READINGS ON THE CORINTHIAN EPISTLES (7)
READINGS ON THE CORINTHIAN EPISTLES (7)
FER Chapter 4 seems to be taken up with the ministers, and so too part of chapter 5.
WJ What is meant by “the same spirit of faith”, 2 Corinthians 4:13?
FER It refers to what is written, “we also believe and therefore speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13), speaking is the outcome of faith. Chapter 4 and a large part of chapter 5 gives us the ministers. I speak of them in contrast to the ministry. In chapter 3 and the latter part of chapter 5 we have the ministry.
DLH That seems to be shown plainly where he says “Death works in us, but life in you”, 2 Corinthians 4:12.
FER The apostle brings out in the close of chapter 4 and the early part of chapter 5, their superiority, they are prepared for an emergency. Death is [p. 418] experimental.
WB Would you say that the end of chapter 4 should also be true of every christian?
FER I do not doubt it, but I think the apostle is speaking in regard to himself. We should be looking at unseen things. He is looking at every eventuality and shows how completely he is prepared to meet everything; nothing could take him by surprise. It is a very great thing that the Spirit of God has been pleased, not only to show us the ministry, but also the ministers; we get an idea of the ministers.
DLH “Thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life” (2 Timothy 3:10), etc.
JSO The ministers become patterns.
FER I do not suppose that anything is more destructive to the ministers than a theological training. The very name theology implies that the thing is reduced to the character of science. You get this much here that there is a school through which the minister is passed to be schooled, and disciplined in order to make him efficient in the ministry.
FC Is chapter 4 the preparation and chapter 6 the outcome of it?
FER Yes, it is very interesting to me to see that it is brought in between the ministry of the new covenant and the ministry of reconciliation.
DLH When you speak of that, is it God presenting Himself to man in the new covenant, and a question of man being brought before God in the other — reconciliation?
FER I think so; in the ministry of reconciliation you learn what man is before God according to His mind.
DLH Death is all that has to be gone through that the result may be reached.
FER I think so, before a man is really efficient.
Ques Would the early part of chapter 5 take in the glorified body?
FER It comes in as part of the training; [p. 419] he looks every eventuality in the face, and he is prepared for it, even were it a case of dissolution.
DLH The idea of reconciliation is that every shade of distance is gone.
FER I think so, but there is an object in it, and that is that all is reconciled — all is for God’s pleasure. The moment Christ became man, everything for God was on a completely new footing; though it had not then become apparent, it was so, and there only remained the removal of everything which dishonoured God. Man was entirely out of sight when Christ became man.
HCA And Christ was really before God for his pleasure.
FER Yes. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”, 2 Corinthians 5:19. The point of this passage was new creation and in view of it the ministry of reconciliation comes in. People look on reconciliation as of the individual, but that is not the idea of it. They look at it as a kind of change of thought and mind, but that is not the divine idea. It is all based on this that the man who offended has-gone and you partake in another man. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17), etc. It contemplates the company. Reconciliation is effected not simply in regard to the individual, but in regard to all things; not by a change of mind or anything of that kind, but it is by Christ. Everything becomes suitable and agreeable to God by being taken up in Christ.
DLH There is an entrance into it. There is such a thing as passing into it?
FER It all lies in the apprehension of the death of Christ. “And you ... yet now has it reconciled in the body of his flesh”, Colossians 1:22. Christ’s death is the close of your history as a man.
DLH And you have to know what God has effected.
FER I think so. It has to do with state, not [p. 420] with responsibility, so far as I understand it. It is all by him to “present you holy” (Colossians 1:22) etc., that is state.
Rem The righteousness of God here would be state practically, moral state.
FER It is the complete vindicating of God. The progress here is very clear, I think. The apostle in 1 Corinthians 15 declares the gospel he preached. “Christ died for our sins”, etc. Those are the simple facts. In 2 Corinthians 3 it is the new covenant and that is not the gospel, but something which follows on.
DLH It relates to those in relationship.
FER Yes, the covenant makes known the terms on which God is with the believer.
Ques Do you not think the gospel takes in the two?
FER The apostle distinguishes between them. The gospel gives you the simple terms of God’s approach to man; it may cover a great deal of ground. God approaches man in a certain way. The new covenant comes in and the principle is, God declares the terms on which he is with believers. The two ministries of the new covenant and reconciliation have to do with saints rather than with sinners.
Ques What are the terms of the new covenant?
FER The declaration of righteousness and the Spirit. The first thing you learn in the gospel is the attitude on which God is toward man. A man does not realise — in believing the gospel — the forgiveness of sins, until he has the Spirit. Christ “came by water and blood .... And it is the Spirit that bears witness”, 1 John 5:6.
Ques Is justification apprehended apart from the Spirit?
FER I do not think it is realised. Peace is the great ministry of the gospel which really establishes the soul in a sense of the terms on which God is with me. It is righteousness in view of glory. There stands nothing between me and glory, all is perfectly consistent with the glory of God, because it is consistent with his [p. 421] righteousness, and the love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit.
Ques When you speak of being realised do you mean consciously known?
FER Yes, the realisation of it can only be in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are three that bear witness, the Spirit, the water and the blood (1 John 5:8), the last two are known in the power of the first. I cannot understand a christian having the consciousness of anything except in the power of the Holy Spirit.
JSO How do you apply that to the Jew in the millennium?
FER He gets the Spirit outpoured, and the actual presence of Christ here, then it will be entirely different.
HCA We must distinguish between God’s approach to the sinner and to the saint.
FER I think so, that is the point in chapter 3, God putting Himself in relationship to the saints. That is the idea of the covenant. A good many people want the covenant badly enough; if you were to ask the mass of people, ‘Have you got the forgiveness of sins?’, they would say ‘Yes’, because scripture says so.
ED We may say that faith gives the title to it.
WB When an individual has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is he not forgiven?
FER I have no doubt he is, but I doubt if he knows very much about it.
DLH The presence of the Holy Spirit would follow faith like Acts 10:43, where Peter says, “Every one that believes on him will receive ... remission of sins” and the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word.
FER Quite so, the very first principle of things is the kingdom; righteousness, peace, joy, in the power of the Holy Spirit; it is not simply a question of having faith. Everything for the christian is in [p. 422] the Holy Spirit.
JSO The gift of the Spirit is characteristic of christianity.
WB Acts 10 is very important, the moment Peter reached the point that whosoever believeth, etc., the Holy Spirit fell on those who heard the word.
FER But the thought was that they might be brought into the consciousness of the thing which they believed. It raises the whole question of the terms on which God is with you. If a person is established on the terms, it makes a very great change in your communications with God — if you are in the light of righteousness, glory and love.
DLH Normally a forgiven person would have the Spirit.
FER A person is conscious of it by the Spirit.
FC There is a difference between a child being a child, and having the consciousness of its relationship.
FER There is no faith with a child.
WB But the consciousness of the child does not form the link.
FER Faith forms the link, as far as we are concerned. The reason of it is God’s approach to us; that is the very beginning of things and faith must come in of necessity.
JSO “These things have I written unto you... that ye may know”, 1 John 5:13.
FER You must have a divine title.
HCA We must admit that there is no realisation of divine things, but by the Holy Spirit.
FER The passage in John’s epistle is conclusive, “the Spirit, and the water, and the blood”, 1 John 5:8. It is quite a different thing to have the consciousness of a thing by the Holy Spirit, and learning it by the testimony of it.
WB But when a person accepts the testimony, does he then get the Spirit?
FER Yes, his faith is sealed by the Spirit. I do not think you can speak of a person being saved until [p. 423] he has the Holy Spirit. Salvation in the present is in the power of the Holy Spirit. You get it typically in the Red Sea. You have got out of reach of death — God’s judgment, and the power of the enemy, and until a person is out of reach of both, you could not speak of that person being saved. He is free from God’s point of view, but in his experience he must be free too.
DLH The work of the Holy Spirit is just as important as the work of Christ.
FER To me it is.
HCA Christ’s work is the first.
WJ You could not divorce them.
FER No, the Spirit of God is on those lines.
Ques Could a soul believe the gospel apart from the Holy Spirit?
FER It may be he could not, but you are responsible to believe if a divine testimony is presented. He has to believe God, and not make Him a liar. It is important to apprehend what God’s attitude is at the present moment — that is what I should seek to make plain in preaching. His attitude towards man — and His voice — what He has to say.
WJ Would not that change the attitude of man towards God?
FER They would begin with faith; but then the ministry of the new covenant comes in to show and make clear the terms on which God is with the believer. The ministration of reconciliation is what he is for God’s pleasure. Man is to be lost completely; he has to come into the question of what it is to be for God’s pleasure, like the prodigal son; he was himself gone — he had the best robe on — the point was that he might be for the father’s pleasure. The best robe, ring, shoes, etc., it is a great advance on the new covenant; I do not lose the one by the other, but reconciliation teaches me a deeper lesson, that I am for His pleasure. It is new creation really. You get to the [p. 424] beginning of what was wholly and entirely new. All were dead and everything was taken up on a new basis.
WJ And the fruit of reconciliation is “we joy in God”, Romans 5:11.
FER Quite so. God has no intention of reconciling what was dead. Everything was put on a new ground, and the man who offended against God must be judicially removed.
WJ A new man came out down here?
FER Yes, everything was here in Christ absolutely and totally new. It is important to read the gospel in that light. In a certain sense I do not think God concerned Himself with men as to what they were, He took up everything in Christ, a new point of departure.
WJ What as to the new man, is that down here?
FER Yes, there is no new man in heaven, because there is no old man there.
JSO There was the testing of man to bring out what he was.
FER But God had his own counsels apart from that. That is the great beauty of the gospels; you are brought into the presence of a wholly new departure. The light came into the world and men were tested by it, but it is important to see that God had His own definite purpose before Him.
WJ Does not the Lord call the attention of men as to what was in Himself in the gospels?
FER Yes. I do not think we are very ready to disappear, that is what it comes to, but practically every bit of the man must disappear.
JSO Not knowing Christ after the flesh would be — not after the first order?
FER That is the clearest proof that the first man is gone, we “know no one according to flesh”, 2 Corinthians 5:16. It is a great thing to see the working of things. In the millennium you get many things connected with the [p. 425] flesh taken up and which came under Christ, but they come under the second Man.
DLH Even the seed of David as in Timothy.
FER Take our case; you get all the natural relationships coming under Christ; He has gone into them, but at the same time when you come to new creation ground then it is you are wholly outside them.
DLH With regard to ‘in Christ’ and there being in that no earthly relationships, it is important to see that after all we have to take that up in a sense abstractly.
FER Nothing can be more important, otherwise you would get into confusion. You could not have a more deadly thing than ‘death to nature’, our natural relationships come under Christ, but they do not bring the first man in.
WB By the first man do you mean the old man?
FER No, I mean the natural man, the first order of man, that man has gone literally, because Adam was the first man. The first man was superseded by the second; after that the great truth comes out that Christ is Head of every man (1 Corinthians 11:3) — not simply as Head of the body, the church, but of every man, converted or unconverted. Every man who is not filled by Christ will finally disappear from the scene of God’s blessing.
HCA That is because God owns no other man.
FER My point is this, until reconciliation is known, I do not think you can possibly get a worshipping company. That is the importance of reconciliation, that the worshipping company may be brought out.
HCA The point is where you touch the assembly?
FER That is Hebrews 10. “By which will we have been sanctified”, etc. That is the reconciled company, because it all follows on the day of atonement. We find that the worshipping company is there. You have two things: first the will of God; second the body of Christ; His death puts me out and God’s will brings me in as a worshipper, and a priest. Reconciliation puts me out.
Ques What is the difference between the second Man and new creation?
FER The second man is Christ, and those of His order, they are the new creation, “We are his workmanship having been created in Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 2:10. God is entitled to have things for His own pleasure and the point is what is His pleasure, and how it is brought about.