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THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE SPIRIT, IN RELATION TO THE SAINTS

I have read these scriptures, dear brethren, in order to speak of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, in relation first of all to the individual believer, and then in relation to the saints as moving together in the light of the assembly and forming part of it. It is a touching thing that the Persons of the Godhead should come so near to us as they have done. We are intended in that way to know God fully as He is revealed, and each individual believer is intended to know the Father as revealed in the Son by the Holy Spirit, and to be conscious too of the service of the Holy Spirit to him, and the operations of the Holy Spirit in him.

We speak much in these days of the assembly and rightly so, and we should cherish it above everything, but it is well to bear in mind that the assembly is composed of individuals, and that we shall not get any greater measure of spiritual affections and intelligence in the assembly than is in the individuals who compose it, and therefore each individual brother or sister should be concerned as to his own part livingly in the things of God. You remember that Andrew and another followed Jesus; they had been disciples of John the baptist, but they heard him speaking, and followed Jesus. “But Jesus having turned, and seeing them following, says to them, What seek ye? And they said to him ... where abidest thou? He says to them, Come and see,” John 1: 38, 39. That is very interesting as showing how the Lord takes notice of every individual movement toward Himself, and would certainly encourage it. He turned and saw them following and asked what they were seeking. He would have it come from them as to what they were seeking; He would have things definite in our minds as to what we desire, and would encourage every exercise, take notice of it, and indeed add to it, go beyond what we might be asking at the moment. Andrew, having proved the grace of the Lord Jesus, went and sought his brother Simon, and brought him to Jesus, and “Jesus looking at him said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas (which interpreted is stone.)” That is what the Lord would do to every young brother or sister as first having to do with the Lord. He would give you a sense that you are to be called Cephas, that is, that He has taken you up that you might be an integral part of the spiritual house, composed, not of material stones, but of living stones. God is pleased to dwell and be served, in a house composed of persons, persons capable of affections, capable of intelligence, and persons who are to be moved in their affections so as to serve God, not formally, not according to a man-made system, but to serve God spontaneously from the heart, and that is what Cephas conveys. Simon was to be called Cephas.

According to another gospel the Lord said to Simon, “Thou art Peter,” which is another thing, meaning that every believer having the Holy Spirit is a stone, but it is not sufficient to be a stone, we must be called a stone; that is, we are one characteristically. While a stone is an integral part of the spiritual house, it is also a living element in it and contributes its own part, and that is what the Lord wants in regard to every brother and sister, that not only are you to understand, that if you have received the Holy Spirit you are constituted a stone, but that you have the capabilities to function, and He wants you to function so that people will call you a stone. In young people it is sometimes difficult to find much in them of that kind of thing; that is,

of the idea of Cephas. The Lord wants every brother and every sister to be called Cephas, so that persons understand that you yourself are contributing your own part to what is going on livingly in the assembly. Perhaps sisters may inquire how they contribute their part, seeing that they are not allowed to take part vocally in the assembly save in having part in the singing and in the amens, but they contribute their part just as really and as substantially as brothers, for they bring into the assembly affection for Christ, and affection for God the Father, and intelligence too, in the Spirit they bring in feelings and intelligence that are capable of being unified, in the power of the Spirit, with what is there with the rest of the brethren. In what is living they contribute much to the substance and wealth that is there, and every sister as well as every brother should recognise that this is why God has taken us up.

Now with that in mind, the early part of the gospel of John shows us individuals who are led, held, and fitted for that, and this woman in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John is illustrative of it. What is so remarkable is that in spite of what this woman is we have the Lord personally serving her and dealing with her, and He introduces her to the truth of the Holy Spirit, the living water, and He leads to the thought of the Father, and the Father seeking worshippers, individuals who are constituted worshippers, not as I said in any formal way, but in the character of what springs up within; for that is the figure used in regard of the living water. That is a great necessity, dear brethren, that every brother and sister should understand that the Lord is ready to serve him individually so that this might come to pass, and the Spirit is ready to serve him individually, and the Father is appreciative of our movements of affection and response toward Him. It is of great importance that everyone should understand that the whole Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are interested in us personally, and are concerned about our being set free from everything that would hinder us from functioning in the assembly. The Lord was weary and sitting on this well to which the woman came. “Jesus therefore, being wearied with the way he had come, sat just as he was at the fountain.” That is He sat there a weary Man. Why does it tell us that? I believe it is to convey to us how very near the Lord Jesus has come to us, so near that He could actually experience weariness. It is to convey to us how sympathetic He is, how tender He is, that He understands and enters feelingly, sin apart, into the experiences that we may ourselves have part in. That is of very great encouragement, because the Lord in sitting on the well in that way was available to this woman. He was intending to convey that she need not be afraid to entrust her difficulties, and you might say, her secrets and her exercises to Him. He wanted to gain her confidence, so He said, “Give me to drink.” Wonderful thing to see Him who had created the fountains of water say to a woman, “Give me to drink.” It is a very touching expression of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that He was actually asking a drink of a Samaritan woman in order to gain her confidence, and this is how the Lord will act with any one of us in order to gain our confidence, because He wants to gain and hold our confidence, and we will never cultivate individual dealings with the Lord unless He has gained our confidence. “Jesus says to her, Give me to drink (for his disciples had gone away into the city that they might buy provisions). The Samaritan woman therefore says to him, How dost thou, being a Jew, ask to drink of me who am a Samaritan woman? for Jews have no intercourse with Samaritans.” He has gained her confidence, so He immediately says, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”

You can see how skilfully the Lord is moving in order to engage her confidence and interest and increase it. He says, “who it is that says to thee,” to raise the question in her mind as to who He was. We may well raise that question in our minds as we have to do with the Lord. We all know who He is, but are we impressed with the fact that it is open to us to have to do personally with the Son, with the Son as come so near to us, the Word who became flesh and tabernacled among men, actually moving in and out among men as accessible to them. “Thou wouldest have asked of him; and he would have given thee living water.” That engages her interest all the more, she begins to ask questions until she is brought to this point that she says, “Give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.” He had said, “Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.” You can understand the woman saying, I do not know that I understand what that means, but at least it sounds attractive. “Never thirst for ever.” Think of the possibility of never being unsatisfied, of never thirsting, of a fountain in oneself springing up into eternal life, and you can understand that, however little the woman understood, it would be attractive. That is what the Lord wants, He wants us to be attracted by the possibility of never thirsting for ever, of being made superior to the desires of the flesh within, and the influence and power of the world around, so that we find our life in things that cannot be affected by death, and know what it is to enjoy eternal life.

The result of His speaking to the woman in this way is that she says, “Give me this water”; she wants it. I would urge, that, if you cannot say that you know something of the service and power of the Holy Spirit as satisfying you with divine things, that you get to the Lord about it, ask Him to make it a reality to you. The Lord loves to see definiteness in His people. “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you,” Luke 11: 9. These are three unconditional promises, and it is for us to take them up and have to do with the Lord about these matters. “Give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. Jesus says to her, Go, call thy husband.” Up till now He did not raise a single question as to her past. He was encouraging her to move in the direction of what He was preparing to give her, and now that she has expressed a desire, and her interest is aroused, He puts His finger on the whole secret of her life. What for? Was it to expose her? It was not, save to herself. The disciples had all gone into the city to buy food. There was no reason for them all to have gone, but it was no doubt of God that they went, so that the woman might be alone with the Lord, and if the Lord is going to expose us. He only exposes us to ourselves, and that for our good. He puts His finger upon the secret of this woman’s life in saying to her, “Go, call thy husband, and come here.” What is the result? She says, “I see that thou art a prophet,” but more than a prophet was there. We have to do with One far greater than merely a prophet. One who knows the secrets of our hearts, and not only knows the secrets, a prophet might know that if God enlightened him. There are instances of prophets knowing people’s secrets. The wife of Jeroboam disguised herself and went to Ahijah who was blind, and it says “as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou to be another,” 1 Kings 14: 6. He knew it because God had told him. But in the Person of the Lord Jesus we have to do with God, and the great thing in having to do with the Lord Jesus is this, that, while He exposes to us, as He will do, all things that we have done, yet the same One who exposes us can show us that He has Himself been to the cross, that He might for ever set aside the man who was capable of those things that He exposed, that his history might be ended judicially in the death of Christ. It is a great thing to come to that, and the only answer to it is the Holy Spirit, life in another Man, and henceforth we are to move in the power of the life that is in Christ Jesus. It is a question of the ground being prepared in our souls, so that we feel the need of the Spirit, and have the desire for the Spirit as the only power of life according to God. There is power by which we may be set free in our souls from the things of the flesh and from the power of the world, and find our satisfaction in the knowledge of God and the things of God. We may as well accept it that our flesh will never appreciate the things of God. Do not expect it; for it never will. After forty years of living on the manna the flesh in God’s people said, “Our soul loathes this light bread,” Numbers 21: 5, and that is what the flesh will always do. Do not expect the flesh to appreciate the things of God. The Spirit appreciates Christ, the Spirit appreciates God. The Spirit in us causes us to appreciate Christ and God, and to love the things of God. God’s way of meeting the condition in which we are found and constituting us potential material for the assembly is to set us up in a new life and a new power in the Holy Spirit.

The Lord goes on speaking to her, and she introduces the thought of the correct place of worship, which is what people do, but the Lord brushes all that aside and says, “The hour is coming and now is.” Mark that. “The hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers,” and then He says, “God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”; that is conveying to this woman that the Father wanted her as a worshipper of Him in spirit and in truth, nothing formal, but what is spontaneous and what is suggested by a fountain. Living water is what God delights in. As she is secured as a worshipper of the Father, God Himself is being worshipped in spirit and in truth. There is no reason why we should not know that. I am not suggesting that we do not, but I am saying this to urge on each one to have to do with the Lord personally as this woman did, so that there may not be one of us who is not characteristically a Cephas, as we said at the beginning. She was herself to be a vessel of the Spirit, for she left her water-pot, the vessel that she had used to carry water for temporary satisfaction. She left that, understanding that she was to be a vessel of the Spirit, and to my mind it is a most encouraging thought, that the individual believer, as having the Spirit of God, carries with him wherever he is, a fountain of living water, that is capable of springing up into eternal life. So that, if the things in which people around us find their life are done away with, or if everything that we might naturally tend to live in is destroyed, we will have within us that which is capable of sustaining us in life and satisfaction. That is very encouraging. We see that in Paul and Silas in the jail at Philippi. They were restricted in regard to outward circumstances, and all that was calculated to try the spirit. In these conditions they are found in prayer and singing praises to God, showing what the effect of the Spirit is. “Does any one among you suffer evil? let him pray,” James 5: 13. That is the normal outlet in affliction, and as praying in the Spirit you are almost sure to turn to praise. This woman goes to the men and says, “Come, see a man who has told me all things I had ever done.” The divine idea of the woman is that she is to live in relation to the man, she was made for the man. This woman was beginning to set out in herself the idea of the assembly as intended to live in relation to Christ. She says, “Come see a man.” She had found a Man who held her heart. The secret of spiritual prosperity and satisfaction is to find in Christ the Man who holds your heart, that we are to be to Him who has died for us and has been raised.

In chapter 14 we have the Father and the Son and the Spirit in relation to the assembly; not that the assembly is mentioned in terms; for the assembly is not mentioned in terms in John’s gospel nor in his first two epistles, but John gives us the persons who compose the assembly. From chapter 10 of his gospel he is engaged with the collective side of the truth. In chapter 10 he introduces the thought of the flock; that is, the saints as moving together, it being natural to them to move together. Sheep in John 10 are not sheep that stray. That is a side of the truth that is presented in Luke, the tendency of the sheep to stray and its inability to recover itself, but in John sheep are presented as those who move together as hearing the voice of the Shepherd and following. Hence from chapter 10 the apostle in his gospel is developing the collective side of the truth. In chapter 14 the Lord is speaking in anticipation of the present time, a time characterised by our being left here in His absence, and He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” a most important thing as we enter upon this side of the subject. There are many, of course, who are not keeping the commandments of the Lord, and the result is that they have no idea at all of the truth connected with the assembly. There can be no entrance upon the truth connected with the assembly if we do not keep the commandments of the Lord. It is absolutely impossible, and the state of Christendom around us is a witness to us of the state of things in which many of His people are, themselves at bottom lovers of Christ, but although they are lovers of Christ, their love for Him is not allowed to find expression in the way it should. No one has a right to say that he loves Christ if he does not keep His commandments. “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me.” We are to show our love for Christ by making a point of finding out what His commandments are and keeping them. “If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him nor know him, but ye know him.” It is possible to know the Holy Spirit, “But ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you.” It is a most comforting statement, because anyone with any sensibilities as to the state of things in the world will realise it is getting worse in every department, and particularly in relation to the truth. The truth is being given up and corrupted and denied; on every hand that is the case. But what is our great standby? It is the presence with us of the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, to be with us and in us for support all the way, and in us in a most intimate way.

The latter part of the chapter shows us that the Holy Spirit is here as Teacher. “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you.” How is it, beloved brethren, that we enjoy the truth, a privilege that saints around us do not enjoy. It is simply because the Holy Spirit is given the place that is His due, and as a result of the presence of the Holy Spirit and His being accorded the liberty and the honour that are His due, we are being taught all things. Little by little we are being led into all the truth, established and built up as the saints respond to it. Practically the whole truth had been lost to the assembly, and now in these last 120 years the Lord has been working systematically in recovery, and we are being instructed in the truth, which is entirely dependent on the fact of the presence with us of the Spirit of truth. Hence it is most important that the Spirit should be recognised by us in our meetings. You remember when the brazen serpent was lifted up and those who looked lived, the people then came to a well and they sang. “Then Israel sang this song, Rise up well! sing unto it,” Numbers 21: 17. It was a collective recognition of the Spirit of God. It goes on to say, “Well which princes digged,” suggesting a responsibility on the part of those who lead amongst us locally to see that there is room made for the Spirit. The princes are made responsible in that matter to see that there is a spiritual ministry provided, and they dig by the direction of the lawgiver, and it is with their staves, which is a suggestion of dependence. Our attitude of mind when we come together, whether for a reading meeting or for ministry otherwise, must be that the Spirit is the only power by which divine things can be ministered in freshness. The element of dependence is that with which the well is dug. Staves are most unlikely implements for digging a well; but the stave represents dependence, and the element of dependence and subjection to the Lord must always enter into it, if the resources that are in the Spirit are to become available to the saints.

The Lord also speaks of Himself in connection with the Comforter and His presence here, saying, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you. Yet a little and the world sees me no longer; but ye see me; because I live ye also shall live.” He indicates that in this present time, not only will He visit and come to us, but that by the Spirit we shall be preserved in the appreciation of Himself as living on high. We shall live by His life, and as in affection linked with Him by the Spirit. He goes on to say, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” That is one thing that the Spirit of God loves to keep before us, that Christ is in His Father, that He is in a settled place of love. It says, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,” John 1: 18. It is a wonderful thing to take account of the Father’s realm, the Father the Source of it all, the Lord Jesus, Son of the Father, in the bosom of the Father, the place of love, and then we in Him also in the place of love, a settled place of love. It is wonderful to take account of these conditions that have come to pass, which faith apprehends by virtue of the Spirit of God dwelling in us; that is, Christ in the place of love, in which He is as with the Father, our place in Christ’s affections, and the place that Christ has in our affections. Wonderful reciprocity between Christ and the assembly!

After speaking of these things the Lord returns to this most important matter of His commandments and His word. A commandment is what is imperative. The idea of a commandment is that it simply must be obeyed. There are certain commandments indicated in Scripture which must be obeyed if we are to get anywhere in the truth. One is in 2 Timothy 2; where it says, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity.” It is an absolute commandment, and failure to observe it on the part of many of God’s people has led to their being stranded, shipwrecked as regards the truth. They get nowhere as regards the truth of the assembly, although they have their title to it, they get nowhere in actual realisation and enjoyment of it. As well as withdrawing from iniquity is the judging of it, and there is not simply withdrawing from iniquity; that is, any system which is iniquitous in principle, but also separating from vessels to dishonour. There is the authority in 2 Timothy 2 to withdraw from persons who are vessels to dishonour, a most important thing, dear brethren, to get hold of. That is one of the commandments of the Lord. I would urge every brother and sister, especially those who have been brought up in the truth, to hold tenaciously to 2 Timothy 2: 19 - 22, because it is the charter of our liberty in the things of God. We are called upon to flee youthful lusts, and follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

I am just going over this in order that we may see the ground on which we are, because it is of God. We are on it as having withdrawn from iniquity and separated from vessels to dishonour, and we are following righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Following righteousness involves that we follow what is right in the sight of God, and as doing that with others we must govern ourselves by the truth given to the assembly, for there is no other truth to regulate the movements of saints together. Hence it is that the truth of the assembly is reached as individuals face the exercises of 2 Timothy 2. They find they are able to move together, and as moving together, they see that 1 Corinthians gives instruction for the assembly. The Scriptures are available to them, and they find that by the Lord’s help and the power of the Spirit all that is set out in Corinthians is capable of being realised. 1 Corinthians is one great commandment of the Lord. “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord’s commandment,” 1 Corinthians 14: 37. The whole of 1 Corinthians has that character. It is the Lord’s commandment and must be kept.

In the gospel of John we read that the Lord gave a new commandment, that we are to love one another; John 13: 34. This is repeated in the first and second epistles of John. In our relations as brethren moving together if love does not operate everything will be formal. We might be in the right position as governed by 2 Timothy 2, but if love is not amongst us there will be no actual enjoyment of things or power to enter into them collectively. 2 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians are commandments of the Lord which regulate us in the public position, and John 13 as taken up in the epistles of John is a commandment to govern us in the inside position. They are all commandments that must be kept, and as they are kept, we will find that all the privileges of the assembly are open to us. In these verses 21 to 24 of John 14, the Lord is occupied with the collective side of the truth, but He is bringing it down to an individual to provide for the weakest day, and also to stress that the collective side of the truth is to be entered upon by way of individual exercise. “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” Judas, not Iscariote, recognises that it is not individual truth. He says, “Lord, how is it that thou will manifest thyself to us, and not to the world.” The Lord then mentions something further which is very important, and that is, keeping His word. “If anyone love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him.” The word of Christ, in contrast to His commandments, is what He is saying to us at any moment, but commandments have been laid down and abide, they must be kept. The word of Christ is constantly fresh, whatever He has to say at the moment. That is very important, because the conditions having been brought in among the saints in which the truth of the assembly has been recovered, the Lord loves to speak continually and in no haphazard way, but in a constructive way, and it is most important that we should have an ear attentive to His word; to whatever He is saying to the whole assembly, and also to individual companies according to the local needs of those companies. It is only in that way that we shall progress in the truth, and be maintained in freshness, and that God will secure the full answer in the assembly that He is looking for, as we are formed in our intelligence and affections, and enlarged, by the living word of Christ. “If anyone love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.” We have settled, abiding conditions, dwelling conditions, for the Father and the Son secured amongst the saints.

And now, after speaking of what the Comforter would be to us as Teacher, to which I have already alluded, the Lord says, “Ye have heard that I said unto you, I go away and I am coming to you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice that I go to the Father, for my Father is greater than I.” That is, the Lord has a company loving Him, who keep His commandments and His word, and that company He is able to lead to the Father, as the One who is greater than Himself. That is the Lord’s great service in the assembly, to lead us affectionately and in spiritual intelligence to the Father, the One who is the great Head of the economy. Remember how David said as he turned to God, “Thou art exalted as Head above all,” 1 Chronicles 29: 11. That is what the Lord loves to do in the assembly as He carries the saints with Him to the Father. He says, “My Father is greater than I,” and brings them into the presence of Him who has been revealed, and who receives back through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit, an answer which satisfies His own heart. These are the things we have been taken up for. The possibilities of the assembly are immense, and the Lord would encourage us to go in for them in increasing power and liberty and joy.

May the Lord graciously encourage us to increased acquaintance with and understanding of Himself and of the Holy Spirit, so that we may be enriched in view of our part in the assembly, for His name’s sake. Amen.

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