THE SIGNS OF THE COVENANTS (6)
[p. 225] THE SIGNS OF THE COVENANTS (6)
Exodus 21:1 - 6; Exodus 28:1 - 4; Hebrews 3:1 - 6
JT We were remarking that the subject of ministers and ministry has a great place in the Scriptures beginning with Exodus; standing in relation to the covenant of God and to His house. I thought that it might be helpful to look at the attitude and state underlying service, and then at the dignity attaching to it. The attitude of mind is seen in the Hebrew servant, a type of the Lord Himself; the figure is to show how far love would go, precluding any selfish limitations to our services. The figure would show how far love would go in serving; so that any self-imposed restrictions on our part for selfish reasons are ruled out. We have the model in this figure, it is to be before us as serving, that is, before every servant, so that, in the light of the Model, we shall always have to say, We are unprofitable servants; Luke 17: 10. The attitude of mind in the slave here shows the length to which love will go in service for its objects: on the other hand, we have the dignity of service fully set out in Exodus 28.
AWR In saying the attitude of mind, have you Philippians 2 before you? — the Lord taking on a bondman’s form.
JT That is right. “Who, subsisting in the form of God”, — the highest place — “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”, Philippians 2:6,7. That does not mean that a bondman is His status, it is self-imposed, He takes it Himself, it can never be imposed upon Him; nor can it always be attributed to Him as covering His service, because the other side of that is the priesthood, the dignity of Christ as serving.
Ques Does Philippians 2 correspond with Exodus 21?
JT Yes. It is the mind that is to be in us, that is the reason it is brought in — “which was also in Christ Jesus”. It is the attitude of mind, He takes that place and shows the length to which love will go.
Ques Would it be seen in Paul when he said he had a desire to depart and be with Christ, but to continue in the flesh was more needful for the saints?
JT Yes, that is the attitude of mind. You get the “Son” in Hebrews; He is greater than Moses in the measure in which the Creator is greater than the creation. He who built the house, and all things, is God; you cannot get anything greater. So that the slave attitude is to show how far love will go.
AEL Would you say that on the mount of Transfiguration the Lord could have gone out free, but He comes down in voluntary love to go to the cross?
JT That is the thought exactly.
HB The door-post would involve His death, that love would go as far as that.
JT Yes, you can see how lowly is His attitude — “his master shall bring him before the judges, and shall bring him to the door, or to the door-post”. There is no idea of any self-assertion or self-consideration at all, he is entirely at the will of another, and that is all because of love, it is to bring out what love is, the attitude of love.
Rem On the mount they spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
JT Yes, that was the theme of their conversation those two men that appeared, who, Luke says, were Moses and Elias. They understood that He had to go out that way. Moses would say, All I did in the wilderness would go for nothing otherwise. Elijah would say, All my service is for nothing unless He goes that way. All the service of the Old Testament must go for nothing unless He went to death — they understood that. It does not say the Lord spake to them, but they were speaking to Him, as if to show the liberty they had.
FGW “I love my master, my wife, and my children”,
would suggest the scope of the service on the descending scale.
JT Yes. It is first ascending — the Master; then horizontal — the wife; — then descending — the children: it is the height, the breadth, the length, for “He that descended is the same who has also ascended” Ephesians 4:10. It is the length to which love would go, what a wide area it is! I think the figure shows that that was really the life of the Lord. You may say it was a lowly humble attitude, but it is what marked Him here below, for love is greater than any circumstance; whether I am serving the saints on earth, or enjoying heaven, it is all love, it is the same thing.
GAvS What is the import of His being a servant for ever? It is not a question of His having died only, but having died and risen again, He is a servant for ever. Is that the thought here?
JT It is not anything imposed upon Him or onerous or distasteful to Him, the point is love; it does not cover the truth as to His Person, such a thought must be excluded from our minds. The status of a slave is well understood, but His personal dignity must always be maintained, it is a figure He takes up to show how far love will go. It shows what love will do, therefore He becomes a Model for the servants. He takes that place with a view to love, that what He does may be intelligible to us. It is all love, it is all a self-imposed service for the sake of love, that God might be known.
HB Are you including in your mind, in its reference to us, any form of service?
JT Yes. Any service that is to be done — but I am thinking particularly of ministers, for Scripture distinguishes in that way. 1st and 2nd Corinthians stress the thought of ministers, and I thought it would be well to see what underlies the ministry — love, and the attitude of mind. The attitude of mind here would absolutely preclude a clerical garb of any kind whatsoever,
[p. 228] any garb that distinguishes me above men as a minister is precluded by this attitude of mind. It is the attitude of mind, the mind that is in Christ Jesus is to be in us.
HB-t We have been afraid of ministerial terms, but to see the expression of love is a different thing.
JT Yes. The word “minister” is used — competent ministers; the Lord said He made Paul a minister; Acts 26: 16.
GAvS He did say at the same time that he was to suffer many things. The ministerial attitude is a sacrificial attitude.
JT God calls attention to the Lamb of God in John 1; it is not a diminutive thought there; it suggests maturity, but of a lamb character. He is acting Himself, He is not being led to the slaughter there, He is coming to do something, but He comes sacrificially; and that is the basis of everything sacrificially in our service. He came to John. John was administering baptism, and the Lord came forward, implying that He was ready to sacrifice, to suffer, and that is the position of the servant. Paul was to be shown how much he must suffer — the Lord saw to that. “I will show to him how much he must suffer for my name”, Acts 9: 16.
JG You said just now that we cannot serve if we have not love. How do we get it?
JT We have that in the covenant. Jehovah speaks of “thousands of them that love me” Exodus 20:6, Deuteronomy 5:10, not that should love Him, but that do love Him. There were those who had already begun to love God; He had not been made known so long a time through Moses, without having some response. If you could ask one of those thousands about loving God, he would answer, I go to Moses and Aaron to learn about that, how they had learnt to love, and who ought to tell us today, about these things if not the ministers? Those who teach the saints should tell them how to love.
Ques Is it to be noted that this follows immediately [p. 229] on the thought of the altar in the previous chapter, the sacrificial thought?
JT Yes. We have previously the altar of earth and the altar of stone, and that God would come wherever He recorded His name, and bless them. What a God He was! They had learnt to love Him.
Rem The victory over death as seen in the Lord Jesus Christ, enters into the calculations of love as seen in 1 Corinthians 15 — “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” 1 Corinthians 15:58.
FI Does the measure of success in ministry depend upon the sacrifice made?
JT Well, I think they go together. You see the extent of the sacrifice here. A man, a slave for so many years might say, ‘Well, I am looking forward to my liberation, what a day it will be! the day of liberation, of release from this bondage’. But instead of that, he says, ‘No, I do not want that; my liberty is within. My slavery is the perfect law of liberty for me’ — “I love my master, my wife, and my children”. You cannot have anything better than love and the exercise of it.
Rem That is what the apostle has in mind in 1 Corinthians 13, before he speaks in chapter 14 of service in the assembly.
JT Yes, that is the thing they did not have; he has to speak of it in the abstract.
Rem There was peculiar evidence of the way in which love would provide a solution of a difficulty in the fact that, if his master has given him his wife and he has children, the wife and children should belong to the master, and he should go out free; he sacrificed his freedom for the sake of the wife and children and for the master: so that love provides a solution for the situation, does it not?
JT Suffering is attached to it, but it is love, and love is life; it is not life in its own domain, but it [p. 230] is life.
FGW Would the sacrificial service the apostle speaks of in Romans 15 enter into it? — “that the offering up of the nations might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” Romans 15:16. He carried on his ministry as a sacrificial service? Would we take an example, in that way, from the apostle, next to the Lord?
JT Well, I should. That chapter is very remarkable in this sense, that no one is to please himself, but to please others. I think the chapter brings out the length to which Christ went to secure the assembly. Of Jacob, it says, he “fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep” (Hosea 12: 12); that is a side of Christ’s service that I think Paul represents.
Rem In that chapter in Romans he says, “I ... in a circuit round to Illyricum, have fully preached the glad tidings of the Christ” Romans 15:19.
JT Illyricum would be on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. The territory covered is immense; and if you read chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians you will see what he suffered, only a portion is recorded, but it gives an idea of the volume of suffering he went through in his service. We have some little idea in this attitude of the Hebrew slave of the length to which love will go, stopping at nothing to secure its object. Paul had the spirit of Christ. It is the answer to the love of Christ “the love of Christ constraineth us” 2 Corinthians 5:14.
Rem In Luke 10 we see the spirit in which Paul served. The Samaritan was prepared to go where the man was, and with great result.
JT Yes — “A certain Samaritan, as he journeyed” Luke 10:33 — that is the idea. Paul says, “In journeyings often”, 2 Corinthians 11. The saints do not always think of that, of course; taking a journey by Paul was included in his sufferings. “Journeyings often” were wearisome things to him. The Lord took a journey, and was wearied with it, but love was behind it. Luke in the next chapter pictures a man coming at midnight on a journey.
[p. 231] Ques Do you say, in regard to love, that it should be taught by the ministers?
JT Every christian is taught of God directly, but God is pleased to operate through ministry, and He qualifies the ministers. They should be able to give an account of love. If anyone asked Moses about those who loved God, he would say, ‘Yes, I know them; I am one of them myself’ — and, How do you come to know and love Him? — you would like to ask him that question. That is the idea, if a minister is asked the question, he must be able to answer it. If I have love, I ought to know something of how I got it, and to be able to teach another how to get it.
Ques Is the motive of his service love? and would the experience that he has with God on that line, enable him to be an instructor in it?
JT That is the idea. The other side of the position of the minister is that he is dignified. The expression “Aaron thy brother”, shows how Aaron serves as a figure of the combination of the two thoughts in Christ. It says in Hebrews 3: 1 - 4 — “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who is faithful to him that has constituted him, as Moses also in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, by how much he that has built it has more honour than the house. For every house is built by some one; but he who has built all things is God”. The allusion is, I think, to the universe as God’s house, of which the tabernacle is a figure — a pattern of things in the heavens — that is the house, a great wide thought; and it brings in, in a most remarkable way, the deity of Christ, that He made everything “he who has built all things is God”, and that is the One who is accounted as having more honour than Moses, because He who built the house has more honour than the house. It goes on, “And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house ... but Christ, as Son over his house”; — that is, God’s house, the one He built Himself — “whose house are we”. The house of God provisionally is the saints, and Christ is minister in it, He is there as Son. We cannot address the Lord as in the position of a slave — that would be irreverence. So, too, with all His servants, they take a lowly attitude in service, but those who are served should regard them according to the dignity the Lord puts upon them.
Ques What is the force of, “Whose house are we, if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end”? verse 6.
JT That, I think, is in keeping with Hebrews, the position is all tentative; the Lord is pleased to take on a few, relatively speaking, and constitute them His house, I mean the saints; but that must involve their faithfulness, their continuance — that is in keeping with Hebrews.
GAvS There is a great need for us to have things balanced in our souls so that, while we love and reverence the Lord who in love took a bondman’s form, we can never overlook the fact of who He is in His own Person and glory?
JT That is what I think we ought to keep clearly in view. There is no change in Him, in His Person and dignity, there cannot be, but it is to show the extent to which love will go. It is one of the leading features of the epistle to bring out the greatness of His Person, to allure the Hebrews away from the earthly order of things they were lapsing into.
GAvS Would not that give us a sense of the greatness of the system, which He has set up, for it must be compatible with the dignity of His own Person?
JT “Such a high priest became us ...” Hebrews 7:26 says the writer — showing how great the persons are in the mind of God that they need such a great Person. If the Spirit of God had not said that, we should be afraid to say it; the saints are so great that they need such a High Priest as this.
[p. 233] The features are delineated in Exodus 28. “Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for glory and for ornament”. Exodus 28:2 And, “thou shalt speak with all that are wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments to hallow him, that he may serve me as priest” Exodus 28:3 - 4. Now the first mentioned is the breastplate, showing the link between this passage and chapter 21. The breastplate is simply the place the saints have in His heart. The slave has in his heart, his wife and children, but the priest presents the dignified side.
Ques Would you help us as to the idea of glory and ornament, and what they suggest?
JT It is a question of love. Glory is the shining out of what a thing is essentially; the breastplate would be the disclosure of the love that is in the heart of Christ, that He loves us so much; He has us there indelibly. The garments are mentioned separately so that we can take them in. God graciously coming down to our level, so that we can take in the features of Christ. He is inscrutable in His own Person, but as Man He is robed in these features; every one of these garments has a name.
Ques What about the ephod?
JT It is a peculiar kind of garment. The breastplate, the ephod, the cloak, the checkered vest, the turban, the girdle. I think the ephod taken by itself is the mark of priesthood, the state by which God is approached. Even a David, one who is not a priest by tribe at all, can approach God with an ephod.
HB It says of Samuel that he “ministered before Jehovah, a boy girded with a linen ephod”, 1 Samuel 2: 18.
JT Yes, that means the young brothers and sisters should be sober, the linen means sobriety. David danced before the ark girded with the same kind of ephod. Here I think the material is properly byssus — the idea is fineness.
GAvS Would it also convey the idea of [p. 234] purity?
JT I think it would. The Lord girded Himself with the linen towel. I think the main thought is sobriety, you are not excited. Wool would promote excitement, linen is the opposite to that. Then we have the cloak, the checkered vest, the turban and the girdle. The thought of making here is an abstract idea, to bring out that there is no discrepancy; they are as God ordered them. Exodus is to bring out that side, the whole system is according to God.
Ques Would there be the tendency to despise Timothy on account of his youth, yet Paul says to him, “be a model of the believers, in word, in conduct, in love in faith, in purity”, 1 Timothy 4: 12.
JT That serves to illustrate what we are saying as to sobriety, that you overcome your youthfulness by sobriety — “Let no one despise thy youth” 1 Timothy 4:12. These garments being all named are brought within our range, they are the opposite of inscrutability; they are compassable, they are all called by name, and made. It is not the deity but the humanity of the Person that is in mind, so that I can see these features, and take account of them. These separate items are to bring the thing down to our range, and the principle of their presentation here enters into ministry. “Let the prophets speak two or three”, 1 Corinthians 14: 29. You do not present all the garments of Christ in one address, but a part; you get a glory by itself and feast on that, and see how it relates to another glory of Christ, and He becomes glorious in your eyes — these are garments of glory and beauty.
FI The apostle entered into the truth of that in Hebrews 8 when he said, “We have such an high priest” Hebrews 8:1, and he goes on to give a description.
Rem In verse 4, it says, “Aaron ... and his sons”; that would not include the breastplate.
JT No, they have no breastplates: they are just mentioned there, but the garments are for Aaron. “They shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother,
and his sons” — they also have garments, but we are impressed first, with Christ.
Ques Do we see in David having on an ephod how this ministry goes on without any official character attaching to it?
JT That is what comes out in David. I think David brings in another number, he adds twelve to what had already existed, making up the twenty-four. That is the new thing coming out in quality — he is the priest, but not by appointment. A man is what he is, that is how David came out, and the thing was delightful to God. So that David becomes the priest par excellence because he ordains the service of God under the number twenty-four.
Ques What are we to understand by the cloak?
JT That is a more general covering, it is more extensive. It has not the intrinsic value of the ephod and the breastplate, but is a larger idea, it practically covers the whole person as serving. God is taking account of us in these separate parts. “We know in part, and we prophesy in part”, 1 Corinthians 13: 9. No one should attempt to cover everything in an address or a reading, it is one idea at a time — that is about all we are equal to.