(ii)
(ii) Jim Gray
What has turned me to this scripture is the thought of partaking of the Lord’s table. I have had a thought for some days and was encouraged to say a word on this when our brother read the scripture in Luke, “For which is greater, he that is at table or he that serves? Is not he that is at table?” (chap 22: 27). It is a wonderful table to sit at, to partake of the Lord’s table. We sit and eat and it is furnished well for us. It is a reference to fellowship, the Lord’s table. I suppose it is something on the line of the fellowship of God’s Son, which you get in verse 9 of 1 Corinthians 1. I suppose abstractly it includes every believer, but we are not in a day such as it once was in the Corinthian day when there was unity and oneness in the public church. However, I think we can enjoy the Lord’s table as we are directed through 2 Timothy and its principles, to enjoy something of it amongst those with whom we can have fellowship. That is a wonderful privilege to gather together to the name of the Lord Jesus and celebrate the Supper together and feed on the food, “This is my body, which is for you”, 1 Cor 11: 24.
But we have to protect that fellowship, respect and protect the Lord’s table. So it involves certain responsibilities as this scripture brings in as to the persons who partake of that table, “Ye cannot partake of the Lord’s table, and of the table of demons”. I was thinking, when our brother was speaking, of how Paul would protect it. I have been looking a little bit in Leviticus and I think the Lord’s table in some sense is like the peace-offering. It is more than just the celebration of the Supper. It is a fellowship, the fellowship of God’s Son, and we treasure that fellowship and we have to protect and respect that fellowship. From our side certain matters have to be attended to. Our brother spoke about regard for one another and respect for one another and I think that is a very important matter. I think it is a very important matter always to have respect for an assembly in a place. No matter what difficulties come up, we should always have respect for the assembly in a place and protect the assembly in a place, our local place particularly. In the law of the offerings in Leviticus before the law of the peace-offering you get the law of the sin-offering and the trespass-offering, so that as an individual I have to attend to these matters before I can enter into communion in the peace-offering, which I am linking in my mind with the table of the Lord. It is a wonderful fellowship. The sin-offering would have me judge myself. Paul says, I am the chief of sinners (see 1 Tim 1: 15). He was looking into his own heart and he knows what is there so that the sin-offering brings me to judge myself in relation to sin and what is in me: “Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me”, Ps 51: 5. That is something you have to come to and judge yourself. It has been remarked that it will preserve you from self-occupation, attending to the sin-offering and the law of the sin-offering.
Then the trespass-offering involves, not only what is within and my judgment of it in the light of the death of Christ, but God has been robbed of something. There has been an infringement in relation to the divine rights so that I have to judge myself in relation to that, firstly in relation to what God has been wronged of through what I have allowed and then too what my relations are with my brethren. That is the trespass-offering. Something has to be added and that is really a test, what I can add. Both these offerings would deal with bitterness of spirit, and that is something in nature that is very deep, and I speak with a sense of it. If I have been wronged at all, I have to be with God as to my own matters, my own history, and then the trespass-offering as to what I may have contributed to the infringement that has happened, and that would bring me into the divine presence, the divine presence no only in relation to God Himself, but in relation to the brethren so that in my spirit there has to be a deep-rooted judgment of bitterness. So, when I come to the peace-offering, it is a hallowed sphere, a sanctified sphere. I am in accord with the One who is sanctified: “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified ware all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Heb 2: 11. We come into that environment so that as approaching the saints we have an appreciation of them; as our brother said, “each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves”, Phil 2: 3.
What a test! When things are going normally, it is not such a test, but when there are problems and difficulties in a locality, it becomes a test; it would be a test to me. But I think, as coming into the divine presence, as remembering the Lord Jesus and having regard to His name, then my spirit would be such as to regard the saints in the local place with dignity whatever difficulties may have arisen. I come then to the peace-offering, spirits free, my spirit free and the spirits of the brethren, too. I would regard them as being “more excellent” than myself.
What an approach can be made to one another at such a level! That is the table of the Lord, to me anyway. It is a richly furnished table and the great expression of it is in the bread and the cup, what He has given to secure us. As our brother said, great sinners maybe, but there is a great Saviour and the great Saviour has provided a suitable food for us in the bread and the cup and to be in accord with my brethren ad enjoy the peace-offering, then I can enter into the joy of my Lord. How attractive, but these are deep exercises. I do not minimise them, but I think we should regard partaking of the Lord’s table as a wonderful privilege and respect and esteem the persons who eat at the table. You get it all through the Old Testament, persons who eat at the king’s table. He must direct things at that table and bring us into conformity to His own spirit and His own thinking. What a spirit the Saviour showed! May we be brought into these things, and be blessed by the Lord as we are exercised about them. For His Name’s sake.
EDINBURGH
25 November, 2003