BROOKLYN, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1906
BROOKLYN, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1906
Mr. H. H. Harman.
My Dear Brother, — Your letter dated August 17th was duly received, and I should have replied to it sooner were it not that I have been greatly pressed for time.
Judging by certain statements and quotations which you make, I am disposed to think that, in the main, you hold pretty much what I do on the subjects you are dealing with; save that I lay stress on certain features which you would tend to minimise or ignore entirely. Speaking of the kingdom, you say: ‘It means direction and guidance from the hand of the Lord as well as the support of the Spirit of God for the believer’. Then you quote from some one: ‘The kingdom involves two things: the preaching of a sphere of power and blessing ... . The power and blessing were brought in by Jesus when here; power delivers from evil, Satan and death’. These statements convey substantially what I understand as to the kingdom, and what they contain forms the basis of all I have said in the Notes to which you so strongly object. But you add to the first remark: ‘The truth of it (the kingdom) is essentially individual’. Here I cannot say that I concur, for the statement is scarcely intelligible. In the quotation you give the kingdom is said to be ‘a sphere of power and blessing’.
[p. 53] A sphere is not an individual. The realisation of it, as of every truth, is individual, but the ‘sphere of power and blessing’ must be there before it can be realised or entered into. This sphere existed when the Lord was here by the fact of His presence, and now that He has gone to heaven it is maintained here by the Holy Spirit. It is remarkable that the Lord explains (Matthew 12) that the proof that the kingdom had come was that He cast out devils by the Spirit of God. This passage helps greatly to a true understanding of the import of the kingdom of God: it stands connected with a divine Person here on earth, while the kingdom of heaven involves more authority vested in Christ in heaven. It was the former that was in view mainly in the Notes, and this is the reason why the church is referred to so much, as being the vessel in which the Spirit has been active, since the Lord went on high. During the Woodstock meetings, Matthew 13 was a good deal on my mind, and the kingdom there is presented as a sphere here on earth, out of which, at the end, the “tares” are taken. It did not occur to me that anyone would suspect that the heavenly side was doubted, otherwise it would have been made more prominent, although it is maintained throughout.
But I must refer to some of your remarks in detail.
You say (page 1), ‘What struck me, in going through this reading of yours on the kingdom, was the entire absence of any reference to its having been established in the Lord Jesus Christ at God’s right hand in heaven’. You could not have read very carefully or you would have seen that the kingdom is said to be established in Christ, and that Christ is said to have ascended above all heavens. If you look at page 8 you will find this statement: ‘It is a question of what is established in Jesus our Lord as risen from the dead;’ and on page 11 the kingdom is said to involve ‘His ascension far above all heavens’. Hence you were struck with the absence of something that was really present! I have wondered whether you have been struck with the fact that the apostle in writing to the Romans about the kingdom (chapter 5, which was the chapter under consideration at the reading in question), does not say that it was established in Christ in heaven. The word ‘heaven’ occurs but twice in the whole epistle, and in neither instance is it connected with the kingdom. But in saying this I only wish to call attention to the manner in which things are presented in Scripture; I do not mean to weaken the truth that [p. 54] the kingdom is established in Christ in heaven — which is taught in the ‘Notes’, as I have pointed out.
On page 2 of your letter you labour energetically to make out that I put the saints in the place of Christ in the proclamation of the gospel, quoting: ‘The gospel refers much more to what is down here than to what is in heaven’. Now, in saying this I did not have the proclamation in my mind at all; I was referring simply to the things alluded to in the gospel, such as the kingdom, house, salvation, etc., all of which I hold to be here in connection with the presence of the Holy Spirit. If the thought of the proclamation did enter my mind it was expressed in the remark which immediately follows the one mentioned above so as to guard it: ‘It is true that Christ is the Theme’. Did you attach its proper value to this remark, and to another which appears on the same page ( ‘The great theme of the apostles was that these wonderful things had come to pass through the humble Nazarene, whom the Jews had crucified, but whom God had raised up and exalted to His right hand’ ), you could never have asked me such a question as ‘Have the saints died for me?’ Neither could you treat as you do my remark: ‘God’s intervention is in the saints’. You deal with this statement as if it were the only one I had made: you attach a meaning to it which is utterly at variance with its context. How could I mean by ‘intervention’ anything absolute or primary, when I say in ‘the same breath’ that Christ is the Theme of the gospel and that all these wonderful things for men had been brought to pass by Him? I was simply stating the historical fact presented in the Acts: the Lord Jesus Christ had gone to the right hand of God, having accomplished the work of redemption; but humanity (save the few in the upper room at Jerusalem) was still in darkness, and captive to Satan. How did God meet this condition of things? By the light and power consequent on the incoming of the Holy Spirit to the 120. Who dares to deny this? He who does speaks injuriously against the Holy Spirit. But all this light and power in the Spirit down here is consequent on the precious atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His exaltation to the right hand of God; and in the proclamation of the gospel I should present Him, and Him alone, as the One in whom God has intervened for the deliverance and blessing of men. But although I said I did not have the proclamation in my mind in speaking of the things referred [p. 55] to in the gospel, yet I do not admit that any restrictions can be placed on the preacher as to what he may present in testimony. In writing to the Romans Paul presents the gospel: he presents the righteousness and power of God, which are seen respectively in the death and resurrection of Christ; and consequent on these, things are seen as administered through our Lord Jesus Christ, which involves the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us, ending in eternal life — the field covered is large. Then in writing to the Ephesians the apostle says, “To me ... has this grace been given, to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ, and to enlighten all (with the knowledge of) what is the administration of the mystery” (Ephesians 3: 8, 9). Here the glad tidings “announced” are of “riches” of Christ, of which the church surely forms a part, indeed it is what is immediately before the apostle here. He had said to the Corinthians that Christ was the wisdom of God, but here the all-various wisdom is to be seen by beings in the heavenlies in the assembly. Hence we see that although Christ was ever the theme of Paul’s preaching, yet he ‘referred’ to things which are actually down here in what he announced.
But the relation of the church to salvation is what more particularly demands attention. What I would say at the outset is, that we must be prepared to admit the force of all Scripture in regard to any subject under consideration if we are to get the mind of God as to it. Every scripture is “profitable for doctrine”. Hence the instruction in the Old Testament relative to Jerusalem, or Zion, has to be taken into account in connection with the question of salvation. It is not that they typify the assembly exactly, but we have to ‘compare’ things, and every one instructed by the Spirit would recognise that nothing in the way of power or blessing is predicted of Jerusalem or Zion that is not applicable also to the assembly. Glorious things were spoken of Jerusalem, and the Songs of Degrees show that it was the great objective of the exercised remnant of Israel. Psalm 133 is the climax — there the blessing is commanded; and in Psalm 134 we get “The Lord ... bless thee out of Zion”. Then, as to salvation we read in Isaiah 46: 13, “I will place salvation in Zion;” and Isaiah 60: 18, “Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation” (see also Psalm 48). Now, if we compare all this with Acts 2 we readily see that what marked Jerusalem in an external way was realised in a [p. 56] spiritual sense in the assembly. God was dwelling in it, hence security against evil and blessing were to be found there. Instead of finding salvation in Jerusalem, as they will be in a future day, the remnant of Israel found it in the assembly: “The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2: 47). But, of course, before being added each one had to have faith in the Lord as presented to him in the gospel; as Peter says, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2: 38). I would add that in speaking of salvation from this point of view, I do not, of course, include deliverance from coming wrath, or the lake of fire. I am speaking of it as it is to be realised at the present time, and the believer always has the knowledge that on account of his faith in Christ he will not come into judgment.
The contradiction which you think you have discovered in my statements as to living water, disappears when the statements are carefully examined. The first, ‘the believer was to be the source of supply’, is simply the Lord’s own remark, as recorded in John 7: 38, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”, only in other words, for no thoughtful person would deny for a moment that rivers may be a source of supply to those who need water. But although rivers may be a source of supply to those who need water, they are not their own source: a city may get its supply of water from a river, but the source of the river may be hundreds of miles away in some lake or mountain-spring. This latter is what I had in my mind when I said that Christ is the Source and Giver of living water. The water comes from Christ in glory to the believer, and from him it flows out as rivers. But it must be remembered that John 7 contemplates the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (”the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified”), and that consequently all who have received Him since have received Him as thus here. In Acts 10, indeed, it says that He was poured out on the Gentiles, but it does not say that He was poured out from heaven. Whatever may be said as to the effects of the Spirit in the believer being living water (which I admit fully), John 7 is conclusive that it is the Holy Spirit Himself. “This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive”. It is, however, the Spirit in a certain character, i.e. as in man, and so adaptable to the need of the human heart. But the living [p. 57] water as given by Christ to the believer according to John 4 and 7 is the Holy Spirit.
Your comments on my expression, ‘Sinners come in afterwards’, have no force at all, as the context shows that I only used the word ‘sinners’ as covering a class of persons who had stood in need of the gospel, and, being affected by it, come into the house of God. The apostle Paul referred to himself as a sinner long after he had been converted — “sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1: 15).
I do not proceed further, save to say that in seeking to make my meaning clear I am not assuming that my expressions are faultless, which I am not, as you may know, from acknowledgments which I have elsewhere made.
Affectionately yours in the Lord,
James Taylor.
PS — As to my remark that a man after being enlightened by the presentation of Christ glorified to him has an aching heart, what I had in mind was a certain state of soul that is apparent in every part of ‘evangelical’ Christendom — souls enlightened by a certain kind of preaching and then allowed to go adrift. As you must be aware of this state of things as having to do with souls, I am surprised that you object so strongly to what I said. Besides, Scripture supposes that a man may have light as to Christ and yet not have the Holy Spirit. I need not cite the passages. — J.T.