READINGS ON EZEKIEL (4)
[p. 232] READINGS ON EZEKIEL (4)
Ezekiel 16: 60 - 63; Ezekiel 20: 34 - 44
JT These chapters, I thought, call attention to the covenant. I think that the Lord will help us in seeing the applicability of this prophecy to our own times, both in regard to its scathing denunciations of what marks the apostasy around us, and then its appeal to the remnant, especially in regard to what belongs to the whole assembly, for chapter 16 goes back to the beginning of Jerusalem’s history. In verse 6 it says, “And I passed by thee, and saw thee weltering in thy blood, I said unto thee, in thy blood, Live! yea, I said unto thee in thy blood, Live! I caused thee to multiply, as the bud of the field; and thou didst increase and grow great”. Then verse 60 reverts to the covenant made; so that it would apply to our own times. We have come into what the early saints had, that is, we have come into the good of the covenant.
FL We were saying the last time that the introduction of the remnant helps greatly all through, and what is before us here. A remnant is not the fag-end of something, but in the divine ways, it is the depositary of the original, as in the mind of God, it cherishes, secures and preserves that which is precious to God, and carries it through. In regard to what you are saying now, it helps, do you not think, to see the introduction of the remnant in that way? The thought of the new covenant is taken up and made good at the end; although it had disappeared for the greater part of the period of the assembly’s history.
JT That, I think, is how these chapters take account of the situation. You discern the importance of the covenant at this juncture, because it leads up to the great end that God has before Him. We have [p. 233] in this prophet a city at the end, and a house. The house is to be filled with the glory of God. If the heavenly city is to come down from God out of heaven, having the glory of God, it must be invested with the glory, and I think that is the place that the covenant holds; the remnant is to be invested with the glory morally, that is, by divine teaching the saints come to know the heart of God and the heart of Christ.
ARS Is this covenant the same as the new covenant?
JT In verse 60 it says, “I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth”, etc. Literally, it refers to what was made at mount Horeb, but spiritually it refers — for us — to the covenant that the early saints of the present dispensation entered into. It is the same covenant; we have to do with no other; 2 Corinthians 3.
ARS It is the new covenant in His blood.
JT The Lord’s supper reminds us of it. In chapter 16: 8 it says, “And I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, and behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness; and I swore unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord Jehovah, and thou becamest mine”. There you see the thing — how God entered into covenant relationship with His people at the outset. It was the time of love. It was when love existed and operated that the covenant was made.
FL The Lord never forgot that period to which He refers in these verses; there doubtless had been a response; so He says, “I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth”. The interval had been full of corruption, rebellion, and repudiation of all the infinite grace of God, but He comes back to it, “I will remember my covenant”. They had proved false, but God remains true.
[p. 234] BTF Would you say that this scripture recalls the saints to the force of the new covenant as given and responded to in the early days?
JT That, I think, is what has come about. In reading a scripture like this, our concern is to make a present application of it. The Lord gives us a lead in reading the scripture in the synagogue of Nazareth. It was not to unfold the prophetic word but to make a present application of it; and so he says, having read it, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”, Luke 4: 21. It is in that way the value of the Scriptures becomes apparent; a present application of them may be made; the Lord says, “Today”. Therefore, the value of this scripture to us is, that we can make a present application of it. “No prophecy of scripture is had from its own particular interpretation” (2 Peter 1: 20); therefore to make an application of this scripture to our own times enables us to see that God has come back to the covenant, that is to say, He has brought the saints to see that He loves them, to the end that they should love Him. Unless God brings about love for Himself in our hearts He has no dwelling-place; He dwells only in love.
CAM You refer to the covenant in connection with the city; there seems to be a direct connection, is that right?
JT I think that is right. Really the city is the subject of this chapter; the address is to Jerusalem, not to Israel.
CAM The idea of the city being “a mother” for instance, would show that covenant is connected with the city.
JT Quite. It has been remarked that the city according to God is the product of the covenant; and that is perfectly obvious in the heavenly city, because in order to have the glory with which she comes down, she must first be invested with it; and [p. 235] it lies in the understanding of the covenant, or of the love of God. The Gentiles were brought into relationship with God collectively. It is to be noted that they were not brought in severally. Primarily the thought was they were to be brought in collectively, as seen in Cornelius and his company. Like the prodigal, they were greeted with the expression of love; as Peter yet spoke to them, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, corresponding with the embrace of the prodigal. The Holy Spirit held them, so that they were builded together; as it says in Ephesians 3, “In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. So that the city, including the Gentiles, is invested with the glory, in the knowledge of the love of God.
DMR Would it be right to say the Lord revives His love?
JT Well, that is what is in view, because the espousal is, I think, with Jerusalem. She was deposed but the truth of the assembly’s relation with Christ from the Gentile standpoint, is revived, and God is embracing us, as it were, with the covenant.
AP Are we recovered to the covenant, or by it?
JT Both are true.
ARS Was not the first covenant made in connection with the deluge? Then God makes a covenant with Israel, and they break it; then there is the new covenant, so that there are three covenants.
JT Well, there was one made with Adam.
FL And one with Abraham and his family, and another with the house of David.
JT There was a covenant made with Adam, but those that come in for fulfilment are taken note of later, as the covenant made with Noah. In Revelation 4, what strikes you is that it retains its freshness, because the rainbow is like an emerald, or green, green being generally the evidence of life or freshness; so that whatever man may think of the rainbow, it [p. 236] sets forth the faithfulness of God in sending rain and sunshine, and giving fruitful seasons. God confirms what He is — love, and never ceases to be love; so that the bringing in of the rainbow in connection with the throne in Revelation 4, reverts to Genesis 9, showing that it is as fresh as at first.
FL It might be said of the rainbow that the apex of it is where Christ sits.
JT At sea you sometimes see them: they make complete half circles from the horizon; so that you see that what is in the heart of God is available for man on earth.
FL So it is very suggestive that the covenant is taken up in the Lord’s supper: “The new covenant in my blood”, 1 Corinthians 11: 25. We are constantly under the warmth and influence of it.
JT We see in the early part of this chapter how wonderfully Jerusalem was beautified. God Himself had beautified her. In verse 10 it says, “I clothed thee with embroidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I bound thee about with byssus, and covered thee with silk”. In verse 14: “And thy fame went forth among the nations for thy beauty; for it was perfect through my magnificence, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord Jehovah”. We see there, I think, analogously what the assembly was as a testimony. We do not look for that now; but we have before us what the divine thought was; and God would bring us back to the love which made possible that testimony.
CAM That beauty relates to the bringing of us back.
JT God had put His own beauty on the assembly.
ARS You have in Ephesians the presentation of the assembly to Himself.
JT God has brought the saints back to the covenant; and whilst it is very small and insignificant outwardly, the end in view is the heavenly city. The [p. 237] saints are being invested with the glory in a moral way, by the knowledge of God and of Christ being brought into our souls by the Spirit.
DMR So that the first fifty-nine verses are in the way of warning.
JT That is right. He says, “And thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; thou also and thy daughters, ye shall return to your former estate”. There is no possibility or hope of recovery on the natural line. It is a question of their former state, but verse 60 reverts to the sovereignty of God and with the results on that line.
BTF You could not speak of the glory leaving the house now, as spoken of in the early chapters.
JT In a way these chapters contemplate Christendom historically. God has left the thing publicly; His relationship with the public body is severed; but these chapters allude to a new relationship. In chapter 43 the glory of God came from the east and filled the house; corresponding with the recovery to first principles which God has graciously given to us, in the maintenance of which His presence is known. This leads on to the heavenly city.
ARS What we have here is really said about Israel, but you are applying it to the assembly.
JT Yes, in an analogous way. The Lord says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”, Luke 4: 21. If there is not any fulfilment in our ears, we do not get the present application, which every scripture should have. Whilst God clothed the saints in the early days with the thoughts of His magnificence and glory, we are now to be occupied with His love; as for the magnificence of things, we have to wait for that; it will be displayed in the heavenly city. In the meanwhile we are being [p. 238] invested with the glory; it is coming into our souls by the gain of the new covenant.
ARS Well, that is very good; but we used to think that these things were only for the Jews.
ANW The new covenant will be made with the Jews, but the application of it is to us.
JT It is brought to us, for instance, in 2 Corinthians. It is alluded to in the Lord’s supper in the first epistle, but it is opened up to us, in the spirit of it, in the second epistle.
TA Romans 5 also gives us the new covenant.
JT It is not only a matter of light, but the knowledge of God in your heart.
CAM “I passed by thee”; what was He looking for?
JT The reference is to Jerusalem in her early days; she was then attractive to Him. Jehovah said, “Here will I dwell, for I have desired it”, Psalm 133: 14. She shall come into this later, as the Canticles show; that book fits in prophetically with Israel. She comes to see that His desire is towards her.
WB-w He saw her weltering in her blood: “And I said unto thee, in thy blood, Live! yea, I said unto thee, in thy blood, Live!”
JT No doubt it refers to the great Exodus from Egypt, but I think it especially refers to His relations with Jerusalem. In verse 3 it says, “Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite”. That was what she was historically. He found her in her natural nakedness. There was nothing there, but as passing by her He spread His skirt over her, entered into a covenant with her, and she became His. Then He washed and anointed her, and clothed her, and she became exceedingly beautiful. Jerusalem shall come into all this again.
WB-w In chapter 20 it is “the house of Israel”.
JT Oh yes, I was speaking of chapter 16. Chapter 20 is wider; verse 1 says, “And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of Jehovah, and they sat before me”. It is the whole nation now, and represented in those responsible: the elders of Israel. They point to general responsibility.
DMR Chapter 16 goes back to the beginning, before they left Egypt.
JT Yes, it refers to the people being taken out of Egypt. We have in this the suggestion of a revival. Jerusalem is a later thought. Although it appears in Exodus 15, historically it came in much later. It was in the mind of God from the beginning that He would plant them in the land of His inheritance.
JS So that complete recovery would be in the sense of having God dwelling with us.
JT Yes, the end of this prophecy is, “Jehovah is there”. He is there to remain. As He finds a place in our hearts. He would make us know that He would dwell there permanently.
FL There are two things that in applying all this, will be of immense help to us. Christ glorified as Head has come into view, and the Holy Spirit is here to make this effectual; there is no idea of breakdown or anything of that sort.
JT God having come in for recovery, the heavenly city is the ultimate result of that; but we are being invested with the glory now. It is a very great thing to see this because it shows what is going on.
CAM John reaches the city in the Revelation; but the dwelling here would rather be in his gospel.
JT That is a very good suggestion, because it opens up to us the place that John’s gospel has. One of the first things in that gospel is the idea of dwelling: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. You see in the way He dwelt what the divine thought of dwelling is. The next thing is, “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. There you see the Son’s relations with the Father. Then the revelation is by the One who is in the bosom of the Father. John opens it up in that way by calling attention to the idea of dwelling in love; and those who are drawn to Christ, by John’s ministry make enquiry, “Where abidest thou?”; showing that the light which came to them was in accord with the suggestion in the gospel, “And they abode with him that day”. In chapter 14, which refers to the public breakdown, we have the idea of dwelling with those who keep the word of Christ. The Father and the Son come to him and make their abode with him, so that we thus learn what the abiding place is, because the heavenly city is to be that.
FL So that the generation of the saints as “sons of light”, comes in in chapter 12 of John; and the place into which Christ has entered is presented objectively in chapter 14, and finds an answer in us subjectively in what the Lord says: “My Father will love him, and we will come to him and will make our abode with him”, that is here and now.
JT Quite.
Rem So that the glory has begun. It is the knowledge of God that makes that real now.
JT Quite so. There are two references to the Father’s house. The first is in John 2, and has reference to the past; the second is in chapter 14, which has reference to the future. These things are brought in in order to emphasise the breakdown of the official thing. You get what is vital when you think of the Father. The Father loves those who keep Christ’s word.
AP In chapter 8 of John the woman is invested with the covenant.
JT [p. 241] Yes, I think so. The Lord came into the temple from the mount of Olives; every one having previously gone to his own home, would show that His resort was with heaven. He came in from that point and sat down and taught the people. Then they bring the woman to Him and accuse her, and He stoops down twice. The first writing puts them all out as convicted in their consciences; the second retains the woman. He then asks her: “where are those thine accusers? Has no one condemned thee?” She said, “No one, sir”. Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more”. The second writing on the ground would refer to His own death; that was where He declared God. He was in the attitude of teaching “all the people” in the temple when her accusers brought her before Him; then later you get that the Son abides in the House forever, and that if He makes you free, you are really free; I think that liberation is in the knowledge of the love of God in the covenant.
JS The teaching there would show us the great value of His death.
JT Yes, indeed.
TA The first writing had reference to the tables of stone.
JT Yes, by law is the knowledge of sin. That convicted the accusers in their consciences; but then all the precious light was shining for them as for the woman, but they went out, whilst she remained.
TA Are the two writings in connection with the two covenants?
WB-w Is the old covenant exposed in chapter 5 at the pool of Bethesda?
JT Yes; there was no power in it. In chapter 8 there was wonderful light for anyone that could see.
ANW The first writing was with His finger, but the second was not exactly that. What about it?
JT [p. 242] There is no doubt the finger pointed to the writing of the law in the tables of stone.
ANW He went lower in writing the second than the first.
ARS The first writing would refer to the law, and the second to His death.
JT Yes, I think so, hence the expression, “By law is knowledge of sin”, Romans 3: 20.
FL The second writing would suggest the writing in the heart. It is brought in in that connection in 2 Corinthians 3. What is written in the fleshly tables of the heart is indelibly there.
JT I think it is well to see the woman is respectful, she says, “sir”.
WB-w We are being invested with the glory now.
JT That is what I understand.
WB-w How does it work out now?
JT The city comes down from God out of heaven “having the glory of God. Her shining was like a most precious stone, as a crystal-like jasper stone”. But that is being brought about now. All the education and formation go on now. That is what the Lord is doing now by the Spirit: “from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”, 2 Corinthians 3: 18.
FL You are coming into the benefit of it now.
CAM In that connection, was it that glory that affected the Gentiles?
JT Cornelius does not seem to have known what had transpired at Jerusalem; nor did the Eunuch know; nor did Philip suggest to him that he should go back to Jerusalem. Possibly we should have said it would be the best thing for him to go back to Jerusalem and see the apostles, but there is not a word said about that, because the Gentiles were to come into their own light, they do not come into the light at Jerusalem, but light from [p. 243] heaven.
FL The moral glory of it was great, because he was going back conscious that heaven moves things; he was reached straight from the heavens; it was the same way with Cornelius.
JT So that the Gentiles have their own place. They are dealt with according to God’s sovereignty. In Ephesians 2 it says, “In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. This meant that they have a distinct place in the building.
DMR This twentieth chapter shows that He can bring His people into touch with His Son although scattered among the nations.
JT Just so, that is what chapter 20 opens up what God has specially brought into evidence is the new covenant in view of the city. It is the complete answer to what God is doing now.
JS Is the city coming down from God out of heaven, a characteristic of the present dispensation, light from heaven?
JT Yes. The Gentiles were not brought into the light from Jerusalem, but by a distinct movement for themselves. That is, I think, very important to see, because although they are fellow-citizens of the saints, etc., it says, “In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. They have their own place in it; and are blest with greater light, more than those in Jerusalem had.
OAR The Supper was instituted in Jerusalem, but we Gentiles got it, through Paul, from heaven.
JT Yes. Ephesians 3 opens with, “I Paul, prisoner of Christ Jesus for you nations”.
W If there is a response, we should see what it is for.
JT Yes, it is for that very purpose we are taken up and are put in our place in the city.
W In John 14 the Lord speaks in connection with dwelling; all that was opened up as the result of [p. 244] love.
JT Yes, it is remarkable the place that love has in those verses. Indeed the gift of the Holy Spirit is contingent on their loving and keeping His commandments. As it says, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”, John 14: 21. I suppose it is because chapter 13 is the way of love, the Lord showed it — the more excellent way. Had He not shown it He could not have assumed that they could follow Him in it.
NFP The glory with which the city shall be invested — did it not shine out in Christ morally here?
JT All the elements of it.
FL The jasper stone in Revelation would refer to what Christ was here. It would bear out what you say. It is that which takes its character in His people from Christ Himself.
Ques In Isaiah it says, “Arise, shine! for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee”, chapter 60: 1. Is this the same glory?
JT Quite. There is the light specially designed for Jerusalem, and then there is a light for the assembly; our light would be what began when the light from heaven shone round about Paul. I think Ephesians may be taken to be a concrete expression of our light.
WB-w “A light for the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”, Luke 2: 32.
JT Yes, the Gentiles come in first.
CAM So that really we have all things brought together morally in one glorious Person.
JT Well, I think it is well to see it is the culmination of what God is doing at the present time, and that is all of one piece with what He began, only He works differently.
AJD Has not the city descending got [p. 245] a present bearing?
JT Yes. Galatians refers to it as a present thing, “But the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother”, chapter 4: 26.
FL We ought to know our own mother!
JT Quite so. The quotation shows that it has a present bearing.
AJD Has it then a present bearing in the soul?
JT Yes, there is what God is doing now. Ephesians 2 shows it was all done at one stroke, but historically it includes all the work of God from Pentecost until the rapture of the assembly.