SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD AMONG THE SAINTS
1 John 2: 1, 2, 12–14; 1 Thessalonians 2: 10–14;
WMcK We were speaking the other evening about fatherhood in God, having in mind as we read in Galatians it is fatherhood in relation to our heavenly status and privilege as sons.
And in Matthew as His beloved children who are here on the earth while He is in heaven, and that we are the objects of His affection and care as here in the testimony. I was thinking that in this reading we might consider the importance of spiritual fatherhood among the saints in view of the continuance of the testimony, and of the service of God until the Lord comes. So I selected this passage in John, which brings out John’s fatherhood and his fatherly care for the saints. And then the two passages that bring out Paul’s fatherhood and his fatherly concern for the saints. John addresses the saints as “My children”; the brethren will note the footnote which is helpful, ‘It is a term of parental affection. It applies to Christians irrespective of growth’. Then as we come on to the verses later in the chapter he says, “I write to you, children”, which would include all the saints. An apostle who was especially conscious of the Lord’s love for him could speak thus of all the saints—“I write to you, children”, whether they are fathers or young men or little children. John had fatherly affection for all of them, and his exercise is that there should be spiritual growth, that little children should become young men, and young men should become fathers, and I think it is clear that he wants to see spiritual fathers among the saints and they are persons who knew the Lord from the beginning of His ministry here. I think we need to be exercised that there should be more fathers among us. Paul therefore refers to how he was a father to the Thessalonians. He had begotten them through the glad tidings, showing that the fathers who preach and teach should see something coming to light that is the result of their fatherly exercises. So he says,
“Ye are witnesses,
and God, how piously and righteously and blamelessly we have conducted ourselves with you that believe—as ye know how, as a father his own children, we used to exhort each one of you, and comfort and testify, that he should walk worthy of God, who calls you to his own kingdom and glory”. The apostle is referring to what he was among them, and these features marked him that he exhorted, and he comforted and he testified with a view that the saints should answer to their calling and that they should walk worthy of God. In 1 Corinthians he is concerned about the apparent lack of fatherhood there, for he says, “For if ye should have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers”; that is persons who, as John would say, knew Him that was from the beginning. And I was thinking that we need this feature among us in a general sense. As young people commit themselves to the Lord and to the testimony, what is needed is fatherhood in order to bring them along to full growth. And when I am saying fatherhood I am not forgetting that motherhood is needed too spiritually. So I thought we might speak about this. It is not fatherhood in God as we had the other night, but fatherhood spiritually in the saints.
KNP Having known Him that is from the beginning, how would that work out at the present time? These were persons that had a knowledge of Christ, and that would involve the indwelling of the Spirit would it in us today, that we would know Christ and the Spirit would magnify Him in our hearts, would that be right?
WMcK I think it would be and that we would understand what is said at the beginning of John’s gospel that the truth of His person is crystal clear to us; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. But then also as we have at the beginning of this epistle, “that which was from the beginning”, that is what could be seen in Christ as Man here. It would be, as you say, now by the Spirit because the Lord is not here corporeally, but the Spirit brings all that to us at the present time. And such persons would become, I think, pillars in their localities. What do you think?
KNP It is a challenge but it is encouraging too, is it not, that to have known Him is not something that is out of our reach. We have the wherewithal provided by divine Persons that we can know Him and we need to know Him where He is at the present time, do you think, as a Man ascended in heaven?
WMcK Yes. And it would include in our minds that He came into manhood and that all that God is was seen in Him, that is as God was revealed, and we know Him in His own relation with God as Man. That would bring out what He was in faith and dependence and obedience, righteousness and holiness, and persons who had known Him in His moral features, and know Him now as ascended are persons who are unshakeable in the truth. I think that is what is divinely intended to give stability to our local meetings, and to provide what is attractive to those who are younger, so that they become desirous of wanting to go in for the knowledge of this blessed Person.
ASH You mean it is the fathers who set the example, “because ye have known him”. Do you know Him? Then you can set the example. Then also the scripture says nourish and bring up the children, which is what the father would set on, what we put before the children.
WMcK Yes. So that you notice, “ye have known him” is spoken of twice and the notes are generally helpful. It speaks about what continues. So they that are present are marked by steadfastness and stability, and they exercise this kind of fatherly influence among them. You remember it says of one young man that his father never checked him at any time, he just let him do what he would, whereas Paul says we used to exhort you and testify. So that in your own movements as a father you set out fatherly features you have learned from Christ, but your affection for the younger saints is such that you exhort and comfort and testify. These are specific things that a father would do. I think that is needed because we thank God for those who are younger and, if the Lord does not come in your lifetime and mine, we want them to become fathers. So that things are continued
in the power and the knowledge of this blessed Person, Him that is from the beginning.
KNP Is it worthy of note that the first section you read speaks about “Jesus Christ the righteous”? Is that the basis of everything that fatherhood is associated with?
WMcK I think so. So that one feature that fathers would continually keep before the saints is that there was a blessed Man here who never deviated one iota from the will of God, Jesus Christ the righteous, and then that His wonderful work of propitiation was for our sins,
“but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”. The value of that eternal work is available to every man.
DMcF I know you are stressing the thought of fatherhood, but I thought maybe you could say something as to verse 13 to the young men and the little children—the young men because they have overcome the wicked one and the little children because they have known the Father.
WMcK 1 think it is important you bring that in and a father would want to do that. We value young men who have overcome the wicked one, they have not succumbed to his temptations and therefore they are not off into the world following his seduction, but they are among us in the testimony of our Lord. And then little children have their own precious link with the Father, and I think spiritual fathers would encourage the very youngest to approach the Father in prayer and dependently and yet with enjoyment, because he says, “because ye have known the Father”. They do not know a lot perhaps about the truth, but they know this blessed Person, the Father.
ASH Is it important that it says “from the beginning”? You know the Father from the beginning; it is not something that you have to take up in later life but from the beginning.
WMcK Yes. I think it would imply that as soon as new birth has taken place and the little children have received Christ in the glad tidings, they have an immediate link with the Father by faith, and then it is the Father’s pleasure to give them the Spirit so that they have the means of communing with Him. And as was remarked earlier, not only praying about
particular matters or needs, but in some little measure communing with the Father about Christ.
SK So it is important that we take example from the Lord Jesus and our movements are in the power of the Spirit. Because in John 13 it says, “for I have given you an example that, as I have done to you, ye should do also” (John 13: 15). And then it goes on to say, “If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them” (John 13: 17). So it is important that the fathers who are setting the example have Christ foremost in their thoughts, moving in the power of the Spirit which will bring all these things into their thoughts concerning Christ, so that when they act they act after the One who is called Jesus Christ the righteous. And setting a perfect example would bring the children and nurture them along in the way of the Lord, and when they see these examples they themselves will move accordingly. Do you think so?
WMcK I think we have to learn everything from Christ. And if you think of a spiritual father who exhorts and comforts and testifies where has he learned that? It is from Him who is from the beginning. For instance the Lord exhorted Martha, did He not, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things”, Luke 10: 41. A father would understand and a spiritual mother would understand, having learned from Christ, how to comfort persons who are distracted and upset, and would learn from Christ how to testify about the need of perseverance. So the Lord said to His own after many went away and walked no more with Him, “Will ye also go away?” (John 6: 67), that is, is it your intention? The father or mother spiritually could say it too, whether it is an older person who is still spiritually young, are you thinking about going away? Are you discouraged about the position? And then testifying about the blessedness of being called of God to His own kingdom and glory and encouraged to continue. A father who is spoken of here has to learn all that from Christ.
SK So I was wondering if in Genesis 22 we see the relationship between Abraham and his son Isaac. It says in Genesis 22: 6, 7, “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-
offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father! And he said, Here am I, my son”. We see this trust and this beautiful relationship between father and son, and even though it is in a scene in which the father has to give up the son, yet with the son there is no rebellion there; it would seem as if there was perfect harmony between the two. Is this the type of relationship we are speaking about?
WMcK Yes. I think that is what comes into 1 Corinthians 4. He says, “Timotheus, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord”. That is Paul was Timothy’s spiritual father and you can see the affection, my beloved child, but he also adds, “faithful child”. Timothy was affected by Paul’s fatherly affections and so you find him cleaving to Paul. As things went on Timothy generally is found with Paul, and I think when he says, “in the Lord” it shows that Timothy was a subject young man. At this point he would be one of John’s young men and he could not have a greater spiritual father down here than Paul. So Paul regards him so affectionately and he is confident that Timothy will act exactly as he does; “who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ”. A father ought to set out in his movements among the saints the spiritual dignity of the anointing, and fatherhood, and those that can be spoken of as his children would see the value of imitating that and begin to exhibit the same features.
RNP Would you say it is necessary to be a child and a young man first; there is something of a process here of experience as we come into the hand of a spiritual father?
WMcK Yes, exactly. We begin really as little children and that is that through faith we come to know the Father, as we see it in Christ, when we believe the glad tidings, and the Father gives us the Spirit and that is with a view to spiritual growth. So that you would expect as time goes on, as with Samuel who was a boy when he is spoken of, but, as the brethren well know, each year his mother brought him a little coat, but it would not be the same size as the previous year, there would be evidence of spiritual growth, and spiritual
fathers and mothers are looking for that and doing what they can to encourage it.
RNP So we first must establish and understand the position of sonship, do you think, in relation to our heavenly Father? Do you think having fatherly attributes in those that are left here are those that are in the enjoyment of sonship at the present time?
WMcK Yes. So as we read the other night, “ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”, Galatians 3: 26. That is true of the little children, of the young men and of the fathers.
We have all come into sonship and have received it as a gift on the principle of faith, and then God has given us the Spirit of His Son. As you mentioned the other night, God has sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. So that the power for growth is there and the secret of growth is in our spiritual links privately with the father and with Christ and the Spirit, and then our spiritual links with one another.
RNP Do you see an example in Timothy, he really became a father himself, did he not? Paul says, I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how the saints get on (Philippians 2: 20). Would that be fatherly attributes coming out in a young man?
WMcK Yes. So you and Bruce and others do not need to wait to become my age to become spiritual fathers, those features should be developing continually and progressively as we go on together in the truth. I think one evidence in a young man who loves the saints is that he really cares with genuine feeling; he is beginning to show signs of fatherliness, and in due course you are going to be able to say of him, he is a father in his locality. So I think we need to divest our minds of chronological age, although you do want to see older persons exhibiting spiritual fatherliness and spiritual motherhood.
PMcF Do you think God leaves no one out; He speaks to little children, young men and fathers?
WMcK Yes, and I think that we have these three stages of growth among us. John as a spiritual father is concerned about each stage of growth. So he has a word for each. He
does not have to exhort those he calls fathers, because they continued as knowing Him, that is Christ, that is from the beginning. But then to the young men he adds something else, not only that they have overcome the wicked one, but he says, “Love not the world, nor the things in the world”. That is, they are not giving way to what is native to young men in a fleshly sense. When the devil tempted the Lord He showed Him the world you remember, all the kingdoms in a moment of time. It shows how little there is in the world that it took the devil only a moment to show the Lord all the kingdoms of this world. Men spend years writing books about some little aspect of a country, but there is so little in it that the devil could show it all in a moment of time. So John says, “Love not the world”.
KNP That is interesting in contrast to “ye have known” which is a state that continues.
“Ye have overcome” which is a state that continues too. These things are ongoing and we can never exhaust the knowledge of Him, can we?
WMcK No, exactly. And so we have John’s gospel which is, I suppose, the greatest section of Scripture and it opens out the wonderful truth of the person of Christ, what He was before He became Man, what He was as Man, what He is now as Man in the Father’s presence. You learn things from fathers. I recall the last time Mr Taylor Sr. was at three-day meetings was in Rochester and he was physically feeble, but he made a remark that I never forgot, one of the few things he remarked in the meetings. Mr Raven said John’s gospel is the backbone of the gospels (F. E. Raven Vol. 17, p.77). He said, I would say it is the backbone of all Scripture (J. Taylor Vol. 31, p.419). I thought that was a profound remark and it has been in my mind for many years, and I pass it on for those that are younger to think about, that that gospel gives you the backbone of all Scripture because it opens out the truth of the person of Christ. I was exercised to suggest this line because, as I said the other night, the Lord in recent times has taken a spiritual father from among you, Leslie McFarlane. If I go back farther in my memory I recall being at three-day meetings in Washington after the Lord took Mr Taylor Sr., and there were some black sisters sitting there where my wife and I were sitting, and they were speaking about Mr Taylor and I was very affected by what they were saying. I was thinking that we no longer had the great gift we did, we no longer had the teacher we had, but they said in their own way, ‘We done lost a father’. That was their impression. I thought that was a wonderful thing that these sisters thought of him in his fatherly qualities. I hope the brethren will pardon my reminiscing, but I think these things are worth repeating.
KNP It is experience, is it not? Some of these are experience because it generates growth and exercise, and do you think what the Lord passes us through is intended to generate exercise amongst us? It is those that are exercised by it that gain the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12: 11).
WMcK Yes. Exactly. The peaceful fruit of righteousness and also become partakers of His, the Father’s, holiness.
ASH I was just thinking what you are bringing before us is very timely. I as a father have a son—I wonder how is my relationship with my son. How I brought him up. I thought I did well—he is a Christian but he is not in the way I would look at it. So it is very testing how good is your relationship with your offspring?
WMcK Well it is testing. Although I had no children of my own, I can see from Scripture that Isaac had two sons, and he blessed Jacob and at the end of Jacob’s history he is morally the greatest man in the book of Genesis. But there was Esau, he was blessed too, that is Isaac blessed him as well, but he did not answer to what was presented to him. That kind of thing comes into, I am sure, the exercise of every father and mother as to why some answer to the truth and to your prayers and others do not and we keep praying for them.
KNP Does that link with Paul’s exercise in Thessalonians, he says, “we used to exhort each one of you, and comfort and testify”, with the end in mind that they “should walk worthy of God, who calls you to his own kingdom and glory”? It is not for anything towards himself but it is to walk worthy of God. Is that the motivation for the exhortation, the comfort and the testifying?
WMcK I think it is. And he says, “as a father his own children”, that is every one of the Thessalonians was in his affections as a father. But as you point out what he had in mind was that “ye should walk worthy of God”. And he does not stop there, he goes on to say, “who calls you to his own kingdom and glory”. God’s own kingdom is the kingdom of God at the present time, and Paul’s exhorting each one of them was that they should all be in the kingdom of God as subject persons. But then he sets before them that what God has in mind is glory. And I think that is a great thing that as spiritual fathers and mothers we keep before our younger brethren, whether children or young men, that glory is the end because it is the Father who is bringing many sons to glory.
RNP Fatherhood is not a position but a relationship, is it not? I thought that is brought out here, there is exhortation and that would be something to keep us and maintain us, but comfort and testify, comfort bringing in what is comforting through perhaps experience and help, and testifying I think would certainly bring in the experience of one that has had experience with the heavenly Father, one that has a distinct relationship with Christ. So it is built on relationships as our own relationship with our heavenly Father is.
WMcK Yes exactly. So if you think of the present moment there are a good many young men out of work and I think it is needful that the fathers in their localities should comfort them about that, that is assure them that God will come in for them. The Lord did that with His own, He said, “your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things”, Matthew 6: 32. So a spiritual father can say to a young man who has lost his employment, “your heavenly Father knows”. I think that element of comfort is important.
KNP Testify, does that involve experience with God?
WMcK I think it does. If you think of Paul on the ship he said, an angel of the God, whose I am and whom I serve, spoke to me (Acts 27: 23), so it is not an empty position, it is a substantial, spiritual active relationship and it flows out of the Father’s own links with Christ and with God.
RNP It is brought out in John, he was in the bosom of the Lord, was he not? Would that be something that would come out in his fatherly attributes; those that would speak to John would have a sense of that, one who had been in the bosom of the Lord, and where we can enter into as well?
WMcK Exactly. So that if we do not know the love of Christ we could hardly be a spiritual father who would be moved to exhort, and comfort and testify; as knowing the love of Christ and in the enjoyment of that he acts in love among the saints. I think there are many things among us universally which exercises at the moment would disappear if we had more fathers. Paul said to the Corinthians who were as much as children, in fact he says, “Not as chiding do I write these things to you, but as my beloved children”, and yet he says, “not many fathers”. He speaks, you might say, extravagantly, saying “ten thousand instructors in Christ”. They did not literally have ten thousand instructors but Paul’s point is, it is not a matter of being a schoolteacher, but it is a father who is instructing those that he loves.
DMcF In Corinthians in the section that we read he says, “I entreat you therefore, be my imitators” but in Thessalonians he says, “ye, brethren have become imitators of the assemblies of God”. I wonder if you could open that up to us, a wider thought, do you think,
“imitators of the assemblies of God, which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus”?
WMcK I think so. So that we want to imitate whoever is our spiritual father, and as you read, “I entreat you therefore, be my imitators”. But then he is thinking about the need of assemblies imitating what is more spiritual that they may see in others assemblies. That is an exercise because somebody in Corinth might think we are the best assembly on earth and why is he saying this to us. But the Thessalonians were true children and they learned from the assemblies that had more experience. So we have some new meetings that come up from time to time, and the great need is they should imitate what more established assemblies are doing. One of my exercises at the moment is that we have a number of new meetings but do they understand what it is to imitate what is being done in New York and other localities, assembly practices, assembly principles being followed? I do not think they do and I say that quite affectionately; they need a great deal of teaching to see that as Paul said, “thus I ordain in all the assemblies”, 1 Corinthians 7: 17. So that what they were to come to in Thessalonica was not to be different from what was being done in Jerusalem and Judaea.
KNP It shows the greatness of one assembly, does it not, one answer for Christ? It is formed in local assemblies but there is one answer and we need to maintain sight of that, do we not?
WMcK I think we do. And I think it is important that a spiritual father should keep before the saints, that while in the Lord’s ordering we are in separate and different localities, we should have the whole assembly before us, and that the same thing should be done in every locality because the assembly is one. The loaf that we look at on Lord’s day sets that thought before us. As you get on into Ephesians and find where Paul is opening up the full thought of the assembly he emphasises the thought of oneness. In fact he begins in Romans, we are one body in Christ (Romans 12: 5), and that meant, of course, that that was true of the Romans, but it is true of every saint. We all belong to one assembly—there only is one assembly for Christ and I think a spiritual father would keep that before the saints. Otherwise we tend to become provincial and to develop peculiar local customs and so on.
SK That is good. I was thinking in Ephesians it speaks of endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace, and that is set on by the father, is it not, that the unity of the Spirit is maintained; and the father has to be moving in the power of the Spirit in order for this unity to be maintained?
WMcK I think so. And then as we go a little further on in
that chapter he says, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God”, Ephesians 4: 13. I think the unity of the faith is that we hold the same doctrine, the same teaching. And the knowledge of the Son of God, the unity of that is that we know Him that is from the beginning. We do not have diverse thoughts about Christ.
SK It is interesting about Paul, he is speaking here about being my imitators, and it says, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that is treading out corn” (1 Corinthians 9: 9), and yet he should be recompensed for the work he is doing among the saints but he would not, he set it on as a father; he became a tentmaker himself so that he would hold himself blameless in all that he was doing among the saints. So no one could look upon him and say, Paul is doing this for such and such. I think fathers want to walk so that they can be blameless in the way they are doing things and we see an example in Paul in all that he has done.
WMcK Yes. So that he says to the Thessalonians in verse 9 of chapter 2, “For ye remember, brethren, our labour and toil—working night and day, not to be chargeable to any one of you, we have preached to you the glad tidings of God”. Paul’s concern was not to be a charge to the saints in any way, he says, “to any one of you”, and “Ye are witnesses, and God, how piously and righteously and blamelessly we have conducted ourselves with you that believe”. That is what is to be characteristic of a spiritual father.
DMcF Is fatherhood a gift?
WMcK Not exactly. It is relationship. Sonship is a gift; I think fatherhood is the outcome of spiritual growth. But what more were you thinking?
DMcF I had not thought about it that reaching the thought of fatherhood would be a process and it would be something that has to be worked out, and as you say spiritually so as to benefit each other and local assemblies.
WMcK Yes exactly. I suppose you could say in a sense that it involves a gift from God. God has given you two sons for instance and so you have this responsibility in love to exhort and comfort and testify and bring them along from being little children to young men to fathers. I suppose Isaac was greatly exercised about the fact that Rebecca was barren and it cast him on God. So that would be another feature of spiritual fatherhood. I think it says, he besought Jehovah for Rebecca his wife. And if you think of your local meeting in that sense if you are a spiritual father you have fatherly affections for the saints. But in a way you have taken on the local meeting and it in a sense has a wifely connection with you and you are concerned to nurture every feature of the work of God that is showing itself.
SK I think that is confirmed pretty much in Galatians 4: 19, “my children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you”. They had backslidden and you do not want malformed people, you want people to be in Christ, to be formed in Him and that is where the father comes into place to bring in the formation that is so necessary.
WMcK So we do not want just persons who professedly are committed to Christ and to his testimony, we want them to be formed and Christ formed in them. I think that is the idea of little children, the young men and fathers; it is the formation of Christ.
RNP Formation is something ongoing, is it not? It is not something that we attain and stop. A little while ago we remarked on that that these things are inexhaustible, there is no end to them we can go into them further and further.
WMcK Quite so. So it says of the Lord Himself, does it not, “the child grew and waxed strong in spirit ... and in favour with God and men”, Luke 2: 40, 52. That would be the normal thought of growth. And so if a little child wants to know how do I grow? Well the Lord Himself is an example. And if a young man wants to know how to grow to be a father he would look at what the Lord was at thirty years of age; in fact even before, because at twelve He says, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”, Luke 2: 49. The Lord was thinking about His own link with the Father and that the Father’s business was to be His. We know that He worked as a carpenter but that
was, you might say, incidental, His main occupation was His Father’s business. That I think helps young men not to be too engrossed in business and such or other things, but to see that the main occupation, if I am to grow to become a father, is I am occupied in my Father’s business.
MK I was wondering building up on formation, it also talks in 1 Thessalonians 4: 4 about possession, and in the footnote it says, ‘I possess when the action is complete and permanent’. Would ‘complete’ mean our relationship with the Father, it has to be complete and it is permanent through Jesus Christ?
WMcK I think so. What are you referring to explicitly?
MK In 1 Thessalonians 4: 4 it says, “that each of you know how to possess his own vessel”, and then in the footnote it says, ‘I possess when the action is complete and permanent’. 1 was just referring to the formation and then the possession, that our possession would not be complete with our relationship with the Father and would be permanent through Jesus Christ.
WMcK I think it refers to how you regard your body, because it says, “possess his own vessel”. Your vessel is your body as my body is my vessel and we want to be in control so that we possess it as it says, “in sanctification and honour”. That is, you hold your body differently from what an unregenerate young man in the world would regard about his body.
And that is why he goes on to say, “not in passionate desire, even as the nations who know not God” (1 Thessalonians 4: 5). There is something distinctive about a young man having the Spirit who is holding his body as a vessel of the Spirit; for the sanctification here alludes to the fact that the Spirit is in the person and it is only in that power that you can possess your own vessel. Without the Spirit we would have no power to hold our bodies for God. I think that is a very important matter especially for younger persons because we know well what young people do with their bodies in the world, and his thought is that the Thessalonians as young believers should stand out distinctively from that order of things that characterises the world.
SK So it is important for spiritual fathers to impart knowledge to spiritual children that their body is the temple of the living God and they should hold it blameless. It says in 2
Corinthians 6: 18, “and I will receive you; and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”. So we cannot say that we know God and conduct our body in a blameable fashion doing all kinds of unsavoury things with it, because it says right here in this scripture, “what consent of Christ with Beliar, or what part for a believer along with an unbeliever? and what agreement of God’s temple with idols? for ye are the living God’s temple; according as God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among them”. I think this is what you are getting at is it not?
WMcK Yes, I think that bears on us collectively that our associations are sanctified associations. Now in 1 Corinthians 6, to add to what you are suggesting, you get “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own? ... glorify now then God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20).
And if I possess my vessel in sanctification and honour, I am glorifying God in my body—
the King James Version says, “glorify God in your body, and in your spirit”, but that is not the point, so Mr Darby does not have “in your spirit”, it is a question of the body. And think of the dignity that this vessel is the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, what an inducement to hold it in sanctification and honour. I think the first is that you learn how to control your body in a way that glorifies God, and then what we have come to see is that our associations must be sanctified. So we need both 1 Corinthians 6 and 2 Corinthians 6 to understand how we are to keep ourselves. I think the fathers keep this before the saints because it is essential that those that are younger should be clear about both, about how I possess my vessel and then how all of us together as the temple of God maintain sanctified associations.
KNP Did you want to say anything further about imitating me in 1 Corinthians 4, “I entreat you therefore, be my imitators”? Paul speaks elsewhere also “Be my imitators, even as I also am of Christ”, 1 Corinthians 11: 1.
WMcK Yes. There was need that they should imitate Paul, and he is entreating them showing how strong his feelings are because where did these divisions come among them? If they are imitating Paul there would not be any divisions. What were you thinking yourself?
KNP He was not looking for persons to be like he was; he was looking for persons to be like Christ, was he not? Paul knew the One that was from the beginning and it is coming out in this section, and he is desiring that others would come into the enjoyment and gain of that.
WMcK I think so.
RNP I was wondering if that would be something that is a shining point of one that is a father, he points those to Christ, “even as I also am of Christ”. He points those that are his children to Christ.
WMcK Yes. It is quite right if you are converted through someone who is a father to imitate him, but then you do not want to stop at that, you want to go on to Christ for yourself.
Reading at New York
21 March 2009
KEY TO INITIALS
A. S. Hinkson
D. McFarlane
K. N. Pye
M. Kamdar
McFarlane
R. N. Pye
S. Khan
W. McKillop