THE LIGHT AND REALITY OF THE NEW COVENANT
[p. 153] THE LIGHT AND REALITY OF THE NEW COVENANT
JSO I suppose chapter 2 gives us the exercises of the apostle as to the result of his first letter, up to verse 13.
FER Yes. Something appears to have come in which made him break off.
JSO What do you mean by ‘break off’?
FER In verse 14 he appears to break off on to another line.
JSO So that up to verse 13 it is in connection with his first epistle?
FER Yes. I think Titus had come in and brought him tidings of the self-judgment that had taken place at Corinth and then the apostle goes on another line.
Ques What is the object of that?
FER I think the object of the apostle was that the Corinthians instead of judging him as a man might judge of him by his ministry; that they might lose sight of the man in the ministry.
WJ Does he return to the thought of chapter 1 that speaks of his preaching?
FER I think so in a way in the end of chapter 2 and chapter 3 he develops. It is plain that he continues the same point. He speaks of our word, our testimony and that is the line he takes up in chapter 3. It is a curious thing in the chapter that the apostle is looked at as the contrast to Moses and yet Christ is contrasted to Moses.
WB What is the force of the reference to the triumph in chapter 2: 14?
FER I [p. 154] do not know.
WJ Did you say you do not know?
F.E.R. Yes. Do you know?
WB I am afraid I must give the same answer as yourself.
JSO It is “leads us about in triumph”, is it not?
FER That is the force of it. The apostle’s spirit was liberated by the glad tidings that Titus had brought him, having had no rest in his spirit and his spirit refers to what his proper work was, the ministry.
WJ Does it show that he had more confidence in them?
FER Yes, I think so.
WB Do you think that anyone but the apostle could speak in the way he speaks in verses 14, 15, 16?
FER No. I think chapter 3 refers to apostolic service. It is a difficulty to put ourselves into that chapter.
JSO And so in chapter 4 in principle and primarily.
FER I think so, and in chapter 5, too.
HCU Is the apostle’s object that they might get the good of the new covenant ministry in their souls?
FER I have no doubt of it. I think he wanted to draw them into fellowship in the ministry, to draw them into the greatness of it.
HCU Is that what you think now takes their attention away from man?
FER Yes.
DLH You referred some minutes ago to Christ being the antitype or rather contrast to Moses and also the apostle in a sense; would you say why that is?
FER I think it was a little remarkable in the place that it gives to the apostle. The apostle looks upon himself as being here representative of Christ and he says so further on. Now we are ambassadors for Christ. They were here representatives of Christ.
DLH He was here in a remarkable way and bound up with the testimony of Christ [p. 155] on earth.
FER And also the apostles. You get in John’s epistles “truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son”. That refers to what is apostolic.
HCU That is the thought here.
FER That is what the apostle is seeking to lead them into.
JSO It is rather an answer to the first prayer in John 17.
FER Quite so.
WB When you speak of the apostle here being in contrast to man, do you refer to his ministry?
FER I think so. Moses was the mediator of the first covenant. Properly Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant but the thing was really worked out immediately through the apostle, therefore he speaks of not putting a veil upon his face — of Christ being with unveiled face.
EC Who did you say did not put a veil on his face?
FER The apostle. Not as Moses who put a veil on his face. First of all here we get the idea of writing, then we get the conditions of the new covenant and the glory connected with the ministry of it. It arises in connection with the idea of the letter of commendation, they were his epistle.
DLH We get what is written with the Spirit of the living God.
FER In contrast to the tables of stone.
JSO He had written a living Christ on them.
FER Christ had done it through him.
WJ What was written? Was it Christ formed in them?
FER It indicates the subjugation of the heart to Christ, that is the idea to me. It does not go so far as Christ formed in them.
WJ That is the first effect of the gospel, is it not?
FER I think so. When the law was written on stone it made an impression on the heart, it was Christ’s ministry and the effect of it was that it really subjugated the heart to Christ.
HCU The affections were reached.
FER I think so.
Ques What is the force of “written in our hearts”?
FER It is the place they had in the heart of the apostle. They were his children — it is affection.
JSO How does “known and read of all men” come in?
FER They were patent as the apostle’s work in them, known as the fruit of his labour, as his children in the gospel. He could appeal to the Corinthians as the proof of his apostleship. The Corinthians were the commendation of himself as to his apostleship and he carried it about with him wherever he went.
JSO What he had written went a good way for Christ. That is what would be his commendation, Christ seen in them.
FER They were in the faith of Christ but really they did not get very far as to the assembly. There was real work there, not mere profession, the writing of Christ.
Ques What is the thought of the epistle of Christ?
FER It is the writing of Christ. Something He has written.
H Are the names on the breast-plate typical of it?
FER To make it analogous to the breast-plate it would be on the heart of Christ. The simple fact is this, that their christianity was well known and that they were the fruit of the apostle’s labour, his commendation.
JSO Something like the Thessalonians.
FER Yes, and that was patent all through the world. We have very little idea of the effect produced in the first instance in the world [p. 157] by the testimony.
JSO Because of the astounding character of the light.
FER As a matter of fact the testimony had the effect of overthrowing Judaism and philosophy. It overthrows the Grecian philosophy. Satan saw the power of the testimony and he set to work to corrupt it. There was no other way of success and he has succeeded very well.
WJ Is this epistle an advance on the first as to the testimony?
FER You get here the new terms on which God was with the saints, the ministry of righteousness, and the Spirit. They were subjugated ‘Christ written in the heart’ and they came into the ministry of the new covenant that they might apprehend the terms on which God was with them, that was in the light of the glory just as in the first covenant it was testified by the glory in the face of Moses.
WJ And that would be formative.
FER Very formative indeed.
WB What you said as to the terms on which God is with the saints needs a little opening up.
FER That is the meaning of covenant. It indicates the terms on which God is with those who are in the covenant. Moses came down from the mount and declared the terms on which God was with the people.
WB How does that apply to righteousness and the Spirit?
FER Take the literal terms of the new covenant, it is plain enough there. His law is written in their hearts and given into their minds and all know Him in forgiveness. We have the spirit of the new covenant, righteousness and the Spirit.
Rem The terms are all on God’s side.
FER Yes. He declares the terms on which He is. That is what I understand to be [p. 158] covenant.
HGA Just as in the first covenant.
Ques What are the points of contrast between the two?
FER It is comprised in righteousness and the Spirit. Righteousness excludes you and the Spirit brings God in. On the one hand there is nothing of you left and on the other the Lord is the Spirit and that brings God in.
WB What do you mean by it excludes you?
FER Righteousness is in the removal of the old man.
WB The old man? Then you mean by the word ‘first man’ the old man?
FER I am nothing whatever but the old man.
WJ You would recognise your individuality still.
FER That has nothing to do with the old man. Morally you have nothing but the old man.
JSO It excludes your status, as a child of Adam.
DLH “Yet not I but Christ”. It is important with regard to righteousness that the man who was under judgment has gone in judgment.
FER The first covenant was condemnation, the man was condemned, the new covenant is what has come.
DLH The Spirit has come. What more do we want?
FER What is come is really nothing of me and all of God.
Ques How do you get into that?
FER I see it in the cross, where sin was removed, God was revealed. The love of God came out there. The man has gone but the love is there in full testimony in the cross.
WB You must use the word ‘man’ in a limited sense. Who is the individual who is justified in Romans?
FER No one would question the individuality when we speak of the man we speak of him morally.
The “old man” and “new man” are moral terms.
WB I cannot understand it in that sense. The old man is gone for God.
FER The old man has gone for God and if that is so what does that leave of you and me?
Rem You put on the new.
FER If you are in the light of God you have put on the new. The new man is a man formed by the light of God. The old man is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. The new man is created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. He bears all the impress and character of God.
DLH All that is proved in 1 Corinthians 1. The preaching of the cross is there brought in for the setting aside of man altogether — morally speaking whether it be Jew or Greek and then he says, “of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom”.
FER Yes. After all it is true of every christian in principle, he has the Holy Spirit, but practically he may be very little in the light of God. The ministry of the new covenant is really to bring the soul of the christian into the full light of God. The old man is gone but God is revealed and what is revealed of God is the formative principle of another man in the man. We start again in the light of divine love and we are formed by love. It is the renewing of the Holy Spirit so the new man is created after God.
Rem We have a new origin.
Ques Must there not be a new man to introduce into that?
FER The new man is formed by the revelation. The heart is subdued to the faith of Christ, and then the Spirit of God begins the formative work. The renewing of the Holy Spirit takes place after we have received the Holy Spirit.
DLH What you are speaking is really what is written.
FER Yes. The apostle’s ministry was to that end. It was to bring them into the light and reality of the new covenant.
JSO In Galatians he says, “Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me”. That is the beginning of the new ‘I’.
FER Quite so.
EC If the Spirit comes, is it not through Christ?
FER Yes, but the water is a well of water which springs up to everlasting life, that is the subjective work when the Spirit is received.
EC Must there not be an objective pattern before the subjective work has begun?
FER Yes, but it brings you into the light of God as set forth in Christ. The righteousness and love of God have been set forth in Christ. The Lord is the Spirit of the new covenant.
JSO A righteousness is ministered from the glory.
FER It is in the cross you see the righteousness of God but at the same time the expression of God’s love is there.
EC Did you confine righteousness to the removal of the old man?
FER Yes, I do entirely. When it is a question of the revelation of God and effecting everything for God you cannot lose sight of the fact that Christ Himself is God.
EC I cannot lose sight of Him as man.
FER But in what was accomplished for God you have to see that He is divine.
EC I cannot understand christianity at all apart from His humanity.
FER But you have to apprehend Him on God’s side as the revelation of God. Righteousness can have no application personally to Him but to us.
JSO It has been said that God is indebted to a man for [p. 161] glory.
FER It has, but I do not like the expression. It was a divine Person who died who glorified God.
EC It was a man who did it.
FER It was entirely the Son of God who did it. He became Man to do it. He came into that estate to do it but it was a divine Person who did it.
JSO But the term ‘Son of man’ is used in John’s gospel.
FER Son of man is a designation of the Son of God, but the Person was the Son of God and all the work of God was done in a divine Person “when he by himself had purged our sins”.
EC He became man and is ever a man and I could not understand christianity apart from his humanity.
HCU He was never obnoxious to God’s righteousness.
EC Certainly not.
Ques How do christians come into the new covenant?
FER It is plain that God must be on some line of terms with you and the apostle was used to declare the terms on which God is with us.
Ques Does this divert from the covenant of Judah and Israel?
FER Yes.
NB Why does he speak here of the letter killing?
FER The letter always kills. If the Scripture is taken up in the letter it simply becomes moral precepts and in that sense it kills. It makes one more self-righteous and self-confident.
DLH Or casts one into hopeless despair.
Ques What is “the Spirit quickens”?
FER I think you are made alive by the Spirit. In the death of Christ we have the revelation of God and the new covenant was established in the death of Christ. If you want to understand it you must go back to the death of Christ.
FC [p. 162] What is the spirit of the new covenant?
FER Love is the spirit of it. It is formed by the blood of Christ. The covenant is in the death of Christ. There are two things in the death of Christ: first the everlasting righteousness of which the blood is the witness — that is as plain as anything can be — and then the second thing is the perfect revelation of God’s love. The One who died on the cross was God’s Son. We have forgiveness and it has a different bearing with us from what it has with the Jew, he remains in the very scene where he had been a sinner, but when we come to enter into the thought of God about us we pass into a new scene altogether, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit”. We become responsive to the love and we are formed by the love.
Rem The being that is “begotten” is one who answers to God’s love.
FER Quite so, “He that loveth is born of God”.
NJ What is the glory of the Lord?
FER It is the light of the revelation of God. He is the effulgence of God, that is what shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Moses’ face shone but the glory of the Lord is the effulgence of God.
Ques Would you say a little upon righteousness between divine Persons?
FER I think holiness was in question when Christ was forsaken, “Thou art holy that inhabitest the praises of Israel”. The Lord entered into all that we were in the presence of the holiness of God.
WJ The Lord loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
FER I think that is in the pathway here.
WJ Was it not seen when He died?
FER He endured contradiction of sinners and suffered in the place, that is all true, but every question for God and for us was gone into perfectly by the [p. 163] Lord there. The question of righteousness comes up in my mind in connection with the man, the man is gone, Christ being forsaken is connected with the holiness of God. In Psalm 22 I see that the Lord vindicates the attitude of God. He entered into everything that is consequent upon sin.
JSO You get glory given to Him as man.
FER But then every bit of glory that Christ gets belongs to Him.
FC Could you define righteousness?
FER It is God acting in consistency with Himself. Christ was made sin for us that we might become God’s righteousness in Him and God has not made any compromise. We were under the power of sin, and in God’s dealings with us there is no compromise of His glory, all is effected in righteousness and there is no difficulty at all in its application to us.
JSO But He was raised by the glory of the Father. Is there therefore no claim made upon the One who died there?
FER He came there, but in order that He might fulfil all the Father’s will. In a sense He raised Himself, He could say, “I am the resurrection”. There is no conflict in Scripture.
DLH You could not substitute “by the glory of God” instead of “by the glory of the Father” in Romans.
FER No.
JSO What about John 13? God shall also glorify Him.
FER He could not do otherwise. It is the moral consequence.
JSO If God is acting in relation to Christ as Man coming into death, why do you exclude righteousness in the resurrection of Christ?
FER My difficulty is how you bring it in with a divine Person coming out for the glory of God. He comes out to maintain the glory of God and I do not [p. 164] see how the question of righteousness can come in. All this brings us back to the point as to what manhood was in Christ. I say that manhood was a condition into which Christ entered that He might secure the glory of God, accomplishing the divine will.
EC We all admit that.
FER Then why separate the man from the person?
EC He takes His place as man and accomplishes the divine will as man.
FER Scripture does not say He accomplishes it as man. Christ suffered but He was as much God as the Father. It was a question of the divine will, and He did not cease to be God in doing that will. My difficulty is detaching Him from the unity of the Godhead.
EC It is a very important point and one upon which we are not all clear. One ought to get clear.
FER I am perfectly clear about it. The important point to me is this, that righteousness was completely effectuated in the death of Christ. The blood of Christ is the declaration of God’s righteousness.
JSO Nobody disputes that, everybody is agreed about that.
FER The righteousness of God is in contrast to sin. It was completely effectuated in Christ’s death and now all comes on to another platform. The righteousness question comes in in regard to us being on that platform, not in regard to Christ.
M What is the glory of the Lord?
FER It is all the effulgence of God shining in the Lord. Moses went into the mount and on coming out he bore in his face a kind of heavenly effulgence. Now it is the Son of God coming out from God with all the effulgence of God. The essence of the apostle’s testimony was that He was Son of God.
M It is manifested in Him now where [p. 165] He is.
FER Yes. When Christ was here on earth He was veiled, but now we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face in the place He has taken at God’s right hand and there can be no question of His being divine. The fact of God coming out in Christ gives all its character and force to the new covenant. All has been effected in Christ and we thereby come to understand the terms on which God is with us.
With regard to the holiest the question of God’s righteousness is raised in a deeper sense than in connection with forgiveness. Righteousness is completely vindicated because the man has gone. God has condemned sin in the flesh, the whole condition of man is gone judicially and vicariously in the death of Christ. It is on that ground you get new creation.
JSO Christ made sin.
FER Yes. God made Him sin for us. You get really into the holiest of all.
CFG What is righteousness because ‘I go to the Father’?
FER That is between Christ and the world.
JSO “From glory to glory” is what is brought from the glory and carries us back there?
FER I think so. It affects us in that way.
WJ Is it the company in the end of the chapter?
FER I think it is individual but it is “all” of us “beholding the glory”.
Ques What is the meaning of “into the same image”?
FER It is like one another. It is the way we become morally like each other.
JM I thought it was becoming like Christ.
FER You become like one another by becoming like Christ. Everyone has his eye on the same point, and if you get the sense of the glory of the Lord in that way you become more and more unworldly.