EXTRACTS

The announcement that Jesus is the Son of God awaited another vessel. It is as if the Lord would say, Peter you have received this revelation from the Father; it is to be in your mind as a treasure in a treasury; you are to be enriched by it in your soul, and you are by it constituted a stone in the building, but when My time comes, I shall bring forward a vessel peculiarly fitted, to announce Me as the Son of God—and that servant was Paul. He was fitted in like manner, for he says, “God, who set me apart ... and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, that I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations”, Galatians 1: 15, 16.

Now we have him who is fitted for the service—what was revealed in him he is to announce, “as glad tidings among the nations”—and this he did. His first preaching was that Jesus is the Son of God. He made no delay. The great testimony must be rendered, and he rendered it.

But then what a power the revelation of the Father would be in Peter’s soul as he stood up in Jerusalem, to know that the Messiah was no less than the Son of God—“the Son of the living God”; yea, that He was no less than God Himself!—“over all, God blessed for ever”. What a power that would be in the soul of Peter, in his service! But then, what also enhanced his service was this knowledge, that he and his fellow-servants, the apostles, had “believed and known” that Jesus was the Holy One of God. How that would enter into those hearts and ears at Jerusalem as he stood up on that day as the feast of Pentecost was running its course! He stood up, the Holy Spirit having come, and he called upon the men of Judaea and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to hearken to his words. “Hearken to my words”, he says; they were words of truth; they were gospel; they were holy words. There was no lightness in that address, no trivial stories told; they were solemn words, spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit—spoken in holiness, and they brought about conviction in the hearers. Used of God these words laid a foundation of holiness in souls. The gospel should hold the germ of everything that is to be afterwards built up in the believers soul.

J. Taylor (Vol. 39, pp.308, 309)

MWB It is not always seen that any action in any sphere of our life involves our brethren. Is that not the meaning of the fellowship?

JT That is just the idea. We are joint partakers, and so, if someone has some particular view of the truth and carries it on apart from the brethren, it is a denial of the fellowship. It is not that we always see eye to eye in everything, but we are “using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”, Ephesians 4: 3. There is no lower standard than that. Then there is the “unity of the faith”; but if I take up a line of teaching which is regarded as unscriptural, and I persist in it, and refuse entreaties and exhortations and admonitions, well, I simply deny the fellowship, and, not only that, but, I am not hearing the assembly. One may say, Where is the assembly? But then, the light intended to govern it governs us. There are those who are walking in the light of the assembly, and the Lord is with them, and disregard of their entreaties and admonitions is simply that I am not hearing the assembly. That is the way the truth stands; to refuse it is an absolute denial of the principles of the fellowship.

J. Taylor (Vol. 34, p.290)

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