THE REGION OF THE SPIRIT
THE REGION OF THE SPIRIT
JT It helps in regard of Colossians to see that they were marked by order. The apostle said; “I am with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order”. What we may call the wilderness side was right: they were regulated, externally at least, by divine order. Romans and 1 Corinthians run together in that way. The Colossians were regulated by the principles that should govern the assembly publicly; but what the apostle is aiming at is to lead them into spiritual regions, and the question of order does not enter into that. The idea of furniture marks the room where the Lord’s supper was instituted, but in John 20, which corresponds with this epistle, we do not find any reference to furniture:
RD Luke’s gospel presents the Supper from the wilderness side; everything is in order.
JT Paul refers to their order here, so that there were conditions for going on to what was spiritual. In Luke 22:12 the Lord says: “he shall show you a large upper room furnished: there make ready”; furniture being in keeping with what is external, everything must be in order.
RD It also refers to the time in Luke’s gospel. We are within time limitations.
JT 1 Corinthians gives instructions for what you might call the ritual, and we must not make light of it, because it was the very point they were defective in. Paul said to them, “ye come together ... for the worse”, (1 Corinthians 11:17) for they were in disorder as to what should take place in the assembly.
Ques Would that govern our feelings towards one another?
JT I think so, because he goes on to say:
“everyone taketh before other his own supper”. One isolates oneself perhaps in relation to a few in the meeting, in that way not embracing all the saints. The apostle makes a good deal of the order that is becoming; it embraces the state of the saints because the disorder was the outcome of a bad state; not indeed but what we may be orderly outwardly and yet have a bad state. But there was a bad state at Corinth; there were sects. One has to be regulated individually, according to the ensign of his father’s house (Numbers 2:2); then the priestly family comes in. You may be right individually, but without the priestly state you cannot have things for God.
In the beginning of Numbers you have each individual, then his locality, his father’s house, his tribe; all that is external, but the priestly family secures things for God. The apostle makes much in the first letter to the Corinthians of the fact that they observed the regulations, and he praises them; but where they did not; he says, I do not praise you. “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all assemblies of the saints”. (1 Corinthians 14:33) The book of Numbers helps greatly in regard of Corinthians, because in the first part of the book it is a question of the order that is suited to God in connection with the tent of testimony. But after the Holy Spirit is formally recognised in Numbers 21 you read very little about the tabernacle, because it is a question now of what is inward, what is wholly spiritual, and that leads up to Colossians. What is spiritual runs within certain limits.
Ques In chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians he does not take us beyond the wilderness?
JT No, not beyond what is external, tarrying one for another, and so on; the chapter ends with that. What comes after the breaking of bread is seen in Colossians. The spiritual state of the saints [p. 488] and the headship of Christ come into evidence, and these are not set in moulds; they set us wholly outside of time limitations. There is no description in Colossians; it is a question of what you find out, things to be known and enjoyed. There must be adjustment of what refers to the earth before we can take up what refers to heaven. It is due to God that this should be so. What 1 Corinthians 11 describes is the order of God in the present creation; that is, the relative position of the man and the woman that must be understood and recognised before we can come to the Supper.
Ques What is the difference between Christ as Head of every man and Christ as Head of the body?
JT In the body there is neither sister nor brother, male nor female; a sister has direct access to Christ, there is no thought of the man coming in between. You could not have things right in the assembly without recognising the order that God has set up outside, because in Corinthians the assembly is a public thing. As loving Christ, you accord Him His place in regard of the first creation. In John 20 the enemy was Judaism, but in the Greek world it was philosophy and vain deceit. “The doors being shut”, shows that there was a wholesome fear of an element that was then threatening and that would spoil everything. But the spiritual realm is not bounded by what is material; the Lord comes in in spite of closed doors. One person who is harbouring what is prejudicial to the meeting is sure to damage the whole; we feel it. So the Supper helps us to close the door; it is there where everything is judged. Each one has to discern for himself what is in his own heart. “Not discerning the body” refers to the Lord’s body.
Ques Might we break bread and partake of the cup and yet not take the Supper?
JT Yes, the true import of it might not be discerned; hence we have, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you”. For what cause? Just because there was no self-judgment. One has to appropriate the significance of the death of the Lord; you would come to the Supper with a sense of judgment. As sanctified by the body of Jesus Christ, one is in accord with the body. It is a dead Christ that is before us publicly; that is what we are committed to; the life separate from the body, in the blood. It is exceedingly solemn. So if you partake of the emblems unjudged, it is eating and drinking judgment to yourself. If you are in accord with the death of Christ, there is no room for religious flesh of any kind.
In Colossians the apostle can go on to the entrance into Canaan. It is not a question of outward order, but of spiritual state, the headship of Christ. The Supper sets the affections in motion, and there is now a readiness to go on. “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away”. (Song of Songs 2:13) The Lord would take us up and lead us on. How far can you go spiritually? “The firmness of your faith” must govern everything: He is leading on to spiritual lines. “Jesus the Lord”, (verse 6), refers to Romans and Corinthians; it keeps up the connection, but Christ is the point in Colossians. You have what belongs to Colossians set in Romans 8 to complete the subject: “If Christ be in you”, but it is not developed. Here the Lord is brought in, but the point is the headship of: Christ; “the Christ, Jesus the Lord”. Christ is everything, and in all. Romans and Corinthians go together, Romans dealing with the individual and Corinthians with the saints viewed collectively, whereas Colossians recognises both, but it is to lead us on to spiritual lines. “So walk ye in him” would refer to your everyday circumstances. You did not receive Him in connection with philosophy; as you have received Him, so walk in Him.
[p. 490] Ques As to the Lord being known in the midst, is that only on the spiritual side?
JT Well, I think He comes to us on our side, but you could hardly expect Him to come where there is disorder.
Ques No, but does He come according to Matthew 18, to support and make us know His power and control, or is it to know His presence as in John 20?
JT Matthew 18 refers to our position in administration here: the Lord comes in to support us in anything that we have to do in His Name. It is not, “I will come to you”, but “there am I”; it is unfailing. John 14 is, “I am coming to you”, without saying what He comes for. If you apprehend the Lord in a spiritual way, you pass over; His coming is a wholly spiritual thing. Then you discern that He is connected with a wholly new order of things; that is where spiritual enjoyment lies. We apprehend Him as “everything and in all”, that is, in relation to God. As we come together, we have before us the fact that Christ has died here. So it is, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death”. (1 Corinthians 11:26) The fact before us is that He has died. I sit down in the presence of these emblems and let the thought settle in my soul that it is the Lord’s death. But that is not all, there is a spiritual side. Luke brings forward external order; “a large upper room furnished”, because it is a question of what is of God being maintained in an adverse scene, so that there must be order. Now that all that was against us has been taken out of the way, there is nothing to hinder the soul from going in. So when you come to the Jordan, the waters have disappeared. He destroyed principalities and powers; the higher you ascend, the more you realise the extent of His victory. We are apt to think that we can carry in some little distinction that we have in the flesh. The last enemy is death, death as seen in [p. 491] Jordan, which stands between the people of God and the inheritance. The people’s history now is from the bottom of the Jordan: the stones came up from the bottom of the river; there is a people out of death. Baptism in Colossians is not like baptism in Romans; in Colossians you have not only burial, but resurrection.
Ques What is the difference between baptism and circumcision?
JT Circumcision means that all that attaches to you as a man is put off; “Mortify therefore”. So that whatever attaches to you, and perhaps very strongly, has to go: you have to make sharp knives. It might be ancestry, or learning, or money, all that goes to make up what we are in this world; it requires something sharp to cut that off.
The thought of burial is very important; we are all disposed to cling to what gives us a little advantage. Burial is not only that I die, but that I disappear altogether. Adam was to go into the ground from whence he was taken. So here, my old history is closed up in the burial. The order in Colossians is circumcision before baptism; I think circumcision is involved in the reception of the Holy Spirit. Historically it comes in with baptism, although in Cornelius’s case they received the Holy Spirit before they were baptised. It is in the power of the Holy Spirit that you put to death your members which are on the earth, not the body, but the members which are on the earth. Christ died vicariously, and if He died vicariously, He was buried vicariously. Adam had to go back into the ground from whence he was taken; that had to be accomplished in Christ for us. When the Lord said, “It is finished”, He had all that in mind. From the grave we have a totally new beginning; we come up out of the grave. The Son of man in the heart of the earth is a sign of what would come about in all whom He represented.
[p. 492] His burial is treated of, as is His death in Romans 6. God begins there; He takes up Christ out of death.
“Putting off the body of the flesh” is positional; the next chapter is the active side. I am entitled to take it up in the power of the Spirit. This chapter is to clear the ground; we have always to come back to Gilgal; it has to be maintained. In Joshua 6 you have the man with a drawn sword: Joshua says, “Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?” The Lord says, “Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come”. It is for you to find out what I am going to do; I am not on party lines. You see the saints in relation to God. It is not “our meeting”, but what the saints are Godward, and you wait to see what He will do. John 12 shows that risen people, those who are spiritually on the ground of resurrection, act rightly; it is not what He did, but what they do. They know how to do things in relation to Christ; they are energised by Christ, and He accepts what they do. Colossians is “being let go”, and Ephesians is where we go. I remember someone telling me that Mr. Darby asked Mr. Stoney where he put Colossians: he said, ‘It is not Canaan exactly, it is entering’; it is the adjusting period. The man with a drawn sword comes in there; the sword is, “Have your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth”. (Colossians 3:2) It is like the boundary that keeps you from going back to the earth again; you go over to the other side.