THE HOUSE OF GOD
[p. 266] THE HOUSE OF GOD
John 2: 13 - 22; John 8: 34 - 36; John 14: 1 - 3
JT John’s gospel treats of such things as the house of God or the assembly informally, but nevertheless they are treated of, and I thought that these scriptures would help us as to the house of God in certain features; the first scripture contemplates the public side in which there are things most objectionable, and in order that they should be dealt with the most drastic measures have to be resorted to in a spiritual sense. Then in chapter 8 the house is contemplated in its privilege of liberty, the Son abiding there for ever, over against the bondman, the servant, who has no abiding place there, that is the bondman in the sense of being a slave to sin, whatever the sin may be. Finally in chapter 14 we have the Father’s house in heaven. It is noticeable that the Lord uses the same expression here as in the first scripture, “My Father’s house”. Chapter 2 contemplates what is public; it is the place of the Father’s house, but the word used refers to the public buildings of the temple, to which ordinary people had access. The passage also alludes to the inner part, the shrine, as it is called. The public buildings are alluded to as having taken so many years to build. The Jews computed the historical time, but they knew nothing of the inner thought, whereas the disciples, I suppose, are viewed here characteristically. They understood the Lord’s words, as against the Jews who did not. The disciples understood that the Psalm (Psalm 69:9) covered what the Lord was doing, and they understood the Scriptures. They knew how to apply the prophetic scriptures, but the Jews did not; they were occupied with mere history. The disciples also understood, after the Lord was risen, the bearing of [p. 267] His remarks about the temple of His body, that is the resurrection. I think it would be helpful for us to dwell on chapter 2, this pointing first as to what the public side is and what drastic measures are needed, and showing how the Scriptures are intelligible to those who are characteristically disciples, and how their understanding was enlarged by the resurrection. They “remembered that he had said this, and believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken”. John makes much of the Scriptures in this way, that they have application in the times contemplated; they are understood by the disciples.
PL Would this scripture go with 1 Corinthians Paul’s zeal and the allusion to the Lord as having died and been buried and raised again according to the Scriptures; and would the second scripture in chapter 8 allude not so much to the cleansing of the house as the liberty in it, and go with the Colossian epistle; and would John 14, the Father’s house, link up with the privileges of the house in the service of God as seen in Ephesians?
JT You link chapter 14 with the heavenly side, “My Father’s house”?
PL So you would have the house cleansed and the sons in liberty there, then the privileges, and the elevation connected with it.
JT I think the first scripture is really connected with Corinthians. Drastic measures are enjoined, cleansing; “Purge out the old leaven”, the apostle says, “Remove the wicked person from amongst yourselves”, 1 Corinthians 5: 7, 13.
WHW Is there any connection at all between the passover and the thought of the house coming in immediately after?
JT Well, there is not much made of these feasts in John; they are usually connected with the Jews. So here “the passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem”, no doubt in reference to the [p. 268] feast, but it does not say so, just the fact that it was at that time, and that this feast, the passover, did not meet the conditions at Jerusalem. These feasts in themselves were types of spiritual things that had lost their power and were unavailing to meet the conditions they were intended to meet. We have the passover mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5: “Our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed for us”, it says; “so that let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (verses 7, 8). It is only the unleavened bread, that is the subjective side, that can meet conditions like this. The mere objective thought, that is that Christ died, in itself is not enough to meet assembly conditions. The unleavened bread of sincerity and truth is what is essential, but the feast is to be kept with that, the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I believe that is what was lacking at these feasts — they had lost their power. Sincerity and truth had gone, hence the Canaanitish conditions stated by John were possible and actually existed, that is merchants changing their wares and selling their goods in the house of God.
EWC These people who had corrupted the temple of God were about to be destroyed.
JT That is right. Corinthians contemplates corrupters of the temple.
EBMcC Would you say that is the outward thing today? The official thing is blocked by merchandising and the thought of the Father’s house is lost completely, so we are in danger of the same, I mean of allowing the merchandising to come in to spoil and to rob God of His portion in the house.
JT John gives us the most drastic measure. The other evangelists speak of this event but not in the same drastic words, and I believe it is to bring home to us in our times how things are, and that only [p. 269] drastic measures can meet them. No other measures can meet them; if we compromise that we cannot meet this condition.
PL Do the Lord’s eyes “as a flame of fire” in relation to the profession illustrate that today?
JT I think it is just where this particular phase of the assembly developed. You find that in relation to Thyatira.
JRF We cannot take drastic steps ourselves in relation to christendom except in purging ourselves out. I suppose that is what is called for by drastic measures today, to judge every principle of evil and to separate from it.
JT I was thinking that. 1 Corinthians 5 is what obtained in the early days when the church was still intact, owned in its ecclesiastical position, owned officially. Now we are in 2 Timothy days, but the effect is the same. It is as drastic in the one case as in the other. 2 Timothy is as drastic as 1 Corinthians.
JRF You have to feel it. Pious souls in christendom have to pay the cost of getting clear of the evil.
JT Quite so. Those you love are judged morally. They do not feel it, perhaps, but the judgment is there, and they will feel it. God will not let them off. As in Numbers 16, “separate yourselves” from those wicked men. They were left to God and God dealt with them.
PL Babylon is judged with the judgment they had judged.
JT That is right. “God has judged your judgment upon her” (Revelation 18: 20), so that the separation is as drastic in what is implied in it as the casting out in 1 Corinthians 5. It is just as drastic as 2 Timothy, only the persons who are under the judgment do not feel it. They are named but the judgment is from God. God will make them feel it.
PL Does the scourge of cords suggest it is [p. 270] the evil conditions that bring the scourge into existence? The Lord made it; He did not have one to carry about with Him. Is that a warning to us?
JT The Lord has the means of executing judgment. They do not always appear, but Revelation, as remarked brings before us that He has the means by Him to enforce judgment. “His eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass” (Revelation 1:14, 15); these are the means of dealing with the evil, I thought. He says, “I cast her into a bed”, then later, because she will not repent, “her children will I kill with death”, Revelation 2: 22, 23. These things must be withdrawn from as we understand it, but the judgment is nevertheless there.
WJH Do the disciples represent an element sympathetic with the Lord’s judgment?
JT Well, I think that. It will bring those of us who seek to walk in the truth of God into what God is doing. It is important that we should understand the Scriptures. It says, “His disciples remembered that it is written, The zeal of thy house devours me”. It is “is” written, not ‘was’ written, the present thing. It is for us — “the zeal of thy house devours me”. I think that is very important, that we should be like them, not ignorant of the judicial dealings of the Lord as inside, and that is what is written — “it is”.
WJH They brought in the word of the Lord to support the actions of the Lord.
JT They were not opposed to such drastic action. They were not aghast at it, as naturally they might be. If not with God we would be aghast and recoil from that, whereas if with God we understand He has spoken about these things, not their mere existence as merchandise, but covered by the prophetic word.
EBMcC These were right things — the sheep, oxen and doves. They were kept there for sacrifice. But the zeal in merchandise was driving out the Lord’s portion and doing away with what they were there for.
JT [p. 271] They were in the wrong place apparently. It says, “He found in the temple the sellers of oxen and sheep and doves, and the money-changers sitting; and having made a scourge of cords, he cast them all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the change of the money-changers, and overturned the tables, and said to the sellers of doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise”. There is a great deal of detail here, first as to the persons responsible; they came under His notice first.
PL Do you think that the distinction made between driving out the sheep and oxen, and telling the sellers of doves to take these things hence, might suggest “of some making a difference”, discriminative authority; I mean, the elements there that the Lord is tenderly considering?
JT These were not so objectionable, I suppose. People would remind the Lord that these were creatures, but they were objects of merchandise here, Canaanitish elements. It was a mere matter of commerce and not the more refined thought of creation.
CHH Do you think the Lord is calling particular attention to the matter of merchandise in connection with the associations of the Lord’s people?
JT It is the motives underlying the position of the things there. Provision was made for these to be kept in the vicinity of the temple, but they were here for commercial purposes, money-making.
JRF There is nothing more hateful to God than the linking up of money-making with His things. It is terrible wickedness.
JT How abominable the whole atmosphere of the place was to the Lord!
PL And one called “His” would one day sell Him, would not this be pressing on the Lord?
JT Just [p. 272] so.
JC-S Is christendom on this line? The whole system is built up on the principle of merchandise.
JT Right through the hierarchy down to the most humble curate in christendom — it is all on that line, including indulgences; all this is most abominable to the Lord, and He would draw us to His own side about it. What one would like to convey is that we might be drawn to the Lord’s side about these matters and see that the Scriptures have foreseen them and covered the position, so it is not for us as accidental or as a mere current development. It has been foreknown and covered, and the Lord’s own feelings are especially to be noticed; “the zeal of thy house devours me”.
JRF Would you gather, from the disciples’ remembering, that pious souls in Israel must have felt the condition of things amongst God’s earthly people?
JT The Lord had drawn some to His side. We have already been told that His disciples believed on Him, but the Lord has, it seems, met these things at the present time. A normal christian talks about christianity and perhaps would say ‘the Roman Catholic Church is now very ancient and the English Church is fairly ancient’, and he could come right down to the shortest lived of the sects and professions.
Each supporter doubtless could tell you how long his sect has taken to develop, how long historically that is about all you would get. That is the Jew. The word ‘Jew’ stands over against ‘disciples’, genuine discipleship. We want to see that it is genuine discipleship. The chapter goes on to show there may be discipleship which is not genuine, the last verse calls attention to it. There are those that believe who are not genuine and the Lord cannot trust them. You do not want to be amongst them.
Nominally they are persons more than Jews, believers in the Lord on account of the signs, but the Lord [p. 273] cannot trust them. They are shallow, and merely affected mentally by what they see in christianity. They are not to be trusted. But those who are genuine believers are what John is aiming at, believing disciples. “His disciples believed on him” — they are genuine disciples and they understand the Scriptures. They knew how to use them. The incident calls forth Psalm 69.
PL Would you say the pure heart of 2 Timothy would enter into the ‘John’ disciple?
JT That is the idea, I think. In the beginning of 1 Corinthians it is “all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”; it does not say ‘out of a pure heart’. The general thought is that all are calling on the Lord and nothing is said about a pure heart. In Timothy the pure heart is added; there it is not simply that you call on the Lord, that is not enough; in Timothy you must have a pure heart.
JC-S And a sound judgment in regard to the holiness of the system.
JT That is what I think would be a lesson for us at this time. There are disciples who are genuine and who are thoroughly with the Lord in what He is doing. There are certain so-called brethren who are slack and recoil from severe measures. They want to be liberal minded. ‘That is too drastic a measure’, many would say. ‘Your attitude is too drastic — you are too severe’, not indeed that we mean to be too severe, but they do not mean that. They mean ‘we are broader minded than you are — we receive christians because they are christians’, and they omit what the Lord is at here — “the zeal of thy house devours me”. It is so strong — burning — in the Lord; we have the record of these drastic measures.
EWC If the Lord brings the principle of priestly exclusion into the house of God, this truth, that is true house of God character, must stand on [p. 274] that basis.
JT I think we ought to see that. Peter says, “The time of having the judgment begin from the house of God is come” (1 Peter 4: 17), and he identifies that with us. He says, “if first from us” as if it is the true sense beginning to discern. God is daily discerning in christendom, and we are with Him in it, and we judge ourselves, as Paul says, “If we judged ourselves, so were we not judged. But being judged, we are disciplined of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world”, 1 Corinthians 11: 31, 32.
CHH True disciples are governed by the truth and marked by acknowledgment of the truth.
JT That is right.
JCS So we are committed to the principle of self-judgment in placing ourselves in relation to one another.
JT And to the church, and having zeal for the house of God. The book of Ezekiel helps greatly in this. The Old Testament should always be in view; it brings in detail. There are those “that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done”, and God takes account of them (Ezekiel 9: 4). The disciples are genuine disciples and are with the Lord in what He is doing.
JRF If the light of God really comes into our hearts we should be characterised by it.
JT It begins with us, that is the desire would begin with us. The apostle himself felt the disciplinary dealings of God with the profession.
CHH Would those of the house of Chloe be an example of zeal for the house of God?
JT I think so. They would feel the state of things creeping in at Corinth.
EBMcC The disciples believed not only what is written here, but the word Jesus spoke after rising from the dead, showing that they believed in what He had done.
JT They are progressive believers, not simply ‘I have believed’, but ‘I am ready for anything new God brings out’.
PL And as such are they really moving in holiness and exclusiveness in the light of the true temple?
JT I think we should see the difference between the two words used. The first word for temple is the general public position, the general building to which any person had access, the court if you like. Then another word which alludes to the inner place, the holiest and the holy place, is the word the Lord uses when He says, “Destroy this temple”. He makes a difference. The Lord refers to the inner shrine, that is His own body. He was speaking spiritually. We have the Lord’s spiritual thoughts here in connection with this most drastic action publicly. If we act drastically on the lines of 2 Timothy we come in for the temple in its true sense where the mind of God is known, His word, His thoughts, what the Lord was here as the temple of God; the disciples were ready for that.
Rem The woman who cast in the two mites would recognise what was due to God.
JT I think that is right. The Lord saw that and He immediately spoke of casting down the temple, that is, He began to speak about not one stone being left on another, because what she was doing was a spiritual thing.
EBMcC Any partnership amongst the brethren would come under this, would you say?
JT If I am making the fellowship subservient to my temporal needs, yes, it would. If I make the fellowship a sort of means of commerce, if I look for my clientele from among the brethren because I am among the brethren, then it is a poor thing. It is discrediting the fellowship in that way. We are to be kindly affectioned one to another and assist one another as the apostle said about Phoebe. They were to assist her, and assist the brethren. Purchase [p. 276] from them if you can, but that I as a merchant should think of the brethren as my clientele or customers is discrediting the fellowship. My mind is wrong — I am defiled in my mind. God is very jealous about the fellowship — it is very holy and not to be mixed and made subservient to temporal needs.
PL We do not make a trade of the word of God.
JT Just so.
EWC God has not only made known the character of His house but has prescribed very definitely the activities, the service to go on there, leaving no room for what was merely human.
JT Making trade as has been remarked. It would be all right for a brother, a Jew living at Jerusalem, to sell a bullock or ox to one who came from Beer-sheba to sacrifice, provided the bullock was where it should be and he was not making a trade of it. He had it there for the purpose of finding out whether a brother Jew wanted it, but for him to be there characteristically as a seller, a trader, is evil.
Rem The question is one of gain, supposing gain to be godliness.
JT As our brother says, “supposing that gain is godliness”, 1 Timothy 6: 5. The real lesson for us is what the disciples had heard, how they look at the matter, and how they are progressing. We should never feel we have reached the end of our learning. We should never assume what we know to be final, but we should be progressive, for there is so much to come out. The second reference to the disciples is very progressive in verse 22, “When therefore he was raised from among the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken”. A good deal of time had elapsed between these two points, but their being linked here shows progression. How ready they were! How could they understand at that time? He later could call His body the temple.
[p. 277] They held the thought in their minds. They probably did not understand the meaning of the Lord’s words but they had the thought in their minds. When He was raised from the dead and something else happened the thought assumed form with them, so that if one does not understand all that is said here tonight, but is impressed by it and feels there is something in it, if it is held it becomes faith in the soul and something more will happen to make it clearer.
JRF John’s gospel was written for saints to become believers — it finally says, “That ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”.
JT “These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”, John 20: 31.
EBMcC Even the disciples were receiving all true light from the Lord. Although they did not realise it, they received all the light from Him. Would it not be well to see where the light is coming from today?
JT They were characteristically disciples, those who believed on Him. “His disciples believed on him”. If we are characteristic disciples we will pay attention to everything that comes out. What is light is of spiritual weight. There are many things that are not intelligible but I wait on the Lord and these things become clearer. Some time may elapse, it may be many years, before the thing becomes perfectly clear. Not only so but the Scriptures are clear — they believed the Scriptures. The Scriptures are put before the Lord’s words as if John would say, ‘What is coming out is established’. Scripture is allowed its force and I believe it.
JC-S In the past there was always something carried over, waiting formation, so to speak.
JT If anyone assumes to know the truth in its entirety, I do not believe him — he is not to be trusted. It is a progressive believer to whom the apostle Paul says, “Occupy thyself with these things; be wholly in them, that thy progress may be manifest to all” (1 Timothy 4: 15); that is a progressive believer. The things occupy your mind; you are well kept and enriched. It is a sort of treasure, anything that is formed. Then in chapter 12: 16 it says, “Now his disciples knew not these things at the first”, that is when He rode into the city on the colt; “but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of him”. Here in chapter 12 it is not simply when He was risen, but “when Jesus was glorified”. There is a progressive thought, adding to the faith of the disciples. They are progressive believers.
WHW Does it begin with zeal for this house? Does all begin from this?
JT I think that is where the disciples are brought into it, discerning the Lord as acting in zeal. It is a very important thing to get a brother acting in zeal for the house of God.
JC-S The Lord would bring out these two truths in us very fully.
WHW Would the Lord meet every need in the disciples in what comes out?
JT The truth is the Lord went on; He was believed on. The disciples held the truth in their souls; it is a progressive feature, I mean a progressive believer characteristically.
WHW Zeal would cost us something. Does the Lord meet us in that way?
JT You come into contact with a certain class of brethren and you come into reproach if you are too zealous for the house of God. That was the issue at Bethesda — the question of the house of God. The house of God is never local — it is always a general thought, and what had to be contended for then was that what happens in one locality has a universal bearing.
PL “[p. 279] I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s sons; for the zeal of thy house hath devoured me, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me”, Psalm 69: 8, 9.
JT That shows what our brother is saying, we are established under reproach, for the zeal of the house of God consumes us.
Now I think chapter 8 fits in with what we are saying in the sense that the Lord having cleansed the house, drastic action having been taken by some, by a few, you have the truth of the house of God not in temple character but in family character brought out, that is the Son abides in it for ever, and, therefore, if He liberates us we are really liberated. We are brought into what is eternal.
WHW How does the Lord liberate us?
JT He speaks here of the truth, the truth setting us free, which is, I suppose, the effect of the truth that has been developed during the last hundred years particularly. The truth is brought home to us as liberated or freed from man’s religion and man’s organisation and so on, but that in itself does not establish a family setting of things. Truth is liberating in the sense it adjusts us in our minds and enables us to withdraw from iniquity, but the Lord going on to the idea of the house involves that we are brought into a family setting, and He sets us free in the sense of Galatians, where we are brought into the family of God.
JC-S Free from all slavish or servile feelings.
JT The Spirit of God is dealing here with the tremendous issue between Christ and the Jews as utterly reprobate, the children of the devil, most terrible words. He traces the thing back to the devil, what a father! He is the father of lies! Now He says, ‘You are his children’ — a terrible indictment, and that is what He is dealing with and what we [p. 280] have to deal with. We have to do with conditions like this and so face them, and the only hope for us is the truth — “ye shall know the truth”, as My disciples, “and the truth shall set you free”. It sets us free from the dominance of these things. For us there is a positive side to them, for the Son brings us into the family setting. That is what I understand — a sure appreciation that.
JRF It is more positive than the other. The first is negative.
JT Yes, like 2 Timothy. But here it is, “If therefore the Son shall set you free, ye shall be really free”. It brings before us the sonship of Christ in its bearing in the house.
EWC In the Old Testament there was no thought of family conditions in the house of God.
JT But this is by the Lord: the possibility of being in the house of God, knowing something of the family conditions, and abiding there. Note abiding there. The primary thought in the wilderness afforded no family conditions in the tabernacle setting, but David inaugurated the idea as far as I see of sitting, not that the thing was not there before, but it was not in sonship. Eli sat upon the seat by the doorpost and slept in the temple, and Samuel, too, but that was not provided for earlier. It was not inaugurated by Moses or Aaron, but in David it is inaugurated, and as soon as Jehovah proposed to him the thought of sonship in Solomon, David went in and sat before the Lord. That is the idea of restfulness and liberty in the house in the light of sonship.
JC-S The idea of finality.
JT The house of God is a final or eternal thought.
PL Would John symbolise it reposing in the bosom of Jesus?
JT See how it was, in the final discourse, chapters 14 to 17. What a happy family state of things it was! That is where our passage in chapter 14 comes in — “My Father’s house”. It is an eternal thought.
WHW Is the thought that only a son can really behave himself in the house?
JT I think so. The proper relation to the house is sonship, not slavery, not a question of the bondman. We have to understand the passage contextually. The Lord is dealing with things at the root. The state of things today in christendom is the very opposite to the free service of a son.
PL “Whom Satan has bound”.
AET “The truth shall make you free”, chapter 8: 32.
JT He was the truth, of course He was it, but He is speaking of it as applied to Himself, and its application to us in what has been revived and brought home to us is very forceful.
AET “He was in the world, and the world had its being through him, and the world knew him not”, John 1: 10. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us ... full of grace and truth”, John 1: 14.
JT He was the truth. Applying it to ourselves the truth would be a christian upholding what the sacred writings contain for us. Recently great stress has been laid on sonship, what the Lord is as Son. I believe this is in view that we might understand what the family is, leading up to the eternal thought, “I go to prepare you a place”. That is as Man, but He is there as Son, sonship in manhood. He has gone that He might prepare that place by being there in that capacity. He came out from heaven, He says, but He has gone up as Son in manhood, and has made a place there. He has established a footing there for sons.
JC-S What is patterned for us in that way.
JT Yes, a pattern of what we are coming into. It is His presence there as Son in manhood, that is what is meant by “I go to prepare you a place”.
[p. 282] He said He came down from heaven, in chapter 6, but before He came down the place was not there. He had been there but not as Son in manhood. He had been there in Deity. His coming into Sonship as Man and going up there, I think, is in view of our coming into it; we are coming into what is eternal.
JC-S Do you regard that as peculiar to the assembly?
JT It is the assembly side. They will have sonship on earth in some sense. The Lord is stressing “you” here. “I go to prepare you a place”.
JC-S I thought the “you” was unique and peculiar to the assembly.
JT I think so.
JC-S When you speak of sonship, have you in mind the thought of liberty?
JT There are no restrictions in coming into the house and in the house the Son has full liberty. In one sense it is the Son here; that always gives Him the pre-eminence. The article means that He has the pre-eminence. It is really a divine Person in that relation. Hebrews says He “has passed through the heavens” (Hebrews 4: 14), showing the right of way He has in that relation; therefore He can bring us in and set us before God for His pleasure.
JRF The Father giving all things into His hand, and we in Him, emphasises how we are loved with the same love that rests on Him.
CFI Would the Lord in setting us free engage us with the thought of where He is now?
JT I think He goes on to chapter 17 and speaks to His Father about sanctifying Himself — that involves where He is now; He has not only entered into heaven, but He is there in this peculiar relation of glories, so He says, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them”, John 17: 22. I think He counts sonship this position and the relation into which He has gone in that glorious place — it is Christ in glory. So He says, “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”, John 17: 19. It is the truth relative to Him there; that is, the full thought of sanctification.
PL “As he is, we also are in this world”, 1 John 4: 17.
JT That is right, exactly.
Ques In what way did He sanctify Himself? What is just the meaning of that passage? We know something of the sanctification of the Spirit and the truth, but He says, “I sanctify myself”.
JT It is one of the instances that remind us we must understand Scripture by its context. It is not a question of sanctification as it applies to us. We are sanctified by going outside the camp, and “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”, Hebrews 10: 10. Christ is our Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one with Him. It does not mean as we are sanctified; it just means He has set Himself apart in a certain relation. It is not a Jewish thought; it is a thought entirely and only applicable to ourselves, that is to the assembly, that the Lord has taken a place on high as Son in glory, and that is the measure of our sanctification, that we are to be brought to that in heart and mind. The truth effects that, and He says to the Father, “Sanctify them by the truth thy word is truth”, John 17: 17. It is the Father’s word that effects it in our souls.
JRF Hebrews 7: 26 says of Him, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens”.
JT There it is as priest, but it runs with what we are saying. We are not made higher than the heavens. Hebrews gives you what we shall touch. I think Paul saying “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12: 2) would mean what is in mind here. He reached the place fully. What heaven means for us is not infinitude beyond our conception — an uncreated [p. 284] condition of things. It shows Christ as Man has part in the Deity. We go to heaven. I think “the third” is the full thought of it for us, as far as that. Jesus has taken a place on high. “I sanctify myself” means He has taken a place there and we are to be brought to it. It is a standard for us, it is the new rule; the third is the idea.
CFI “In my Father’s house”; is it the Father still as a Person?
JT It has no bearing really except as we enter. Jesus is there. That is chapter 8. The house in chapter 8 is the beginning of the thing. The Son sets us there.
CFI Is that the thought of the house of God?
JT It is that, it is a figure of course, right through Scripture.
JRF Would it touch John 14 in spirit?
JT I think it is intended to be future. “If I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you”. If He comes again He will come to us. The thing is all brought down to us now and the house in its present circumstances. In Hebrews we are told that Christ built the house and it is attributed to God. He is for us as God in building it.
EWC There is no divergence spiritually between what sonship is spiritually and the condition of the Father’s house spiritually.
JT Well, that is right.