CONFIDENCE
[p. 458] CONFIDENCE
John 2: 23 - 25; John 3: 1 - 6; 1 John 5: 1 - 5; 2 Corinthians 1: 12 - 21
JT What is before us is to show how confidence can be maintained among the people of God; how the confidence that we assume exists among the people of God may be continued. Without confidence we cannot have fellowship, nor can we have the truth of the house of God maintained in any practical way. In John’s writings we see how among other things he brings in the elements of confidence. He first calls attention to what is not to be trusted, what you cannot confide in; John 2: 23 - 25. I thought of the word of Jehu to Jehonadab, as peculiarly applicable to the people of God now, “Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?” 2 Kings 10: 15. It is a question of hearts; God deals with us according to what is in our hearts. First of all it is what is in His own heart.
Ques Are you for the moment speaking more of confidence in God, or confidence in one another?
JT Confidence in one another. The Spirit of God is working in a wide field. Distance separates the people of God, and whilst we lose sight of one another we become local, or unduly parochial. I think John’s writings tend to overthrow that in us. John’s “whosoever” is the basis of what is universal. The truth of the house of God is necessarily a universal thought, and what underlies it is the divine nature, the family, so that John brings forward the abiding-place. First we are directed to Christ, and according to him we are invited to abide with Him, and we know what that was. We know where He abode. It is a spiritual matter, and involves the knowledge of God in the believer. No one can be in the house of God who does not know God, and does not know love.
“[p. 459] He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him”. 1 John 4: 16. What underlies the house is the knowledge of God, each one knowing God as his dwelling-place; that involves the work of God in us. By virtue of the work of God we are to be trusted. God cannot confide in us, nor can we rely in one another on the ground of flesh.
Christ in the saints is trustworthy; nothing short of that. Here is a man, Nicodemus, who had every chance among his fellows to be trusted — a “teacher in Israel”. John 3: 10. Fathers and mothers would have no difficulty in sending their children to such a man as that to be taught, but such as he was naturally, he was untrustworthy. The Lord says, “Ye must be born again”. John 3: 7. The thing has to be done all over again. I refer to that, because we may as well look at things as they are. Not any one in this world, however he may be educated, can be confided in in regard of anything moral. So that you have to begin over again. That is what the Lord meant. And while we are put on the right line by the truth of new birth, the thing is to see that it is the foundation of that in which we can have confidence. Nothing of the flesh can he trusted. We have to learn that in ourselves to begin with. Each one has to begin there. As the truth of John’s writings lays hold of us there is an unloading. There are many things carried that are really in the way. It is well to get down to the bottom and see what is being confided in in each other.
In the last chapter of John the Lord has the food, and with Peter the unloading was the basis of confidence amongst the brethren. There is the feeding (ministry) first, then the probing. Peter says, “What shall this man do?” John 21: 21. We have to leave each other in that way as to what we are to do. It was a very vital moment as to the restoration of confidence. On account of Peter’s breakdown he had to be [p. 460] restored, not only in secret but before his brethren. The Lord went down to the bottom with him, because He knew what was there. Peter’s was no vain boast when he said he loved the Lord. He really did love Him, but there had to be the unloading. These verses in the beginning of John 3 are more the foundation. We should be familiar with them, as indicating what can be confided in.
Rem It is not that the Lord would support us in the suspicions of people, but rather in looking for the work of God. Nicodemus must have been somewhat different from others; it says, “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews”. John 3: 1.
JT Undoubtedly he was born anew, only he did not know the truth of it. John’s epistles address the saints in that way; he was able to take account of them in the light of what is in them, whatever good there is “The acknowledging of every good thing that is in you”, as the apostle said to Philemon Philemon 6. If there, it is bound to come out. The thing is, however, to see there is that which the Lord here would not trust, and that refers to anything in me affected by what is merely external. There is a great deal of religiousness mingled with piety that passes muster, but it will not stand. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” John 3: 6; you cannot make it anything else.
Ques Would the light in our souls of the lifting up of the Son of man help us on the unloading line; and would the appreciation of God’s giving His only begotten Son and eternal life secure brotherly confidence amongst us?
JT I am sure it would. In the lifting up of the Son of man, the thing is that sin has been dealt with. We do not see clearly what has been dealt with, how horrible it is to God. Then the knowledge of God in His love, in the gift of His Son, establishes confidence in Him. So that “he that doeth truth cometh to the light”. John 3: 21. Not that he should come, but he does come. The point is he does come, and the coming establishes him in the confidence of the saints. We see him coming to the light, and have confidence in him. Hence coming to the light is characteristic and habitual.
Rem It says Jesus did not trust Himself to them John 2: 24. John 20 brings in a company to whom He trusts Himself fully.
Rem He trusts those who do not trust themselves. Peter had had a good deal of trusting himself previously; it had to be unloaded. The apostle says, “We trust not in ourselves”. 2 Corinthians 1: 9.
JT If you see what is untrustworthy in yourself, you are not going to trust it in another; but if you see the evidence of the divine nature you can trust that. John’s epistle shows what that is. It enables you to identify a person with the work of God in him. He becomes a very different person in your eyes from what he would be if you identified him with the flesh in him. In the second and third epistles of John we see this both in regard to the elect lady and Gaius. “Every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him” 1 John 5: 1; it is the divine nature in the two, in Him and in you. That promotes mutual confidence. The thing is to take account of one another according to the work of God in us. If I do not see any evidence of the work of God in a person, I could not regard him as a Christian. We have here (1 John 5) a threefold witness; it all goes to make up conscious knowledge of things; we know we have eternal life. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life”. 1 John 5: 13. All this is working up to that, but for the moment it is a question of how I regard the saints, and whether I am able to regard them abstractly, to regard them in the light, and only in [p. 462] the light, of what they are in regard of the work of God.
Then you see you must have confidence to be able to regard them in that light. “We know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren”. 1 John 3: 14. How do we know? “Because we love the brethren”. It is like the mariner’s soundings. A mariner has to take account of things in the heavens, but he has also, under certain circumstances, to take account of what is underneath him; if not, he may get on the rocks. I mean that we must take account of the work of God in each other. John looks upon the work of God in the saints as present. If he did not look upon the saints as identified with the work of God I do not see how he could say, “He cannot sin”. 1 John 3: 9. Under certain circumstances you must take account of saints abstractly; that is, regard them wholly in connection with the work of God in them. The disposition very often is to identify the saints with what they are naturally, to see nothing but the flesh in them; that would not promote confidence, but just the opposite.
Ques Would you say what the difference is between being born again and being born of God?
JT Born again is an initial thought, but it is born throughout; the old does not count at all. How much furniture it means to be thrown overboard in everybody morally, everything preceding it has to be thrown overboard — ancestry, natural breeding, etc. (Compare Philippians 3.) One is born over again, and this affects him from top to bottom. Here is a great man; the Lord says, Nicodemus, you have to be born again. Nicodemus faces the thing, and the Lord went on. He enforces the truth, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. John 3: 6. He came to anoint the Lord’s body at the end which would suggest that Nicodemus had learnt his lesson. He [p. 463] was a disciple, but secretly. John always notes the effect of the work of God, however small it may be.
The counterpart of new birth is that the Son of man was lifted up. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up”. John 3: 14. In what way was He lifted up? As made sin. He was made in the likeness of the thing. If I see that, I am not going to maintain the flesh. The point is to see the thing, “whosoever looks” — the thing is to be seen. What do I see? It is Christ, the Son of man, made sin. What an awful thing! He was made in the likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh.
Ques Is there anything of that in the thought of being born of water and of the Spirit?
JT Water is not a positive but a negative thought; it is that I have by the death of Christ a means of disposing of the thing that I see to be so abhorrent to God. He came by water and blood according to the epistle, because it is a question of subjective state, the water comes first. The Lord said to Peter, “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat”. Luke 22: 31. He employs Satan in that way. He did in Job’s case, but he can only go so far. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”. Luke 22: 32. This is that I am to be reduced to what I am by God’s work. The Lord puts the finishing touches Himself. He knows how to do it, and He loves to do it. He begins at the bottom. We see this in Peter; John 21.
When the Lord was led into the wilderness there was nothing to unload with Him. We have to pass that way and there is unloading with us. The Lord entered the wilderness on Deuteronomy ground; we have to enter it through the Red Sea. The forty years there is to search and try us so that we may know what is in our heart.
Ques Will you say a word now about [p. 464] the Spirit?
JT We read in Ecclesiastes 12:7, “The spirit shall return unto God who gave it”, I get it from God, I do not get it from my parents.
Ques Could this element be trusted?
JT No; I am only referring to it as in man naturally. In man naturally there is spirit, which indeed is himself, but it refers to God; the spirit returns to God who gave it. Here it is being born again, and “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. John 3: 6. As born again I refer to God. There is development, of course, but that is the principle of it. In result I am spiritual in every way.
Rem Man has a spirit before he is born again, only new birth brings an operation of God to bear upon him. “The spirit of man is the candle of Jehovah”. Proverbs 20: 27. God in His sovereignty produces new birth; man finds out he is lost and ruined.
JT That is it. I think Quakers have made a mistake in making that true of man naturally. The spirit of man is that by which he is in relation with God. But the immediate result of being born again is that a man is hopeless with regard to himself; he sees he is lost. Then what is presented to him objectively is the Son of man lifted up; He is to be seen. Every one in the camp could see the serpent of brass; so with the Son of man lifted up. What do I see? The condemnation of this thing that is so abhorrent to God. All that leads to being born of God, so that you are like God.
Ques Do you think Elihu sought to help Job on that line?
JT That which is born of the Spirit is spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not given to us at new birth. My spirit is my identity; the new birth changes it, but it is still my identity.
Ques What is it the Spirit bears witness with?
JT With my spirit, which is really myself.
Ques It would have to be renewed?
JT [p. 465] It would be, because new birth has to be applied to it. “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit” Romans 8: 16; that is a further thought.
Ques How are we to recognise another person being born again?
JT There is the acknowledgment of guilt, and a desire after God, and the things of God. Thus the light of the gospel will be appreciated. Born of God goes further; one is thus regarded as of the children of God. John’s epistle gives us the marks of the children of God. They are marked by righteousness and love.
The practice of righteousness is the first great feature of the children of God, and then that they love one another; as it says here, “Every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him”. 1 John 5: 1. He may be in the antipodes; your heart goes out to him. Love enables us to disallow all local or national feeling. In that way confidence is preserved; because physical distance has great influence with us, much more than we are apt to think.
When Paul left Corinth they began to doubt him, that he was not just telling the truth, but prevaricating, hence he has to say so much about himself in the second letter, so as to assure them that what he said he meant.
Ques You were connecting it with fellowship. Is your thought that fellowship is universal and has to be preserved in that way?
JT That is how it is preserved, as far as I understand. In 2 Corinthians 1: 12 - 15 it says, “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward. For we write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end; as also ye have [p. 466] acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit”.
Rem He did not come. There was a change somewhere, and not in Paul, but in the Corinthians. There was no yea and nay in Paul, was there?
JT I think we see in him how in any one of us confidence may be encouraged. He gave them credit for things. He says, “as also ye have acknowledged us in part”. 2 Corinthians 1: 14.
Ques Do we help one another as we seek to develop what is of the Lord in one another?
JT Surely. I was thinking of the way he recognised what was in them; they had recognised him in part. There was a good deal wanting, especially with them as to him. He was recognising every good thing in them.
Ques Does he not refer to himself as to being so weak before them so as to encourage their confidence?
JT Exactly. Then he says “Ye have acknowledged us in part”. 2 Corinthians 1: 14. He would acknowledge what there is, however little.
Rem And we have it before us to so walk as to encourage confidence on the part of others.
JT He was insisting in the first letter on the feast of unleavened bread. The feast was to be kept with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. That, I think, is a great feature in Paul. It was true in him, he had a good supply of unleavened bread, and ate it. Without that the feast would become a mere outward form. Christ our passover remains. It is how we keep it. I think the apostle shows how he kept it, with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. There is much covered in reserve amongst us, because the feast is not kept with unleavened bread. The feature of the feast according to the first letter is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. In [p. 467] Revelation 4 in connection with the throne there is a sea of glass, not varying or unstable purity, but solid purity. All our movements should be in the light, just as they are; that is what Paul speaks of here.
Ques What would you say is involved in our eating unleavened bread?
JT One thing is that it keeps us small; it is intended to reduce us, to preserve us from fleshly inflation. It is really a negative thought; the emphasis is on the absence of leaven, not on the ingredients of the bread. Paul shows that he kept the feast with it. All his motives were on the surface, he had no hidden motives; his ways were in sincerity and truth.
Ques Would it involve that we were in keeping with the passover?
JT It is our correspondence with it. They had the lamb in the house four days, so that it was before all in the house what the lamb was. So Christ says, I am altogether what I say unto you. I taught daily in the temple, etc. He was before them as He was. And Paul was among the Corinthians in the same spirit, he was there to be seen and known. The unleavened bread went on for seven days. That is, I must be in accord with the death of Christ. He was slain as our passover, so we are to keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Ques Do you suggest this would help confidence?
JT I think it is most essential; we could not have confidence in one another without the feast of unleavened bread. I have nothing in reserve at all. The Lord had nothing in reserve: All I say, I am, He said. He taught in the temple; the whole matter is out. You cannot go beyond that: simplicity and godly sincerity. He says to the Corinthians, You are in my heart, I love you. He had preached the Son of God, Jesus Christ. What was He? Jesus Christ is the kind of man; there was no yea and nay with [p. 468] Him, but yea. That is what the feast of unleavened bread maintains; it maintains short accounts. You do not let difficulties remain unsettled. I have known a meeting shut up many years. That should not be; the feast of unleavened bread would settle that. Things must be gone into with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. There is the evidence of life among the saints, thank God! but the thing is to preserve it, and keep the weeds out. Nothing fosters weeds more than hidden motives, hidden feelings. The apostle is unfolding what is in his heart in regard of the Corinthians. “Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians, our heart is expanded”. 2 Corinthians 6:11.
Ques Would you say unleavened bread would rather keep out the contrary elements?
JT The unleavened bread would prevent weeds growing. Then there is the positive thing among the saints, that is, love. It is very fine that the apostle brings out that his teaching was in accord with the Person he preached: “The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea”. 2 Corinthians 1: 19.
Rem Would you say a little more about that expression, “in him was yea”.
JT He brings God Himself into the thing. God is in the light; He has reserved nothing. Every promise of His is verified at last. He brings God Himself into it, “unto the glory of God by us”. 2 Corinthians 1: 20.
Rem So that you would lay it upon us that it is not only the exclusion of what is hindering, but the preservation and presentation of what is good that should be before us.
Ques Would you say keeping the feast of unleavened bread really means to live in self-judgment?
JT That is what it means, that is, in the light of the passover; Christ our passover being sacrificed for us. It is not an occasional thing; it is a constant [p. 469] thing, every day for seven days. It is a wonderful thing that God should bring into this dark world the circle of His people, formed in the light, where all is transparent, as He is Himself. God is there in the light, so if we walk in the light we have fellowship one with another; not that we may have, but we have.
Rem I suppose nothing hinders this confidence you were speaking of more than our being inflated with the sense of our own importance, and the taking up the unleavened bread would preserve us from that.
JT I have often thought of Lot. He had unleavened bread in his house. Thus we can understand how it could be said that he was a righteous man. The angels, I suppose, brought out the necessity of it.
Rem In your speaking of the feast of unleavened bread keeping out the weeds, I suppose if we fed more on it there would be no weeds.
JT That is what I was thinking. If there is no dark part, it is “as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light”. Luke 11:36. The whole body is full of light, there are no dark places in it, no reserve. As I am before God, I am before the saints. God knows what I am, the saints know too.
Ques Would you say Lydia was a beautiful example of transparency: “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there” Acts 16: 15.
JT Yes, she would not desire the apostle in her house otherwise.
Rem I was thinking how different Lydia was from Simon the Pharisee, who received the Lord into his house; how different were his motives!
JT The holy city is a great example of what God can do in bringing about transparency.
Rem How much there is covered, held back now, but in the end we have the city, the gathering centre of the universe, and the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal.