READING ON ROMANS 8 AND 12
[p. 193] READING ON ROMANS 8 AND 12
Romans 8: 1 - 17; Romans 12: 1 - 5
ANW This is the first reference to those “in Christ Jesus”, is it not?
JT The sixth chapter is “alive to God in Christ Jesus”, reckon yourselves alive to God in Christ. Here it is “those”; it is abstract here.
GAT Does the Spirit lead us in our souls in the order of these chapters, or does the seventh chapter come before the fourth in our experience?
JT These chapters are concurrent. That is, the sixth ends a series. The end of the seventh deals with what one is inwardly. Before the apostle deals with that he introduces the marriage bond, which is an important element in the christian’s spiritual career.
Chapter 7 is in a way concurrent with the third in the history of a soul. My state was necessarily dealt with at the same time that my sins were dealt with, but the subjects are treated separately, for we only know in part. God breaks things up for us. We should know each element by itself.
WLP Is that the meaning of knowing in part?
JT Yes, it is. We know in part.
R S. S. So that in chapters 3 and 4 is it rather a question of guilt? Here it is rather a question of state.
JT But God dealt with both at the same time.
RSS Yes, in the death of Christ?
HG Like the brazen serpent and the blood of the lamb in Egypt — they are one in the mind of God, you mean?
JT Quite.
HG The whole man was disposed of.
GAT I imagine you would understand the seventh better if it came in after the third, would you not?
JT The seventh is in the form of a psalm. It is an experience. The thesis is stated — that is, the principle of a marriage bond is introduced, and then it is worked out as to how that is reached. The husband is really married in [p. 194] the last verse, the last part of the chapter. The deliverer becomes the husband.
HG You mean that you have to be consciously dissociated from the flesh, to which the law was given as a husband, with the view of producing fruit for God; and to take account of yourself as the subject of the work of God, and the answer to that in your soul is the new husband, and as attached to Him in affection you find you can produce fruit for God. Is that the idea?
JT Quite.
HG And you are consciously married now to Christ and in that sense you reach the point of there being no condemnation — that as being in Christ. Is that the thought of the marriage bond?
JT Yes, that is how it works out. I become attached to Him now as my deliverer, and I see that God’s mind is that there should be an indissoluble bond between Him and me, in order that we should be married to another, in order that we should bring forth fruit to God. That is the mind of God, and the remaining part of the chapter works that out for us, so he gets back to a period long before the introduction of Christ and redemption — a period in which he designates us as in the flesh. “When we were in the flesh” — that was the period before redemption.
I suppose the marriage bond is involved in “in Christ” but it is an element by itself that the soul enters into. “Those in Christ” is abstract, referring to the normal christian position, but each believer has to enter into the marital bond which is laid down in the first part of the chapter. God entered into it really with Israel in the wilderness. The marriage bond was formed in the wilderness between God and the people, but what is referred to here is not that. The law being the first husband (not God, but the law), the people of God came under a bond which was a legal one, involving bondage instead of liberty, and the chapter shows that they all turn from that. Christians are absolved from that. We become dead to the law by the body of Christ, “that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”, Romans 7:4. The divine thought is that each believer is to enter into this in order that there should be fruit for God. I think it is an individual bond here in chapter 7. It is not the church, but it lays the basis for it.
RSS And it shows the law was given, not to be kept, but to prove that it could not be kept. Chapter 7 does that.
JT Yes, it was a husband in the way of having legal right over the soul; whereas now one is clear of it through the body of Christ.
RSS “Through the body of Christ” refers to His death, does it not?
JT Surely.
RSS It is giving His body in death. That is the import of the passage.
HG We were speaking about headship this morning; that we appreciate headship because of what the Head has done for us. The law did nothing for them; there was no affection in the law but in the bond with the new husband there is everything to attach your heart to Him. There is affection there.
WCR You leave the world system in chapter 6. Would it not really necessitate someone to support you in that position?
JT Well, that is good and that shows how it works out. One has a new link, a bond with Christ; and as He becomes the husband to the soul, He sustains it, so that there is fruit for God, and the Deliverer becomes the Husband. I have often thought that one is not qualified for marriage according to the flesh until one is married to Christ; until one knows the bond with Christ, the spiritual link with Christ. That is a qualification that should be a requirement spiritually.
GAT That makes it all the more serious to marry one that does not know Christ: for a christian to marry one that does not know Christ.
JT It is utterly wrong; but, even if one is the Lord’s, it is important that one should know this new bond, know Christ in this [p. 196] way.
R S. S. Why do you say so?
JT Otherwise the link is just taken up in the flesh, and the spiritual element is lacking.
GWH So that many a man has to learn from the; truth of the assembly how to adjust things in his own house.
JT That he can only do rightly as coming from the assembly, because we learn how to adjust our houses from Christ.
ANW But is not the expression “in the Lord” used more often in that connection, rather than “in Christ”?
JT In regard to the marriage relation?
ANW And are not all household relationships “in the Lord”?
JT But then, knowing Christ as head and as husband helps one to be head. The marriage relation is not simply a matter of lordship. It involves headship and affection.
HG Unless you know the moral relationship, you might take it up in the spirit of the first husband.
JT I think many do that.
WCR What do you mean, Mr. G.?
HG Well, in the way of being a lord to your wife, which I do not think scripture contemplates, instead of holding your wife in the power of spiritual intelligence and affection.
JT I only mentioned this subject of marriage as an element in the believer’s spiritual history. Before the subject is introduced formally in the book, the Spirit is the subject in chapter 8.
HG Is the Spirit brought in there to enable you to answer to the position as “in Christ”?
JT Yes, and so to discharge every moral obligation in this world according to God.
RSS Are we “in Christ” as having the Holy Spirit?
WCR You might say a little more about discharging our moral obligations.
JT I think that is how the matter stands here. “That the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. In other words, as regards the types in this chapter, we have arrived at Numbers 21, where Israel wholly failed to yield to God what He had sought of them. They were to be to Him a peculiar people. They were set up in relation with Him and He sought results, which were not brought forth. Instead of the righteous requirement of the law, that which God required of them (as it says in Deuteronomy 10: 12, “And now, Israel, what doth Jehovah thy God require of thee”), the people spoke against God and against Moses. There was, in other words, a complete breakdown on the part of the people, and this chapter shows that in christians there is that which was lacking in Israel.
ANW In this chapter it does not stop with fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law, does it?
JT Not at all, but that must be taken account of. Everything that God had required of man previously must be answered to in the adjustment — because this is a question of adjustment — and so the righteous requirement of the law must be fulfilled.
HG Would it be right to say that in the law God was demanding a man? I mean a man that loved God, and his neighbour, and brother? In Exodus 21 God gets what He demands in chapter 20 in the Hebrew servant, “I love my master, my wife, and my children”, Exodus 21: 5. And now, the new head having been introduced, the Spirit being here, and we consciously having reached the truth of being in Christ, there is power to form the kind of a man that God was demanding. Is that right?
JT Yes, I suppose so. This epistle develops that — love to God and love to the brethren.
HG I mean, is that the requirement of the law?
JT I think so. Love is the fulfilling of the law, or the fulness of it, so that what one finds is that there are certain requirements. God requires love from men, and He requires that men should love one another. Therefore I am obligated in that regard, and how am I to meet my obligations? You see, chapter 6 helps me as to how I am to be before the world, but chapter 8 opens up the question of my relations with God and my relations with the brethren,
[p. 198] so that it is a question now of what income I have to meet my obligations, and the Holy Spirit is therefore enlarged upon, and He is, so to speak, the income, the means by which the believer is kept here answering to divine requirements.
WCR The widow in Kings suggests the same thought.
JT Well, I think that passage helps greatly to elucidate this section, because it was for her to discover what she had in the house, and this chapter shows what the believer has in the house — the magnitude of the Spirit and the various ways in which He may be used, so to speak, by the believer in the discharge of his obligations.
ANW It is remarkable that in the many references to the Spirit here, He is never called the Holy Spirit. I wondered whether there was a point in it.
JT Is it not usually the Spirit?
ANW Yes.
LES This would be the answer in the saints to the Ark of the Covenant, in a way.
JT Yes, it would. This chapter brings us out as boards. In chapter 12 we are set up. That is, the principle of unity comes in — we are one body in Christ — not the body of Christ. That is not in Romans. It is one body in Christ, so that the boards are set up in chapter 12. Chapter 7 shows that the board is there essentially, because it says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man”.
That is a new thought again. God has been working inside and according to that he delights in the law of God. He is qualified as a board as regards his disposition of desires, but the eighth chapter sets him up in power. The Holy Spirit enables him to be that.
WCR Yes, just so. The Lord said that He loved the law; that is what the ark was, and the saint is here shown to be in accord with the ark.
GAT Do you get the same thought when the believer sees deliverance, the first thing he says, “So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law”, Romans 7: 25.
JT “I myself” now is according to the inward man. He is identified with the work of God in him, and this [p. 199] chapter comes in to support that, so that by the Holy Spirit one carries out the will of God down here.
GAT And that would include the righteousness of the law.
AL Is that the inward man that does that?
JT He does it in the power of the Holy Spirit.
AL Then what is the precise thought in walking according to Spirit?
JT It is that one is not governed by fleshly motives; one draws all one’s motives from the Spirit. According to this chapter they walk not according to flesh, but according to Spirit, and that of course becomes extremely searching in one’s soul, as to whether one draws one’s motives from the Spirit. What motives am I governed by? The Holy Spirit in the believer becomes the spring of everything now, so that we are entitled to bring in John 4 and John 7, especially John 4 — “the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up”, John 4: 14. He becomes the spring of things in the soul.
AL Does that mean that if He were allowed scope, He would do it, or does it bring us in?
JT You must allow Him to do it, you see. The Holy Spirit is not the responsible party here. You are the responsible party. He has taken a place in relation to the church as the Comforter, or Paraclete, which is not the point here. You are the responsible person here. The Holy Spirit is in me, and it is for me to give scope to the Spirit, and in the measure I do that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in me. The christian, therefore, is to be quiet and willing to disallow the flesh, and as you habituate yourself to that you will be satisfied in finding how the Holy Spirit acts. He does act in you as you are sympathetic with Him. You are the responsible person in the house. The flesh is there too, but you are the responsible person, and now you are free and you say, ‘I have abundant power with me and I am not going to allow the flesh any play and am not going to minister to it’. So it says, sow to the Spirit and you will receive life everlasting. Otherwise you reap corruption if you sow [p. 200] to the flesh.
WCR Ishmael must be cast out entirely.
JT That is it.
ANW The princes digged the wells.
WCR Isaac and Ishmael are at first both allowed in the house.
JT The process of chapter 7 helps you to discover the enemy of your soul and, discovering him, you died, and he is refused at every point, so that gives the Spirit scope and in that way the Holy Spirit is not constantly at war with the flesh. He is dwelling in you. It is one thing to have the Holy Spirit and another thing to have Him dwelling in you.
GAT It is an encouragement, showing me how I can become a contributor. That is, to refuse the thing. I see it is not for my good.
WCR I was struck as we were reading it, with verse 6, “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”. Very wonderful.
JT It is indeed. I think the thing for us now, adding to what we have had, is to get hold of the idea of being spiritually minded, and that is life and peace.
WLP The apostle, after going through all the experience of chapter 7, at the end thanks God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and then he says, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin”. I was wondering why that last sentence comes in.
JT It is just to show that the flesh serves sin. It is not that he means he serves the law and sins, but the flesh is exposed, and that is all it ever will do.
JB Not capable of anything else.
JT Yes, it is an immense thing to locate the enemy and to know how to deal with him. Having power in the Holy Spirit you can bind him and render him null and void as in the house.
JB And to know the full character of the enemy.
JT Yes, that he is essentially against God.
WLP We must recognize always that it is by the power of the Spirit we accomplish that. We cannot in our own strength at [p. 201] all.
JT I think, as I was remarking, we come to find out how it is done, and I would commend that to everybody here, to find out how it is done, and it is only by experience. We have to put the thing into practice, and we find it out by experience, and, finding it out, keep on at it.
HG As you say, it is important to notice the way things are put in Romans 8 in regard of the Spirit. You drew attention to the fact that it is a question of walking after the Spirit — not a question of those who have the Spirit, but walking after the Spirit, being in sympathy with the Spirit, and the Spirit dwelling in you. One feels that one has read the thing too carelessly. It is not a matter of having received the Spirit and leaving Him to do it.
GAT You have been saying what we should refuse. Do you not think there is the other side — the things we should do that we are not doing, in connection with our lives and our homes. Would you say a word on that.
JT You see how the truth is presented here, what God had in His mind. He says, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us”. That is what He had in His mind, and then, the Spirit given, that is the spring that enables me to answer to the mind of God. I see what He had in His mind, and I answer to it.
HG But you walk in that direction, “Who do not walk according to flesh, but according to Spirit”. Very much like the tribe of Asher, is it not, whose foot was dipped in oil? It is pursuing a spiritual course, is it not?
JT So, “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit”, Galatians 5: 25.
WLP Giving scope to the Spirit is really our part.
JT I think, as we have been saying, you are the responsible occupant of the house. You say, I am going to give all the space now to the Holy Spirit, and as you give Him space you get results.
HC Would you tell us the difference in being in Christ and in the Spirit?
JT I think “in Christ” is position. God has placed me there. In the Spirit is state. You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. That is state, but here it is the way God takes account of you, you see. When I say “state” it may be assumed that I mean I am spiritual, but it does not mean that. To be spiritual is the result of that. Every one who has the Spirit is in the Spirit according to God. God does not take account of me in any other way but in the Spirit, and I am entitled to take account of myself in that way, but that it is not to be spiritual. Spirituality is developed from that.
DR Then would you say John was spiritual when he could say he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day?
JT He was spiritual. That is another matter. He was wholly controlled by the Spirit, so as to be entirely outside the natural requisites for the moment. This is another matter. This is God taking account of me as in the Spirit because I have the Spirit. Having judged the flesh, I am no longer regarded as in it, because chapter 7 says, “when we were in the flesh”, verse 5. That is now past.
HD Being in the Spirit follows upon your consciousness of being in Christ?
JT I think the one corresponds with the other. In Christ is my position; in the Spirit is the state that corresponds with it. God has given me the position and He has given me the state. Now the thing is for me to work these things out.
JB They correspond.
JT Yes.
JAW Would you tell us something about the fruits of the Spirit?
JT These are evidence, you see, of spirituality. There are nine of them: nine different kinds of fruit, so a man is only marked off as spiritual by this fruit being in him.
JAW “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control: against such things there is no law”, Galatians 5:22,23.
JT If you find a man with those nine different kinds of fruit, he is a spiritual man, and God is delighted with him.
[p. 203] That is what God is looking for, and, mark you, the fruit of the Spirit. There is the fruit in you. It is not what follows on the Spirit, but myself, so to speak. It is what comes out in you.
JC There seems to be practical difficulty in the pursuance of what you speak of. I see things in me, that are in the house, that ought not to be there; I see what ought to be there. I covet that, but then pursuance seems to be a practical difficulty especially with those of us who are young.
J.T. Pursuing what?
JC Walking in the Spirit and in a state of spirituality — the spiritual mind.
JT You speak of pursuing, what is in your mind?
JC You suggested the thought of pursuing — that is, walking in the Spirit, our being spiritually minded. “To be spiritually minded is life and peace”. Previous to that you spoke of two parties in the house, suggested in Isaac and Ishmael, and Ishmael being discovered to you in chapter 7, and when he is discovered the point is to get him out of the house, so that room might be made for Isaac. I was saying it is a practical difficulty with many, especially the young. We delight in that but the point is continuance, or pursuance. What I mean is to arrive at a settled state or condition.
JT That you have to continue in the recognition of the Spirit, you mean?
JC Yes.
WLP Then it would be a constant discovery of different things, would it not, in us?
JT I think we discover a whole lot, you know, Mr. P., that we never thought was there. Things are very bright at the outset usually, but the depths of the heart, the deceptiveness of the heart, pride, and all these things that are concealed in the human breast come out afterwards, and the thing is to deal with them instead of fostering them and ministering to them. As it says here, “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live”. That is the life line.
WCR It is very largely a question of what we feed on.
[p. 204] In 2 Corinthians 4:16 you get the outer man perishing and the inner man renewed day by day.
JT What you are occupied with.
WCR What you feed your mind with will form in you that character of things you are feeding on, is that the idea?
JT Yes.
WCR The outer man perisheth, the man in touch the world. If you feed the inner man the outer man will perish.
CMY You starve him to death.
W.C.R. Is that so?
JT Quite so. You have to be nourished with the sincere milk of the word.
AL Is Romans 6 not a little set forth in the brazen serpent?
JT That is what we are saying. God sets up the serpent of brass for the people to look at, and he that looked lived.
That is referred to here: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin” (that is the brazen serpent) “and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”. Mark you, “in the flesh”! That is, it is condemned in me.
Well now, the thing is that I regard it as a condemned thing.
AL That is the difficulty.
JT Yes, I do not regard it as condemned and therefore I suffer.
AL It is remarkable that in the type it does not say they were healed, but they that looked lived. Life is brought in in connection with it.
JT So John 3 develops the subject more fully and to its completion. He leads us on to eternal life there in connection with the brazen serpent. Here it is connected simply with the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled.
AL And that produces life?
JT Well, it does, but this chapter is more showing how one answers to one’s obligations; to accept the condemnation of sin in the flesh is an immense thing, because if you accept it you do not expect anything from it.
AL If I accept condemnation of sin in the flesh in me,
[p. 205] am I down before God as a condemned man myself? Is that what you mean?
JT It is not that I am condemned, but sin in the flesh is condemned, you see. This chapter says there is no condemnation to those in Christ.
AL I was thinking of chapter 7.
JT When we were in the flesh, he says, we were condemned. Condemnation came in there, but now you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.
AL Only when you are in the flesh, you do not get away from it personally by saying it is the flesh. That is what I was wanting to inquire about.
JT You are the responsible occupant of the house, so to speak, but chapter 7 enables me to dissociate myself in my mind from the thing condemned, so it is not me but the flesh that is condemned. I am in Christ. “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. What an immense thing that is! The thing condemned may be still with me, but the thing for me is that I hold it condemned.
JC Am I to regard myself as being in the Spirit from God’s side?
JT That is what it says here: “But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”.
JC When we were in the flesh — that looks back to what we were in the past?
JT That was really a period anterior to the coming of Christ in redemption. It does not apply to christians.
Christians are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.
JB Does it not apply to a man before he became a christian?
JT Oh, surely, as to himself personally.
JB I could say I was at a certain time in the flesh and in nothing else. That has all been condemned.
JT But chapter 7 deals with a period in which the people of God were under the law and could not establish it. That is the period covered by “in the flesh”.
HG It says, “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members”.
GAT [p. 206] What is the difference between being in the flesh and acting in the flesh?
JT The state described in chapter 7 does not denote a wicked man. It denotes simply what the flesh is. He wants to do right and cannot. He is not personally wicked. A most extraordinary thing.
JB The inward man is brought to light, so delights in the law of God.
JT That comes to light in chapter 7, and the responsible man identifies himself with that.
WLP That inward man is the christian, is he not?
JT It is not an individual at all. It is a state in you.
WLP But that is the christian state.
JT It is as far as it goes, that I with the inward man delight in the law of God, but as one has power to carry out what he delights in so chapter 8 comes in. It is added, and now he is able to carry it out.
JB Is not the inward man what has been wrought in the soul by God?
JT That is what I remarked. It is a product of the work of God, and the inward man is in connection with the ark of the covenant, you see, but as yet he is powerless.
The ark of the covenant was the ark of God’s strength. It is not only delight in the law, in Christ, but power to carry it out. Chapter 7 speaks of weakness. The desire was right but there was no power. Chapter 8 is power, and so there I am a board of the tabernacle. I am in keeping with the ark.
JB A living one; there is vitality there. As Mr. L. said, the first time life is introduced, whoever looked lived. The question of life did not come up until then, did it?
JT No, quite, but the will of God is what is in view here, so it goes on to say “that the righteous requirement of the law” (which is a question of the will of God) “should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit. For they that are according to flesh mind the things of the flesh; and they that are according to Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit life and peace. Because [p. 207] the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God; for neither indeed can it be; and they that are in flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”. You see throughout Romans it is not life that is developed. It is introduced incidentally, but the point is to bring in a people who do the will of God and correspond with the ark of the covenant, and so in chapter 12 you have the thing set up — the saints are walking together as one body in Christ.
GWH According to Romans 8 the believer has not two natures.
JT The believer has only one nature. The old nature is condemned. It is not mine at all. It is still in the house. God allows it in His ways to be there, but the presence of the Holy Spirit enables me to triumph over it and do the will of God in spite of it.
AL Would it not be like singing to the well, “Spring up, O well!”
JT There was a complete recognition of the Holy Spirit typically there.
AL Yes, and the princes digged the well with their staves. They were active.
JT That refers to spiritual men, and they digged it at the direction of the lawgiver. It is still the authority of Christ in Romans, right up to the Jordan. It is the lordship of Christ.
AL And the result was what is recorded of them in that chapter; they were always in movement. They went on.
JT After that, in spite of the flesh, the digging goes on, and that is the point now, whether we are going on or not, and as soon as you recognize the Holy Spirit and learn the flesh you move on.
H G. You move onto sonship.
JT Yes, and the truth of the assembly.
HG You would say the Spirit enables us to fulfil our moral obligations, and it goes outside of that, does it not, to sonship?
JT Quite so. Verse 15 speaks of our having not [p. 208] received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but having received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
HG Yes, and further on, “We do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”. Only a son could say that.
GWH Did you say that from the brazen serpent to the Jordan it was the lordship of Christ?
JT All the way up to the Jordan it is the lordship of Christ.
GWH How would you designate what lies between the Red Sea and the brazen serpent? Is that wilderness?
JT They are both wilderness. The Red Sea introduces you into it. The brazen serpent meets the sin in the flesh. Baptism gives me a position as dead with Christ in regard to sin — dead to sin. I am not out of the world: still in it, but dead to sin. The brazen serpent deals, not with what I am in relation to public things, but what I am inwardly, so as to adjust my relations with God in a spiritual way. The authority of Christ is maintained throughout Romans, as it is in the wilderness.
GWH I thought the plains of Moab were not strictly wilderness.
JT It is divine territory. Romans 8 is divine territory, but it is not the dwelling place. It belongs to the domain but is not the dwelling place. In the types we have to distinguish between what Moses gave the people and what Joshua gave the people. Moses does not give us the dwelling place. He gives us territory, but not the dwelling place. Joshua gives the dwelling place. Joshua leads you into heavenly places.
GAT Would you mind my raising the question again of the christian having only one nature. I find very often in myself two.
JT The christian is only regarded as born of God, you see. He is born of God and there are not two natures there.
GAT Now where do those thoughts and actions that are contrary to the mind of God come from?
JT They are from the condemned [p. 209] thing — not your nature.
GAT How do I carry them with me?
JT It is the will of God that they should remain there. You cannot say anything about that. If God took us to heaven He would not take that, but, leaving us in the wilderness, He works out His will. The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in men, just like the men that broke down in the wilderness, just the same kind of people, only that now you have the Holy Spirit and in the process of chapter 7 you arrive at the fact that the flesh is condemned — sin is condemned in the flesh and you do not recognize it in any other light.
ANW I suppose God enlightens us, that we might look out for the Man, the other husband.
JT Yes, I suppose so. “Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” Whilst the thing remains with you, you are delivered from it. It does not control the house.
JB We are intelligently constructed and should be intelligent in God’s ways. What we learn in the wilderness is that we might arrive in ourselves, in self judgment, at what God has really judged in the cross of Christ. Is that not of great advantage?
JT Quite so, but then we come into other things here. As Mr. G. has been pointing out, the Holy Spirit is not limited to the correcting of the flesh and the meeting of our obligations, but He also leads on to sonship, and, as we have already remarked, this epistle lays the basis for Ephesians, so we are led on, as we recognize the Spirit, to the full counsel of God; but it is an immense thing for God that He has here in the wilderness, where the people under law broke down, a people answering to His mind. The same kind of people outwardly, but, redemption having come in and the work of God having been effected in them, this change is brought about. So the thought of God, that He is to have His house filled, does not fail.
HG Does Romans 8 take you as far as Mount Pisgah, where you can take a survey of the land?
JT I think so, and so you can take a retrospective view and a prospective view. You can look back — Deuteronomy enables you to look back at what God has been to you in [p. 210] the wilderness: and then it enables you to look in to what is before you in the land — Mount Nebo, from which Moses looked into Canaan.
GWH Will you please say a word on the change from lordship to headship?
JT You mean from Moses to Joshua?
GWH Yes.
JT Well, Joshua is the spiritual leader of the people. He represents Christ known secretly. First of all he goes up with Moses on the mount, and then he is found in the tabernacle — a young man in the tabernacle.
ANW Would you say it is very nearly the difference between lordship and headship?
JT Very nearly. In fact, I would say Moses merges into Joshua. The book of Deuteronomy I think is headship, in the way of directions given for a future position. Joshua leads into that future position, so that Moses merges into Joshua in that way. In Deuteronomy it is not what the Lord says to Moses, but what Moses says himself. That is, he acts in the intelligence he has for the people, and in the intelligence he has he acts in order to educate them for the new position, for the land, and so he merges into Joshua, so to speak. Joshua takes that up and leads the people in.
DR Would you not say that, in the light of Deuteronomy, Moses was greater than Joshua? He brings before us the place where God would choose to cause His name to dwell — that is God’s habitation.
JT Yes, I suppose so. He had the mind of God, but Joshua is Christ in heavenly places: the spiritual leader of the people of God.
I think we might perhaps, as the time is nearly gone, dwell on the putting together of the boards. What we have had has been in a way rather desultory, and we might perhaps see how the boards are put together — that is, how the saints are subjugated in their wills and, recognizing the Holy Spirit, yield their bodies to God, and how, as thus yielded up, we are brought into a body wherein the will of God is carried out down here. It says in chapter 12,
“[p. 211] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. This is where we come out and are set up here, so to speak, in tabernacle relations, and the thing is to prove the will of God — the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
HD Is this the result of yielding to and living in the Spirit?
JT I think it is those who recognize the Spirit who are in view, and the body is living, and that can only be by the Spirit. The Spirit of life is in the body.
WLP Is this not an appeal of the apostle to the brethren to do this?
JT He appeals to them by the compassions of God.
The body of the believer becomes of great importance now. It is living, however.
HG That is, it is replete with divine intelligence, is that the idea? Men standing up here, as having come into all the light of God as He has revealed Himself, are at His command and at His disposal.
JT And the motions of the flesh in the body are no longer there. The body is the vehicle of the Spirit, replete with life — a living sacrifice.
JB The body and the mind are both brought in here.
JT “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”.
WCR Is that necessary before you can prove what the good and acceptable and perfect will of God is?
JT Yes, I think divine thoughts come in. The mind is changed. The word “renewal” or “renewing” is characteristic of Romans. Newness of life, newness of spirit, and now the thing is applied to the mind. Renewed things are brought into the mind.
WCR One whose mind is not renewed would not effect the will of God.
JT No.
HG What you were saying about the body is not given [p. 212] in chapter 12. We do not get the body of Christ here. I would like to know just how far Romans takes you in connection with the boards. I thought Corinthians put them together. I thought Romans in a way formed the boards and Corinthians put them together — that the structure was there.
JT Well, I think this chapter puts them together.
Verse 5 says “Thus we, being many, are one body in Christ”. Corinthians makes us the body of Christ. This chapter is on the one hand, to curb, to check, or disallow clericalism and independency, and on the other hand, to regard all the brethren as a body. There is only one, but it is not the body of Christ, because that is not the point. The point is to establish the principle of unanimity, and, as one might say, equality. The saints as viewed in this chapter are together, a vehicle collectively for the setting forth of the will of God. Hence the question with me is, ‘How am I to be in relation with the brethren’? There can be no greater test for a man in a way than to walk with a lot of brethren that he never knew before, belonging to different stations of life and having different natural pursuits. Consider them in Rome — it was a very cosmopolitan city, very much like New York or Detroit. All important cities are cosmopolitan, and we find ourselves together from different parts of the world. How am I going to travel along and move with the brethren? This chapter is an immense help on that line.
DR Would that be Psalm 133?
JT It is that “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”.
Ques Would you say that chapters 9 to 11 are parenthetical in a way — that what comes out here, “I beseech you”, etc., is connected with things developed in the end of the eighth?
JT I think the mercies or compassions of God are seen throughout. I suppose they include chapters 9 to 11.
JB This would be just as much a continuation of the eleventh as of the eighth.
Rem What I meant was, if we consider the wonderful [p. 213] position brought out in the end of chapter 8, that nothing is able to separate us from the love of God; if we took that into account then what comes out in chapter 12 would be becoming as a walk in us.
JT As you say, the eighth leads us on to what is perhaps the highest result of the intervention of God, but the mercies of God are treated in chapters 9 to 11 also.
WLP Is proving the good and perfect and acceptable will of God a conscious act?
JT I think so. As the thing is worked out you find it good and perfect and acceptable, not irksome. There is a sweetness in doing the will of God; a certain sweetness about it, in the doing of it, that it is good and perfect and acceptable.
JB There is life, happiness and joy in proving it, is there not?
JT Yes.
I was going to call attention to the ground of the apostle’s address here in verse 3: “For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to every one that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think: but to think so as to be wise, as God has dealt to each a measure of faith”. It is according to the grace given to me, he says, that I am speaking. We think of how Paul behaved himself, and so he addresses his brethren and says, ‘Now do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think’. It is not that you are not to think of yourself at all, because mock modesty is folly. I have to take account of myself; I am not a cipher; I am a something if I am a subject of God’s work. God has intended me for something and it is for me to find that out. Therefore, if I think of myself, I think of myself in sobriety. As it says, “as God has dealt to each a measure of faith”. That is, I am entitled to think of myself according to the measure God has dealt to me. Is that right, Mr. G.?
HG I think so. Measure is a relative term, I suppose, and you are set up in relation with your brethren. There is no thought of isolation, of being a unit.
JT Each one has some measure, and it is for him to [p. 214] see that the saints get the benefit of that measure, is that not it?
HG I suppose so.
JT That saves us from clericalism. It is not one man ministry. The church of God is to be sustained on the principle of mutuality, but when the will of God has rule radicalism has no place. It is as God has dealt to every man a measure of faith. The will of God must rule everything.
It is for me to decide what I have got, and what others have got, and to use what I have got in relation to what they have got, so there is a mutual working in that way and unity is preserved.
DR Not anything distinctive?
JT No.
AL I suppose you get this thought in David behaving wisely. He was a weaned child.
JT Quite so.
HG What is the meaning of the measure of faith?
Would you not think it means light?
JT I think it is faith in an operative sense here; faith that has become operative; that which is available as material among the people of God, that is in view, and you will notice here it is not the gifts of the Christ that are dealt with, but what is suited to the wilderness. It is His appointment. Each has his own measure from God and he is to take account of himself according to that measure in sobriety.
GWH What does Ephesians 4 mean?
JT That is the gift of Christ. They are official, specific gifts, which Christ has received in a Man and distributed for the building up of the church; here the point is that the will of God is to be seen in His people in the way in which ministry and helps are developed.
JB It says in 2 Corinthians 11: 20, “For ye bear ... if any one exalt himself”.
JT That is, they allowed a man to do that.
OJO Would you say it is what one might bring to the morning meeting — a bullock, a lamb or a turtle dove?
JT Well, yes. It is a question of how much one can [p. 215] contribute. You see the situation among the people of God is always subject to this — am I a liability to the saints of God or an asset to them?
JB The question here is to think soberly, is it not? I mean to take account of these things soberly, as to what the result is?
JT And there is no suggestion that there are some who have not received a measure of faith, because God deals it out to every man, and if I have not got a measure of faith, why have I not?
GWH Therefore you become an asset.
JT If I have a measure of faith, I become an asset, and soberly take account of the measure as coming from God.
JAW And is that measure increased?
JT Surely.
GAT What does the thought of asset and liability actually mean?
JT If I am an asset I am able to contribute according to the measure God has dealt me; if a liability I must be carried by others, not ministering at all. I am not denying that the Lord does take on liabilities in the church. He adds to the church such as should be saved. That is a liability but He can take care of that. Conditions are such as to take care of that.
GAT If I am not a contributor, the church has to contribute to me.
JT One would not deny that liabilities are taken care of. There is sufficient power in the church normally to look after those who cannot care for themselves spiritually, but it is for such an one to ask the question, ‘Why am I not able to contribute?’ That would not be confined to when we come together in meetings, would it, but would refer to all our relations with one another?
JT Oh, I think so. It is general, you know. Our relationship with one another is not confined to the times when we are here in the meeting. It is a poor thing if they are.
DR Would you say it is not a question [p. 216] of trying to contribute anything, but being under control of the head?
JT That would be so in other epistles, but the point here is not headship. It is according to the measure that God distributes in the wilderness position, so that the will of God is seen in His people. Where lawlessness had been, there is now the will of God. Christendom is simply a huge area of religious lawlessness. That is what christendom has become, whereas God would bring us back to His will. Here before the eyes of God we carry out the will of God.
AL You mean that is a question of faith.
JT That is how it is presented here.
HD What is the difference between faith here and in chapters 4 and 5?
JT I think in chapters 4 and 5 it has reference to my apprehension: what God is to me in Christ for righteousness, but this is an operative kind of faith — that which is available for the help of others.
AL And is it not to be according to the proportion of faith?
JT That is what it says.
AL What is the meaning of “proportion of faith” in verse 6?
JT “Having different gifts, according to the grace which has been given to us”. Is that what you mean?
AL Yes.
JT “Whether it be prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith”. I suppose it is the same idea as measure, but it is according to the proportion that God has given me.
JB One is thinking and the other acting. Verse 3 is thinking.
JT In verse 3 I take account of myself according to the measure God has given me. That is the basis of my calculations and when I put it into operation, I operate according to that. That is what I apprehend.