PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
JT There has been some concern that entrance into, and even participation by christians in, the evil that has come to be prevalent, might exclude the application at the present time of the principles that governed the house of God in the beginning, and I felt the consideration of this chapter would show that we must abide by the principles given at the beginning which govern the things that remain and are used for us; only we have to rightly divide the word of truth. The failure of the church has necessitated certain limitations which we have to come to accept. For instance, to refer to Ezra, their return was not by any commandment given either through Moses or through David. It was by the word of the Lord through Cyrus, the gentile king. That in itself was a very humiliating circumstance for the people of God, but, acting on that word and bowing to the word of God in their circumstances, as having come to Jerusalem, they revert both to Moses and to David.
GWW They had nothing else to guide them.
JT Not in regard to the house.
Ques What had you on your mind in regard to limitations?
JT Well, there are certain limitations, and very serious limitations. For instance, we cannot assume to be the assembly of God, as we have often remarked. That is a very great limitation. Therefore we cannot act on a scripture in the full literal sense that applied to the house of God when it was intact.
Rem The limitations are all on our side, none on God’s side.
JT No, but they exist as a fact. It is a fact that no company of christians, however large, in a locality today would claim to be the house of God, because they do not include all the christians in that locality.
Rem I would suggest that when the ark was in place in [p. 94] Israel there could be no possible question as to where the centre of gathering should be. When the ark was removed and it disappeared there resulted a great limitation, and great exercise as to where God might remove it to; those who were exercised were involved in a totally different line of things, like this that is in evidence here. There was no ark, and I suppose in the present time there is no visible centre in that sense; therefore we are thrown upon a line of spiritual exercise as to how far we can discern the leading of the Holy Spirit back to original divine principles. There is nothing visible. Is that at all what you had in mind as to limitation?
JT Yes. Moses began with the ark. They begin here with the altar. That is on account of the condition. They began with the altar “for fear”; it says, “was upon them”.
AFM Is that a good beginning?
JT I think it was righteous. They were following righteousness.
Ques Was one of the signs that they put themselves under the protection of the Lord?
JT I think God will protect us if we sacrifice. That is, protection here is put on moral ground. God protects those who sacrifice.
BTF Would you say what the altar represents now?
JT It is a question of sacrifice. The chapter brings out the reason for it. It was the fear of the enemy. They set the altar on its bases and they kept the feast of tabernacles, and offered the offerings that were enjoined by Moses, every day according to its requirement, referring, I suppose, to Numbers 29. That chapter gives us the offerings for each day and the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which was the day for the feast of tabernacles. They remember that and offer the offerings that were required for each day of the seven days — of the eight days really — which I think is recovery. Recovery of the truth is marked by sacrifice.
AFM What do you mean by sacrifice?
JT The surrender of all that which one may be and one may have.
[p. 95] RML Buy the truth, is that it?
JT Well, it is. It amounts to that, but here there is the positive presentation of Christ in the offerings.
GAT Have we here the thought of recovery and in chapter four the thought of maintaining the truth; when our adversaries come up we absolutely refuse to have anything to do with what is being built up on the world?
JT I think the principle of the altar precedes the building. Before we can come together and be built up we must have this principle of the altar. We cannot be together except on the ground of sacrifice.
Rem At the outset there is a remarkable presentation of the person of Christ, and of Christ in sacrifice, and to appropriate that involves the consequences of His death and the cost to us of His death, so that the altar is immediately put to very rich use, but the rich use to which it is put is, as it were, the acceptance of the full consequences of the death of Christ, and that is sacrifice, but it is presented especially on the side of God’s appreciation of it. What is emphasized is not the sin offering. It is very remarkable that though this was the time of the day of atonement, the sacrifice and the day of atonement are not mentioned, but it starts out with the rich appreciation of God in the sacrifice of Christ, and that is appropriated, but then it is sacrifice. Would you go with that?
JT Yes, quite, inasmuch as it is sacrifice, but the question is whether it is acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
GWW I think (if I might suggest it) that you are using the word “sacrifice” in two different connections. It seems to me you look upon it as our sacrifice, that we are sacrificing. Is that right?
JT Yes, quite. Surrender.
GWW Laying down the first principle of this (not new establishment exactly) new condition of things, is in surrender. That is not what was in your mind?
Rem Yes, it was, but the presentation of it that comes in is of Christ in death, according to God’s appreciation. Now if I am going to accept that it leads to a subjective work in connection with myself that involves the highest [p. 96] order of surrender. I cannot touch that without surrender of everything that involves my position, and place, and person, and delight. Otherwise I cannot enter into what is in the divine thought in the burnt offering. I think it is the same idea. It may be my clumsy way of expressing it.
BTF Is your thought that before the truth of the house can be reached the altar must be understood?
JT I think that is important here. Moses began with the ark in the instructions referring to the tabernacle. The altar came in after. Instructions were given in regard of the ark, the table, the curtains, the boards, the altar of burnt offering, and then we have the altar of incense. Here they began with the altar of burnt offering, and yet it says the foundation of the house was not yet laid, because “the foundation of the house” had reference to what we are built up in. It has reference to the work of the Spirit in us, but in a day of recovery it seems to me we must begin with sacrifice, and it showed their intelligence as to God that they reared up the altar in view of the enemy outside, as we get in Nehemiah in the building of the wall, for protection. They put things on moral grounds. That is, they understood God would defend that, and He does.
GAT What is the altar for us?
JT Well, it is Christ. Christ is the altar.
GAT How would you apply that?
JT It refers, I think, to what He was as having to do with evil. The dimensions given to us in Exodus suggest the strength of the manhood of Christ. That is to say, not in the sense that He raised the dead (He is declared to be the Son of God with power by resurrection from the dead) but the idea is endurance in dealing with evil, moral strength.
AFM It was brazen.
JT It is the judgment of sin in the principle of it with authority.
AFM There were horns on it.
JT These denote the strength, I think.
AFM Now in the way the truth was recovered to us of late years, it seems to have been in that order. The altar preceded light as to the house.
[p. 97] JT I have understood from those contemporary with the recovery of the truth that that was what marked the people of God — they began with sacrifice. It cost them something, because the sacrifice is not of any moral value unless it costs one something. David said in regard to the foundation of the house that he would not have it unless it cost him something.
WHF I suppose the altar indicated the people’s relations with God, and when they got back the first thing they did was to set up the altar.
JT It is the only ground upon which we can have to say to God.
GWW But if relations are to be re-established with God it must involve complete judgment of all that which caused suspension of those relations. That has to be recognized, does it not? You cannot just simply pick it up again as if nothing had happened. Sin that brought about a suspension of the relations must be recognized, and then a fresh sense is communicated to the soul of how the relations must be established in another Man. I suppose that is in the burnt offering, is it not? Now that must involve my laying aside everything that in any way partook of the character of evil, which brought about the suspension. I do not know whether you see what I mean?
JT Yes, I quite see it.
GWW What I mean is this, you cannot simply say, ‘O, well, we will revert to what we had before this came in’. It would seem to me that in the setting up of the altar there was the definite recognition of the breakdown of relations with God and His people, and if a little remnant is coming back and there is to be the re-establishment of anything there has to be the due recognition of that. God must be given His place and I must take my place.
JT So it becomes in that way the pursuit of righteousness.
GWW Yes.
JT The seventh month ought to be the threshold of the millennium for them. It is in the types. It is the reawakening of Israel and the setting up of the millennium, of the [p. 98] world of blessing. That is the month they had arrived at, but, instead of going into the millennium, they must bow to the conditions in which they are. The nation had completely broken down and had to return to the land of Canaan, and come into Jerusalem under the direction of a gentile monarch. A very humiliating thing! And they had been so under the influence of things in the world that provision had to be made to establish the genealogy of each one, as to whether they were of the true line of Israel. It was really for unrighteousness that they had to set up the altar at the very outset.
BTF Do you speak of the altar in the same way that you would speak of the sacrifice that we find in the early days of the church’s history? That is, they sold their lands in one instance and brought down their books and burned them in another instance. Do you speak of it in that aspect?
JT It is the sacrifice in that aspect in view, only it rises to the requirements of God, you see. They offered according to the instructions given for each day of the feast of tabernacles, beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, so that they arose to the divine requirement.
JS Would that indicate moral condition?
JT I think it shows how they were progressing, as having returned. We began with this, they had come back to Jerusalem. That is a point to be noted because it shows that, bowing to the will of God, we come back to the divine centre and we are then in position to apply Scripture, and these points may be applied.
GWW What does the feast of tabernacles represent to us?
JT I think it is the Lord coming to us. It says in Deuteronomy, chapter 16, verses 13 - 16, “Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine: and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast [p. 99] unto the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice. Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles”. If you look at the feast of weeks you will observe that there is no time limit to it. It says, “Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee: and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place his name there”, Deuteronomy 16: 9 - 11.
You see he gives them no limit of time for the feast of weeks, which refers to the Spirit; that is, the enjoyment one has in the Spirit is not connected with nor bounded by time at all. It is bounded by eternity. We are connected with heaven and eternity as having the Spirit of God; but the feast of unleavened bread, as also the feast of tabernacles, are bounded by time. The first, the feast of unleavened bread, has reference to the judgment of sin in the world, which goes on all through the time that we are down here, and the second, the feast of tabernacles, refers to the positive thing that we have got, within the same period of time. I think the feast of tabernacles has reference especially to the Lord making Himself known to us.
AFM You mean in the assembly?
JT Yes, as we are dwelling in booths. It says they dwelt in booths. There would be families, localities, suggested, I think, and the introduction of it here in Ezra has reference to the place the Lord had in the hearts of the [p. 100] saints at the outset of recovery. They had come to Jerusalem and they were of one mind. It says they were together as one man in Jerusalem, so that if we are walking, following righteousness with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart, we are now free to enjoy unity.
WHF Is there any place where the Lord says if they call on His name He would come to them? Is this good to us now?
JT Quite. It shows that the very highest blessing accorded to the saints is available to us.
GWW So, in connection with the recovery of the truth the very first thing that really happened was that Christ got His right and proper place before the souls you speak of. That is, the recovery of the sense, which had largely been lost, of His being the living, glorified Man at the right hand of God, the One capable of bringing to pass everything for God’s pleasure in spite of the failure that had come in. That was the initial step of the recovery, and what led Mr. Darby to see the truth as to the church was that there was recovered to his soul the sense of a glorified Man at the right hand of God.
JT Now you are coming to the point, because Jerusalem is not Moses’ ministry. It does not represent Moses’ ministry. It represents David’s ministry.
GWW Yes.
JT And so for us it is Paul’s ministry. We are recovered with Paul’s ministry or we are not recovered at all.
GWW And so what was really filling the soul of Paul in his ministry was a living, glorified Man at the right hand of God.
JT That is the substance of his ministry.
GWW Now that had been lost and the consequence was things had been set up in that which professed the name of Christ on earth without any real reference to Him, but the first thing the Spirit did when He began to work recovery was to establish the real place in which Christ was in the hearts of His people, and then everything began to fall into place.
JT There is nothing right without that.
[p. 101] GWW No. As one has been listening this afternoon one has been wondering in one’s own soul whether the keeping of the feast of tabernacles does not somehow indicate the truth of Christ having His right and proper place in connection with His people.
JT I think it does. I think that this chapter is like John 14:21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me”. Now they had come to the point — they had come to Jerusalem, which spiritually is heaven.
GWW They were to come out of all those circles which might give them any position or prominence, and were all to become dwellers in booths. It seems to indicate the setting aside of all those social distinctions which have to be recognized in a sort of way in our responsible life, but which nevertheless tend to keep the people of God apart from one another, so that they are all found on common ground. I do not know whether I am right.
JT I think so, and the Lord comes in where His commandments are kept. There may not be much in the way of building yet, but directly you come to Jerusalem and adhere to the commandments then you have the principle of manifestation. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him”, John 14:21. There is the manifestation, and then the Lord goes on to say that He will love one who loves Him and keeps His words and such will be loved of the Father, and that the Lord and the Father will come and make their abode with him. So it seems to me that the feast of tabernacles suggested that the Lord was with them.
BTF In what way would you apply the thought of building now? For instance you might say the house was built, God had formed the house. Now in what way would you speak of the building now?
JT We have to take up the house in an abstract way, because they are said here to come to the house before it was rebuilt. We return to it in an abstract way, and the [p. 102] building, I. believe, is when we are together. Edification goes on as together. I am especially concerned that we might see how the Lord draws near and is with us as we return to Jerusalem and adhere to the commandments.
GWW There is certainly some moral importance, that it would be greatly to our profit to get hold of, in the keeping of the feast of tabernacles at this juncture, as indicating moral preparation for what was coming in. One questions whether or not the failure all around us has caused a good deal of the weakness and failure that has come in together with an attempt to bolster up something ecclesiastical, without being satisfied with what is entirely moral; there appears to me therefore to be something in the dwelling in booths. I wish we could get a real sense of what it means that every man has to leave his house and go and dwell in a booth. There seems to be some moral preparation there for what was coming in.
J.T. What is it?
GWW Well, I do not know, but I am very anxious we should get at it.
Rem I would like to revert to what has been said as to the burnt offering, which was evident in the early days and the light that came in as to the glorified Man, which put such a wonderful impress upon those who were first recovered and able to give us the light. I think the appreciation they had was very largely that the glorified Man was the One who gave pleasure to God in the sacrifice in the burnt offering. Now in these first six verses no less than seven times is reference made to the burnt offering. The recovery in the souls of the people was God’s appreciation of the value of the person of Christ and the work of Christ when He devoted Himself to the pleasure of God. Now the one who is glorified is the One who suffers that way, and He is the burnt offering; that is seen outstandingly here, it is seven times over referred to, and I think the point of recovery eighty or ninety years ago was the appreciation of Christ in that light.
GWW Yes, the appreciation of the burnt offering leads the people to the feast of tabernacles. I am not [p. 103] prepared to go and dwell in my booth unless I am in the appreciation of the new position into which the burnt offering aspect of the death of Christ has introduced me before God. I am in the appreciation of that new position so that I think very little of that which will give me a certain position here, and I am delighted to take common ground with all the people of God as those who all alike have been the subjects of divine grace, and to enjoy with them the things concerning Christ. I am rather looking at the burnt offering as giving me the moral preparation.
Rem I think that is entirely so. If you take the history of the people of God, there has always been light as to the forgiveness of sins — that is that Christ died for our sins — but when the offering of Christ devoted to the pleasure of God, as we get it in the burnt offering, was understood and when it found place in their souls there was a new point of departure which led into all the faithfulness and meekness of the Philadelphian state, and I think it is that that we get indicated here, and that leads on to the feast of tabernacles.
WB I have a difficulty in that you were speaking about how light as to the Lord in glory recovered the Lord’s people in days gone by. Does not the altar set forth Christ here upon earth as a man? Is it not the strength of that Man that is able to meet everything, and is He not strong enough in His own Person to maintain everything for God, to stand against evil, to give up all, and to surrender and sacrifice as a Man? Is it not all down here upon the earth?
GWW Yes, but is it not all done in view of the place of acceptance for His people, all going up to God surely, but in that burnt offering the foundation is laid, not for the putting away of sins, but for the place of acceptance in which a redeemed people are set with their God. Is that not what comes out?
WB Yes, that is true, but my point is that it was all accomplished on the earth, not in the glory.
GWW But what has it in view?
WB It is for the glory, but I learn it now upon earth.
GWW [p. 104] Surely.
JT The point is that they came back to Jerusalem, which it has been remarked is spiritually the heavenlies, the centre of rule and blessing where Christ is, but then, as was remarked, the altar has reference to what Christ was here as Man, but the burnt offerings bring in the thought of acceptance. It is reconciliation. That company is before God according to that, so the people know in what they offer there (conforming with the requirements of God) they are before Him typically in all the acceptance of Christ, and in that way they are qualified for the booths, I apprehend, and the presence of the Lord, the dwelling with us of the Lord.
Rem That is of tremendous value, because if you look through genealogical writings there runs through a general idea of the forgiveness of sins, but acceptance and reconciliation was light which led on to recovery and which is in the savour of Christ’s preciousness to God in that sacrifice.
GWW That is the initial step and we are not going to get along on the line of recovery, or light that was given as to the house or anything else, until the soul is established in that point. That is going to help us to seek identification with the movement.
JT Quite right.
GWW We not only come to the burnt offering and appropriate the new position that has been established in Christ (and we have got a sense of it in our souls consequent upon receiving the Spirit), but we are prepared to dwell in booths. We move on.
JT In bringing all this back to what is practical, in the second epistle to Timothy you have a company of people, or a number of persons, who call on the Lord out of a pure heart, with whom you can follow, and it may be wondered what these people are going to do. And so, “All scripture”, we are told in that same scripture, “is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”, 2 Timothy 3: 16. Well, I turn to Ezra, which has its place in “all scripture” and I get instruction as to how people similarly situated acted, and I get light, I get confirmation, and what I find is that they returned to Jerusalem. What [p. 105] would exercise those that have got a pure heart and are calling on the Lord would be to return to Jerusalem too. That is, they have returned to Christ as He is at the right hand of God. Scripture abounds with instruction for the people of God and I want to find what application it has to me, or, rather, to us. How am I going to apply Scripture? Well, Paul says, ‘Now, Timothy, you must remember this that the scripture has to be rightly divided’. It is complete in itself but it has to be divided, and you must remember that great limitations are involved in the breakdown that has come in. In the midst of what is formally called “a great house” it is quite clear that one has to be very careful as to how one is going to apply Scripture. You have got to use discernment and discrimination, otherwise you will find yourself in a false position in the use of it. So that the saints look into the Scriptures. It is very remarkable, in Ezra and Nehemiah, how much they made of the Scriptures. Presently a man arrives who understands the thing, even Ezra. He was instructed in the law of God and returned with that qualification — a man raised up of the Lord expressly to help the people of God under those circumstances. So the people gather together on a certain day, in the open space before the water gate, in order to hear the law read, and, as Ezra read it, standing upon a pulpit of wood, all the people stood and listened. Then after he reads it, he and the other priests instruct the people as to the meaning of what he had read (Nehemiah 8: 1 - 12). Now it seems to me that in that way you have a mode of procedure, and, following it, as I said, all the land is before us. There is nothing we may not touch in the way of blessing and privilege.
Rem It is a very helpful suggestion. You mean they returned to the house of God. The house of the Lord was not in visible evidence; there was no house there at all, yet morally they returned to it, and therefore to the principles of it, and to the things in the mind of God connected with it.
WLP The laying of the foundation and building of the house is entirely moral now, is it not?
JT [p. 106] Quite. That is a further development. We begin with the altar, we begin with the sacrifice. That is, I have to sacrifice for you and you for me if we are to walk together, but, mark you, they were together as one man in Jerusalem. It was not a place of their own choosing. They might have selected another place in the kingdom of Persia to set up a temple to Jehovah, but Jerusalem was the spot and they assembled there as one man, so it seems to me that the great error that has been made in christendom is that Jerusalem has been overlooked. In all their efforts to set up the worship of God, the service of God, this one great principle has been overlooked, namely Jerusalem.
BTF The Lord being with His people, to what do you actually refer then?
JT It is the feast of tabernacles that succeeded it. The dwelling in booths would mean they were dwelling closely, and He would be with them.
BTF I was thinking of the present application.
JT “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14: 21) and then, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him”, John 14: 23. That is the encouragement one has in keeping His word.
GWW The thought of the house of God in any spiritual way was entirely lost in christendom, and the thought of God’s house was limited entirely to a building over whose doors was inscribed, “This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”. It shows how completely the moral and spiritual idea had been lost. Now what is to be recovered, and established in the souls of the saints, is the true appreciation of the house of God.
JT That is it.
GWW But that has got to be done in your soul. It has got to be done in men.
JT As we are together as one man then we can apply the truth [p. 107] of the house.
GWW Yes, but the sense of it has been re-established in each one of our souls. It is not anything outward or visible, but it is recovery to the true moral sense of the: house. The rule of that house is holiness.
JT That leads to another thought, namely, the house is universal.
GWW Eventually.
JT It is a universal thought. It brings in all saints in all lands, in all nations, so that it saves one from national or local ideas. They came to it before it was rebuilt, but you see this, that it is a question of the light of the thing.
WB What is the point of the seventh verse?
JT Shall I read it? “They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia”. Well, you see what they are giving now is not for sacrifice on the altar. They are now thinking of the requirements of the house, the necessary elements for the house.
GWW Might we say the moral constituents of the house? That is what is brought there. That is what our souls need to have a sense of.
JT These things are not put on the altar. We began with what is due to God, and that is what I had specially before me in this passage. That is a question of following righteousness. It is the assertion of what is due to God first of all, and then you bring in, as you said, the constituent elements of the house. We must have these.
ANW Is it not sacrifice also?
JT Well, it may be, but you see sacrifice is for the altar.
A.N.W. Always?
JT I think so.
ANW What about the praise later?
JT The reference there is to the altar. I think sacrifice usually involves the altar. It is a question of what you present to God, as to whether it conforms to His requirement, and His requirement is Christ. But then you think of the necessities of the house, the requirements [p. 108] of the house.
AFM Would you say the truth of the house has been recovered to us during the last years, and the point now is that our souls should be in the moral good of that? That is the position now.
JT You see they came to it before the foundation was laid even, showing you have the idea in your soul.
Rem And do we not see that when they appreciate the light of that, two very important elements at once come into view — that is, headship and priesthood. That is Zerubbabel and Jeshua. As soon as they return to the house and have the mind of God concerning that, there comes into view at once headship and priesthood.
JT Quite right.
AFM Would you say the particular point of recovery lies in the fact that God is here by the Spirit? Was not the presence of the Spirit neglected and misunderstood?
JT Quite right, and then what has been said should be well noted, that, as coming back to the house we have the apostle and high priest. We have authority. Christ is Son over it. That remains true. He is Son over it, He knows every stone in the house and where it is, although I may not know, nor do we claim to be it.
Rem We are of it.
JT Quite, we are of it, but then we have access to Christ and He has access to us, so that in the late great issue that arose the point was that Christ is Son over the house. He is over it as Son of God. That is, He is Ruler of it.
GWW Not a mere figurehead.
JT No, the real ruler of the house of God. So that they have Zerubbabel here, and Jeshua the high priest. Thus we are wonderfully provided for. We have all that they had at the beginning in that sense, so the epistle to the Hebrews becomes so important in our day, because it emphasizes what we have.
Rem What we have come to.
JT Yes, quite, what we have come to in chapter 3. But we have access, it says, into the holiest, and we have a great High Priest over the house of God, so let us draw near. Therefore I say there are no limitations as regards [p. 109] God, or as regards our spiritual enjoyment and intelligence. All is perfectly clear in regard of God.
GWW I think if you will follow it through what you find is that every trouble that ever arose among us was in some way an attempt of the enemy to obscure those original recovered principles. Some time ago an attempt was made among us to lay down the ground that all being children in the presence of one God was the original ground on which brethren were found gathered together. I asked the only brother living who could tell me anything about it and he said that was so. Mr. Darby came along and found them there, and then brought these thoughts in connection with the glorified Man in heaven to them. They saw at once that the idea as to children of God would not hold and the great majority accepted the light and moved on in their souls. Those who did not became leaders in the Bethesda division.
JT They began with this chapter, but the point of gathering is not some family. Jerusalem is the centre of gathering.
GWW Yes, we must come to something beyond the basis of some family, which is a ground that will not hold. I think that headship and priesthood and moral condition have been ceaselessly assailed — never perhaps more so than in the last difficulty we had. I am perfectly persuaded it was an attempt upon the headship of Christ.
JT And His governorship in the house of God. He is Ruler in the house of God, and as Son. It is serious to have anything appear to interfere.
JD-s I am very glad to hear it. If I understand it, a Timothy a is the way into all this morally. It is a very great relief to find it is so. It is an immense thing when we come to Jerusalem. We find the structure there. It is all there. Then as we have not built it it has to be reached morally; but then we find there is the Head and Priest present.
JT So what you see is this, if you are in a locality and there are some brethren calling on the Lord out of a pure heart, you say obviously we belong to the house of God,
[p. 110] Christ is over it, and you suggest that we should act on those principles, and we find the Lord does help us in the government of the saints.
JD-s Yes. Manifestly there must be limitations, the church having failed and become in the condition in which we find it today. There must be limitations from our side. It would be mere pretension for us to assume otherwise. To shut our eyes to it would be folly.
Rem One is impressed with the tremendous value of this, that we have everything that was established in a material way. The kingdom, the throne, the temple, the city, the house, have all been swept away, but we come back here to Ezra and we find everything without exception that was of moral and spiritual value is preserved in its associations and is workable, and absolutely maintains for the returned remnant the intercourse with God that was enjoyed before, and in a deeper way in a sense, so the thing becomes of immense encouragement as we see it in that way, I think.
JD-s It might help if you would tell us why you said this is all laid on the pattern of David, not Moses.
JT Well, I think it was David that brought in Jerusalem. He captured Jerusalem and he received the pattern of the temple by the Spirit, it says. As a matter of fact, David is the head. I do not think that Moses is head in Exodus, Leviticus or Numbers, but he is head in Deuteronomy, because in Deuteronomy he speaks, not as it says “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying”. He speaks more as one who has the mind of God in Deuteronomy. You understand what I mean?
JD-s I do.
JT You will not find the continual repetition “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying”. It is what Moses says, showing that in Deuteronomy he is more head, preparing the people to enter into Canaan. Now when you come to David you find nothing of that either. You find nothing of ‘The Lord spake unto David, saying’. What you do find is what David said, and what David did — especially what he did, and in what he did in preparing of a service for the [p. 111] house of God you have the great principle of the headship of Christ in providing the service and the song, or songs, for the house of God, so that David brings in the Levites and constitutes them singers and then delivers the songs to them to sing. Now we find that alluded to here (verse 10), “And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel”. So that they are now at the full height of the thoughts of God in regard to the house.
AAT In christianity if Paul answers to David, what answers to Moses?
JT The instructions given by the twelve, I suppose. The twelve represented the authority of Christ and in the inauguration of christianity in the world they are typified in Moses.
BTF You have been speaking much of the house in order to fix it on our minds. Would you just name some of the prominent features connected with the house in a practical way?
JT David helps us there. First of all he discerned what the foundation was by the sword being sheathed by the angel on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. He says, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel”, 1 Chronicles 22: 1. He discovered it in that way. It was not pointed out to him, and that only confirms what I was remarking, that headship comes in on moral grounds. He discerned that that was the foundation. From that point onward David is occupied with nothing else than preparation for the house of God. That fills his soul and he hands over the pattern and the material to Solomon, and Solomon puts it together.
AP Why do the elder brethren weep here?
JT I suppose it was a right feeling, that they remembered the former glory of the house.
AP As has been pointed out recovery brought them into a deeper knowledge of it.
JT So it does, because it leads us on. As we read in Haggai 2: 9, “the latter glory of the house shall be greater than the former”. But I think it is quite right to have a right judgment of the failure that has brought in the ruin of the first.
GWW If we think of the different things brought to pass by the unfaithfulness of saints, we can but mourn; it can but fill us with sorrow; and perhaps one is not really ready to take up the position until one recognizes with sorrow that consequent upon failure the church has been shorn of a great many things previously attached to her. At the same time one can understand the shout of joy. We see the gate is being opened that we might go in to enjoy all those things, vital and moral and of such importance. It is not merely mourning over the departed glory of the thing. We have this wonderful promise and rejoice in it, that the glory that is going to come in yet shall be greater than anything we mourn over; the latter glory shall be the greatest of all.
JS Is that an evidence of the spiritual state? While the foundation is simply being laid they sing. They do not wait until the house is completed to start singing.
JT It shows the great place the Lord had in their hearts.