HEBREWS 12 (SECOND READING)
HEBREWS 12 (SECOND READING)
CAC The chastening referred to here has in view the making good in our souls the precious things spoken of in this epistle. Think of the great things presented — God [p. 130] speaking in Son, that is unlimited. There are these great things: the divine speaking, the priesthood of Christ, the privilege of drawing nigh to God and the walking by faith. These are great things which require education to be understood. We come now to the educational side. All the things mentioned in the epistle are permeated by divine holiness, so a people unformed in holiness could not compass them. When we come to the educational side we have to realise how necessary it is, for how much there is in us practically that has to be knocked out by severe treatment. This aspect is important in considering the truth of sonship. We think of it on the side of privilege, but the educational side is most important. We could not take up the privilege side without the educational side. God is bringing many sons to glory; that is the purpose side. In privilege we say, ‘Abba Father’; but then there is the educational side which is most important.
Ques It says that God conducts Himself towards us as towards sons. Is not that striking? What bearing would it have on us?
CAC It shews that God does not behave towards us inconsistently with the place we have. We are always sons in the thought of God, although I may not be in my own consciousness. So He always conducts Himself in the way of love; even if He is severe it is in love. Every father who has a son has an ideal for his son and God as Father has a great ideal, and it is on the line of holiness. While God conducts Himself towards us as sons, many of us are only sons potentially; we have not come to it educationally.
Ques “I will be to him for father, and he shall be to me for son”. Is that educational or not?
CAC That applies in the first place to Christ, where the ideal is fully realised. God has reached His ideal in one Son.
[p. 131] Ques Are sons ever not received? It says, “every son whom he receives”.
CAC We must make a difference between God conferring sonship as a gift and the educational side. He confers the place and dignity of sonship upon us, but it is another thing for Him to receive sons. That implies education and growth.
Ques Is the ideal seen in David and Solomon?
CAC Yes. Proverbs is a great book of sonship, and also shews the necessity for the educational side. The whole book is instruction for a son; chastening is a word that means instruction. We are apt to forget that when we come to listen to ministry of the word we come to be under chastening, and to be corrected and adjusted. If we come to meetings like this, we come to have some wrong thought corrected.
Ques Does the relationship of son apply to chastening by the Father or by God?
CAC I do not think there is much difference in the principle. Jehovah compares His chastening with the chastening of sons. It is a pleasure to God to bring me morally and intelligently into correspondence with His ideal. It is a delight to a parent when his son comes home with a good report from school. Do we want to delight the Father? If so we must subject ourselves to His correction, whether in the way of ministry or discipline. All comes into what is connected with being at school. We are all at school; every one comes in for this instructive dealing of God. It says, “of which all have been made partakers”.
Ques Would you think that, when Joseph’s brethren came before him and he fully opened his mind to them, they had accepted the discipline?
CAC That is a very good illustration, for they had come through severe discipline.
Ques Is sonship for us set out in perfection [p. 132] in Christ?
CAC Surely. The Lord ever accepted the ways of God with Him. We were speaking before of what is referred to in this chapter in connection with the closing scenes of His life — the resisting unto blood and wrestling against sin. It refers to what He said, “This is your hour and the power of darkness”, Luke 22: 53. The Lord is a Model for us in the way He carried Himself; we have not yet resisted unto blood, but He did. The Lord was tested in a peculiar way in that hour. The hostility of man could not touch Him until His hour came. He endured the cross and despised the shame; He went through the extreme testing because it was the will of God. He said, “Not my will, but thine be done”. He had not to be perfected in a moral sense, but He was perfected in an experimental sense.
Ques Do you think His enduring the cross refers to the atoning sufferings?
CAC I do not think it is quite the thought of His atoning sufferings, because it is looked at as the way to His place at the right hand of God. It is a path where we might follow Him. All was in view of His taking up His new place as risen and glorified at the right hand of God. That was the joy that was set before Him. He had never known this before; He had never known what it was to be in that position, in “fulness of joy”, as a Man.
Rem It is an encouragement to us to go through to enjoy the system He was brought into.
CAC Yes. Is not the particular form of chastening here the trials that would be encountered in the path of faith? The kind of sufferings contemplated here are sufferings that we could avoid if we wished. The shame of the cross can be avoided; no one is compelled to go that way. We have many sorrows as walking together as brethren that we could escape from. “Thy countenance is fulness of joy”, Psalm 16: 11. What a wonderful thing to have God’s countenance, to know that we are pleasurable [p. 133] to God and that His countenance is beaming on us! That was the joy before the Lord, that God’s countenance beamed on Him. The Lord never had Man’s full place with God before. He was in Deity, He was God eternally, but He was never in God’s immediate presence as Man in heaven with God’s countenance shining upon Him until He went there by way of the cross. The terminus has been seen in Jesus and we are told to look at Him, to fix our eye on Him. It would be a pity to connect atonement with this.
Rem Stephen was not sorry to go that way for he saw the glory of God and Jesus; and Paul also desired to follow the pathway of the blessed Lord. I suppose the Father would help us if we are lethargic or slow by His discipline.
CAC Yes, and we should take trials, testings and education as the chastening of God.
Ques Would you say this is the discipline of our souls or of our spirits?
CAC That is important. It speaks of the Father of spirits. The spirit is the seat of intelligence in a divine sense. When we come together we should come in contact with each others’ spirits. I suppose it is in the formation of the spirit that we arrive at sonship in the experimental sense. Perhaps many of us are content to believe statements of Scripture, that we are sons of God, and that “God has sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father”. But God is not content with that. That is initial, but what He wants is that I should say, ‘Abba Father’. In Romans we say it, but in Galatians, where there is a defective state, the cry is connected with the Spirit. The Father desires that I should cry, ‘Abba Father’. God has a company of sons who can intelligently say, ‘Abba Father’. That is bound up with the thought of spirit.
Rem The Lord said when here, “God is a spirit; and [p. 134] they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”. We need to come to maturity in the matter.
CAC That encourages us to accept God’s ways with us, the trials that come in the path of faith. Every movement in faith will involve some suffering. All in Hebrews 11 moved on the line of giving up the earth; they are regarded in this chapter as having arrived at perfection — “the spirits of just men made perfect”.
Rem Hezekiah said in prayer, “By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit”, Isaiah 38: 16.
CAC Yes. Death had rolled in upon him. As we are plastic in God’s hands we become partakers of His holiness. Our natural fathers chastened for their pleasure, but God does it for profit. There are no second causes in this; we should take all discipline from the hand of the Father; it is to do us good. That would save us a lot of heartburning. The Lord accepted all from His Father. If one is disciplined, one would raise holy enquiry so as to get the gain intelligently. We find sometimes that saints wonder why they are chastened. I have never any difficulty as to that! I am conscious there is much in myself that needs it.
Ques Is it for adjustment in our spirits?
CAC There is always the idea of rectification in chastening, something that does not correspond with the Father’s ideas that must be rectified. As we are formed in sonship we are conscious of the great need of rectification. We bring thoughts with us that are natural in origin; all these must be displaced by spiritual thoughts. There must be increased intelligence and conformity to God.
Ques What is the meaning of “discerning of spirits” (1 Corinthians 12: 10)?
CAC It is being able to discern whether a person is animated by the Spirit of God or some other spirit. Many spirits are gone forth into the world, and people profess to [p. 135] speak and teach by the Spirit. A man who can discern spirits can soon see whether one is speaking by the Spirit of God or not. It was important in the assembly that that should be discerned, so the Lord gave the gift of discerning of spirits.