UNITY
[p. 394] UNITY
Exodus 24:3 - 8, Numbers 1:1 - 19, Joshua 4:1 - 8
JT These scriptures suggest unity under three heads: first, in relation to the covenant; then in relation to the kingdom; and then in relation to life. The Lord, I believe, will help us in considering this subject thus, for they are incentives to unity, which is an essential feature with God in all His dealings with His people, and He promotes it in every way as introducing it among us. We may see in Exodus the connection with the covenant; Moses, as you will observe, setting up an altar and twelve pillars “according to the twelve tribes of Israel”, verse 4. It was an opportune time for the introduction of the idea of unity among the saints, for they had just had the experience of deliverance out of Egypt, and of God’s covenant opening up His heart to them, in type, at least, so that they are ready to undertake to keep their part in the covenant. It says, “And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said. All the words that Jehovah has said will we do!” They were undertaking unitedly, “with one voice”, to keep the covenant; as if their hearts were under the influence of what had been set before them in the deliverance out of Egypt, and particularly from the mount. Then “Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah” for the people, they having undertaken to keep them; and then he sets up the pillars. He “rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel”, as if from their side there was the acceptance of the covenant; then the altar indicating their readiness for sacrifice, at least in the mind of Moses; and then the pillars denoting the unity of the tribes as in the mind of God. For unity is not simply a matter of one meeting, or meetings in a district or country; the [p. 395] full idea of unity includes all the saints; so that the twelve pillars here would denote, that unity according to God was to be maintained. Then all was ratified by blood, showing typically that all is secured through the death of Christ.
SJBC Would the thought as in the twelve pillars come in at the Supper in connection with the one loaf, and the cup of the covenant come in afterwards? The blood was sprinkled; I suppose that is the aspect of the blood we have at the Supper? There are many who come to the Supper having simply the blood for shelter before them, the blood on the lintel and the side posts; but the blood of the new covenant leads us a long way beyond that.
JT Yes. So it says, “And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said. Behold the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has made with you concerning all these words”. That is to say, we are bound up with the covenant; the ‘words’ convey it. We nave therefore before us, a great incentive to unity; the body of Christ is suggestive of our unity: “We, being many, are one loaf, one body”, 1 Corinthians 10:17. And the blood sprinkled upon the people, the blood of the covenant answers to the cup, as the Lord said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”, (1 Corinthians 11:25). So that the Lord’s supper is intended to promote unity. Of course, it is a memorial too; unlike the heap of stones that Jacob and Laban reared, on which they ate and separated from one another. That was a symbol of separation rather than of unity, and that should be avoided — agreement to differ, eating with different thoughts and diverse feelings in our hearts.
AM Would “We, being many, are one loaf”, give the idea? (1 Corinthians 10:17).
JT That is what I thought. “We, being many”, meaning, among other things, that each would not have his independent view as so many units in the world. It [p. 396] brings in a unity that is essential to the thoughts of God, to His testimony here; for the testimony is bound up with that unity. The vessel of it, the Christ, 1 Corinthians 12:12, is based on that; it is a question of the unity of the saints as anointed.
AM Do you suggest that we begin really with the thought of unity by appreciating it in that way?
JT That is the way it stands. That is the first thing the apostle has to take up with the Corinthians. They were not united at heart; they had different leaders amongst them, so that the first thing He points out is that the divisions among them involved the denial of the testimony; when one said he was of Paul, another of Apollos, and another of Christ, he says “Is the Christ divided?” chapter 1.
SJBC It was just the one thing they seemed not to have written to him about, and yet he takes it up as the most important error amongst them.
Ques Would the coming under the direction of Christ as Lord, be the remedy for this danger?
JT That is contemplated earlier. The Lord was recognised in their song as they crossed the sea; there was the acknowledgment of the lordship of Christ. But then, whilst that ought to promote unity, a greater incentive is His own death, expressed in His supper. It is what He thinks of us, it is His body and blood for us.
FI Is the same principle seen in 2 Corinthians 3 where the apostle says, “We all” (he takes in all) “looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”?
JT Exactly. There you see a great unifying feature. You are changed by looking at the glory in the face of Jesus into the same image. It is a positive thing. The glory involves the ministry of the new covenant; that is to say, it makes it effective in our hearts. It is a delight-fill service of the Lord Jesus, to bring in the love of God [p. 397] and make it effective in our hearts; and we, looking at that glory, are changed into the same image; there is a similarising effect that goes beyond the first epistle. We have the principle in the first epistle; but the second brings in the positive thing, the glory in the face of Jesus; and the effect of it in us, is really much the same as the second giving of the law. We have the principle here in chapter 24, but the second giving of the law, is the amplification of it; it is like the new covenant, for Moses- face shone.
Ques Would the introduction of the Supper in chapter 11 be the great remedy for the condition of lack of unity at Corinth?
JT That is how it stands.
Ques And would the “commandments of the Lord” have a great connection; the recognition that what was written, were the commandments of the Lord?
JT Exactly; so you have the authority of the Lord in the commandments; and “His commandments are not grievous”, as you apprehend Him in His love.
What you see in Exodus is, they go into Egypt as the sons of Israel. “These are the names of the sons of Israel”, chapter 1:1. Then you have the names of the tribes; they are viewed in their, dignity as the sons of Israel. And so in Corinthians the fellowship is the fellowship of God’s Son; there is dignity in the fellowship. The pillars here would denote the mutual dignity of the tribes, as to what they were in the mind of God. We have to so regard them, because, although their histories afford most sorrowful evidence of the fleshy which Jacob takes full account of in his blessing in Genesis 49, yet in spite of all, every tribe was blessed; and so they go into Egypt with the blessing. They go in as blessed, and they go in in dignity as “the sons of Israel”; and these pillars would suggest what they are in their dignity, in the mind of God, and the unity that is to mark them, for they had committed themselves to the [p. 398] covenant. They are, typically, in possession of the love of God in Christ, the blood is sprinkled upon them. Those twelve pillars would denote a unity that would never be impaired.
SJBC Would you connect unity too with the seventy elders, and then the young men, and then the people? They were all one.
JT Yes, you get variety in the details. In the opening of this remarkable scripture you have the direction given to Moses, “Go up to Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel”. Then in verse 9, “And Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire, and as it were the form of heaven for clearness. And on the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: they saw God, and ate and drank”. That is, you have these pillars and the sprinkling of the blood, clothed in the suggestion of heavenly dignity; that they were to go up with it to the mount of God, and they were to be ennobled; they are called ‘nobles’, and they eat and drink, and see “the God of Israel”. So we are surrounded here with wonderful incentives to practical unity.
PL Would this be found in the expression at the beginning of 1 Corinthians — “God is faithful, by whom ye have been called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”. Is that the idea of their being blessed as going into Egypt?
JT Yes, and then the dignity of the fellowship. This suggestion of unity is set in the midst of beautiful touches of heavenly dignity, and that is how unity is promoted. God has ennobled us, and our nobility should lift us above the littleness of the flesh in rivalry and personal feelings. So in the Lord’s prayer to the Father in John 17, He clothes the idea of unity with most wonderful thoughts about us; for [p. 399] practical unity is one of the most important things in the testimony.
FI Why is it the youths are brought in as offering up burnt-offerings, if unity is established in the twelve pillars?
JT To bring in the idea of freshness.
FI Like the thought of the “new man”. The new man is youthful fresh life. The older we become the more difficult it is to impress us, but a youthful person may be impressed aright. I suppose Israel was that. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son”, (Hosea 11:1).
AM Would you say it is the power of divine love that produces unity according to the divine thought?
JT Well, it is, and then youthfulness the freshness of spiritual life. God says, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holiness unto Jehovah, the first-fruits of his increase”, (Jeremiah 2:2,3). That is what is seen here. God would impress us with His thoughts, hence “the words” here. The words are recorded so that they might lay hold of the people; the people had committed themselves to them.
Ques Would you say the Supper having its proper place in our hearts, would promote unity and youthfulness? It is an appeal of the love of Christ to us, bringing about a recognition of the rights of Christ?
JT Quite so, and then it keeps us fresh and young. Although we may be old in years we may be young in spiritual life, and maintain our freshness.
Ques Are those the conditions that enabled Moses to take the blood?
JT That is how it stands. “And Moses took half the blood, and put it in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar”. The blood put in the basons is in relation to us, for application to us, so that the full force of it might be understood. “And he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the ears of the people; and they said. All that Jehovah has said will we do, and obey! And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said. Behold the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has made with you concerning all these words”. So that now we are brought under the blood, not here as a shelter from the judgment of God, but, typically, as a token of His love. That is what is before us.
Ques Would the blood of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings bring in the idea of devotion?
JT Exactly, it is burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. Peace-offerings denote fellowship. Burnt-offerings denote what Christ was to God — wholly devoted to His will.
WBT Is the fact that these actions are mostly Moses-, a suggestion from the divine side?
JT Yes, God taking them up on the ground of their acceptance of the covenant. I do not think it marked them much; but still the reference in the prophet would show there was something there at the beginning, the “kindness of thy youth”.
Ques The Hebrew servant comes in between chapter 19 and this one. We get the same words spoken by the people in that chapter; but there was no blood sprinkled on that occasion, but the Hebrew servant comes in between. Why is that?
JT The Hebrew servant, being presented immediately after the law is given, is Christ, who would not only magnify the law, but go beyond, it, in love. The thought in the Hebrew servant enters into the Lord’s supper, for it is there that the will of God is seen as carried out; there also we see Christ’s devotedness to God and to the saints.
Rem And on the basis of that Moses can now sprinkle the blood on the people.
Ques Do you connect 1 Corinthians 1:9 with [p. 401] chapter 11 at the Supper? Do we reach the fellowship of God’s Son there?
JT That is the dignity of it. Chapter 1 is the fellowship of God’s Son; and chapter 10 is the fellowship of His death; and then later we have the fellowship of the Spirit. Those are the three aspects of fellowship in the two letters.
SJBC It is always the fellowship of.
JT Yes, whereas in John’s epistle it is with So it is thecharacter of the fellowship in Corinthians.
NMcC Would you say another word as to the blood? You referred to it as being a token of the love of God.
JT It being put in basons here, would call attention to that. The volume is to call attention to what there was on God’s part; so that the Lord calls attention to the cup as the new covenant in His blood. I believe in the ‘basons’, you have the thing there before you in volume; it is the fullness of the death of Christ in type.
WBT Is there freshness every time you take the Supper?
JT I am sure that is one great feature, to maintain freshness of affection. Then in Numbers, we have unity in connection with the kingdom; not exactly in the thought of the lordship of Christ, although that is involved; but as a moral feature of the kingdom There are Moses and Aaron representing the authority of God; but there are twelve men who are expressed by name, representing the tribes; a unity of moral influence. The tribes are grouped around the tabernacle where God is. That is to say, it is the kingdom of God, in these first two chapters of Numbers, in the sense in which it is said to be “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. The people are set in their tribes round about the tabernacle where God is. There you see an incentive to unity under moral [p. 402] influence; the influence of spiritual power in persons, in elders, or in whomsoever it may be, all coming under the influence of God dwelling there. In the antitype it is the position in which we enjoy “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”.
FI I think it is good to see that what you have in mind, is that unity can be maintained in kingly position, because of those who bring them into it.
JT That is right, but all in relation to the tabernacle in the centre.
PL Does that bring you to chapter 7 where you have the offering of the princes at the dedication of the altar?
JT Yes. The princes are representative of all. You see in those twelve men the wealth of Israel in perfect unity, all influenced by the same thoughts of Christ. It is a very fine position in Numbers 7. It is the outgoing of the wealth of Israel, represented in those twelve princes; each one influenced by exactly the same thoughts of Christ, typically — and there could be no greater expression of unity than that.
Ques Would that be in view of the journeys of the people according to God as Numbers gives us?
JT Yes. They have not begun to move yet, but they are set round the dwelling place of God. What an environment that is! Although in the wilderness, God is dwelling there; and these men were each set in relation to the standard of his father’s house, and each father’s house in relation to his tribe, and each tribe in its own set of three, and each three in relation to the tabernacle. Jehovah is called upon to stir up His strength before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, Psalm 80. That is what was there; the presence of God, and His influence exercised over all. That is very fine. Understanding it, you realise what the kingdom of God is. It is not the kingdom of heaven in Romans, but the kingdom of God, the presence of God here, in the power of the Spirit, and the sway of God in that way.
[p. 403] Ques Does that come out in 2 Corinthians? “I will dwell among them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be to me a people”, chapter 6:16.
JT Exactly. God dwelling among us and walking among us, what an influence that is!
FS What is the thought of each man being a head of his father’s house?
JT He is head by moral power. It was not by lineage, the heads of the tribes were that by moral power. It is not a question of appointment exactly, but what you are by moral power, so that the Lord recognised them. These are the men that were “summoned of the assembly;” they were held responsible in their respective tribes.
Ques Would you say that unity is maintained by moral power?
JT That is another phase. The first is the covenant, what God is to us in grace and in love; and then moral weight promoted amongst us by the Spirit, so that we represent the authority of God. The kingdom of God is more moral authority; what He is in His influence, as here by the Spirit. The kingdom of heaven implies Christ in heaven; but the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit down here. God dwelling here by the Spirit, and all the saints surrounding Him.
Ques Was this intended to preserve the children of Israel?
JT It is not intended to be an arbitrary rule. It is a benign kingdom (”righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”), and that promotes unity.
Rem It is practically seen in Romans 14, as the result of chapter 5 being made good in us; and we come out in its character for God here. In Exodus we get the first year, and those men were acquainted with God during that year.
JT Yes, and another thing is that Numbers contemplates the position in the wilderness. “Jehovah spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the tent of meeting, on the first of the second month, in the second year”. So that they had had a year’s experience.
SJBC The book has been called “In the wilderness”.
JT Showing that it is God taking account of us in our wilderness circumstances, and the provision He makes for us there. He would say as it were, ‘I am perfectly aware of what you are going through’. He speaks in the wilderness. It is God Himself in it, and knowing what it is, but in His own appointed abode, the tent of meeting.
Ques I have heard it remarked that the wilderness was no part of the purpose of God; but it is an essential part for us, is it not?
JT It is. In it we become acquainted with God in adverse circumstances.
‘What the God that thou hast found’. (76:6)
The God that we shall know in congenial circumstances in heaven, is already known to us in adverse circumstances, and is thus well known. It is a time of acquiring a knowledge of God that we should never have, if there were no wilderness. If God took us to heaven immediately on our conversion, we should never know Him in adverse circumstances. It is in these that God is brought out:
‘In the desert God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found’. (76:6)
So when you get to the end of the wilderness in Numbers 21 they move directly to Pisgah. There are four points reached, the last of which is “Pisgah, which looks over the surface of the waste”, verse 20. That is to say, you have a retrospective view of the wilderness, and it is that you might recount what God has been to you. So [p. 405] Numbers at the end gives us the encampments of the people. Loving His people. God records their encampments. He had a part in those encampments Himself, and it is for us to go over each of them, and recount what God was to us in them.
AM Referring to what you said earlier about the sons of Israel going into Egypt, do you think that Joseph had the thought of unity before him, when he gave commandment in view of “the going forth of the sons of Israel”? Hebrews 11.
JT Yes, and of their dignity too. Now the third point may rightly be called the unity of life; that is, we have arrived over Jordan. The people have reached the land, having crossed the Jordan, and that denotes the energy of life. They could not have crossed it had not the ark gone before, which was power in Christ. The waters of Jordan were driven back by that. “What ailed thee, thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou turnedst back?” (Psalm 114:5). It was the ark, the presence of the Lord; but then, as the Jordan was driven back and they went over, a man of each tribe took up a stone, and carried it over on his shoulder into the land. That denoted that he had power, not surely to drive back Jordan, but power enough to take up a stone and carry it over; showing that it is life, the quickening power of God in us as seen in Colossians; quickened with Christ. That is evidenced in power to take up a stone, as the representative of each tribe in life, and take it over into Canaan, and set it together with the other eleven in the place where they lodged.
AM Would this be more the inward spiritual power in regard to unity?
JT I think so. It is Colossians, where the apostle combats for them that they should be “united together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God”, chapter 2:2. It is a unity in life; a basis for our procedure [p. 406] together into the divine thoughts, into the purpose of God. We can proceed in it thus in unity.
SJBC I suppose you have the moral thought in Corinthians, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body”, (2 Corinthians 4:10).
JT Quite so. As in crossing over they are united in life, the twelve men carrying up those stones denoted power, so that they were set down together in life. Now the point was whether that was to continue; whether, in Colossian language, a man should come in and persuade them with words of philosophy and vain deceit, or whether they should be diverted by ceremonialism, the worshipping of angels and other things. The point is to hold on that line together, in the energy and unity of life, so that we should be led into the full thought of God for us, “the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God; in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge”, (Colossians 2:2).
Ques Is the unity becoming coloured by what is heavenly in this passage?
JT Exactly.
Ques How would the men of Numbers 1 help in this connection?
JT You have still twelve men acting, but acting now on the principle of life; life is there. Each man carrying his stone represented his tribe; typically, the tribe is living, and all are set down together.
SJBC Do you mean life practically in the soul?
JT Not simply the Spirit of life as in Romans; Colossians is quickening; we are made to live with Christ by the power of God.
PL Would it suggest an impression of what is spiritual, upon the men here, whom Joshua had appointed of the children of Israel?
JT Yes, because Joshua is the spiritual leader of the people. He is the leader in Canaan. It is Christ really [p. 407] as spiritual Leader; and so you get in this chapter that “On that day Jehovah magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they had feared Moses, all the days of his life”, chapter 4:14. It is Christ acquiring a new place in our souls as our spiritual Leader; He is magnified in our eyes.
Ques Does that connect with Colossians?
JT That is the point. The greatness of Christ is brought before us in chapter 1. The greatness of the Person of Christ in His varied glories is brought to bear upon us, so that He is magnified in our eyes. Christ in us is the mystery, and He becomes “all and in all”.
Ques Are we dependent upon Colossian truth to take us over?
JT Well, you go over following the ark. It is a question of attraction. We are taken “by the hand” and led out of Egypt, but we go into Canaan as quickened, as following the ark.
Rem One man of each tribe took the stone.
JT He was representative of all the tribe. It means that we go over Jordan in power; it is a question of power in the soul.
PL Does “lodge this night” suggest they are not in the full position which Ephesians presents?
JT Just so; the point is, you are going further, going up into the enjoyment of the full thought of God. This is a lodging place. They went back to Gilgal; that is another thing that comes out in the next chapter; but, first of all, there is the thought of lodging and these twelve stones there, representing a living state of things in the whole of the people. The children would ask, “What mean these stones?” They meant the power of God; that God had driven back the Jordan in Christ; but He has also quickened us, for we have carried over the stones, so to speak, and this implies the power of life, as we have said.
Ques Are these “living stones” is Peter [p. 408] suggests?
JT That is another view. It is not the idea of building here, but as representing the tribes as coming up out of death; it is in unity.
Rem The two and a half tribes went over in array before their brethren.
JT That shows the idea. Although the two and a half tribes left the land of Canaan later, they are seen here in the completeness of the unity.