THE INHERITANCE DIVIDED AMONG THE TRIBES (1)
THE INHERITANCE DIVIDED AMONG THE TRIBES (1)
JT The suggestion to consider the book of Joshua is with the object of looking more particularly into the second half of it, as showing how the inheritance was divided amongst the tribes; and the distribution of the Levites as bringing in the heavenly element, which perhaps might come before us tomorrow, if the Lord permit. This morning what one would particularly call attention to, is the principle of reduction which marks the earlier chapters. And then, corresponding with that, the principle of expansion. The Lord has said, “narrow the gate and straitened the way that leads to life”, Matthew 7:14.
Ques Would the principle of reduction be seen in this book till you come to Jericho?
JT Yes, and particularly in chapter 10. In that chapter we reach the full height of the progress which has been made, when you get heaven commanded by a man. What a wondrous extension of influence! One may judge, however, that he is not the man that obtains eminence in this world. It is rather the man as seen in Christ, and then a man in Christ as corresponding with Him. The sun and the moon stand still at Joshua’s word.
ENH Do you connect reduction with circumcision?
JT Well, all the facts attendant upon the passage of the Jordan involve reduction on the part of those who enter the land. First, we begin with Joshua himself, the leader of the people. We have to take him as representing all the saints and servants [p. 294] of the Lord; he also, in another sense, represents the Lord Himself. In the first chapter he is more a representative of the saints, particularly those who serve, or lead. So that he is referred to as “Moses’ attendant”. Moses is the servant; God says, “Moses my servant is dead”. Joshua is not to start out with the official garb of a servant, but just as an attendant. And we have got to start there, whether we be influential amongst the saints in service, or otherwise; the principle is to be second or less.
EM Do you mean that Joshua had to listen to, and be controlled by, what Moses said, as the servant of God?
JT Well, he had to bear in mind that he was not Moses, and that he did not occupy the same place in the service of God as Moses did; he was Moses’ attendant.
LM Would it be something similar to what Luke says of the disciples, that they were attendants of the Word?
JT Well, I think that accredited them more; they were eye witnesses and attendants of the Word. This is rather to bring down Joshua.
SJBC What we have here is the education of soul that Joshua went through to prepare him for his work.
JT That is right; and it indicates what we too have to go through. Take a man like Elisha; he had the spirit of Elijah, a doubt portion of it, we read; but nevertheless he was referred to as one that poured water on the hands of Elijah. You see those who are young are apt to rush forward (and we know what that impulse is in each of us), to take the first place; but in order to be there we must learn what it is to be second, to pour water on the hands of a man who is in the front rank. That, however, is not any very distinguished service, it is simply that you are an attendant upon him. Take [p. 295] John Mark for instance, when he was an “attendant” he had a great opportunity of shining in the service, for he was the immediate attendant upon Paul; but natural feeling arises from his relation with Barnabas, and he broke down through it. He had a great opportunity in that he was in such close relationship with the great apostle, and he started well.
SJBC Young Timotheus should be with old Paul.
JT The Levites were to start their service at the age of twenty five years; which meant that they had five years with the fully fledged Levites before they entered on their own distinctive service. It is thus the Lord would balance things amongst us, and keep us under restraint.
Ques Did that characterise Mark when he wrote the gospel?
JT Yes; he begins with the Son of God. That is where service should begin, with sonship — one’s dignity. If a servant is not greater than his service he is sure to attach himself to the dignity of the service. Now service begins with sonship. “Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God”, Mark 1:1. That is how Mark’s gospel begins. Then in the dignity of sonship you can be nothing; your service does not add to it.
HD'AC It works out in one’s service.
ENH And I suppose it is carried on in the same way as it begins.
JT I think it is. And the principle of reduction which you get in these earlier chapters is to bring us to that point, because in chapter 10 you have the full expansion. You cannot desire anything greater than you have, typically, in chapter 10.
SJBC Jehovah says to Joshua, “This day will I begin to magnify thee”, chapter 3:7. It would appear there was not the magnifying before that; he had to touch resurrection, and there was all the [p. 296] exercise through which he had to go before he reached it.
JM'G Would you say a word or two more as to what you mean by the principle of reduction?
JT Well, in the opening remarks to Joshua, it says: “After the death of Moses the servant of Jehovah, ... Jehovah spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ attendant (note the dignity that is attached to Moses), saying, Moses my servant is dead; and now, rise up, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, into the land which I give unto them, to the children of Israel”. He does not say, Now, you are going to fill his place; no, it is as much as to say, There is not anyone else, though Joshua was divinely appointed and selected; but in the opening remark Joshua was to be in his place relatively to Moses; there was no one like him in Israel, but he was not Moses; that had to be accepted.
JM Would secret exercises be necessary to bring that about?
JT Yes, but I think Joshua was equal to it; he had been truly an attendant on Moses. But then, on one occasion, when others were prophesying as well as Moses, he said, “My lord Moses, forbid them”. He was not equal to that incident.
SJBC He was only a young man then.
JT The principle to see was, that although God had Moses, He could take up others sovereignly. Joshua did not wish that. Nevertheless he was not a man equal to this. He had been with Moses on the mount. And when God told Moses that he should die, Moses said to the Lord, ‘Appoint one that will lead Israel in and out’. He did not say, Appoint another in Joshua. In beautiful submission to God, leaving it in God’s hands, he did not appoint a successor. Indeed there is no such thought anywhere in Scripture as apostolic succession. Service is on the ground of the sovereignty of God. It is the Lord who selects, and the Lord says, “take Joshua ... a man in whom is the Spirit”, Numbers 27:18. That is the qualification for his service; it is a question of spiritual leadership.
SJBC I suppose that no servant can just step into the shoes of one who has gone; he cannot be a replica, but he may be in line, and different characteristics come out in those whom the Lord raises up.
Ques Was the reduction to which you have referred complete when they compassed Jericho?
JT Well, in the first chapter we read that Joshua was the attendant of Moses; but work has to be done, so He says, ‘Arise and do it, the people have to go over Jordan’. The second chapter brings out what I think was humiliating, i.e., that the people of God, who were distinguished in the wilderness, having come out of Egypt, should now be dependent upon a disreputable woman in Jericho; that in their passage of the Jordan and their conquest of Canaan the link should be with a woman of no reputation in Canaan. But while publicly she is disreputable, privately she is with God; and she has got flax in her house.
HD'AC That is very interesting. Open it out, please.
JT What Mark comes back to, is a white robe; a young man at the sepulchre with a white robe; Mark 16. Earlier, in chapter 14, he mentions a young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, and the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked. The young man clothed with a white robe I think denotes that purity that should mark us personally; and I think the harlot had already begun to judge her previous course. That was all dealt with, and she had a link with God; she had the flax in her house, and it was spread out on her roof; she was going to make use [p. 298] of it. It was not yet in the form in which it could be used for a garment, but it was there.
That, I think, is a great principle in this section of Scripture: the absence of public dignity. We must learn to go down; the work is to be done, but it is going to be done according to God. Whatever the public reputation, we are concerned about the secret state. What is the state before God? Had you asked the king of Jericho, or any of the inhabitants of that city who knew this woman, their story about her would have been very different from that of the spies. But she had light in her soul. She says to the men: “I know that Jehovah has given you the land, and that the dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard that Jehovah dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and to Og, whom ye utterly destroyed”, and so on. She had light as to God and recognised that He was God of the heavens as well as of the earth.
SJBC We have in her statement a suggestion of the work of the Spirit in the saints, i.e., not only what God had done, but what ye have done.
JT Yes; she had light as to the death of Christ, and also what the Spirit had done in them. But on the other hand, we have to accept that she was a woman of low repute; as in Acts 8 we have to accept the person that God chooses. If God takes up an Ethiopian eunuch, we have to accept that. When Peter looked at what was in the sheet let down from heaven he discriminated; and he says, “I have never eaten anything common or unclean”, Acts 10:14; but the word to him was “What God has cleansed do not thou make common”, Acts 10:15.
TMG The sovereignty of God! And we have another example in the woman in John [p. 299] 4 — she was acceptable to God, although she had a bad history.
JT Quite so. And Peter says: “who indeed was I to be able to forbid God?” Acts 11:17. You cannot select your companions; you have to accept those whom God provides, and that brings down a lot of things in us.
Ques Would it be the same principle in the Lord Himself at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, when He comes out from Nazareth in Galilee to be baptised? It was a place of no repute.
JT I think so; His lowly connections are in view in Mark. It is the same principle. We are on the principle of reduction. To join that Man one had to give up a lot. The High Priest in Jerusalem, had he gone out to John, would have had to go into the same water as the most humble from Galilee.
Rem It is the principle of reduction, while the enemy is in the land. The enemy had to be reduced, but that could only be begun by those who had themselves been reduced.
JT Yes, I think so; you will find as we come up to chapter 10 that Gilgal is more prominent in that chapter than anywhere. You cannot choose your company; it is what God brings in. Whatever a person’s previous history may be, or his racial or social associations, all must go; Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water together; that is the position, the black man and the white man go down together.
TMG Would the stones in the Jordan indicate that? They were left in the bottom of the river.
JT I think that is very suggestive, they signify that all had been down there, and all are of the same dignity, as in the stones at Gilgal.
ENH I was thinking how Abraham and Rahab are both mentioned in the second chapter of James’ epistle.
JT Yes, they were both justified by works.
[p. 300] That brings out another feature; our public testimony puts us together. But the first principle is the sovereignty of God. You have to accept and take your place with those whom God sends. That deals with a lot of things. The sovereignty of God is one of the greatest principles in the Scriptures.
HD'AC The twelve had to know that, when Paul arose.
JT When the three representatives of the race, Ethiopian, Asiatic, and European, are set over against each other (Acts 8, Acts 9 and Acts 10), God takes the black man first, and he goes on his way rejoicing.
SJBC And in the epistle to the Hebrews, when the writer mentions Rahab’s name, he exclaims, “And what more do I say!” Hebrews 11:32. It is as if, after that, there is room for everyone.
Ques Would you say a little more as to this woman having flax in her house?
JT I think it is the element of purity. Linen is universally in Scripture a type of purity. It was in the making here, it was spread out on the roof, but it was enough to cover the spies.
Rem The work had begun.
Ques To refer for a moment to the young man in Mark 14 who followed the Lord — he lost his garment.
JT It was a cloth cast about his naked body; not a garment. A garment would characterise you, but a cloth flung over the naked body is a poor thing. The young man mentioned as sitting at the sepulchre in chapter 16, is not exposed, he is covered; he would be suggestive of Mark himself after he had learned his lesson. Whereas the young man in chapter 14 would indicate Mark before the lesson had been learned.
JM'G Would the flax on the roof indicate the earlier exercise in the history of Rahab’s soul?
JT Yes.
RM'B Would the first connecting link in her [p. 301] soul be brought about by the tidings she had heard, that the waters of the Red Sea were dried up before the people of God, when they came out of Egypt?
JT No doubt. “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with the unbelieving, having received the spies in peace”, Hebrews 11:31. That is how she is referred to, then she sent them forth another way. She used spiritual discrimination. Not to send them the ordinary way marks a person of faith; she justified the Lord in His work. He acts not in the ordinary way, His is a new way.
Ques Would you call that progress in faith or spirituality?
JT It is spirituality. Now, the third chapter brings in the passage of the Jordan itself.
SJBC Before going on to chapter 3, would you say a word about the scarlet line?
JT I think it indicates public confession.
SJBC Would it be on the same line as the Gentile getting shelter from judgment?
JT Well, it is not quite the same thought. Joshua or Caleb, or anyone passing by that house during the seven days in which they were compassing the city, and seeing the cord in the window, would say, We have a link there. There is a connection in the scarlet line with Rahab’s act of faith in sending the spies away.
HD'AC In the scarlet line I think her house was protected as by the royal flag. She had got courage to put it up.
SJBC So Rahab is brought in, in the Royal line recorded in Matthew’s gospel.
JT Quite so, and then James links her on with Abraham. It is a beautiful touch, showing how the sovereignty of God links persons together; in this case it was one having the greatest possible standing, religiously, and the other none at all.
[p. 302] Ques Had the woman all this exercise before they crossed the Jordan?
JT Yes, she had the light of it in her soul; she anticipated the crossing of the Jordan by the people of God.
HH You were going to speak of the passage of the Jordan, but I think what has been said is very important, because it shows how the flesh is brought to nothing. One has got to accept such people as Rahab; if God had cleansed them, you cannot call them common or unclean.
JT Yes; we cannot make our selection. If God cleanses people they must be cleansed. And God designs that those whom He has selected are to bring down the flesh in us. See 1 Corinthians 1: 26.
JM So the sovereignty of God must be recognised amongst us. From the beginning He has acted sovereignly, and He calls whom He will.
JT Yes. James says, “Ye have despised the poor”, James 2:6. You may do that, but, you see, you are calling in question the rights of God, and He resents that.
Rem The Lord accepted one to minister to Him, out of whom He had cast seven demons.
JT I think, as has been remarked before, the woman in John 4 is a typical woman; she takes up the service while the twelve were away buying bread in the town, and when they came back they “wondered that he spoke with a woman”, John 4:27. I have often thought of that I think it shows the unspiritual state in which they were; and this woman becomes the vessel of service, she goes to the men and tells them about the Lord. The apostles should have been doing that, but they were not. She does it. So the Lord brings out that great truth, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”, John 4:34. That was the situation then.
HD'AC Rahab’s house was on the wall, it was in a public position.
WL What would the thread in the window indicate?
JT It was her part of the contract. It was where it could be seen as the city was compassed. It was the evidence of a faith already proved by works, for Rahab had put forth the spies by another way. The third chapter brings out the distance that was to separate the people from the ark — two thousand cubits.
JM What is your thought about that?
JT It is the greatness of Christ and their littleness. Think of the greatness of Christ! “How wilt thou then do in the swelling of the Jordan?” Jeremiah 12:5. You have got to stand there and see what He did. Death would swallow you up altogether.
Ques The distance did not exist between the priests and the ark?
JT But the priests are simply a type; they are, as it were, an integral part of the ark. It had to be carried. Think of the holiness in which the Lord went into death; the priests were there to carry the ark, but His feet carried Him into death. In the two synoptic gospels the Lord is anointed on the head, but in John, Mary anoints His feet; because those feet were going to carry Him into death. “I have power to lay down my life”, He says. He did it in infinite holiness. “Against the day of my burying hath she kept this”, John 12:7. She saw He was going into death Himself. He says, No one taketh my life from me, I lay it down of myself.
SJBC There is another thought in connection with the priests, the people went through dry shod, but the feet of the priests touched the water.
JT That is the Lord Himself; He went into it, and as soon as He touched it, it fled. “What ailed thee, thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan,
that thou turnedst back?” Psalm 114: 5. As soon as His feet touched death, death fled.
EM Why are the Red Sea and Jordan brought together in that scripture?
JT It is death in both. I think death as the judgment of God on man, is typified in the Red Sea; and death in the hands of Satan to prevent people from entering on their inheritance is set forth in Jordan. Jordan is more the “last enemy”, death itself, Satan in his own stronghold. That is what the Lord faced in Gethsemane. It is not only God’s judgment on man, but Satan had the power of it. “What ailed thee thou sea? ... and thou Jordan?” Psalm 114:5. There was no sight of it. The Red Sea fled, it was in view, but Jordan was driven back; it was out of sight as a testimony. It is the complete annihilation of death.
TMG It could not stand before Him.
JT It could not. Well, the people had to stand at a distance of two thousand cubits from the ark.
WW He must in all things have the pre-eminence.
JT Solemn respect for Christ enters into the two thousand cubits. It is a question of His Person, while He is dealing with death; we can have no part in that. We have association with Him in heaven as out of death. At this point the thing is to humbly stand and contemplate.
Rem The Lord went into death alone.
JT He did; and the distance between the ark and the people, being literally considerable, emphasises that.
HD'AC There are no priests mentioned in verse 11, only the ark of the covenant.
JT That brings the Lord definitely before us.
JM As in Gethsemane.
JT We have to look at it in a worshipping spirit. What could you do in the swelling of Jordan,
[p. 305] when it was entirely in the hand of Satan? Jordan is not now in the hand of Satan. Death is ours now. It has lost its force entirely for faith. Now you are put asleep “through Jesus”, which is a very different thing.
Ques Would this thought have a bearing upon what we were considering yesterday afternoon, in connection with the breaking of bread?
JT Well, the light of it should be present with us. The Lord dealt with death; we see the power with which He disposed of it. The Psalms are a great help in that way, because they show how men of faith took account of the Pentateuch. The Psalmist took account of this incident, and he speaks of it in triumph. He says, it was the presence of the Lord that did it; Psalm 114.
Ques Why is it said here that Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest? Do we learn from it that the power of death was never greater than when the Lord died, and Satan brought it to bear upon Him?
JT It was the time of harvest; the Lord said, “Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest”, John 4:35. That is, God had been sowing through all the centuries, and now the harvest was in view.
SJBC Mr. Darby has said that death is a most powerful weapon when it is wielded in the right.
JT It is given to us; it is like Goliath’s sword in David’s possession.
HD'AC The waters saw them and were afraid; and they are afraid still. What can they do against the saints?
Rem The thought of the Lord going down into death works on the line of reduction.
JT I think nothing brings one down more than to contemplate the Lord, and compare Him with oneself in that way. That is the test in the book of Job. Job had a man’s conception of himself; he says, “I sat as chief, and dwelt as a king in the army”, Job 29:25 and so on. So God enters the lists with him to bring him down, and He accomplishes this by calling his attention to the vastness of the creation; with the result that Job says, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent eye dust and ashes”, Job 42:5,6. But now when we think of the Lord becoming Man, and going into death, bringing down the strongholds of Satan, how deeply it affects us! Nothing would surely reduce one more than that.
TMG That would suggest the second chapter of Philippians.
JT Yes, it would.
PSP The Ark is referred to a number of times in chapter 3. In verse 3 it is mentioned as the “ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God”; in verses 6 and 8 it is the “ark of the covenant”; and then in verse 11 “the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth”. Would you say a word on that?
JT Well, I think the question of the Lord’s proprietary rights enter into verse 11: “the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God”brings in Himself. Then “the ark of the covenant” is God’s disposition towards them.
ENH “The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth” brings in His sovereignty, to give the land to whom He will.
JT Yes. In Revelation they give glory to “the God of heaven”; but the point is that He is going to take possession of the earth. The earth is His footstool, and He is not going to give up His footstool. The proprietary rights are His, and He is going to take up everything on that ground. Mark’s testimony is to the creation. “Preach the glad tidings”, (Mark 16:15) the Lord says, “to all the creation”, Mark 16:15. It is a question of God’s rights in the creation.
Rem And it is still God’s creation, He has the right to it.
JT Joshua 3 answers to Colossians, it brings forward resurrection. Then in chapter 4 the stones are taken out of Jordan, and stones are set up in Jordan. That chapter brings out what Christ is in resurrection, and what we are with Him. Now you might say, The flesh is left behind; but chapter 5:5 explains that all the people that were born in the wilderness, on the way, after they came out of Egypt, had not been circumcised. They were therefore then circumcised — the reproach was rolled away — and the Passover was kept at Gilgal. Circumcision is that all that attaches to me after the flesh must go. What dignified you in the wilderness is a reproach to you now.
EM There was no command given to set up the stones in the centre of Jordan. We read that Joshua did it.
JT Well, I think it is the mind of God that there should be a testimony to the fact that Christ has been down there; and He has been down there representatively. It is somewhat like His hands and His side — a testimony that He bears in His body, to the fact that He has been down there for us. “He shewed to them his hands and his side”, John 20:20.
SJBC Would the bearing of the stones by the twelve be on a line with Mary anointing the feet of Jesus?
JT Yes.
Rem The twelve stones in Jordan would be still on the line of reduction.
PSP Would you say that wherever there is reduction, there is commensurate encouragement? It is noticeable that in chapter 1, three or four times over, the Lord says to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous”; and then in chapter 3 He says to him, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee”. Then after the crossing of the Jordan we read, “Jehovah magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel”.
Ques What is the thought conveyed by being circumcised the second time?
JT I think it is to emphasise that any Egyptian feature or characteristic is a reproach in the assembly, or in the land. The second time indicates that some of them had been circumcised before; and I think it would suggest that what might have passed muster in the wilderness, and may have been allowed, must go now. A point has been reached in your history when you must not allow anything of that sort. You will notice that in Colossians circumcision comes before baptism. Historically, baptism — that is, the passage of the Red Sea — comes first; but the great feature of circumcision is the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. Some of it may have been allowed in the wilderness, but now there is not a vestige of it to be left. You are now down on the same level as the eunuch; you have not anything more than he has, but you have as much. Paul says, I am “less than the least of all saints”, Ephesians 3:8. That is the full thought of circumcision. It is a wonderful thing to be able to say, especially when we know the man who said it; he had not a thing to distinguish him. Philippians answers to it: “If any other think to trust in flesh I rather: ... but what things were gain to me, these I counted, on account of Christ, loss”, Philippians 3:4,7. He says, I do not count them of any value, that I may have part in the resurrection and stand on that platform with Christ.
Rem Then the getting rid of what distinguished me here as a man in the wilderness is my own action. That is [p. 309] circumcision.
JT We are to make sharp knives. The thing was of long growth, and it is imperative that it should go. Things cling to us, and sharp knives are necessary.
JPG Things do not drop off like autumn leaves.
JM The apostle in the epistle had that light in his soul. How would you apply it now?
JT “But far be it from me”, he says, “to boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world”, Galatians 6:14.
JM Do we touch now on what we were speaking of yesterday, i.e., going over with Christ in a spiritual way in the assembly? We know very well we cannot go over if there is anything of flesh attached to us.
JT Quite so. The chapter goes on to bring in food. The manna ceases, and you are living on the old corn of the land. Then there is a further reducing principle, there stood a man over against Joshua with his sword drawn in his hand; “and Joshua went unto him and said unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries?” That expression “for us” is a dangerous one. The disciples said to the Lord: “He follows not with us”, Luke 9:49; and yet he cast out demons. It is dangerous ground to take. The man with the drawn sword replied, “Nay, but as captain of the host of Jehovah am I now come”. It is not us now, it is Jehovah’s host. You come to apprehend the Lord as being in complete control of Jehovah’s host; and you have got to leave it to Him, as to who is included in that host.
TMG “The Lord knows those that are his”, 2 Timothy 2:19.
JT You recognise Jehovah’s host, and you come to it that He may have forces that you have not counted on at all. The point is for you to take your place, “Loose thy sandal from off thy foot”. That may be humiliating, but you have to learn what you are.
[p. 310] Ques It is a matter of individual soul experience. Do we get the principle in Naaman? He had to go down seven times.
JT Just so; he had to give up all his greatness.
LM Would it correspond with what we have in Leviticus 14? There were certain conditions connected with the cleansing of the leper; he was to wash his clothes and shave off his hair, and s on.
JT Yes, and it finally came to shaving his face, beard and eyebrows. In dealing with sin, all has to go; whether cedars of Lebanon or hyssop, the principle with God is that all must go. But now, when you come to Jehovah’s host, it is for Him to determine who is included in the host; you cannot limit it, you take a place in subjection. If I say, “Art thou for us?” that limits Him to us, and is a false principle. You cannot limit the Lord.
TMG That would be on party lines.
SJBC “He that is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30); that would be the principle that should control our judgment as to ourselves. And “he who is not against us is for us” (Mark 4:40) that should actuate our judgment as to others.
JT The Lord is Captain of Jehovah’s host; and if demons are cast out in His name, well, it indicates that He is recognised.
SJBC “He who is not against us is for us”, (Mark 4:40) would lead us to hope for the best and be lenient with others, and leave them with the Lord; but we must be unsparing in our judgment of ourselves, “he that is not with me is against me”, Matthew 12:30. There is no neutral ground.
Ques Has the two thousand cubits distance from the Ark to be measured spiritually?
JT I think so. It means the distance between you and Christ, and that is a very great distance.
Ques Is it because of His going into death as a Man, that there must be that [p. 311] distance?
JT His Person is before you. No one could do it but Himself. John uses the word ‘contemplate’; you contemplate; you see what happens. The apostle says, “we have contemplated his glory”, John 1:14; they saw wondrous things, they could not but feel the distance.
TMG “Alone He bore the cross, Alone its grief sustained, His was the shame and loss, And He the victory gained”, (308:2).
PSP That distance has to be measured; it could never be shortened.
JT Quite so. Chapter 5 brings in another principle of reduction, and we find there the Captain of Jehovah’s host.