WHAT THE LORD IS WORKING OUT IN LOCAL COMPANIES
PM These verses, dear brethren, are in the setting of the rejection of Christ. In chapter 10: 39 it says “They sought therefore again to take him”. Then Judas in chapter 12
says, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii” (John 12: 5). Between these references, we have what the Lord was working out in Bethany. I wondered if we might get some help in enquiring together as to the way the Lord takes us in our local companies in view of working out what is in His thoughts for us. Martha says, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”. How true that was. But the Lord was working out morally more than that. He is working out in our local companies, as He was in Bethany, that which would be for the glory of God, and for His own glory. He has that in view. There is what relates to His glory that is from the divine side. But there is also what is for His glory in Bethany, what was being worked out through the exercises that the Lord was allowing them to pass through, to take them out of the circumstances in which they were, and to associate them with Himself in the circumstances in which He is. I wonder if we might get some impression of that as we enquire together.
One has linked this passage with the Lord’s valuation of Philadelphia. There is that here which the Lord Jesus loved, as indeed in Philadelphia. He says they “shall know that I have loved thee”, Revelation 3: 9. There is something precious to His heart, that in the midst of such outward rejection of Himself, He brought out in that local company that which He could associate with Himself in relation to the Father. It seems to me that, as we enquire together, we may get some impression of that, because the Lord Jesus here leads on to give the unfolding of the greatness of Himself. Later it says, “Jesus lifted up his eyes on high and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me; but I knew that thou always hearest me”. He is giving this little company some impression of the greatness of what He is, in Himself personally and in His relations with the Father. I wondered whether the Lord would help us to have a look at the way He works in local companies, to bring us to appreciate His own glory, and that He might be glorified in the very place in which He is working.
JCG I am sure we will get help together. The enquiry is very interesting, bearing on the local place. It says, “the village of Mary and Martha”. It is interesting that Jesus says first, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it”. That was the ultimate. Is that what was in your mind?
PM It was. He says, “for the glory of God”; He had that in view personally, and He had it in view in what He was working out there. The Lord always had the glory of God in view. That brings out the perfection of His manhood, that it was never His own glory that was primarily before Him, but the glory of God. God was going to be glorified in the company. It seems to me that it lifts our sight from what we look at circumstantially to view what divine Persons are doing at the present moment.
JCG And do you think that God does not wish to lose what has already been manifested of spiritual quality. It says in relation to “the village of Mary and Martha her sister. It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair”. God does not wish to lose what has been of benefit amongst the saints, in view of the glory of God, do you think?
PM That is very fine. It draws out the Lord’s own affection for what there was in this place. Something has already been wrought out. As we know, earlier, Martha had needed adjustment. She, had received the Lord into her house, but it is not her house here, it is “the house”. Adjustment had come in, and what was there in the place was held in right relation to Himself, and draws out the Lord’s affections. I wonder if I need to be reminded of that, that there is that which the Lord loves in the local company. It has been wrought out through years of exercise and discipline and pressure and faithfulness, and He loves it.
WL Has the Lord much to teach us as to the much sickness that is amongst us?
PM I am sure He has. And one senses, in conversation with the saints, that generally there is much exercise as to it. The Lord I think would help us, if we are dependent, to see what He is working out through it.
WL The amount of sickness causes much exercise among young and old. I was thinking too of how the Lord says to Peter, “by what death he should glorify God”, John 21: 19.
PM That is helpful. In Peter’s death, what was in view was not exactly Peter’s release, although that would be true, but what was in view was what was for God. It has often been said that Peter was the only one in scripture who knew he would not be here when the Lord came. He would die a death for the glory of God. But whether dying or living, what is to be before us is God’s glory. I wondered if we might get help about that. I may be a little like Martha, and say, Why does the Lord not stop these things? Why does the Lord allow them?
But He is working something out that is far beyond the circumstances in which these three beloved saints were, however valuable those circumstances were to the Lord.
JTB You referred to Philadelphia. He presents Himself there as the One “who opens and no one shall shut”, Revelation 3: 7. Do you think He is opening up a whole area of glory, an area to which death cannot attach? Do you think it is very valuable to get a view of that at the present time?
PM I have wondered that, and whether through the discipline that He allows. He is seeking to release our hold on what is here, in view of laying hold on the scene in which Christ is, and the order of life in which He Himself is as the resurrection and the life, that order of life which is associated with Him where He is. We have to speak soberly; we are living in an affluent age.
Affluence tends of itself to hold man naturally in his circumstances, and I may become governed by that. I think the Lord Jesus in His grace is gradually loosening our grip on it, and opening up on our view all that is centred in Himself gloriously, and what is there is for the glory of God. And it is to find its answer in the local company.
GCMcK “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus”. It is remarkable that it is put that way. They were all loved, and Martha is given a certain position in this chapter, as getting help, is she? The Lord is working with us all, is He?
PM He is. He may put His hand on one and another, but He is working with us all. I think that is important. He allows this to happen to Lazarus, but He is working with the company.
GCMcK It is not that there is a preference. We might have thought more of Mary than of Martha, but the Lord loves all, and He will bring us all through to what He has in mind for each one of us.
PM That is His desire, that we might reach His thoughts in relation to what is here for God’s glory, even at the present time. He would draw our affections to the greatness of who He is personally, and the glory of His manhood. He would draw our affections after Himself, outside of all that is here.
JS The Lord evidently found much that was pleasing to Himself in Bethany. It speaks of “Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and Martha her sister”. Do you think that persons become identified with the place, with the local company, and with what is for the Lord’s pleasure?
PM Yes; something is wrought out in the persons that gives character to the place. I think that helps, because the Lord has His own interests in each local company, and He loves those that are there, and He is working something out in them that gives a certain identity and character to each local assembly. There is a glory in that. It is His own work; it must be glorious. Bethany is an interesting place. It is one of only two places where the Lord is spoken of as spending the night. That relates very much to the present day in which we are.
DBR Thinking again of Philadelphia, the Lord speaks about “my word” and “my name” and “my patience”. The personal pronoun comes in. Do you think that one of the great lessons we have to learn is that what is precious to Christ becomes precious to us?
PM Yes. Philadelphia held what was personally precious to Christ in the scene of His rejection, and He holds the overcomer in Philadelphia in relation to it, in the very scene where He is in the Father’s presence. How pleasing that was to Him, that there in that company everything was entirely centred in Christ where He was. What was His was valued by them; He was loved by them, and they were loved by Him. It seems to me to link very much with this passage, because what is reached here in Bethany is that they come to it that everything is centred in Christ. He must be the object. Everything they derived was from Him, a whole order of life and relationship was being opened up, and it was centred in this blessed Man, and they come into the gain of it as He had His way with them. Do you think that the Lord values that so much, even at the present time?
DBR I wondered that, if really what the Lord is doing is bringing us through into an area of spiritual refinement. You could hardly think of anything more blessed, than being able to grasp what is precious to the heart of Christ, and to treasure it, and not only that, but to minister to it. “There therefore they made him a supper”.
PM Yes, and He takes these dear souls who were thinking perhaps of what was for them for the moment; “if thou hadst been here”. He takes their affections and centres them in the very scene in which He is, and causes that He should become the centre for them here. I believe that, as you say, the Lord is refining our thoughts and our affections for Himself, to see that He must be the centre of everything. In Laodicea, they spoke of themselves. The Lord says, “Thou sayest, I am rich”, Revelation 3: 17. They were talking about themselves and maybe that comes closer to us than we may care to think. But in Philadelphia, as in Bethany, everything was for Him, He was the centre, and I wonder for myself if the Lord Jesus is not drawing our affections, to see that everything centres in another order of life, centred in a Man out of death, glorified.
DAS I find it testing when circumstances of this kind arise. Jesus waited two days here before He moved. I wondered whether we are tested as to our patience in relation to such exercises amongst us. It is important not to go before the Lord.
PM I had wondered about that. The Lord allows time for matters to work out. We might say, If the Lord had gone earlier, Lazarus would not have died. But the Lord gives time for matters to work out. By doing so; He causes us to realise that we have no resource in ourselves. We are cast upon Him for everything. He does it in exercises among us, He allows time to go by. He is not indifferent to what is happening, but He allows things to work out, in order to manifest His own glory and power in a scene in which we ourselves are helpless.
JCG In this waiting period, Martha was helped to see a new glory of Christ. “I am the resurrection and the life”. She looked at what was circumstantial, at what might be of knowledge, that there would be a resurrection at the last day. But the great manifestation of the personal glory of Christ came to her after these two days. Do we need to have a fresh appreciation of the greatness of Christ if matters are to be worked out properly among us?
PM I am sure that every matter that comes up in our histories is to give us a greater impression of the glory of the Man who has the answer to everything. She says, “I know, that whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee”. She places Him for the moment on the level of a pious man, but He was more than that, He was greater than that. In Himself inherently there was what was far beyond the pious man, although He was that.
WL The tomb was no hindrance to the Lord. It simply serves to bring out the glory of God, and His own glory.
PM And the power of the One who is the resurrection—“I am the resurrection and the life”. I suppose that will be seen in its fulness when He comes, as we have in 1 Thessalonians 4, but morally He is that now. “I am the resurrection and the life”. Not just that ‘I will raise the dead’; the Lord could have said that and it would have been true. But it is what He is; He is bringing us to appreciate what He is, not only what He can do, but what He is in the glory of His Person.
WL He has “the keys of death and of hades”, Revelation 1: 18. Does that come out here?
PM Yes. So that everything is held in control. Does it not say in Romans that He rules “over both dead and living”, Romans 14: 9? Even the dead are waiting for Him; the dead cannot move without Him. How great He is! Who else could rule over both dead and living? So here He is the resurrection. The glory of His Person is to fill our gaze; no one else could have said this; He is great enough to raise the dead, and to give an order of life that is derived from Himself.
TCM In this waiting time, it seems that the disciples are confused, trying to put their own thoughts into what happens here, which eventually results in the Lord having to say plainly, “Lazarus has died”. Are we apt to put our own interpretation on what the Lord is at, but do we need to hear His voice?
PM We need to make way for Him in every matter. One would be hesitant to try to say what the Lord is doing in the present moment in relation to the much sickness that there is. There has never been a day when there has been so much pressure in the bodies of the saints. One would hesitate to say that I knew the answer to that, but we would be before Him in relation to it, because we know that the One who is working out matters is great enough to associate our hearts with Himself, and to cause that our thoughts may recede, and we may have His view of every matter.
AMcK Weeping is mentioned several times, including the Lord weeping. Would you say something about that? It is the only time, according to the footnote, that this word is used. Would it be to bring out a basis for right feelings, and moving in relation to what the Lord is doing?
PM Yes. I am thankful you draw attention to that. The feelings of the Lord Jesus come out here in a distinctive way. It says that He wept, and also that He groaned. It was more than sympathy with Mary and Martha, was it not? There was that, but it was more than that. Think of the Lord Jesus being deeply moved in the presence of death. The Lord would have us to feel things in some measure, that the feeling character might come into expression more. The Lord is awakening body feelings in a way, perhaps, that we have not known before.
AMcK I could not add anything, but what you say is right. It is body feelings that are being worked out.
RG Is it significant that it says, “Behold, how he loved him”. It does not simply say He loved him, but how He loved him. There was a demonstration of the glorious greatness of the divinity of a Man here in the way that He reacted to those that He did love, do you think?
PM I am sure of that. We could say that no one has loved the saints as Jesus has loved them—“how he loved him”. Martha comes to see that it is not only one whom they loved, but it is the one whom Jesus loved—“he whom thou lovest”. Then as you say, “how he loved him”. No one has loved the saints like He has loved them, and He loves them still. And in His grace He is serving to work out in us, and in one another, that which can be associated with Himself in a scene where all is according to His own pleasure. How He loves us! The disciplinary ways of divine Persons are to be understood. We would desire to see what He has in them for the company, and not just for the ones who are passing through the pressure.
When He saw Mary weeping—there was something that the Lord saw being worked out in the company, those feelings coming into expression. It was when He saw her weeping that He was deeply moved.
CKR These are two sisters, Mary and Martha. Could you say a word for the encouragement of the sisterhood at the moment? There is a lot of illness, a lot of it affecting brothers, but it is often the lot of the sisters to take the strain. There is something particularly being worked out with Martha and Mary. The sisterhood is very valuable in a locality, in support in this way, is it not?
PM It is, and the prayers of the sisters are of infinite value in a local company. They carry things often before God in secret that no one knows about, like Hannah, going into the divine presence and weeping there. I believe this would give us some sense of the Lord’s infinite delight in that, and how He would strengthen what is subjective in the local company.
Much is worked out in the sisterhood. It is not publicly expressed, but it is of value. These sisters knew the teaching. Martha says things that show that she knew the truth to a certain extent. But the Lord is taking her beyond that. I believe that the Lord would take us beyond the circumstances in which we are, that relate to the scene of pressure and sorrow; the Lord would take us beyond that to a scene where all is held in complacency. I believe that the sisters touch that in a remarkable way.
CKR You just feel that the Lord held Lazarus and Martha and Mary perfectly in His links with them, and how they developed through the whole exercise. So that in John 12, they serve beautifully together to make Him a supper; each one was obviously a different personality, under the Lord in His love. I think this is a touch as to Philadelphia, they were holding fast what they had, were they not?
PM They were. I had wondered about that. Lazarus had died, yet here they were; Martha goes out to meet the Lord, and she called her sister. They are moving to where He is now, they are holding fast, as you say, in relation to Him, moving out of the scene in which Lazarus has died. They are moving towards Him. Am I moving towards Christ? I may not see everything or understand everything at once, but am I moving towards Him? Is He becoming increasingly the centre of everything for me, and in the local company, because He will have His place. What is reached here in chapter 12 is a united company that is centred upon Christ, and He glorified in that company.
RT The Lord seems bent on getting them both to come to Him. He waits on that. He says, “Where have ye put him?” He seems to leave us in some exercise to be gone through to arrive at a point where we are anxious that it is not just what we would have wanted before, but now something different is to be arrived at through the exercise.
PM Yes. Initially Martha would have been content if Lazarus had been restored to full health. But the Lord does not have that in view. He has in view our movement out of this scene to the scene where He is glorified, and where everything now is to take character from Him. Does not the resurrection and the life suggest that He is giving character to a whole order of life and relationship for the Father’s pleasure, and for the blessing of man?
RT That is really something new, is it not, a new thought? He had not yet died, so He was not risen, but He brings the glory of that into the circumstances already.
PM And may it be that He may open our eyes to see things that we had not seen before, as we come to Him; light that perhaps has always been there, but He would open our eyes to see the glory of it, and how He gives character to everything for God. I believe that the word to the overcomer may link with that, “the name of the city of my God ... and my new name”, Revelation 3: 12. There is something that is opening up to the eye of the overcomer in Philadelphia that had never been known before. We should expect that.
TDB Could you say something about what is inward? I was thinking of the references to the Lord, that He was “deeply moved in spirit”. Then there were the tears that were referred to, they would involve what is inward, do you think? I was affected by that when the scripture was read.
PM He was deeply moved in spirit. It brings out the very inwards of Jesus, as you say. Men speak of sympathy in a cold way; this was not that. Everything in this blessed Person was bound up with what was being worked out in that little company. That company was going to be formed in relation to the order of Man that was here. It proceeds from the inwards of Jesus, the very feelings coming into expression, in order that we might come to appreciate the reality of the Man who was here in the presence of death.
WL The Lord’s feelings are very diverse. Mr. Darby points out in the footnote (to verse 33 note ‘a’) that there was also indignation, that there was deep antagonism to the power of evil and Satan in death. Think of the scope of the Lord’s feelings!
PM Yes, that death itself should have come into that little company that He loved, and that He Himself was going into death to meet it all. How much it meant to His holy soul.
Do you think that the Lord would help us that something of the inward feelings of His own spirit should mark us more? We could never measure what He measured in relation to sin and death, but He would help us to have increased feeling and judgment as to it.
WL Is that involved in “if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it”, 1 Corinthians 12: 26? These are true body feelings.
PM Yes. And I believe that what Paul had in mind there was that they were suffering as if it were their own feelings in relation to that member in the body. They were bearing it as their own.
GCMcK Twice the Lord was deeply moved in spirit; in verse 33 at seeing the weeping, but then in verse 38. He was deeply moved in Himself as He comes to the tomb. Is there something in a sense deeper, not only sympathy with the effect on men, but there was something deeper in coming to the tomb itself, death itself?
PM Yes, in relation to what He Himself would enter into to meet this very question of death, that “through death he might annul him who has the might of death”, Hebrews 2: 14. He was going to go into death itself.
GCMcK I was thinking of the detail that is given as to the Lord’s feelings, and not only how He was affected sympathetically, but as you said, He is going to go into death itself. It is really the ark going into the Jordan. He is facing death, is He not?
PM Yes. I am glad you mention that, because here you have the ark moving forward of itself, into death, into the Jordan. What power was there. It comes into expression in His cry at the tomb, “Lazarus, come forth”. He was greater than death itself, but He was going into it. How it should affect us, that every matter has been settled in His going into death. His death has been the answer to everything from the divine side, and I have to come to that too, that His death is the answer to every question.
RT Seeing the glory of God seems to be very much dependent on believing “if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God”. When the Lord comes to the tomb, He had to undo all that they had done. He says, “Where have ye put him?” and “Take away the stone”, then He tells them to take off the graveclothes. Believing seems to bring in a new outlook and a new way of acting. We have to go over the ground we have already been over, but then believing brings up something positive before the soul.
PM They had handled matters according to their way, but the Resurrection and the Life was here in this blessed Person, who gave character to the way in which Lazarus would come out of death. It was not according to men’s thoughts. Often we find that our thoughts have to be adjusted in the presence of the One who has the power to meet every situation. But here He says, “if thou shouldest believe”. I find I am often tested as to how much faith I exercise.
RT The first thing we do usually is to go back to what happened before, and how things had been handled before. But “If thou shouldest believe”; it is the glory of God, and there is something very fresh and living about it that is to affect us as to a new way of doing things.
PM Yes, and to do them in the light of the power that is resident in the Person. He alone could raise Lazarus. They were powerless in His presence, but He alone could do it. But He says, “Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”
I wonder whether the Lord is lifting our view away from what we are doing to see what He is doing. We would get a different view of the way He is leading us, to see what He is doing in the present moment, and see that glory marks it, the glory that comes from Himself, and glory that is for His God, and for the blessing of the company.
JSp Do you have in mind that in every exercise we have to go through, that should be our outlook? What way is the Lord going to manifest His glory? I was thinking of the journey through the wilderness; it was punctuated by manifestations of the glory.
PM Yes; Israel “turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud”, Exodus 16: 10. That is what is in the divine view right from the beginning, that we should be drawn away from the scene of death and corruption—but lift our eyes toward the wilderness and behold the glory, to see it centred in a Man who has gone on before. Everything is there in Christ. How quickly I begin to look at what is here, but everything is there in a Man, and He would attach our hearts to Himself in the scene in which there is another order of life altogether.
RJC Jesus is not deterred by anything in this chapter. His disciples say, “Rabbi, even but now the Jews sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again?” And then in the exercises of Mary and Martha and in the raising of Lazarus, He is completely undeterred. Is it characteristic of John’s gospel that He carries everything through in view of securing this positive end in chapter 12?
PM That is helpful. He has one object in view, if we might speak carefully, and that is for the glory of God, and He is moving forward. Our brother’s reference to the ark would remind us of that, that there is no deviation with the ark. It is going forward to search out a resting place. There is glory attaching to it. Through the whole scene of opposition and hatred to Himself, the Lord moves forward in His own personal dignity. What glory and majesty marks Him!
EDS It is not perhaps on the same level of what we are speaking about as to the Lord and His feelings in raising the dead, but I wondered whether there is something we are to learn as to what it cost the Lord to enter into these things. I was thinking of chapter 8 of Luke’s gospel, where He said that power had gone out from Him when the woman was healed. We are rightly concerned and sympathetic with all the suffering that goes on amongst the dear brethren, but there is what the Lord feels about these things, even entering into them, to bring about a result from them. It affects Him in such a way that something is drawn from Him.
PM Yes, that woman touched the hem of His garment, and He knew that power had gone out of Him. It shows that the Lord is not unaware of what is proceeding, and values it as we are drawing from Himself. But if there was to be any answer, it was necessary that He Himself should go into death. It seems to me that the feelings of the Lord Jesus here all centre in what He Himself was going to enter into. He stood at the tomb of Lazarus, but He was going into the tomb. The cost would be His, in a way that it could never be for Lazarus. Mr.
Darby says that for Him, death was really death. What that must have meant for His holy soul, and yet He was going there vicariously.
WL Is there some significance in the reference “Jesus therefore, six days before the passover”?
PM Yes, “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, 1 Corinthians 5: 7. His death and His resurrection becomes the point at which everything is answered for God. It becomes the place where everything morally is met for us in the death of Christ. We touch many matters, they come up among us, and we touch them in our day to day lives; young people going to school and to work are in the presence of things which some of us do not understand, because we have never been there, but the death of Christ is the answer to every moral matter in the universe. It is so in the circle, as it was in Bethany.
WL Paul brings this in in his letter to Corinth.
PM Yes, and he speaks of the word of the cross. They were content at Corinth to centre things in themselves,
without Christ. He brings in the word of the cross. Does that not mean that its bearing upon us morally is brought right home in the word of the cross?
RT He does not finalise this without speaking first to the Father about it. He says to the Father, “that they may believe”—that the crowd may know the relationship there was between Them. What would you say?
PM I wonder if the Lord was opening that up to this little company, opening up that relationship that had been undisturbed. “I knew that thou always hearest me”. How perfect that relationship was, bringing out all that Christ is to the Father. Then, “but on account of the crowd”, you might say He left the witness of that in Bethany, that in the very place of death, where death had come in, He leaves the witness to the relationship that was undisturbed by anything else.
DBR It is a very beautiful thought there; it says, “Jesus lifted up his eyes”. I wondered if there was a pattern for us in that. The whole effect of the lessons that the Lord would pass us through, and the pressures you are speaking of, is that we might ourselves be developed in intimacy with divine Persons. It becomes a very deep lesson to learn.
PM Yes; the Lord was not only in the Father’s presence in the moment of need, but He was constantly there. I think there is a link between Bethany and the mount of Olives, the two places where the Lord Jesus spent the night. On the mount of Olives, He spent the night in prayer. What intimacy of relationship, sharing what the Father was and what He was, known to each other in such distinctiveness. And yet while that relationship stays in all its distinctiveness, is the opportunity not open to us? Not only to go into the divine presence, but to be there and be formed as being there. The Lord Jesus was not formed as in the Father’s presence, but we are. As in His presence, we see things differently, and see the glory of the whole order of life that is from the divine side, and see that everything remains in all its distinctiveness unchanged. We need that view, do we?
DBR I thought in that way there is a perfect pattern for us in what has been referred to in this verse. It is quite significant that this verse is in this chapter, when His own glory as Son of God is so prominent, and yet it is not only His power but His feelings that enter into the chapter. That is expressed perfectly in His relationship with the Father.
PM I am sure of that. Is it answered in the next chapter where they make Him a supper, and He is anointed in the midst of the company? That intimacy is brought out in that Christ is made everything of. It is not now in relation to their need. He had met it all. But the Person Himself was now holding and filling the affections of that company so that everything centred in Him. They hold Him in a way in which they had never held Him before, not in relation to their circumstances, but in relation to what He was personally and gloriously as a distinctive Man.
RG Do you think the fact that it refers to six days before the passover indicates that the Lord cannot wait? There had been two days and then four days in chapter 11, but six days before the passover; He cannot wait because He knows that there has been a result reached, and there is that there for Him now that answers to what He gave in chapter 11.
PM That is very fine, and what was in view has now been reached in the company, and it is reached because He has become everything to them. I wonder whether the Lord is helping us that He might become everything. We may settle even in the privileges of the fellowship, but Christ is to become everything. As He does, He gives character to the privileges that we take up and enjoy, and they become different in our view. I think that here, they become different in the light of the One who was living in relation to another world altogether.
RG He is really in the position here of the One who was raised “by the glory of the Father”, is He? He is brought into that position in chapter 11, and now He is demonstrating that they are to be with Him in the same relationship.
PM Yes, and even the dead man is here, “whom Jesus raised from among the dead”. It is striking that he is still referred to as “the dead man” in this chapter. All that marked the old has no part in that scene; it is finished and finished for ever, but He is there living in the power of another life.
JCG Could you say something about the fact that the sisters are active in this supper in the house? Lazarus is there, but the sisters are active.
PM I thought it linked with what was asked about earlier. They had borne the pressure and carried the sorrow of the whole exercise before the Lord, but as having done so, something is wrought out subjectively in them that can yield its glory for Christ, and for Him alone.
JCG That is helpful, particularly in relation to Mary, who anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair. These were movements in love that waited two days and then went to the tomb; she recognises that these feet were going to take Him to the cross. She is in the moral and spiritual appreciation of what that involved. It should affect us inwardly.
PM Yes, and cause for us that everything now is in relation to this blessed Man. She anointed His feet and wiped them with her hair. It says “the house was filled with the odour of the ointment”. It has often been remarked that the filling of the house was when it was held in relation to Himself. When He became the object, the house was filled.
WL Does spiritual intelligence come to light in Mary in a measured amount?
Spiritual intelligence is the divine end that is to be reached among us, is it not? It is a pound here, something measured that met the requirements of the moment.
PM Yes, something had been wrought out through the glory of Christ coming onto their view, that was able to be brought intelligently. But it was great enough to fill the house.
You might say, after this, what was the character of Bethany? It was the odour of the ointment. It was the anointing of Christ in the company; that was the character of Bethany. It is to be the character of every local company, the odour of the ointment. There is no place for man according to flesh. That has all been dealt with. What is there is the distinctiveness of Christ.
JS At the beginning of chapter 11, it says that “It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment”. The result is reached in chapter 12; all that had come in in the way of experience had led to the area that the Lord had ultimately in mind.
PM Yes, I wondered that. It says, “for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it”. The Lord had it in view, that here in this little company would be an intelligent and affectionate answer for Himself, and He was working with them to form that unreservedly in relation to Himself. How the Lord works among us! Two days away, coming in with His word, operating through His power; what skill enters into His working. I would like to know more of it, and be sensitive to it, because He is working among us at the present time, and what He is allowing in the bodies of the saints is to draw out our feelings of desire to be with Him in what He is doing, that He might be glorified by it.
JS I was impressed by what you said, that He might become everything.
PM I am sure that if we take up in exercise what the Lord is doing and allowing, the more we take it up in exercise in His presence, the more He will become everything—“Christ everything”.
KEY TO INITIALS
T. D. Beveridge
A. McKay
J. Spinks
J. T. Brown (Gr)
G. C. McKay
E. D. Steadman
R. J. Campbell
Martin
D. A. Steven
R. Gardiner
T. C. Munro
J. Strachan
J. C. Gray
D. B. Robertson
R. Taylor
W. Lamont
C. K. Robinson
Reading at Grangemouth
8 November 2003