1 CORINTHIANS 14 (FIRST READING)
1 CORINTHIANS 14 (FIRST READING)
Ques Why is prophecy so important?
CAC The third verse sums up its value, does it not? And it is the great evidence of the presence of God amongst His people. We ought not to be content to be walking in a path of separation from manifest evil, or to be holding the precious truth that has come to us. We ought, surely, to be concerned that there should be evidence that God is amongst us.
Ques Would prophecy suggest present living communications from God?
CAC Yes, it suggests that God is near, “God is indeed amongst you”. So that when saints are being addressed an unbeliever coming in falls down on his face. They are not preaching the gospel, or labouring to get at his conscience, the saints are being spoken to in such a way that the presence of God amongst His people is felt so that an unbeliever falls down on his face. That is something more than a good word!
Rem I am afraid we do not know much about having God with us in that powerful way, but it is normal.
[p. 85] Ques Does prophesying principally have the edification of the assembly in view, not the unbeliever?
CAC It does not suppose that the unbeliever is being addressed; but the felt power of God’s presence amongst His people is such that it affects an unbeliever. That is a crucial test; how is an ungodly man affected who comes in? Such a one comes in not at all partial to what is going on. He is not very susceptible; but the presence of God amongst His people will make him fall down on his face. We do not often see that.
Ques I think you told us once that it was more important for God to speak to us than for us to speak to God; is that not so?
CAC Yes, I think it is. And God dwells and walks in holy places. He says, “I will dwell among them and walk among them”. The saints are the holy places where God walks, so that priestly conditions are necessary.
Ques There is nothing said about the Spirit in this chapter; why is that?
CAC Well, that is the contrast between chapters 12 and 14; in chapter 12 you get manifestations of the Spirit, but in chapter 14 it is spiritual manifestations.
Rem I am afraid we do not know what you mean.
CAC Spiritual manifestations could only be among spiritual persons.
Ques Through the medium of spiritual persons?
CAC Yes, so that the real exercise underlying this chapter is that there should be priestly conditions — conditions suitable to the holy service of God. It is priests who draw near to God. The whole chapter is governed by the thought of spirituality — spiritual manifestations. Not a word is said in the chapter about the Holy Spirit. There is a good bit said about the spirits of the prophets, but nothing said about the Holy Spirit; it supposes that there [p. 86] are spiritual men who can voice the mind of God intelligently.
Ques Would you say that that character of atmosphere should mark all our comings together, an atmosphere that would bring an unbeliever to the ground on his face?
CAC Yes. We might say that the whole of this epistle would tend to the purification of the priesthood. In the last days of Israel’s history the priesthood was defiled (Zechariah 3). There was a high priest, but he was clothed in filthy garments. That is very much the condition of things in the christian profession; the priesthood is defiled. The priesthood was defiled at Corinth; they were not maintaining spiritual conditions; and the apostle Paul laboured to get them cleansed from pollutions. He would take away the filthy garments from them and give them change of raiment and set a pure turban on their heads!
The result of the high priest being restored to his proper holiness and dignity is that God speaks of bringing in Christ as the Branch. Then there is the thought of a golden vessel and of oil flowing freely, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”. It seems to me that the idea in this chapter is that the assembly is a vessel, divine in character, and priestly, and the flow of what is spiritual is to be encouraged and promoted in every way.
Ques When you say he has the cleansing of the priesthood in view do you mean the whole assembly?
CAC Yes.
Rem The priests are also addressed in Malachi.
CAC Yes; if the kind of meeting contemplated here is to be restored it can only be restored in spiritual conditions.
Rem So that the cleansing of the priesthood would have a local bearing.
CAC Yes, I think so; chapter 14 is local. Chapter 12 is universal. The idea of the manifestations of the Spirit [p. 87] in chapter 12 is universal. The Spirit has distributed certain qualifications to serve in the whole assembly; certain gifts are set in the whole assembly, and the whole assembly, Jew and gentile, are baptised into one body by the Spirit. It is the universal thought; he brings that in first. And then, before speaking of the working out of things locally, the beautiful 13th chapter comes in to show that it can only be worked out locally in the spirit of love, “Follow after love”. Love has been set before us in chapter 11. The Supper brings before us the great manifestation of love, and what is set before us in the Supper is to be a model; everything in the assembly is to conform to the Supper as a model. The Lord said at the supper table, “I am in the midst of you as the one that serves”. The precious character of His service is set forth in the loaf and cup. ‘Now’, He says, ‘you are to move on that line; you are to follow after love’.
Prophecy would result in building up the saints in the knowledge of divine Persons, and it would have the effect of encouraging them in the face of all that is adverse around, and of consoling them in their many sorrows (verse 3). The church is in the place of sorrows, and needs consolation, so that a great element in prophecy is consolation. That character of ministry is so powerful that it makes an ungodly man fall down. He feels God is there.
Rem The presence of God would affect everyone.
CAC Yes, it lays bare the secrets of the heart. If God is brought in, the secrets of the heart are laid bare. Sometimes we think we have to give people a tremendous knocking about to get at their conscience; but if we could bring God in, that would do it.
Ques Would it be illustrated in the way Elihu comes in in the book of Job?
CAC Yes, he comes in and speaks for God; and God is in the still, small voice. He is not in the thunder or [p. 88] earthquake, but in the still, small voice. Prophecy does not mean a scathing word that withers up everybody.
Ques I suppose if it is of God, all that God says is in love, and the vessel would be characterised by that. It would be felt, would it not?
CAC Yes, I think chapter 13 is most important. We have the love of divine Persons brought before us in the Supper; the love of Christ and the love of God told out in their full extent; and then this wonderful picture of love acting in detail in chapter 13. We have love in its concentration set forth in the loaf and the cup. Divine love is concentrated there, and then the 13th chapter shews us love acting in detail. So that every kind of circumstance brings out some peculiar phase of love. Now that is the spirit in which a meeting such as chapter 14 speaks of can be profitably held, and it will be marked by many features. There will be positive building up in the knowledge of God. There will be encouragement; there are always troubled hearts that need encouragement. And there will be consolation; saints are always in sorrow. If they have no personal sorrow they have the sorrow of the state of the world and of the state of the church; they always need to be consoled. And then there will be instruction; Paul says, “that I may instruct others”.
Instruction, teaching, thanksgiving, prayer and singing; what a wonderful variety of spiritual activity! And every bit of it is giving evidence that God is amongst His people. We ought to covet that; we ought to pray for it very much; that the meetings shall be the evidence that God is amongst us. I do not think that we ought to be content to have nice times! We often speak of very precious things in a way that we enjoy, but we want more of the evidence that God is indeed amongst us.
Ques Would there be power in our meetings if God were [p. 89] with us?
CAC Yes, indeed.
Ques Would it have the same effect upon us as upon an unbeliever?
CAC I think so; the result would be to bring down everything that is of the flesh.
Ques When John said, “Behold the Lamb of God”, did not he prophesy? It had effect upon his disciples.
CAC It did indeed, but he was probably not thinking of them. It has often been said that it was his involuntary exclamation. In prophesying one is thinking of the saints; one is soberly and intelligently thinking of their good.
Ques Does this contemplate a meeting specially convened for prophesying?
CAC Well, it speaks about the whole assembly coming together in one place. It seems to suggest that there would be opportunities for such a meeting.
Ques Is it a local meeting, not a district meeting?
CAC Yes, I think it is local.
Ques While it is local in its setting, would you think it wrong to have such a meeting if there were others invited?
CAC I should not think it wrong. It is remarkable that we are not told when to have it, or how often. The Lord never regards the assembly otherwise than as a company of intelligent persons. To Corinth Paul says, “I speak as to intelligent persons”. And when such a meeting should be held is left to the intelligence of the assembly. It is rather striking that we have no account in Scripture of any word of prophecy in the assembly.
Ques What about Acts 13 — “Separate me now Barnabas and Saul”?
CAC Does not that refer rather to the prophets who were ministering to the Lord and fasting? It does not appear that it was in an assembly meeting. It is striking that Scripture furnishes us with no precedent of the kind [p. 90] of address that would be given in a meeting of this kind.
We have gospel addresses of Peter and Paul, and we have the addresses of Peter and James at the conference; but we have no record of any addresses given in the assembly. So that we are left to our own spirituality and intelligence to arrive at the proper kind of address. There is no model, and what a mercy! If we had an address of Paul’s in the assembly somewhere, it might have been taken for a model, but the Lord would have us to prophesy according to the proportion of our own faith.
Rem I was wondering if that was the reason why there is no gift in this chapter.
CAC Well, gift is to be the subject of desire and prayer. If you can speak with a tongue and cannot interpret, it is not hopeless — “let him pray”. A brother might have something on his heart, and not get it out very well, and perhaps be discouraged and never try again! But if he did not get it out very well, let him pray. I think if exercised and spiritual brothers would come forward when they have something of value, and would pray, they would be helped. I believe there is a great deal of latent wealth in the assembly. What is needed is more prayer for ability. This word, “let him pray”, would apply to every kind of ability that is needed for edifying.
Mr. Raven said that he had no gift at all, but he wanted to serve the brethren and he prayed, and the Lord gave him a gift. The Lord is not a respecter of persons; if He would answer Mr. Raven’s prayer, He would answer your prayer or mine. And think of Paul! At the end of his course he did not desire prayer that he might have more light, or that the Lord would give him more revelations; he had the whole wealth of the ministry of the glad tidings and of the mystery, but now he says, ‘I want you to pray that utterance may be given to me, in the opening of my mouth’. He felt the need of help in the actual [p. 91] utterance of the things. He had them all in his heart; it is no good our trying to speak about something that we have not got in our hearts — that is important. A man may feel sometimes that he has got spiritual wealth in his heart, but having it in your heart does not always mean that you can bring it out, so we have to pray. If I have something precious about the Lord or about God, God gave it to me, and He gave it to me by His Spirit for the good of the assembly; now I have to pray for divinely conferred ability to bring it out. There is a very great difference between natural ability and the ability which God gives. A man may be able to talk well and quote Scripture, but there may be nothing in it of spiritual worth; it is trading on natural ability and I dread it! I have often gone home after speaking, and asked the Lord, ‘Was it just my ability or was it ability that God gives?’ God is willing to give ability. This is not wanting something to make us important; it is the desire begotten in the soul by the enjoyment of divine love, and by the possession of divine substance. The man who has substance in his heart would say, ‘O Lord it is so precious; do help me to serve it out to others. I have no ability; I cannot even put five words together, but Thou canst help me’.
This is what we need if we are going to have this kind of meeting. I believe there are lots of brothers amongst us who have never said a word in public, but they have the preciousness in their hearts, and if they would pray the Lord would give them utterance, and they would speak in the assembly perhaps for five minutes. “Five words”, Paul says. Nobody would get weary of that address, would they? Nobody would say, ‘When is he going to stop?’ We ought to take these exercises very seriously, and especially the brothers who have to carry it out in a practical way, but the sisters should all be in sympathy [p. 92] with it; it is not an exercise for brothers only. When a brother who has never said a word before gets up, everyone is sympathetic; there is a sympathetic atmosphere. Everyone would be saying, ‘Lord help him; he would never have got up if he had not something; now Lord help him’. A brother in bringing out what is in his heart, knows it is right because of its quality. He has not got up to give the saints a scolding, he has not such a thought in his mind; he is conscious that the thing before him, whether expressed in five words or five hundred, is edifying and encouraging. A word like that would stimulate and encourage another brother to add something.
Another brother has something in his heart which has a point of contact with what the other brother said; so he feels encouraged to get up and give his contribution.
Then there is a third, and by that time the saints have had as much as they can take in at once. I have said sometimes that a principle brought out in this chapter is that of the restriction of output. That is, it supposes there is a lot more there; the assembly is much more wealthy than we have any idea of. I have often been astonished when I have got alongside a brother that never said a word in public. I have just now in mind a young brother who had never said a word in public who came to see me one day when I was poorly. I did not feel like talking to him, so I thought I would just let him talk to me, and it was simply beautiful when that young man began to speak; what precious things he could say of the Lord. I believe we are far more wealthy than we have any idea of.
We have come under the blighting influence of Christendom; in Christendom nobody may speak but a minister.
Perhaps we are more under the influence of that idea than we have any idea of. A brother says, ‘I am not gifted, it is not for me to think of saying anything’, and he takes up no exercise as to prophesying, though the Scripture says, “Ye can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be encouraged”. He has really come under the influence of the clerical spirit. We need to have more to do with God, and to think of the spiritual value of what we have. We must not minimise the exceeding preciousness of what we have in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We should think, ‘Now this is precious to me, and what is precious to me is precious to the whole assembly, and I would like to bring it out. I would like to say ten or twenty words just to let others share it’. Perhaps you might have to wait a bit; things of this kind never spoil by keeping. Preserve it and presently the opportunity will come. If we had more meetings of this kind, there would be more opportunity; presently the time would come when a brother would feel, ‘This is just the time for that little bit that I have been carrying in my heart’.
In such a meeting as 1 Corinthians 14 contemplates nothing counts but what has spiritual value. And the man who has something from God is distrustful of himself. Paul had the whole priceless treasure of the mystery in his soul by the Holy Spirit, but he was so distrustful of himself in attempting to speak that he wanted the prayers of the brethren. The right spirit is for a brother to so distrust himself that he feels nothing will carry him through but the prayers of the saints. Paul begins this epistle by telling the saints how rich they were: “In everything ye have been enriched in him”, the Head; and then in chapter 12 he brings out the wealth they had in the Spirit. The Spirit is distributing, and it seems to imply that everybody gets a share in the distribution of the Spirit (see chapter 12: 7). Now, as in the wealth of this, are we prepared to be at the disposal of the Lord and the Head?
Ques Why is there so much said about God in this chapter?
CAC [p. 94] The epistle is addressed to the assembly of God, and it is rather striking that there is nothing said in it about the presence of the Lord. You would not learn from this epistle that there was such a thing as the presence of the Lord. The nearest that comes to it is when he refers to the power of our Lord Jesus Christ in connection with dealing with a wicked person. But he does speak about the presence of God, “God is indeed amongst you”.
Ques You would not suggest the restricting of prophecy to a meeting specially convened?
CAC No, but I think the morning meeting is not quite what is contemplated here. When the saints are convened to eat the Supper, the meeting has a peculiar character. But even then, I believe the Lord would give a word very much more often than we get one. I have been exercised for a long time as to why it is that in many meetings there is rarely a word from the Lord. I believe the Lord would more often give a word if we sought Him about it, and it would be a word that would stimulate thanksgiving and worship. Mr. Taylor was saying, during his last visit, that he thought that a word in the morning meeting ought properly to come soon after the Supper to confirm in the affections of the saints the impression of the Supper, and thus it would intensify the spirit of thanksgiving and worship. That thought commends itself to me.
Ques Has not there been a tendency to make it prohibitive to give expression to a word in the morning meeting?
CAC I think we have suffered from the idea that a word was rather out of place. But you will have noticed all the time that this idea has been influential amongst the brethren it has never affected the most spiritual men.
[p. 95] The most spiritual men amongst us have habitually given a word in the morning meeting. Now that ought to have had some effect upon us.
Rem It seems to indicate that there should have been a priestly state maintained, (Numbers 10: 8).
CAC I think that is important. It was said at the beginning that prophesying can only be taken up by spiritual persons. A spiritual person is not manufactured in a day. It is “spiritual manifestations” here; the Holy Spirit is not mentioned at all; it is the exercises and activities of spiritual persons in the assembly of God. There is no working whatever of natural ability or of the flesh contemplated, or of self-importance.
Every man who speaks has to be sensitive; he has to be on the alert all the time. As a word is being given the one who is giving it has to be sensitive that he may be conscious when the Spirit of God would use another vessel. “But if there be a revelation to another sitting there, let the first be silent”. It indicates that a spiritual man would know when the Lord was going to act through another vessel. It shows that the Spirit delights to use different vessels. We might think that if the first speaks, if he was speaking spiritually, why could not the Spirit give him the revelation? But Paul suggests that the Spirit may be glad to use somebody else. However well one may be getting on he must be ready for the sovereign transfer to another vessel of what is edifying to the assembly. So a prophet has to be sensitive and to feel how long he is supported. A man giving a profitable word ought to be, as it were, hanging on the Lord all the time, and ought to know when the Lord’s support is no longer with him; he would then sit down at once; he would not say all that he had on his mind. Sometimes we have so much on our minds that we could go on for a week, but the question [p. 96] is, how much is the Lord supporting on this particular occasion? A brother may be supported by the Lord to a certain point, and if he had stopped at that point there would be a spiritual impression left on everyone. But if instead of stopping at that point he goes on, what he says after knocks out of the minds of the saints what he said before. We should often do more good if we were shorter in our addresses. I have no doubt that Paul knew exactly how far the Lord supported him. And I believe when the moment was reached that the Lord was not supporting him any longer, he would have sat down.
Rem It has been said that if a brother takes part by giving a word in the morning meeting it is a levitical word, and has been called for by the meeting being in a low state.
CAC There may be such a thing as that. We have the Lord’s own words to the assemblies, and they took account of the moral conditions; there may be times when that has to be done, but that is not quite normal. If the Lord has to call pointed attention to things that are wrong, it is not normal assembly exercise, but it may be necessary. I have heard even in a morning meeting a word of very searching character, and sometimes everybody has felt that it was a needed word.
Ques Would you consider that a prophetic word?
CAC Yes, I should.