THE LORD JESUS AS THE LAMB

Exodus 12: 1–11; John 1: 29–42; Revelation 19: 6–9; 21: 9–14

GAB It will be seen from the scriptures read that it is in mind to speak about the Lord Jesus as the Lamb, a name which draws out the affections of the saints. The Lord has many names which have their own distinctiveness; some invoke worship and awe because of His glory and greatness, but the Lamb is a name which touches the hearts of the saints. There are three presentations before us here; I do not say there are only three, but three would be enough for this meeting. First of all there is the passover lamb which is where we all begin.

“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months—it shall be the first month of the year to you”. It is important that we all have a beginning, something that we can look back on and identify. The passover speaks of the way that the Lord Jesus has suffered and died and shed His precious blood to save us from judgment on the one hand, and to take us out of the world on the other hand. These two things should be before us. In short then, in this setting the Lord is seen as acting on our behalf to secure us when we were without hope. In John 1

where we read we have “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, and I think it would be right to say that in this setting the Lord is acting on God’s behalf. Sin had come into the world, into the universe indeed, but it is the world that we are concerned with at the moment. God loved the world that He had made but sin had invaded it, and we find the Lamb of God here is the One who has power, the only one in the universe who has power, to remove that sin from the world, to take it away so that God may have His pleasure in the world which He loves. That leads on to the second part of the passage, “Again, on the morrow”, you find Jesus presented as the Lamb of God. He is now the gathering point, the central object, with which God is going to fill His world which is being

cleared from sin. I referred to the passage in Revelation, which we could look at briefly, but I think you find there the Lord acting for His own pleasure. He has secured now a wife, the bride, the Lamb’s wife, one who has shared with Him in the time of His rejection and suffering and, in this wonderful day of display, she comes out as fully qualified to stand beside Him and share His glory, indeed to augment His glory. She is the one who has shared in His sufferings and then she will share in His glory. That was simply what was in mind, and I trust the brethren may be able to open it out a little.

DTP It is, as you say, the way that we really come to know the Lord Jesus in His sacrificial character. It is the foundation of the soul, it really establishes us, does it not? We ever need to grow in the knowledge of that One in the suffering way He took. I was thinking of that reference in Revelation where it speaks of Him standing as a Lamb slain. It is a remarkable portion of scripture where we see something of His glory.

GAB Yes, in Revelation it is the diminutive lamb, in Exodus 12 the yearling lamb. He is the One who is fully able to meet every divine requirement. My exercise is just this that we should all have an identifiable beginning to our soul history.

DTP There is a certain maturity in the yearling lamb, and in the setting of it here which is in the house there is a close attachment to it before it is offered up. Those things really work out in our histories as to whether we have a substantial link with Him and an appreciation of the way that He went for us.

GAB Yes, that is right. The passover Lamb has suffered and died and His blood has been shed. Now these are basic things but I feel concerned that the younger ones growing up amongst us, the children, should all have a point of reference; the day that they were converted, that happy day! You can look back to it and say, It is done, the great transaction is done. That was the day that I was converted. You can look back on it. “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you”.

It was once suggested that it was not really necessary for the children of the saints to be converted because they had been brought up in a godly environment, and they did not need to turn around in the same way as those who had come in out of the world, but Mr Taylor was very strong about that. He said it is misleading to say that; they need to be converted, they need to have a beginning.

RG Does this scripture give us a fresh appreciation of the greatness of the Redeemer that has bought us and brought us out of the scene of death that was all around in this chapter?

GAB That is right. As I said there are two aspects here. One is to deliver us from judgment and the other is to get us out of the world. We live in a scene of moral darkness, a darkness the scripture says that could be felt, and to be delivered from that we need food. Now the one side of the passover as I see it is sacrificial, that is, the blood was shed, sprinkled on the lintel and on the door-posts so that I am now freed from judgment; but then the other side of it is that it is to be eaten so as to sustain me in my movements out of the world. Is that right?

RG In other words it was necessary before they reached the Red Sea. The eating of this gives me a constitution to follow Moses through the Red Sea.

GAB Exactly.

RT The background to the chapter is that they felt the bondage first. God says to Moses He had heard their cry and had come down to deliver them. First of all we need to feel the bondage that we are under, before we come to appreciate the deliverance that has come in.

GAB Yes, that is right. Jehovah had heard their cry. He was not insensitive to the needs of mankind; whilst we are speaking here about Israel, typically it refers to all mankind.

Under the domination of sin and Satan they are helpless and hopeless, they are in bondage, but God is not unfeeling about that. He has made provision for it in the passover. He says, I have heard their cry and have come down to deliver them; He has come down in

Christ. It is a very important thing to note that the passover was to be eaten roast with fire,

“Ye shall eat none of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire”.

RT What would that convey to them?

GAB I think it conveys the severity of God’s judgment; there is no mitigation, no alleviation. I was just thinking that in Christendom at large, which bears the name of Christ, many might like to eat the passover raw, that is to say, they are quite keen on the idea that there is not going to be any judgment, that God is too kind and good to punish anyone, but the severity of God’s judgment of evil is overlooked. Evil is condoned in Christendom, in fact it is even promoted; it is promoted in certain areas which profess the Lord’s name. That would be like eating the passover raw; it is like having the benefits without accepting God’s total and severe judgment of sin.

MC I was linking it with considering the perfection of the offering. It had to be without blemish. I was thinking that the perfection of the humanity of Jesus needs to affect us. We are to consider that that humanity had to be given up in going into death.

GAB No other was able for it, it required the Lamb; that was God’s provision, a lamb that was without blemish. You could probe into every detail of the life of Jesus and you would never find a flaw there, “its head with its legs and with its inwards”. His every thought, every deed, every movement, all that He did and said was perfect, as the hymn says, ‘Each holy footstep gave Thee fresh delight’ (Hymn 119). No other sacrifice could satisfy a holy God. How could a flawed sacrifice meet God’s holy requirements for sin? Cain brought something like that and God would not look at it.

TDB In the households, how close the lamb would be!

GAB Yes, it suggests privilege. We have been privileged to have been brought up in an area where the Lamb was cherished and valued, but have you something more to say?

TDB I was wondering about the thought of the household, it had to take a lamb.

GAB The head of a house had to do it here, but when you come to the antitype we have to do it ourselves, every one of us is responsible. The head of the house would be the responsible person, and before God every man and every woman is responsible. They were no better morally than the Egyptians. God did not save them because they were Israelites; He did not pass over the judgment because they happened to be Israelites. He passed over them because the blood was there. The efficacy of the blood of Christ is something that we want to be assured of. I am concerned that our younger brethren should have a real sound grasp of these basic matters, because if you are going to build anything you have to have a solid foundation.

JCG We often say that the slaying of the lamb took place on the fourteenth day and therefore the lamb was with them in the household for four days. The contemplation of Jesus in that way would be an influence in the household, for the children as well, do you think? That must have some bearing on your exercise?

GAB Exactly. It has been likened to the four gospels. There are various views we can take of the Lord Jesus, every one of them bringing out fresh features of His beauty and perfection. How attached they would become to that lamb, but the fact was that that lamb had to suffer, it had to be slain, its blood had to be shed, otherwise there was no salvation, no blessing, no deliverance for the people. That is what I want to emphasise at this time.

JW In our beginnings we need to have some sense that the judgment of God is coming. It says in verse 12, “I will go through the land of Egypt in that night”, and He finishes up with, “I am Jehovah”, and there is no other way of escape.

GAB That is right. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men”, 2

Corinthians 5: 11. That day of judgment is coming; we ought to act in the light of that, those who have the fear of God have taken this journey and left the scene upon which the judgment is going to fall. It is a pretty poor testimony for a believer to be found engaged in the things of the world. What are people going to say? You say you are a Christian and judgment is coming on this world, and yet you are like Lot, deeply involved in it. A time came in Lot’s case when he did have to speak but “he was as if he jested”, Genesis 19: 14. You have to justify what you profess by what you do, and that involves leaving the world. That is where the passover lamb helps us.

JS A reference to Galatians might help us, it says, “our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of the present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father”, Galatians 1: 3, 4. It is clearly the divine intention that we should be saved from judgment and delivered from the world.

GAB That is right, exactly. Now the passover was only celebrated once in Egypt but it continues as an ordinance throughout their generations.

JS I was thinking a little along those lines. I think it is very important for us to have a real beginning and to realise that Christ has had to suffer for us. He suffered the unmitigated judgment of God for sins but then we are never to forget that all through our histories.

GAB That is right. The passover was celebrated in the wilderness; it was celebrated in the land; it was celebrated indeed in the breakdown; in fact, one of the greatest passovers was in Josiah’s day, in a time when things had become pretty low, but there was a spark of recovery there.

JS It is very interesting that one of the things of Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, says, “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, 1 Corinthians 5: 7.

GAB Well, the way I see it is simply this, that first passover is to get us out of the world, and every subsequent passover is to get the world out of us.

NJH The feasts in Deuteronomy 16 seem to start with and depend on the passover.

GAB Yes, it is the beginning of months. I suppose up to this point they were going by the Egyptian calendar but this is something completely new. This is the beginning of months so we have a new calendar, it

began from this day, it typifies the beginning of everything in Christian experience. This is the beginning of our responsible Christian experience. We know that there is such a thing as new birth and the sovereign operations of the Spirit, but we do not know much about that.

“The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its voice, but knowest not whence it comes and where it goes” (John 3: 8), that is another matter. But this is the day that I came to the knowledge before God that Christ was my Saviour. He has died for my sins and shed His precious blood; I am now finished with the world and going on to God’s inheritance, which is indeed over the Jordan, as well as over the Red Sea.

JP In the eating of the passover it speaks about eating it with unleavened bread and herbs. Could you say something about that?

GAB Herbs are very beneficial things but these are bitter; they were bitter herbs.

These exercises we are speaking about are not altogether pleasant. There are things to be given up; natural ties and fleshly inclinations may have to be severed, and there is a certain bitterness about that. Then of course the unleavened bread refers to what would inflate us.

Leaven is a thing that puffs up, and we are told in the New Testament that knowledge puffs up. Not of course the knowledge of God, but knowledge by itself can inflate, it can make something of me after the flesh. If I study a lot and have lots of interesting information to convey to the brethren it might make something of me. Well, unleavened bread cuts all that out. It means Christ is everything, “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, and anything that might inflate me after the flesh is not contemplated here.

CKR The whole focus is on the lamb; you obviously have an impression as to the iamb. When you go to Leviticus, in the burnt-offering you immediately have the bullock, a different animal, but you have something specific in your mind about the lamb?

GAB Well it seems to be that this is where our beginnings are. You may as you grow in spiritual history mature, and you might be able to bring a bullock and other large offerings but this is the very first thing. This is where we begin, this is where we find our links with Christ as our Lord and Saviour and get clear of the world. That is my exercise; if you can just be sure about that you can go on to other things.

CKR There must be divine teaching; the way God started with His people, to lead them out of the position in which they were because He wanted them somewhere else, and He wanted them free for Himself somewhere else. In his first epistle Peter reminds them of the lamb that was foreknown before the foundation of the world.

GAB Quite so, and these other scriptures that we have read show that God carries this thought right through into the millennium.

JS The beginning of this time is really intended to bring about assurance in our souls as to our relations with God.

GAB That is right. I think when a young person gets that you have something sound to build upon. That is all my exercise is; I want to get that over if I may, the absolute necessity of having a sound and solid foundation, a beginning in our Christian life that we can build something on.

JS I was thinking of the importance of having this foundation in our souls from the very beginning. We should have the assurance of how God has dealt thoroughly and completely with sin. It has been done at great cost to God and He takes account of the blood of the sacrifice, saying, “when I see the blood”. It is a great thing to get on to the side of how God assesses things, do you think?

GAB That is right. It is the same blood in type that was sprinkled on the mercy-seat.

God looks upon it with entire satisfaction.

RT In Exodus 12 God looked on them differently, but they also looked on themselves differently. After this it says that they journeyed. You cannot stay in that position; it requires a movement in the soul through the affections being stirred. There is a movement in the soul in different circumstances.

GAB That is exactly what I had in mind in saying earlier that the subsequent passovers are really to get the world out of us. You can never go back over the Red Sea, the waters closed over it; you can never be unconverted after you have been converted, that is a final matter from God’s side. But then the people did later on look back with some kind of nostalgia on the things that they thought they had enjoyed in Egypt, the leeks and the garlic and all that sort of thing, which I do not suppose they enjoyed very much at the time. I was just thinking about the garlic, it is something with a very strong flavour which masks the corruption of Egypt’s food. One of the poets speaks of Egypt’s rancid stew. Garlic masks everything, so you can look back, sometimes longingly on all the things that you enjoyed in your unconverted days and wish you were there. The passover is the answer to that. Let us keep the feast, Paul says, and the passover is closely related to the Lord’s supper.

RG Eating the passover produces a different kind of person. I was thinking of your reference to Josiah, for example. It was the greatest passover there had been since Samuel the prophet, and yet he then immediately became tangled up with Necho the king of Egypt and he was slain; presumably because he had not kept eating the passover.

GAB It was to be kept as an ordinance throughout their generations. In Israel it was an annual thing but to a believer it is a constant thing. I do not think you can rightly partake of the Supper without partaking of the passover.

JM I was impressed with John’s speaking. He says twice, “Behold the Lamb of God”. I wonder if he realised that this was something that was provided by God; like Abraham, who saw a ram caught in the thicket, “God will provide, himself with the sheep”, Genesis 22: 8. This Lamb was of God, the Lamb of God.

GAB That is right, He was God’s Lamb. However, there are two presentations. Firstly “the Lamb of God,

who takes away the sin of the world “and then the second one is without any reference to the sin of the world, it just says, “the Lamb of God”. I would like if we could enquire first of all as to this matter of “takes away the sin of the world”. How does He do that?

JSp I suppose there are two aspects; He did it sacrificially and then He will do it judicially. I was thinking the whole matter is central to God dwelling with man. Would that be right?

GAB Yes, I think that is right; that is what is in view. It is the clearing of the whole scene of sin. Only the Lamb of God is able for it. There is what is sacrificial, as you have said, but there is more than what is sacrificial. Mr Raven said that “Behold the Lamb of God” is a sacrificial thought, but “who takes away the sin of the world” is not (see Vol. 5, p.21).

Perhaps we could dwell on that a little. It appears to me to be a very important thing that we grasp, the immensity of what it involves, the taking away of the sin of the world.

JSp With reference to Deuteronomy 16, there is immediately the thought of the place where God will set His name to dwell. It seems to me that the whole matter is central for God having a cleared area for dwelling conditions with man.

GAB I am very grateful for that contribution. It is a cleared area and there is no one in the universe who is able to do it except the Lamb of God.

RT Would it start with the incarnation? Coming into the world, He says, “Lo, I come ... to do, O God, thy will”, Hebrews 10: 7. Is there not a link there with the Lamb that comes into those circumstances in a different kind of character, and that really takes away the sin of the world from before God’s sight?

GAB It says, “its head with its legs and with its inwards”. There was nothing there that was offensive to God at all. “In him sin is not”, 1 John 3: 5. Christ was the only One who was morally qualified to undertake this great matter of clearing away sin out of the world. I suppose the world is what concerns us, but it really involves the universe.

JCG The emphasis is on the Person in relation to taking away the sin of the world,

“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. The emphasis is on the glory of the Person and that is to affect us more, is it not?

GAB I think that is fine. Not another person in the whole universe of God, no angel was able for it, no man was able for it, only the Lamb of God was able for it. He has, I was going to say, done it, but I am not quite sure it would be accurate to say that because it has still to be finished I think. I know and you know that the Lord dealt with your sins and mine on the cross, but what about all the sins of those who have not repented? The Lord says to some men in John 9, “your sin remains” (John 9: 41). That has to be dealt with as well; that was not dealt with sacrificially, that sin remains.

JCG You would agree that in God’s eyes it has all been condemned. The judgment on it was made on the cross?

GAB Well, at the cross I think propitiation was made; God was satisfied with the work of Christ and He is propitious now towards men; but you will notice how accurate scripture is, “he is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone; but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2: 2. It does not say anywhere in scripture that He takes away the sins of the whole world. Our sins were dealt with there, but the work of Christ in all its perfection means that God can be propitious towards men and announce glad tidings so that all can come in repentance and be saved.

RT With Christ coming into the world there was a fresh spot in this world on which God’s eye could rest, that had never been before.

GAB Yes, that is right, and the darkness is passing, and the true light already shines.

That spot that you referred to is in Christ, but it has been extended. For every sinner who repents there is that much less darkness and that much more light. The darkness is passing and the light is spreading and the assembly, as we shall consider in a moment, is a vessel of light.

NJH The servant you quoted earlier says, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” will do that by bringing God into it.

GAB Yes, that is right.

NJH In the sacrificial side He who was completely free of lawlessness, suffered for it and removed it from before the sight of God. So that One coming into the world brings God into it.

GAB When God comes in sin cannot exist, it has to go out.

JM It brings before us the bearing capacity of this glorious Person, the Lamb of God. Peter says, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24.

GAB He did that sacrificially. He bore your sins and mine but then as the Lamb of God He takes away the sin of the world. He does more than taking away my sins. He clears the whole scene of sin, and I think really it goes on to the great white throne.

WMG I remember something Mr Welch said once where he took up this scripture; he spoke about the millennial day and then, as you say, possibly the final day, but particularly the millennial day was what he had in mind.

GAB The millennial day is the day of display of course, and we will see that when we come to our next scripture, but I think this is an act of divine power in the complete clearance of sin from the world. It is more than what is sacrificial.

RG This is bringing us back to seeing what God saw in Christ. We get so taken up with what Christ has done for us, rightly so of course, but this takes us over to God’s side. He looked down and saw Christ, the Lamb of God, and He saw something that had never been tarnished by sin, and He saw a world that could not be tarnished by sin.

GAB That is right. As I said earlier as the passover lamb Christ is acting on our behalf, but here He is acting on God’s behalf to clear the whole scene for God. Now you see in this second section, from verse 35 onwards. He becomes the attractive centre of a world where sin

has been completely dislodged and displaced. People start coming to Him. I do not think John the baptist would be very much upset when his two disciples went away after Jesus. That was the whole point of his mission, to promote Christ. He becomes the centre, then you have these others who go and stay with Him for a day. This is the beginning, I would say, of God’s world being filled with persons who are attracted to the Lamb of God.

DCB So that one of the features of a lamb, quite simply, is that it is lovable and the Lord Jesus is presented here as lovable.

GAB That is true and we could go back to the passover lamb in that respect as well.

As we said earlier it was in the house for these days and how much the virtues and beauties of that blessed Person would come out as they contemplated them. But then that was not enough to secure our relief from sin or from judgment; that lamb had to die, and that all having been completed, God will fill His world with persons who are attracted to the Lamb of God.

JS Do you think it would bring out for us the greatness of Christ personally? We need to get some impression of that into our souls. It says, “they abode with him that day”.

That is what will hold us eternally, and if we are to be held to Him and His interests now our souls must be filled with admiration of Him.

GAB Yes, that is very beautiful. We will never cease to wonder at the greatness of what He has done, but who He is surpasses all.

KM I was thinking of the way Nathan could speak to David. David failed, and we know what it is to fail, but the reference to the lamb affected David because basically he loved the lambs. He was a shepherd at heart and he had been affected that way, so that Nathan knew very well that that was the best approach to help David in his soul to go on, cleansed.

GAB That is very good, it is very practical to bring that in because it is easy to approach matters from a negative side. Nathan did not go straight in and say,

David you have been very naughty, you have been very wicked, you have done a dreadful thing. He goes for David’s affections first and then he says, “Thou art the man!”, 2 Samuel 12: 7.

DTP It is the distinctiveness of Jesus’ walking here, “Behold the Lamb of God”. I was just linking it with John 13. It speaks of the One who came out from God and was returning to God. Yet in it all you find Him active in the service of God.

GAB There was never a moment in that life but what produced fresh delight for the Father, and that is where the efficacy of the sacrifice comes in. But I think there comes a point when the soul is just filled with Christ, apart altogether from anything He has done.

DTP

‘My soul is all transported

Whene’er I think of Thee!’ (Hymn 51).

GAB Yes, very good.

JM It is not just the will of God, that is wonderful, but John also saw the Holy Spirit descending as a dove. What do you say about that?

GAB He was the only person who saw the Holy Spirit, as far as I know in scripture.

On the day of Pentecost they saw the parted tongues, as of fire, but John is the only one, apart from the Lord Himself, who actually saw the Spirit. The idea of a dove here suggests complacency. There was absolutely nothing in that blessed Man that could have caused any discomfort; everything was delightful.

JM I think it is wonderful where He is presented as the Lamb, but the Spirit descends “as a dove”.

GAB Well complacency is just the word that would describe it. I cannot think of any better word than that; there was nothing to disturb the Father’s pleasure and the Spirit was able to come. When the Spirit came at Pentecost there had to be fire involved, but there is no fire required here.

JM Would this link up with what Paul says, “in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”, Colossians 1: 19?

GAB Yes, I think so.

MGW These two matters; the first time John the baptist was ministering, he was teaching, was he not? The second time he was not, he had been contemplating in his heart and it just overflowed. I wonder if that is the way to affect people. Two of his disciples followed Jesus, but I am sure he would have been quite happy about that. The best way to affect the brethren would be by the contemplation of Jesus, and to let your heart overflow and set persons in movement. What do you think?

GAB I think so. I do not think that you can really minister effectively without being a contemplator. A minister is an active person and of course it is very necessary that we have ministers but something lies behind that. John must have known quite a lot about Jesus; He was his cousin after all according to nature, but he says, “I knew him not”. All that was natural was laid aside; it was nothing but Christ, ‘none but Christ can satisfy’. He filled his soul with joy, “Behold the Lamb of God”.

MGW I was not thinking about ministry or anything like that, but just being an ordinary brother, a nobody, moving about among the brethren, and talking to one and another, if you can speak about Jesus in this way, O I would love to be able to do this. It is very affecting, but I need to be a contemplator first.

GAB I think so, and the more you do that the more you yourself will fade out of the picture, “He must increase, but I must decrease”, John 3: 30. In fact it is quite interesting, this may be diverting a little, but when they asked John who he was, his answers become shorter and shorter. John is decreasing all the time.

MGW The first one was “I am not the Christ”, the next one was “I am not”, and the third one was just “No”, John 1: 20, 21.

GAB Yes, that is right, getting less and less. Christ was becoming the sole object of his occupation. We could have a brief word as to Revelation. It is a very precious thing that the Lord has secured something now for His own pleasure, a vessel that has shared in His

suffering, not that she can share in all His sufferings. There were things that the Lord suffered that no other could enter into, but she has shared in His testimonial sufferings throughout the dispensation, and now she comes out in display as the Lamb’s wife. She would bear the characteristics of the Lamb.

NJH What would making herself ready mean?

GAB It is going on now. What would you say yourself?

NJH I just thought making herself ready must be in relation to every feature that she saw in the Lamb. Would that be right?

GAB Yes, I think so. It is a vessel here which is in full sympathy with the One who has suffered, so she takes on His own character and she is suitable to come forth. This is future of course but she is making herself ready now. This is the time when this process is going on and she is developing such features. That raises a very practical matter as to myself and yourself. Are we making ourselves ready for the day of display? After all, the assembly is just the aggregate of every believer.

MC Would a reference to Rebecca help in that way? I was just thinking how formative the work was in Rebecca; she was immediately able to take on what the servant said and he was able to adorn her with gold and silver and precious articles.

GAB I was thinking about that. I am very glad you bring it in. She was ready to go, there was nothing hindering her. She was ready to identify herself at that point with the servant, who would be the Spirit typically, but she had before her the man who was going to be her lord and head, her husband.

MC So in her readiness and her energy she was immediately ready to go to Isaac.

GAB Yes, and what I am exercised about is that we should be ready. Just briefly we should look at Revelation 21 where it says that she is “coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her shining was like a most precious stone, as a crystal-like jasper stone”. What a glorious vessel this is; but this is the

Lamb’s wife, the one who has shared in His sufferings and in His rejection.

JSp Would this be the answer in responsibility to the Lord in the “washing of water by the word”, Ephesians 5: 26? There is that side of it, that goes on constantly, but this would be the answer from our side.

GAB Yes, I think that is very good, it is an ongoing process; until the moment of the rapture this process will be going on. She will be making herself ready. When the moment comes for the rapture she will be presented without spot or wrinkle, glorious, “having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”, Ephesians 5: 27. This matter is under the hand of Christ, and under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit; the work is going on and the bride is making herself ready.

JM Is this the Spirit’s service?

GAB Well, I think the Spirit’s service comes into it and the Lord is serving as well; but while we have all these great advantages of the Spirit’s service and the Lord’s service, it is a great matter as to what we do ourselves, because the bride has made herself ready. That brings us back to the point of our own responsibilities.

JM I was thinking of how the great conclusion of the Spirit’s service is in the Spirit and the bride saying, “Come”.

GAB That is going on now.

DS You speak of responsibility, and in Revelation 22: 14 it says, “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and that they should go in by the gates into the city”. That links with the day to come but does it have a practical present application in working out things locally?

GAB That is practically one of the ways in which this comes about. I can see we have great advantages in the support and help that we receive from the Lord, and from the blessed Spirit who is with us and in us, but the bride making herself ready lies upon you and me as to this matter being brought about so that she is adorned.

WMG Would the service of God, thinking of the divine service, and then during the week, ministry meetings and

so forth, all be part of making yourself ready?

GAB It is an ongoing matter, I do not think we can take ourselves out of that any day of the week; every day has its own needs and its own tests, its own opportunities too. There are opportunities every day for us to produce something of this adornment. I think it is a beautiful suggestion, “Her shining was like a most precious stone”, unalloyed beauty. This is creature perfection. It is a wonderful thing that there can be perfection in a creature; it is divine workmanship.

DTP It is really inward beauty, but it expresses itself.

GAB Yes, exactly, it shines out, but the beauty has to be there before it can shine out.

Reading at Kirkcaldy
24 August 2002

KEY TO INITIALS

T. D. Beveridge

N. J. Henry

D. Scougal

D. C. Brown

J. Marshall

J. Spinks

G. A. Brown

K. Marshall

J. Strachan

M. Cowan

D. T. Pye

R. Taylor

R. Gardiner

J. Pye

J. Webster

J. C. Gray

C. K. Robinson

M. G. Wood

W. M. Grosse