FRUIT-BEARING AND WITNESS
FRUIT-BEARING AND WITNESS
FHB You said that the two thoughts in the chapter were fruit-bearing and witness.
FER Yes. It is important to see both what is from God, and what is for God. Fruit is for God. Witness is from God, and what is for God is almost more important than what is from God.
FHB You once said that fruit-bearing is the evidence of vitality.
FER Yes, that is the point in the chapter.
THR Would you not say that fruit-bearing is really the continuation of Christ down here, and witness is to an absent One?
FHB That is very important — that in fruit-bearing Christ is continued down here in His people.
FER There could not be fruit-bearing till Christ was here. He must of necessity be the beginning of it, for there could not be any, till the ground for it was there.
The point in the chapter is that Christ is the true vine, and this in a sense in contrast to Israel. Till Christ came there was no ground for the vine, the roots must be in the ground. Christ is the real beginning of all fruit-bearing.
WB Was there not fruit for God in the Old Testament saints?
FER I do not think that we find in them exactly the idea of fruit.
HT “In me”. How far does “every branch in me” go?
FER It referred to the moment in which Christ was speaking. He was the true vine, and there were branches in Him in that way, there were branches in which were no vitality. We cannot apply these earlier [p. 186] verses now, for Christ is no longer here as the vine, but the absence of Christ does not preclude the thought of fruit-bearing, though we have not the vine.
FC Could there not be fruit according to their dispensation in the Old Testament saints?
FER I think fruit is in connection with a circle, or company, or people. It involved a company. Israel as a people was expected to bear fruit, and in the time of their restoration they will bear it. Now there is fruit in the christian company. In the Old Testament there was faith, and fruit of a kind, but hardly fruit according to the idea here. Fruit is the evidence of a healthy vitality. We do not get the thought as it is here save in connection with a company.
GG Is fruit Christ expressed?
FER I think it goes to the source, it is God expressed. God took up a people, a nation. He took a vine out of Egypt and planted it; but it did not bear fruit. Christ took up the position, He became the vine, and the church is the continuation of it. When Christ was here fruit was connected with association with Christ, and now we get fruit for God in the church. Fruit comes out in our relations with one another.
Ques “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit”. Is not that individual?
FER I do not see that it is individual; the passage describes one of a company. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness — and these things come out in relation to one another in a company. I cannot see how they can come out in any other way. There may be the capability for it in the individual, but it is what is to characterise the company.
AC Cannot love and peace come out [p. 187] in an individual?
FER I do not exclude the importance of individuality in connection with fruit, but I think God is looking to the company for fruit — just as He did in Israel.
WB When you say the company, how many are embraced, is it only the church?
FER It is the company upon which Christ looks. In connection with fruit-bearing I look upon myself as part of a whole, and keep myself in connection with the whole.
G.G. Is it the church?
FER Yes.
WB Suppose I as an individual break down and do not bring forth all these beautiful things, am I to judge myself individually?
FER Yes, we have to look to ourselves individually. I need to take heed to myself so that I may properly carry out my relation to the whole. It is important that we should carry out our responsibility in relation to the whole.
THR A great deal of the breakdown is because we are not true to the company.
Ques What is it to abide in Him?
FER It involves the practical setting aside of self. It implies living in Christ’s life and is accompanied with the sense of one’s own incompetency.
Ques Would it be dependence?
FER Yes; but dependence must be accompanied by abiding in Christ. You have to turn from everything else to Him. You derive nothing from natural ground. Christ has to be everything. The force and energy all lies in Christ Himself. The ground is the important point.
FHB What is the ground?
FER The real ground is the revelation of God. The true secret and spring of all fruit-bearing is, that God is revealed. Christ may be, and is the manifestation of it.
FHB Rooted and grounded in love?
FER Yes; but how could you be that, if you were not in the light of the revelation of God?
Ques Did the disciples bear fruit when Christ was here?
FER Yes; they came under the culture and discipline of the Father.
F.H.B. What is ‘purging’?
FER It is the hand of the Father, subjecting the saints to circumstances which would discover to them things which would be hindrance to fruit-bearing.
EC Young trees have to be transplanted so that the head should not grow out of proportion to the root.
Ques How do you apply that?
FER You have to be constantly transplanted. The Father exercises and disciplines.
Ques Is that the chastening we get in Hebrews 12?
FER Yes.
WB That in Hebrews 12 is very individual.
FER Yes; but then the company is made up of individuals. It is essential that all who compose the company should be morally right; the faith of the company is the faith of the individuals. Every individual has to walk in the sense of relationship to the company.
WM What is fruit for which reward is given?
FER Reward is given for service. Fruit-bearing must not be confounded with service; they are two distinct things. Fruit-bearing is spontaneous, and is the evidence and outcome of vitality, and is the result of culture. It is often through suffering, and it is not the idea of service.
FHB Service is more towards man, while fruit is for God.
FER The object of service is man, though in a sense it is for God. Fruit is always for God. We only get fruit as we are rooted and grounded in love.
ASL Is this not fruit — “That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. Is that it?
FER That is the way of it. If the soul has the revelation of God in love, fruit must correspond with it. Hence the fruit of the Spirit is love ... Being rooted and grounded in love could not be till God was revealed. Christ was the beginning of it. Israel ought to have responded to the goodness and care of God for them in thankfulness and praise. They did not, so you do not get fruit-bearing until Christ came.
Rem There was not true humanity till then — the living bread come down from heaven.
Ques What then is that in the Old Testament, “From me is thy fruit found”?
FER That is prophetic of a future day, and then God will be the source of it. There will be fruit for God from Israel then, but meantime you get the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ. Old Testament saints were men of faith. I always feel that Abraham was a man incomparably beyond myself, but I think that fruit-bearing depended on life coming in, and that depended on the revelation of God. Life is dependent upon light. The natural order is first light, then life, then fruit-bearing.
Ques Would not the Old Testament saints be beyond the day in which they lived?
FER Yes, as far as God wrought in them. All the previous dealings of God were in anticipation of what was about to come. Every revelation of God in the Old Testament was in the way of some characteristic or attribute, but that was not making Himself known in His nature.
WB Not the full revelation.
FER When Christ the only-begotten Son came, who dwells in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him, and I defy anyone to understand any of the names by which God had made Himself known — [p. 190] Jehovah, for instance — except in the light of the revelation of God.
DLH Say more about that.
FER Well, “Almighty”, “Jehovah”, were both titles or names which had reference to attributes or characteristics of God, and to understand these you must get the revelation of God as come out in Christ.
D.L.H. Why?
FER There were moral hindrances to His doing so to be met and overcome. God might have proved Himself almighty by raising every man to judgment, but what good would that have been to man as regards God making Himself known? What meaning has God in making Himself known to man now? What had He then? It was in love, but the light of this came out in Christ.
WB What is the force of “I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect”?
FER “Almighty” refers to the power of God as shown in resurrection. I think Abraham was to have confidence in God in the power of resurrection, but resurrection to life entirely depended on God revealing Himself in love, and could not be except through the coming out of God in the Son. The Son of God came forth and declared God, and in the light of the declaration of God you can understand any name by which God had made Himself known previously. All was obscure in Old Testament times, but Christ is the answer to all that was obscure then.
Ques And so we get all the good of these names?
FER Yes, the Son having come out, in the light of that declaration you can understand every name though the contemporaries could not; and by-and-by in the millennium Israel will have the good of every name in which God has come out.
THR All the first part of chapter 15 is connected with chapter 14. In chapter 14 the Spirit is sent by the Father to bring to the remembrance of the disciples [p. 191] everything that Christ was here for God. Chapter 15 follows on that; and is a continuation of Christ here in the disciples — really in the christian company.
WB Why use the term ‘company’ in connection with this subject instead of ‘assembly’?
THR Paul’s use of the word ‘assembly’ conveys a corporate idea. John does not speak of the ‘assembly’, but he presents a company, and it is a most important thing to get hold of, that there is a company down here which Christ owns as His own, marked off from the world, the church — the assembly if you like, only it is not so spoken of in John. Christ calls that company “My assembly”.
Ques Does not the term ‘disciples’ mean a company in moral accord with Christ — those who have learnt of Christ?
THR Yes. The only place where a soul really grows is in the assembly. I am sure of that; I am not saying God does not work where an individual is in a place of isolation.
FHB How can fruit-bearing be realised now since the company is all broken up and scattered?
THR We have got the Head and the Spirit. Thus if only half a dozen persons are gathered together by the Spirit they might hold the Head.
Ques What do you mean, Mr. R., by saying, we only grow in the assembly?
THR Because the assembly is the home of divine affections, and it is as knit together in love that there is growth with the increase of God — that is, the divine nature.
FER We do not touch the truth of the assembly until we begin to practise it.
WB You mean that only those who are in the truth of the assembly really grow?
F.H.B. Well, who else do?
FER We left system because we felt we could [p. 192] not grow there.
WB But you grew out of it.
FER It was really the goodness of the Lord in showing one how restricted one was. I do not think people grow in what you may call judaised christianity.
THR “They that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing”. I think it is a great thing when we are planted. There are many among us in the meeting who are not planted in the house of God. People go to a place and seek a meeting, but the Lord’s house is not the great thought with them — that the assembly is more their home than their own home.
WB How do you bring about what it should be?
THR First it is a great thing to see that Christ has down here a company which He loves. I cannot have Christ personally now. If He were here we would all like to go to where He was. But we can go where the saints are gathered to His name, and that is where we grow in divine affections. There are those who are planted in the house of God, and they grow there; others just come and go and keep their heads above water, but to those who are planted there it is the home of their heart.
WB But you must embrace all christians in the company.
THR You must follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. I would embrace them, but I would not go out after them. I think if the company were more expressive of divine affections, and if such qualities as meekness, gentleness and care for others were apparent, there would be more attraction. J.B.S. used to say we ought to be attractive. Any servant of the Lord who was ministering the truth would find it a great thing to be able to bring souls to a company where all these qualities which are according to God were to be [p. 193] seen. How are you to show meekness, longsuffering and all that, unless you have the company?
FER The Lord makes a great deal of it in this chapter — “Love one another”. After all, we have to remember that the witness here is a living witness, and there is no power if there is no witness. Witness is not preaching, it is more moral. The witness of the Spirit is not preaching. No preacher in the present day can really be a witness in himself; he has nothing to witness to, because he has not been with the Lord from the beginning or seen Him. The Holy Spirit is witness, for He has come down from Christ on high and He is the power of the witness in the company. The witness of the Spirit is moral. The effect and power of the Spirit in the company is the witness.
WGB Do you use the expression ‘witness’ in the sense of eye-witness?
FER That is how it is used in this chapter. Paul was a witness, the twelve were witnesses, and the Spirit is the witness to Christ in glory; but no man at the present time can be witness in this sense. The Spirit is witness through the company. It is the power and effect of the Spirit in the company of those who obey God. That is the way we hold forth the word of life. No one man can witness at the present time. A witness witnesses of what he knows and has seen. In John 3: 11 the Lord says, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen”.
ASL What is “the testimony of our Lord” in Timothy?
FER What Paul committed in testimony to Timothy to pass down, and we have that testimony still, but we are not in the position of the apostles. We have received what the apostles witnessed of, we have also the Spirit as Witness. He is witnessing, and that is the great stand-by for us. If you have not that, I do not know what you have. The Spirit [p. 194] brings in the power of life, and it is in connection with life that you get the witness of the Spirit. “This is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. There is nothing more important than the apprehension of the truth that there is a witness here. I do not know what christianity can stand on without the witness — the Spirit; without that it would be tradition.
ASL In France when they come into fellowship they speak of it as ‘joining the testimony’. Is that a right thought?
FER All depends on whether they are right morally. If they were all in the life of Christ, they would be a testimony. J.N.D. used to say that if brethren were a testimony to anything it was to the ruin of the church; but if all were morally in the life of Christ there would be a testimony to Christ.
Ques What is having the witness in himself?
FER That is the work of the Spirit. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.... And this is the witness, that God has given us eternal life”. “He that does not believe God has made him a liar”. Men are rendered responsible to recognise the witness which God has given, and if the witness is not accepted, they make God a liar.
WB If that company who witness fail, would my faith be shaken?
FER No; your faith would not rest on the witness, it would go to God, for the witness is concerning His Son.
Ques Is not the written word the ground of faith?
FER God is the ground of faith, God revealed, for then faith rests on what God is, on the revelation of God in Christ. The record is not the ground of faith. Christ is the Word. The Scriptures are of all importance, because all is now established in Christ, and they are the divinely-given record.
[p. 195] Rem The Thessalonians received the testimony as the word of God.
FER It came in such power that they recognised it was the word. They had not the Scriptures.
Ques Had they not the word of God in Old Testament times?
FER The word of God never came to them by Scripture, it came to them by Moses or the prophets; it comes to us by Christ, and is continued to us — substantiated to us — by the Spirit. God hath spoken in the last days in the Son. All this period is characterised to us as God speaking to us in the Son, and is continued to us by the Spirit. God had spoken, and what He spoke had got its place in the world before the Scriptures were written. God had spoken in the Son. The testimony of God was there before the Scriptures were written. It was given by living witnesses and received in the power of the Spirit before the written record was possible. What people do not understand is the meaning of the expression ‘the word of God’.
FHB You cannot say that Scripture is ‘living and operative’ in the soul. The word of God is.
Ques Can the revelation come to us except through the Scriptures?
FER The present day is characterised as the period when God has spoken to us by the Son. He has come down and spoken. God has spoken in the Son, and what He has said has been confirmed by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. The Scriptures are the record, and they carry authority, and cannot be broken. Anybody can appeal to the scripture, and if anyone contravenes the letter he is guilty; but nothing can make Scripture more than the letter, nothing alters the divine position as to the present period, that is, God has spoken to us by the Son, and He can speak to us by no others, and the Holy Spirit down here confirms what God has said, but He does [p. 196] not add to it. The point is that the word of God is Christ, and christianity was established on the earth before the New Testament scriptures were written. Christianity is not dependent on Scripture, it is dependent on what God has established in Christ and on the Spirit being down here. God has spoken by the Son, it is confirmed to us by the Spirit, and so continued to us.
Ques What is the use of Scripture to us?
FER It is for doctrine and is a guard to us, and it is a very important point in regard to it that our minds are thus kept from getting out of bounds.
WB The unsearchable riches of Christ are accorded to us by the Scriptures.
FER No; you cannot get them except by the Spirit. God speaks to man in different ways — to Abraham by promises, to Moses on mount Sinai, or from the mercy-seat, and then to Israel by the prophets, and now the climax is reached — God has spoken by His Son. The idea of ‘the word of God’ is, that God puts Himself into direct communication with man. Hence it has a moral character because God is speaking. Now He has spoken by the Son, and this is characteristic of the present period. A man preaches effectually only what he has learned from God, not from what he has found in Scripture.
DLH What is “Have an outline of sound words”? Does not Scripture give an outline?
FER No. Different epistles were written to different people, and to assemblies in different conditions, and if you want to have it in form it must be by the Holy Spirit in the soul. So, too, different accounts are given of Christ’s ministry. There are four different accounts in the four gospels. If all were put together in one you could not hold them in your soul in distinction, you have to get them moulded as one in your soul by [p. 197] the Spirit.
DLH What is the force of ‘outline’ in that case?
FER That they should not be lying about in fragments in your mind, but be in form that you may be able to use them. What Scripture says about itself is, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”. I cannot get a better statement as to the purpose of Scripture than that. It is our answer to the enemy, as the word in that way carries authority.