THE ASSEMBLY APPREHENDED AS THE BELIEVER LEAVES THE WORLD
[p. 238] THE ASSEMBLY APPREHENDED AS THE BELIEVER LEAVES THE WORLD
Exodus 12:1 - 8; Exodus 12:21 - 28
JT We see here the progress that has been made in people during the period recorded earlier in this book, and how the idea of the assembly had been reached. We have two words used, as those of us who have the New Translation will observe: one is ‘assembly’ in verse 3, then we have the words ‘congregation’ and ‘assembly’ in verse 6. The word ‘assembly’ (as the footnote indicates) suggests corporate responsibility, referred to in detail in verse 21, where Moses addresses the elders of Israel as representing the corporate whole; the word ‘congregation’ implies every person or head of a house in Israel. These two features then had been reached, and are developed in detail later in the book.
It is important to see that, in leaving Egypt, they had been reached, as meant in the antitype, that the constructive work of God is seen even before, the believer is formally out of the world; and then, further, that in the presence of the power of the world God constructs what is to supersede the world. In spite of the power of the world, typified in Pharaoh and the Egyptians, God had reached His thought in His people, so that they went out of Egypt in harness and with a high hand; not in a clandestine way, but “in the sight of all the Egyptians”. Today there is opened up a path and power to support us in it. Although a remnant as accepting our corporate obligation, to maintain divine order, however severe the opposition, we shall be supported. Whilst plagues were occurring in Egypt, weakening it, bringing down its power, the constructive work of God was going on in the people, building them up in His principles, so that it is said: “Speak unto all the assembly of Israel”, and then “the whole congregation of the assembly of Israel shall kill it between the two evenings”,
[p. 239] verse 6. Already God had brought about in the very midst of Egypt that which should supersede Egypt; that is to say, the assembly in principle supersedes the world. This comes out in chapters 12,13, and 14: the effect of the work of God in His people during the process of the judgments on Egypt. There was there not only the power of God against the Egyptians, but His gracious work in His people seen in the order in which they left the house of bondage. They were being formed and detached morally from the system, and built up in power, so that they went out in military order; the testimony is they “went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians”, (Numbers 33:3). They went out also “with great substance”. As converted to God and in the grace that comes to us in the power of the Spirit, we do not go out of the world in feebleness, but with strength and with substance. They passed through the Red Sea by faith, (Hebrews 11:29).
HH It is very necessary for us to appreciate that side of things. We value the sheltering blood, but what we are as the work of God is likely to be overlooked. Is it in that way material is secured for church purposes?
JT That is the idea. All is ready, at least potentially — it is all there. The latter part of the book shows, as I hope we may see later, how this wealth is classified as brought to Moses for the construction of the tabernacle; but it is all there potentially; that is to say, the young believer has in measure what is requisite for the house, however unintelligent he may be as to what has taken place in his soul. What underlies all this is the household; so that in the very opening of this book we have indicated what God has in His mind: “These are the names of the sons of Israel who had come into Egypt; with Jacob had they come, each with his household”, chapter 1. They are thus regarded as “the sons of Israel”, it is what is in the mind of God for them, the spiritual side, and it says they came out. Jacob was the [p. 240] vessel of light and promise; everything centred in him, he could bless Pharaoh; and they all came with him as showing the principle of moving with the vessel in which the light is. Then, as coming with Jacob into Egypt, each had his own household; that is ever kept in view in all these chapters and is emphasised in the passover; it is a lamb for a house; that is to say, the house now is to have a constitution built up on the lamb, on Christ going into death. Every house in Israel had the same food, so that there is the unifying of the nation, the principle of unity built up on food which implied the judgment of God. That is what this chapter brings out.
HH I suppose you would say that, just as in (Genesis 46), you have the names of those who went into Egypt, so the Lord would take account of His saints by name now, each one is an object of particular interest to Him. Is that your thought?
JT Quite so, that is in Egypt: Exodus takes account of them as sons of Israel, that indicates the dignity that they had in the mind of God; they had come in on that line — “with Jacob had they come”; they came in in relation to him, but each as a son of Israel.
FWJ Is that the link between the two books?
JT I thought so. In the beginning of this book the Holy Spirit uses the expression “sons of Israel”, it was a spiritual reference really, for Israel was the name he acquired; but they came in in relation to Jacob, Jacob being the responsible name, involving humiliation; but the light was there. What is suggested is that they came in relation to Jacob in his history of responsibility: whatever shame and humiliation there may have been in it, they came in with him.
FWJ Is the light of the testimony connected with Jacob?
JT That is exactly what I was thinking. He came in from Beer sheba, where God said to him: “I am God, the God of thy father”; typically he comes into Egypt in the light of Christ risen, and he was not to be afraid to go down to Egypt. So he carries down all that light, and it is to be developed in “the sons of Israel”; so they came with Jacob, but each in relation to his house — he had his own direct responsibility in his house.
Ques How do you apply that today?
JT I think that the principle of the household necessarily underlies the truth of the house of God.
FI Do you mean that the truth of the household must be taken up before you can touch corporate responsibility?
JT Quite — in those who have houses; even young people who are members of households should be right in their parents’ houses before coming into fellowship.
FI So that the light you spoke of was to work out through the household.
JT That is right. So you find that Pharaoh attacked that principle at once in destroying the male children. The midwives saved the males: we have their names given, showing how distinguished they were. God “made them houses”. There you have clear indication of what God thinks of the preservation of the line: it is in a household connection and He gives them houses. Now, in the presence of that, we get Moses- parents: we do not get their names in chapter 2, but simply that they were his parents, they were Levites. “A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi”. God intends now to bring out the family in which the testimony is to be: it is to be in family, in Levi, and chapter 2 gives us the history of Moses; God intends to set out His thoughts in him He is forty years in the house of Pharaoh, but when he became great he declined to be regarded as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. So that he goes into Midian and sits by the well, as if he saw that God was not going to deliver His people by human efforts, evidenced in his slaying an [p. 242] Egyptian. He slew one Egyptian and hid him in the sand. It would have taken him a long time to kill them all and hide them — perhaps longer to hide them than to kill them. He had to learn that there was divine power here, a thing that worked by itself, and he sat by it that is how God was going to work; “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”, (Zechariah 4:6). That is what is to be displayed.
Then the daughters of Reuel come to water their father’s flock and “the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses rose and helped them”. He helped these women, he did not slay any of the shepherds, he gave up that line; it is a question of helping people. And then it says he “consented to remain with the man”, with Reuel; that is to say, he is resigned to the circumstances into which the government of God had brought him. He consented to dwell with the man. It was a very great change in his circumstances, from Egypt’s palace to be a shepherd in Midian: but he “consented to remain with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter”. Nevertheless he maintained the idea of a stranger, for when his son was born he gave him a name which indicated the idea of a sojourner. And after forty years he led the flock to Horeb, the mount of God — and whose flock was it? Not his own. He is a type of the man God will use. He is unselfish, for he is occupied with his father in law’s flock, without having anything for himself. It is a question of wages with Jacob, what he should acquire; whereas Moses evidently had no thought of that: he was looking after the flock of his father-in-law unselfishly. If I can do that, I can look after the flock of God unselfishly. “He led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb”: he could not have done better for it; and then God appeared to him in the bush, as if to say, ‘I approved of all your course’. Moses turned aside to see, and God spoke to him out of [p. 243] the bush. There you have the kind of man whom God uses. Then the brother, in Aaron, comes to meet him at the mount of God, and afterwards they together communicated the mind of God to His people, and the people worshipped. Then in chapter 6 you have the genealogy of Jacob’s family till you come to Levi, then it stops. It is a question of the spiritual thought that is to underlie the house. You have Levi’s posterity down to Eleazar and the birth of Phinehas in whom the priesthood is continued, for in (Numbers 25: 13), after certain ones are slain by him in zeal for God, it says: “I give unto him ... the covenant of an everlasting priesthood”. Now, all that is to be applied in principle to all Israel, that is, to all the saints.
Ques What have you in your mind in referring to Levi?
JT That is the family in which the service of God is set out and in which the house, of God is ordered and maintained.
FI Do you mean to convey by that that the households and the families would be governed from the spiritual setting?
JT That is it: it should not be from the natural. If God takes up a family sovereignly, it is to convey a spiritual thought, and each Israelite was to understand that.
HH Then you have a lamb for a house, and it says: “The whole congregation of the assembly of Israel shall kill it”.
JT So that it is one idea occupying all Israel. Thus all would be developed on the same food. They all ate the same food and drank the same drink.
Ques Would you say a word on the passover in connection with what you are bringing before us?
JT The passover itself is the objective, side of the feast — “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”; it is a question of occupation objectively with Christ, that He [p. 244] was slain; it is a whole Christ — “a bone of him shall not be broken”, (John 19:36). The lamb was to be a yearling; it is not exactly the idea of a little lamb, it is a yearling lamb: the thought conveyed is full growth, only youthfulness and freshness. As in the house four days it would become very attractive, so that, as slain, it would draw out the tenderest feelings of the people. That is what the death of Christ is intended to effect in our hearts, it makes us tender and feeling.
HH Would you say that as the spiritual features are apprehended in the previous part of Exodus we should gain a spiritual apprehension of Christ in the passover?
JT That is what is intended. What had gone on up to this point was to make them very impressionable. If God is to have us for Himself we must be impressionable, and what could impress me more than Christ as typified in this lamb? What should appeal more affectingly to the heart than that a lamb kept in this way four days in the house should be killed and roast with fire? It should certainly draw out the tenderest features. It was the direct application of the fire. “Ye shall eat none of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire”, verse 9. It is not only the slaying, but the direct action of the fire, the judgment of God, and they were to appropriate that. The corresponding figure is unleavened bread and bitter herbs, that is the subjective side of the feast, which would include self judgment; my acceptance of the fact that the judgment belonged to me and not to Him, for the death of the lamb was substitutional to save the first born in the house.
All this would underlie the assembly and the congregation: they would go out of Egypt leaving the flesh behind, as it were. God intended in the type the setting aside of the flesh, and all these precautions were to prevent it going over, so that the Red Sea would be the limit of all flesh’s energy in the people; in the wilderness they should be wholly for God — “I have brought you to myself”. He proposes wonderful things to them at mount Horeb! All these instructions are that the young believer should see that the flesh is not to be carried over: power is given to check it. Alas, it does go over, and all the discipline of the wilderness is needed to break its power in us.
FI Then the passover itself is an objective thought, but the unleavened bread and bitter herbs is subjective — the appreciation of the objective?
JT That is it, so that there is no measure given for unleavened bread; it is for you to see to it that there enough. It is not likely there would be too much! But the lamb was to be in accord with their eating capacity.
ER That would be in the love of Christ going under the judgment of God for us.
JT That is it. I have a whole Christ before me; not simply an idea. Christianity is not inaugurated as a matter of light or doctrine simply: you have substance, you have a whole Person. John says: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; that which we contemplated, and our hands handled”, (1 John 1:1) a whole Person regarded in that way, and God would have us brought into accord with Him hence the kind of food provided.
Rem In (Isaiah 4) it says: “Seven women snail take hold of one man” — that gives the idea.
JT Paul says: “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”, (2 Corinthians 11:2). From the very initial presentation of the gospel to the believer, that is the thought; it is the presentation of a Person. Christianity is not merely a system of doctrine; it centres in a Person; you have from the very outset a Person — “not a bone of him shall be broken”. It is not simply one phase of Christ, you want the whole Person; that is what God impresses you with from the very outset.
HH “Why hast thou forsaken me?” — “Why persecutest thou me” — the whole of Christ is suggested. It so emphasises the death of Christ and the claim God has put forward for us in righteousness and love. If God has paid such a price we surely are to be for Him.
JT That is the thing. And He says to the thief: “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” — you have a Person. So it is “the gospel of God ... concerning his son”, Romans 1.
FWJ When this great foundation is laid in the passover, is not the other side the end of the great world power?
JT That is what I was thinking. The pouring out of the judgment in the ten plagues was intended to bring down, to weaken, Egypt; but in the process there was light for Israel, they were being formed at the same time. In the first-born of Egypt being slain the whole principle of Egypt is ended. Then at the Red Sea they are all destroyed — the whole world power. But the most important thing in these chapters is to see what is to replace Egypt. Well, the lamb is the idea; I am built up in that. What is to take the place of the world is the assembly, the members of which are after Christ, they are like Christ. A world composed of persons who are like Christ is what God has in His mind, and it is worked out here in the most skilful manner. They go out eating the lamb and the unleavened bread, and they go out with great substance, which for us would be spiritual substance, and they go out in military array, with a high hand, and in the sight of all Egypt. That is to say, it is the power of God openly setting inside the world, and setting up something that will be for the pleasure of God to take its place. Hence the assembly today is in principle the world to come. The present world is to be superseded by what is for the pleasure of God. We know, alas! how we carry the flesh over, but these chapters indicate what is in the mind of God for [p. 247] us: and so in Corinthians, which epistle deals with the order of God in the assembly, we are enjoined, in chapter 10, not to lust or to tempt the Lord as Israel did. All the ends of the dispensations have come to us, the apostle says, and these things are written for our examples, that we should not be strewed in the wilderness. What a solemn thing that the carcases of these people, who started so well, should fall in the wilderness.
Ques Was that through not keeping this feast?
JT Exactly. If it had been kept in the true sense they would have gone into Canaan whole. What you see here is God graciously helping His people. It was not accidental that they had to go out in haste, it was God helping them, so that they could not put the leaven into their dough. God helps us that we should not have the leaven with us — He helps us circumstantially. And so later the bitter waters were intended to help them.
Ques Does 1 Peter correspond — The precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb: then the abiding word of God: and then the laying aside in view of the spiritual house?
JT Yes, you get the same line of things in Peter, so that the believer, as a new born babe, is to “desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word”, that by it he may grow up to salvation as having tasted that the Lord is gracious. “To whom coming, a living stone ... yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up”, (1 Peter 2:1,2) — it is the same thing.
Now you see in this second section we read how beautifully Moses delivers his message. The first twenty verses are God’s instructions to Moses, then we have the manner of Moses- delivery of his message. “Moses called all the elders of Israel, and said to them, Seize and take yourselves lambs for your families, and kill the passover”. Then: “It is a sacrifice of passover to Jehovah”, verse 27. The manner of his delivery of the message is specially noticeable — it is a word for all [p. 248] who serve, the mind of God is conveyed to His people — the effect being that they worshipped.
Ques According to verse 3 all the congregation of Israel were spoken to, but when Moses delivers his message, it appears to have been to the elders: is there any thought in that?
JT The word in verse 3 is ‘assembly’ (New Translation). Then Moses called the elders; they would be responsible, they were those who were summoned by Moses as representative of the corporate whole. It seems to me a fine tribute to the work of God already in Israel that the word ‘assembly’ is used at this particular juncture. There was already there the recognition of eldership and subjection.
HH It shows what a place Moses had with them. I suppose the place the Lord has with us would come in there, would it not?
JT I thought that. What a work had gone on in the people! So that now you expect from the young convert that he has in principle all the elements, so far as his measure goes, needed for the assembly.
Rem In chapter 11 it says: “The man Moses was very great”. In the antitype the world has been brought down and Christ has become great.
JT Quite. So it says at the end of verse 31 of chapter 14 that “the people feared Jehovah, and believed in Jehovah, and in Moses his bondman”. It is true a believer has to be taught as he comes into the assembly, and regulated, but he should at least have these elements if he is truly converted to God, if he has received the gospel aright: there is the recognition of eldership, the recognition of authority and of responsibility — that he has responsibility as a member of the congregation. As we have seen, the two words are used in verse 6. The word ‘assembly’ involves a corporate whole with moral responsibility: the young believer recognises such a thing as that. And that he is a member of the congregation,
[p. 249] so to speak; that is, he is one amongst many, but he has his own responsibility.
Ques Is that idea conveyed to us in the beginning of the Acts: the thought of the assembly and the households, and then the thought of the elders?
JT Well, I suppose so. You see in (Acts 2:41), how the converts were added — there were three thousand added. It does not say who added them or to whom they were added, but they were added; and then their subsequent conduct showed they were qualified — “they continued steadfastly in the apostles- doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers”. Then it is said, they were constantly in the temple, breaking bread in the house. They also thought of one another’s need; love was prevalent, unselfish consideration for others. The Lord, as it were, comes in now and says: ‘I am not ashamed to add to you’. That is how it worked out. There is great weakness today because young people in coming in have not got the understanding of the assembly as a moral whole; however few may be in the thing the principle is there, for the word ‘assembly’ here is not necessarily every Israelite, but a representative idea of the whole: and if one does not come into fellowship in the recognition of that he is sure to be an element of weakness. Then, secondly, he is a member of the congregation; he is one of the whole and he has his own responsibility. He was to have the lamb in his house. It would be inconceivable that any Israelite on that night should be without the lamb; but it should be equally inconceivable now that any true believer should be without Christ apprehended in this way in his soul in relation to others.
Ques What would you say as to sharing the lamb between two houses?
JT Well, I think the neighbourly thought is very much emphasised. You will observe it is not simply ‘the neighbour’, but the “neighbour next, unto his house”: there are graded neighbourhoods, some more distant than others. The neighbour next to you presents the thing in its strongest features, and I think this is to promote love. Whatever feelings might have existed between the two neighbours must necessarily be surrendered in the presence of this. They were not to divide it: “a bone of him shall not be broken” — it is one Christ. “Is Christ divided?” says the apostle. All the divisions in Christendom are a denial of this thought.
HH This would be very testing if he was not getting on very well with his neighbour, and that is the moral test for us now.
JT If honest, he would see how sad it was that there should be any feeling between himself and his neighbour, for they had to share the passover.
Ques Does the idea of the hyssop come from Moses himself?
JT Apparently. I think it would be a tribute to the sense he had of his own littleness; although the greatest man in Israel, he had a very small sense of himself. Do you not think to propose a thing like that, which had not been mentioned before, would be a tribute to a man’s spirituality? “By faith he kept the passover” — it is not said that anyone else had faith. They passed the Red Sea by faith; but he kept the passover by faith, as though he was in keeping with it.
Rem In passing it on to the elders, I thought he might suggest such a thought to those who were capable of understanding it.
JT Quite. I believe the divine intention is that those through whom the light comes should themselves exemplify what they present. If they do not, though they may speak right words, they cannot convey the idea. The Lord said: ‘I am altogether that which I say’. Before Solomon’s temple there were two pillars, Jachin and Boaz; every one could see them as he approached the temple. In one book their height is given severally,
[p. 251] and in the other the total height of the two: showing that you can take account of them severally or in entirety; but whether it is one or the other, it is what God has in His mind to bring us into. So in Christ Himself or (in measure) in the apostles, what they spoke of they were themselves, so that the believer can receive the idea concretely in order that he should answer to it. Alongside these pillars there were the means by which God could bring people into accord with them — the altar, sea, and so on….. that God employs to bring the believer into accord with Christ. So I think Moses, in the beautiful manner in which he delivers his message, conveys to the elders the truth of it, and they bow and worship. There must have been real power in his words to convict them, so that they worshipped God. I do not know any better tribute to ministry than that it produces in the saints a spirit of worship; not causing fleshly excitement, but bowing the believer in the presence of God.