in those who maintain the spirit of the babe.
JT I think that is the thought. The Lord said virtually, ‘I heard what they said’. In the midst of the din going on there, is it beneath the Lord to pay attention to that? No, He said, ‘I heard that’, and how beautifully it connects with Psalm 8, filling out the mind of God — these children crying in the temple. And then, how did they come to use these wonderful terms? We may not think them wonderful now, but remember they applied these terms to a Man who was regarded generally as of no account. These children say, “Hosanna to the Son of David” — I believe it is the highest note you can get at this particular juncture, for He has just come from over the Jordan, and the blind man referred to this, and these children take it up; they are in accord with the highest note, they are not behind.
Ques Do you think they had come under the influence of their elders in the earlier part of the chapter, for on the road to Jerusalem the crowds that went before and that followed cried saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David”? God seemed to be sovereignly leading the crowds to use those words.
JT That is my point. You do not want to assume the children cannot reach the highest point, for you get this remarkable appellation in the end of chapter 20. “Two blind men, sitting by the wayside, having heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out saying, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David”. And again (in verse 31), “They cried out the more, saying, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David”. We are not told how they got this thought, but evidently it is the work of God. Then the crowd were saying the same thing, but the children are saying it in the temple. It is not simply that they are in the throng at the roadside, they are saying these things in the temple.
HFN Would this link on at all with the Lord in Luke 2 where He is seen in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors?
JT I have thought of it myself in that way, for the Lord is there as an example for young people. He is able to give God His place above His natural parents, and that is what happens in the temple.
HFN One has often been struck by the thought that the prophet Zechariah says the boys and girls are going to play in the streets of Jerusalem, but the children in the New Testament are seen in the temple [p. 160] as the great vessel of praise. Is there anything to be learnt from that in regard of ourselves?
JT Zechariah is speaking of a millennial state of things; he speaks about old people too. I suppose there will be provision in that wonderful age for the weak. There will be no danger of motor cars in the streets, for instance. But here it is an exalted thought that Matthew gives us which we should not miss; these children are saying these things in the temple. I quite admit it is not the word for the inner temple; but it is the general idea of the temple of God. We might get an idea from this scripture of how much more exalted a place the children have in the temple than even in the millennial day.
Ques Would you mind making a more direct application to ourselves in regard to the young children growing up amongst us?
JT Well, I think the scripture contemplates the children (viewing them now literally) as brought up in the atmosphere of spirituality in the very best there is, because Joshua contemplates that the most spiritual suggestions become the occasion of children questioning, “What mean these stones?” Well, let any father sit down and tell his child “what mean these stones”, and he will have to go over highly spiritual ground; and the Spirit of God does not suggest that the child may not take in the thoughts.
HFN Is it not significant that every time the Spirit of God alludes to the children asking questions, it follows a spiritual move on the part of the parents?
JT I think so. “What mean these stones?” I suppose the thought properly is, ‘Tomorrow you will be asked about this; any time the children may ask about these stones’. And another thing I think that should be noted in Exodus 12: 21 - 28 is that when Moses calls the elders, he brings in words that are not in the earlier section, and in the end it says, in regard to what Jehovah said to him, “It [p. 161] shall come to pass, when your children shall say to you, What mean ye by this service?” It is not simply, What does the service mean? not simply, What does the Lord’s supper mean? for instance, but, What do you mean by it? I have to give them my account of it. And it says, “Ye shall say, It is a sacrifice of passover to Jehovah, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses”. You do not get that form of words in the previous part at all; you get the lintel and the door-post and the blood, but the words “delivered our houses” mean that your children are delivered, for the houses include the children. It seems to me that is a fine element to get into a child — that is what the passover means.
McL. Do you not think you often get questions asked that find out how far the thing is substantial in your own soul?
JT You are a learner yourself; only God really can answer these questions fully.
Rem It is very striking that in the next chapter in Exodus 13: 8, it says, “Thou shalt inform thy son in that day, saying, It is because of what Jehovah did to me when I came out of Egypt;” and then later on (verse 14), “It shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say to him, With a powerful hand Jehovah brought us out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage”. It is direct teaching in the first place, and then the answer to the question in the second place.
JT Yes. As to our houses, it is a great point in regard of children if the house is delivered. The house includes all that are in it.
Ques Is the praise in Matthew 21: 15 in any way the outcome of verse 2? As to our children being held for God in the matter of praise, is it in [p. 162] any way the outcome of every child being held so that they might hear the speaking, “Immediately ye will find an ass tied, and a colt with it”?
JT That is good.
Ques Is it not an important feature in verse 7 that, the disciples having gone and done as Jesus said, “He sat on them”. Is that not encouraging in the light of the blend you have been speaking of — He sat on them?
JT You mean the old brothers and the young ones used together. That is what I think God is bringing out; each has his place. It must never be forgotten that young people are capable of impressions. A young brother brought into fellowship, as we speak, is able to take part in the assembly; he is not brought up in the nursery but in the assembly; he is capable of taking in the full thoughts of God.
Rem You mean the house is held in relation to the temple.
JT Quite so.