THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD AND HIS SERVICE IN RELATION TO IT
[p. 289] THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD AND HIS SERVICE IN RELATION TO IT
1 Peter 1:2; 1 Peter 4:17,18; Genesis 3:21 - 24; Genesis 11:7 - 9; Amos 5:26,27
JT What I have in mind is to show from these scriptures the government of God, and its exercise from the time sin came in until the present time; and concurrently with that His service in grace, involving the incarnation and death of our Lord Jesus and the presence of the Spirit here. What one would particularly seek to make clear is how His deity, His supremacy and majesty are maintained throughout; notwithstanding the humble service that begins almost immediately on the part of God, God maintains His deity, maintains its supremacy and majesty in its government, whilst at the same time serving in the lowliest way those who are under that government.
So that we have the government of God in Genesis as affecting the whole race, that is, death. That stands. Death passed upon all, we are told. And then the scattering at Babel, also affecting the whole race of mankind up to the present day, the division of the nations by the difference of languages. And then the scattering of Israel, another testimony to God’s government which also stands, not affecting the whole race, but a special nation, a special family, but still effective until the present time. Peter addressed those who are affected by it under the word ‘dispersion’; that was the government of God. According to Amos they were transported; God caused them to be transported. And then we have in 1 Peter 4, the government beginning at the house of God, which also stands and is current. The chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation enlarge on it. These [p. 290] features of government all stand, and saints are affected by them today; but concurrently with them we have the service of God ministered to us, to those of faith, so that we might subsist notwithstanding the pressure of the judicial government of God.
EuR Did you say judicial government?
JT Yes, it is judicial throughout.
EuR Would you explain that a little?
JT God is known in the judgment which He executes. That is God in His supremacy. It was judicial to impose death on Adam, on the race. It was judicial to disperse the race at Babel. God came down to examine what was there and deliberately imposed difference of language and scattered them abroad upon the whole earth. Those of us who travel know that the race is dispersed, in many instances in grave degradation. That is the government of God. The scattering of Israel is also the same. “I will cause you to go into captivity”, He says, because of idolatry. Even in the wilderness they scarcely offered a voluntary sacrifice. The judicial act of God begins as they enter into the wilderness, covering hundreds of years, but it is one thing. “I will transport you beyond Babylon”, Stephen says (Acts 7:43). Peter addresses the Jewish christians, those who were dispersed under the judicial government of God. So judgment has begun at the house of God, the assembly today in its public character, and has extended as Revelation 2 and 3 show; the Lord has executed judgment on the professing body. All these judicial results exist now and affect every one of us. We may not have noticed it perhaps, but it is a solemn fact and God would have us to take notice of it, and be humbled by it, because we have part in it all more or less. We are responsible in regard of each of those judicial acts of God. On the other hand there is that service of love, beginning with the clothes that He made for Adam [p. 291] and Eve.
FWW Is it judicial because some form of departure from God had come in?
JT That is what comes out in each case.
FWW That is why you used the word ‘judicial’?
JT It is over against the exercise of grace; it is the just judgment of God; it runs right through.
RSK In spite of the dispersion God has given a living hope; God has given them that, you would say?
JT Yes. There is hope immediately. In the presence of the penalty of death Adam calls his wife Eve, which does not mean death but life, showing that there was light and hope, and there is right through. So that even in the scattering of the race Abraham is immediately called out, and they are all to be blessed through him. The blessing of Abraham has arrived at the nations and we have received the promise of the Spirit. How God can maintain His majesty and yet serve His own is what we want to get into our souls: God in His holy majesty. We want to be accustomed to that in view of finality when God will be all in all. We should accustom ourselves to the supremacy of God, His holy majesty. The testimony to that right through is His just government. He lets nothing pass.
HD'AC God’s hand has always been over everything, has it not?
JT It has been over it in a dual way. His hand has been there in judicial dealings, and on the other hand in lowly grace, serving, beginning with coat-making, coats of skins. Some creature must have died under God’s hands to make those skins. God began with Christ, as it were, as having died, the humanity of Christ coming in at once, the sufferings of Christ. Service is all on that line, based on the incarnation and death of Christ.
TF A just God and a Saviour.
JT That is right, a just God and a Saviour, a [p. 292] very touching word. All was maintained perfectly at the cross. Nowhere was it more maintained than at the cross — these two thoughts, the majesty of God as against sin, and love in Christ, a divine Person, for the sinner, so that he might be saved.
OWW Is this something we must definitely accept?
JT I think so. It is a very great education to have these two thoughts of God in your soul, for we are not much given to balance. Balance is a great thing with God. There must be that principle throughout the universe, and He would have it in our souls.
CB Is it a necessity that death immediately comes to light as soon as departure is in evidence?
JT The necessity is there if the second line is to be maintained. That is God acting in lowly grace. Sin having come in, God might have acted judicially and made an end of the sinner. If He is to take up the line of grace, the second line, there must be death. Only on that line could there be any service, for the majesty of God could not be met otherwise.
EuR How do you regard the cherubim? Are they the guardians of the majesty of God, while He goes on in His grace?
JT Well, I think they represent government throughout. There they stand to guard the tree of life. They are judicial, I suppose; the actual working out is the penalty of death becoming effective on every man. They keep the way of the tree of life. There is hope, too, for the tree of life was there still. The penalty of death already pronounced is carried out by them, but every death that occurs is a question of the government of God, and if in a christian, there has to be the recognition of that. We have to recognise that we are mortal; it is penalty.
Ques Does the tree of life represent the other side, God’s service of love and [p. 293] grace?
JT I think so. It is corresponding with His counsels. In Timothy we have the promise of life going back, including these scriptures. Even the tree of life would be a witness of that, but it has to be guarded. The guard is the cherubim, but with a flaming sword turning every way, it says, to keep the way of it. I think it would be observed in the better translation that God speaks in great feeling about this. He speaks with feeling, as if to say, What a disaster if man should eat the tree of life in his sins! And yet Adam has some thought of it for he calls his wife Eve. There is some light in his soul.
HD'AC He had not lost hope.
JT That is what comes out.
HD'AC I understand that you mean that the tree of life was not taken away but was guarded.
JT It is there. God would say with depth of feeling, Oh, what a disaster if man were to live as he is in his sins! That meant that He had in His mind a way out, and already He is indicating it by making clothes through death.
GAvS Would you say then that there was a depth of divine feeling in connection with the whole of the government of God? I mean, tracing it right through as you have already done, are there depths of divine feelings which need to be in some sense realised in our souls so that the government of God should have its proper place in our spiritual experience?
JT I am sure that is right. God in His supremacy and in acting judicially is capable of feeling that hardly belongs to the service side; it enters into it, but it belongs to God in His absoluteness. It would be disaster in His mind if man were to have access to the tree of life as he was. There is feeling in it, as you note in the New Translation in the verses read. So as was suggested in the scattering of man, God came down to see what the children of men did. He [p. 294] is capable of that. That is in view of carrying on His government, If a judicial action is needed in my history, God will apply it; if He does, it is there and has to be bowed to.
COB Does the Lord recognise the position in His answer to Pilate? When Pilate says, “I have power to crucify thee”, the Lord says,”Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:10,11).
JT He justifies the position of Pilate. That brings out another thing. That is magisterial government. In Genesis 9, magisterial government was established, but more as a help to man. Still, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”. That was what magisterial government was for, to restrain evil. That magisterial government was vested in Pilate. How much feeling enters into it, that the One who made that principle — for it was Jesus — should Himself stand before a poor sinner, a magistrate, to get His verdict! That brings out the position most clearly. How God’s government runs on, and God Himself has to come in and suffer at the hands of the magistrate.
COB Then there would have been no crucifixion apart from the government of God?
JT Well, it was there. That is how it was carried out. The Lord in approaching the cross regarded it. “Take me not away in the midst of my days!” (Psalm 102:24). Why should He be taken away in the midst of His days? Not for any personal reason. It was the government of God on Israel; it was the penalty of a broken law which He was taking up vicariously.
GAvS With regard to the human race as a whole, is not one of the prime causes of the government of God on man, to a large extent, the abuse of the power or magisterial government that had been entrusted to [p. 295] him?
JT I suppose so. If you take Nimrod, exercising authority — he was a king and established a kingdom — it is said, “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord”. He was a man who did violence to God’s rights — a mighty hunter; he used God’s creatures for his own pleasure. He was cruel, for hunting implies that, turning the magisterial power in his hands, desecrating it, turning it against the ordinances of God. That man has come down to you. The most successful rulers of the earth, as men speak, did violence to the rights of God. In none is it more manifested than in Pilate. He pronounced his sentence in spite of his wife calling Jesus a righteous Man, for she says, “I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him” (Matthew 27:19) as a righteous Man. Pilate knew that and yet he scourged Him and handed Him over to His haters to be crucified. Such is the utter inability of man in the flesh to exercise these magisterial powers. God, of course, uses them today and we pray for them, but no man in the flesh is equal to it; Jesus alone is. God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness. He has given assurance to all men in that He has raised Him from the dead. The government is upon His shoulder, but it is touching that He submitted to Pilate. How perfectly He justified God in His governmental ordinances! All that has a great voice for the christian. If God sees the need for government let us bow to it.
WCC Would you say it is really in our favour?
JT It is, in that it works righteousness, works holiness.
EuR What is the exact force of that word ‘magisterial’? You are applying it to all governments?
JT Oh, yes; from the king down.
EuR We rather connect magistracy with the lower officials who exercise it, but [p. 296] it is general.
JT It is general. They call the President of the United States, the Chief Magistrate. That is the thought.
GAvS The difficulty in one’s mind is how far we can keep in our own minds the perfect consistency that exists between the government of God, as you have spoken of it, and the maintenance of that service in grace which is moving on side by side with that government.
JT It is a very important matter. It is a very important education, and important in the sense of maintaining balance in us. Balanced christians are so needed, for a right balance maintains judgment on the one hand and grace on the other.
Ques Do you suggest that directly God begins to move in government He is at the same time moving on the other line in connection with it?
JT That is what comes out as far as I can see here. The pronouncement of the sentence of death on man is immediately followed by these coats being made. What can be more touching, that God should make clothes for the very man and woman that sinned against Him most inexcusably? God did it Himself. It says, “Jehovah Elohim made Adam and his wife coats of skin”. We have that title here, Jehovah Elohim, stooping to do this service, to make clothes, a service that runs right through so that we should not be unclothed. We are to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. God makes that house.
WJP Does this suggest the work of God right through?
JT It is His gracious service. In many expressions in Scripture we overlook what enters into them. The Lord says, “My Father worketh hitherto”. He looks back to this period. That Person was working. “My Father worketh hitherto and I work” (John 5:17). That one divine Person works, and another comes in and [p. 297] works, and the Holy Spirit comes in and works, what a service of grace it is! Yet the majesty of God is maintained throughout.
CG Would it be right to say that, in view of verse 21 and what you have been dwelling upon as coming before the driving out of the man, the governmental side is to facilitate this service of love? So that it has been said that the lake of fire itself is a necessity of the love of God.
JT Every right-minded christian recognises that it is not less than love. The lake of fire is not less than a provision of love. It takes time to enter into it, but it is obvious to a christian that there must be a place for lawlessness.
GAvS It is really shut up there.
JT Quite so. There is liberty. There is never any scope for evil again.
OWW Does the climax of God’s work appear in type in the coats of skin?
JT That was the climax. That is the fulness of the grace and love that did service: although the service goes on. The Lord says, “Father, ... glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee” (John 17:1). That implies the continuance of the service. The cross is the full expression of what is behind the service.
GAvS Do you suggest that it is a part of the divine service of Christ in glorifying God to make us appreciate to the fullest extent how all the government of God is based really upon the demands of the heart of God as well as what God is in His holiness?
JT The Lord said, “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee”. Already it had been said in John 3:35 that “the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand”. That is in administration, and it is effective in carrying out the desires of love, and in this shows the gain of the government of God. The government of God is turned into gain for those who are the recipients of [p. 298] grace, but it runs on to the lake of fire for those who are not. It is just judgment; the believer bows to it and comes into the benefit of grace by bowing to it. But the government of God stands. I believe an understanding of the government of God as we are looking at it will help us to maintain in our souls the majesty of God, that it never alters, that His lowly service does not affect it. It stands.
WJP Do you see the two things put together in Zechariah 13? “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts”, then you get, “I will turn mine hand upon the little ones”.
JT The sword is awakened against Christ.
WJP Majesty and grace are put together?
JT Yes.
CSS Would you say that the appreciation of what is expressed in this word, “Lest he put forth his hand” and the appreciation of what God has provided in the coats of skin enables one to move on the line of the overcomer, to have the right to eat of the tree of life?
JT It is a right, now the way to it is made in the death of Christ. The right is in the washing, as it says, “Blessed are they that wash their robes” (Revelation 22:14). That is, there is a maintenance in oneself of that death, not only in its application to one’s sins, but as to oneself. I believe it will be seen in investigating the truth, that eternal life stands over against man’s state. “Blessed are they that wash their robes”, that is, wash with water, not with blood. We have “washed ... in the blood” in Revelation 7:14. Mr. S. is calling attention to the right to the tree of life. Christ has washed us from our sins in His own blood, and the great multitude washed their robes in His blood, but in chapter 22 it is the present continuous tense, “they that wash their robes”, it is the continuous washing [p. 299] as with water. Historical washing is with blood, once for all, but continuous washing is with water. It is the maintenance of the death of Christ as to one’s state. One’s state has to be dealt with. You are using the water as God dealt with Christ on the cross. You are acting judicially against yourself in the application of the water, and that gives you right. There can be no right otherwise.
GAvS Is that in relation to what is said in Revelation 18:20, “God has judged your judgment”? As we come into accord with the judgment as indicated by the washing of the water by the word, God manifests that He is in accord with our having reached that.
JT God loves to ratify the judgments of His people. They may relate to an act of discipline in a locality. There (Revelation 18:20) it relates to God judging their judgment upon Babylon. God looks for His people to form a judgment about things. The things we refuse to judge become our scourge.
GAvS In that way the government of God is intimately connected with our hearts.
JT We ought to have a judgment about everything on earth. I believe the enlightened christian would be drawn to God’s side and have a judgment about everything. God loves to stand by him and say, That is your judgment, and I will execute it.
EuR In the Old Testament we see what brought the scattering in; and how solemn it is, and how necessary to judge those principles in ourselves.
JT That is where the practical gain of it comes to us. The government of God stands, and it implies that His majesty stands. There is no diminution of that thought. Because one divine Person becomes Man, or because three divine Persons are acting in grace, actually serving us, the majesty of God is not impaired in the least by that. If God is to act judicially in my case, He will do it, and it is for me to [p. 300] bow to it; in bowing to it I come into this precious service that He is rendering that I might get the gain of it. Peter’s epistles have this in mind. They refer to the government of God, and he writes to the dispersion, alluding undoubtedly by the use of the word to the government of God that was affecting them. Why should they not be in Palestine, in Jerusalem? The government of God willed it otherwise.
GAvS Is it a question of the government of God that if I sow to the flesh I shall of the flesh reap corruption (Galatians 6:8)?
JT Quite so.
GAvS There is the rest of it, “But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting”. I was wondering about that in connection with eternal life, in relation with what you get in Romans 2:7 - 10, “To them who ... seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility, life eternal. But to those that are contentious ... wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress”. They stand over against each other, as if God set eternal life over against evil, that it is the right of those who work good. That is the way it puts it.
EuR So in the second verse here, though he has to address those who were dispersed, he can refer to all the Persons in the Deity and then say “Grace to you and peace be multiplied”.
JT Very beautiful, and in that position they are sanctified, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”. It is a question of election, but it is through sanctification. The practical side is in mind. “By sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”.
Ques How does the government of God stand in relation to the kingdom of God? What is the relation between [p. 301] them?
JT Well, the kingdom implies His government, but in its present form. It is a gracious establishment. It bears on His protection for the saints. Presently He will take out of it all that defiles according to Matthew, but it is running on, a gracious protection for us.
HEF I was going to ask you to say a little more what was in mind as to the way this election was carried out.
JT You see how he puts it. “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father”, but it is “by sanctification of the Spirit”. That is, the election is not an abstract thought, but a practical thought, that He elects me by an action of the Spirit. What is in mind is that I am really one elected by the action of the Spirit, by sanctification of the Spirit. One can hardly claim it any other way than by sanctification of the Spirit.
GAvS Do you mean that that involves formation according to the Spirit?
JT It does. One is really one of the elect. It is a practical thing that I am one of the elect “by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”. Unto that, meaning that that is to be the state, that is what is to mark me; a very powerful thing in relation to what we are speaking of in relation to the government of God, for that is what is really in mind in these epistles.
CSS In the address to Ephesus He speaks of transporting in His government, but the obedience on the other hand giving them the right to the tree of life.
JT Obedience is seen in the overcomer in each assembly.
WJP Do we see this service of love and grace working in the middle of Hebrews 12, the chastening [p. 302] there, which would produce holiness and the peaceable fruit of righteousness?
JT That is how it works out, and I believe in 1 Peter 4, “the time ... is come” the apostle says, “The time of having the judgment begin from the house of God is come”. It takes the form of discipline in us. It begins at the house of God; it takes the form of discipline for it is the same thing. It runs on to “the end of those who obey not the glad tidings of God”. “And if the righteous is difficultly saved, where shall the impious and the sinner appear?”. It is the same thing, and this verse helps us on what we are speaking of; the government of God runs on to the lake of fire. It works out effectively in christians now in the way of discipline, but how solemn if I refuse the discipline! Am I not putting myself alongside the impious and the sinner? Anyone who refuses the hand of discipline of God is placing himself there. Are we stronger than He? What may not happen?
EuR The contrast would be to use diligence to make our calling and election sure.
JT That is right. That is the next epistle. In that epistle he addresses himself as a bondman as well as an apostle to those of like precious faith with us. He comes down; he has in mind to stir up their pure minds. He runs on in his subject to the dissolution of the elements, not only the lake of fire, but the dissolution of the heavens and the earth, showing how real a thing this is that we are dealing with. “What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?” (2 Peter 3:11), because this discipline that God is exercising on us is just a piece of what is going to be exercised on the ungodly and the sinner.
EuR It would deliver us from all fatalism, saying that nothing could be interfered with; “All things continue as they were from the beginning”.
JT Just so, and another thing that comes out here is the people that are difficult to save. One often questions oneself, Am I a difficult person to save? Lot was a difficult person to save. He made it as hard as possible for God to save him by turning his face to the world. Abraham delivered him from it, but he goes back into it. He is a difficult man to save, yet in the government of God he is saved.
ES Would that apply to us by not being exercised thereby?
JT I should not like to be one who is difficult to save, although God makes the most of them. In the second epistle He makes much of Lot, but he was a difficult man to save.
GAvS What bearing has 1 Corinthians 11 on what you are saying? It says, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep”.
JT Very applicable to what we are saying. “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you”, that is among those he was addressing — “and many sleep”. As if God would save us from the ignominy of the world.
RSK That is why we judge ourselves.
JT Quite so. It is a sorrowful thing to be amongst the class who are difficult to save. Lot was a righteous man; he was saved with great difficulty.
RSK I would like a little help on the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
JT It is just an allusion to the type. The sprinkling of the blood was common in the types, the blood applied vicariously. That is what we are sanctified to, the obedience of Christ and the precious blood, which of course means His death.
HD'AC It does not say the righteous are difficult to save, but “if”; suggesting that there are those who do give this difficulty, which is a very serious thought.
JT Yes. “If the righteous is difficultly saved”. That is alluding to discipline, judgment beginning at the house of God. God has to resort to discipline to save us.
WCC Would David be an instance of that bowing to it, when Nathan went to him?
JT Yes. Just so.