THE LIFE WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS (5)
[p. 65] THE LIFE WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS (5)
Isaiah 38: 19, 20; Colossians 2: 12, 13; Ephesians 2: 4 - 7
JT In what has come before us so far in our subject, life in its present activity has been stressed. We looked at certain passages in 2 Corinthians last month, connecting our subject with those whom the Lord uses to minister the truth. It is thought that we should now look at Colossians and Ephesians.
The subject of quickening is especially in mind as essential to the service of God. And so Hezekiah’s remarks in the passage read in Isaiah furnish a good introduction from the Old Testament — from one who had been down into death, as it were, and had his life extended for fifteen years. The experience he had led him to value life as he had not valued it before; hence he now says, “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I this day ... . And we will play upon my stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of Jehovah” (verses 19, 20). We therefore have an excellent introduction by one who has had experience in death but now is typically made to live. This is enlarged upon in Colossians and in Ephesians; so that as we afresh look into the truth in those epistles we may be able to speak more experimentally about life.
JTJr Do the stringed instruments suggest David’s instruction?
JT It rises to David’s ministry; indeed, he made instruments of praise; 1 Chronicles 23: 5. So that we may take Hezekiah as representative of the house of David; he is addressed here in that sense. The historical books record much of the service of song in Hezekiah’s reign, and all is much linked with David. In 2 Chronicles we have the highest thoughts, typically, represented in Hezekiah. So [p. 66] he may be rightly used as introducing us into Colossians and Ephesians.
JWD Do you look upon this thought of playing as a quality of life?
JT Yes. Playing on stringed instruments would require agile and trained fingers. Cramped or paralysed fingers which, spiritually, would be found with us if we are not with God, could hardly use such instruments. So that the free action of life is required. This enters into what Hezekiah says in verse 19: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I this day”.
AR Earlier in the chapter he says, “In the meridian of my days I shall go to the gates of Sheol”. Does that mean that he has gone that distance literally?
JT Well, he had experience in death in that anticipative way. He further says, “I am deprived of the rest of my years”. He was a comparatively young man. He had come to the end of his days, as he thought, so that he had the experience of death anticipatively and therefore he represents a risen man such as Colossians suggests.
JHE Does this correspond with what the Lord says: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose it shall preserve it”, Luke 17: 33?
JT Hezekiah was losing his life, and Jehovah gave him fifteen years; but that is typical, of course; life in the true sense is in the antitype. He had given up his life. He says, “I have cut off like a weaver my life. [p. 72] He separateth me from the thrum — from day to night thou wilt make an end of me” (verse 12).
ANW Have you in mind his statement, “In all these things is the life of my spirit” (verse 16)?
JT That enters into what we are saying; a man is speaking to us who had experience with death. Paul speaks of “so great a death”, a tribulation in which he despaired of living, “But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead: who has delivered us from so great a death”, 2 Corinthians 1: 9.
RWS Is the depth of this character of experience more or less an index to the enjoyment of life?
JT Just so. And hence, as I said, I thought Hezekiah’s remarks form an excellent introduction to our subject, because Colossians contemplates the believer as dead. “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above ... for ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God”, Colossians 3: 1 - 3. Thus Colossians affords light which works out into experience of death and resurrection with Christ. If we are to be in the assembly according to God, this experience is essential.
WR “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh”, Ecclesiastes 1: 4. I was wondering as to whether this passage links with what Hezekiah says, “The father to the children shall make known thy truth” (Isaiah 38: 19), whether he is showing the coming generation how the service of God is to be maintained.
JT Yes; it is to go on in a living way. One great principle of this dispensation is that what it began with in the Spirit’s power was to be carried down. So that we now are sharing in what others have experienced and put into effect. Hezekiah is, I think, a type of such men. Largely through their teaching and example we know how to serve God; the Lord, we may say, constantly helps as to assembly service through teaching that comes to us currently.
JTJr Is David’s charge to Solomon in regard to the house and Solomon’s ministry confirmatory of this?
JT That is clearly seen in 1 Chronicles. David had accumulated what was needed so far for the [p. 68] house and then he said to Solomon, “And thou shalt add to it” (1 Chronicles 22: 14); so that the addition would be in Solomon; and others following also added. That was a principle established. And so now we have a son of Solomon, and of David, in Hezekiah and he is adding. According to this record he added to the service of God. What is in mind is that the younger men should add to what there is; but the addition must be according to what has come down to us as divinely given. And that is what Hezekiah is doing. He is adding to what was there. We have nothing in what preceded just like what is seen here.
TEH Would the young man Eutychus (Acts 20), add to the service of God as he was brought back to life, no little comfort being derived?
JT That is the principle. “They brought away the boy alive”: note that he was alive. This helps as to our general subject. We have a good many young ones among us, and we often talk about them. Practically, as spiritually alive, each one is an addition. Eutychus was of value. We may say that in Troas there was no boy like him, for he was received from the dead. So undoubtedly he would be nurtured in the assembly as one that would be characteristically of Paul’s company.
AR Does what you have in mind involve not only death but also the idea of burial? Hezekiah refers to “Sheol” which involves the grave.
JT Quite so — “Buried therefore with him by baptism unto death”, Romans 6: 4. Romans prepares us for Colossians in that sense; but you can see in Hezekiah how he had been in the thing thoroughly, and Paul says, “I die daily”. How real was his experience of death!
ABP At a previous meeting, we had the thought of the power of life in Romans, and then in Corinthians, the fragrance of life. Does melody of life come in [p. 69] here?
JT Very good; this latter marks David’s ministry. He made much of the instruments of music; and Hezekiah following, speaks of “my stringed instruments”. Habakkuk comes in later as another who added to the service with similar suggestions. He adds “my high places”, which would be Ephesians. He says, “Jehovah ... maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places”, Habakkuk 3: 19. He also says, “To the chief Musician. On my stringed instruments”. He added to the service of God.
CN You said that the experience of death is a necessity for the enjoyment of this life. Would you help us as to how this death is experienced by us?
JT It was implied in the reading on Romans 6. That chapter says, “As many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death” (verse 3). Evidently, the Romans were not making much of His death. They were recognising that baptism was to Christ, so far right but the apostle was stressing in Romans that it was to His death, and he led in that way, especially according to what he says to the Corinthians. In the first epistle he speaks of dying daily, and of persons being baptised for the dead; and in the second letter he speaks of the “great death” that in some sense he had experienced. He also speaks there of the odour of his preaching “from death unto death”. So that in those epistles, in the apostle himself, we have an example of one who had been into death experimentally. It was very real.
JWD Hezekiah, before he became sick, was much engaged with musical instruments, and he comes back in life and is again occupied with them. Do you see development in that?
JT Yes. It was the end that God had in mind in the experience He brought him through. His death was divinely ordered. “In those days Hezekiah [p. 70] was sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah: Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die and not live” (verse 1). It was directly ordered of God as He had ordered Moses’ death, and Aaron’s death, and clearly with the object in view that he might have the experience of death in the continuance here of the service of God, and that he might add to it — that he should know how to use musical instruments in that service more efficiently than he had used them before — as a risen man.
ANW And not only musical instruments, but in this case, stringed instruments. Did the experience of death involve that those stringed instruments were tuned afresh?
JT Yes. We often speak of the difference between stringed instruments and wind instruments. Of course wind is more suggestive of life, but stringed instruments are of a higher order. They bring in what is heavenly. So Habakkuk brings in the idea of high places, and hinds’ feet. But we are, as it were, in the presence of a man, in Hezekiah, who has been through death in his soul, and now he can say, “We will play upon my stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of Jehovah”.
FNW Was he alluding in what he says to ‘these things’ in connection with life in verse 16?
JT Yes. You can see what an experience he had, for “In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death” (verse 1). That is a serious matter, to be sick unto death. You may bring the doctor, but the man was sick unto death. The Lord Himself was “sorrowful even unto death”. It was a real thing anticipated beforehand, and then the further word is, “The prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah: Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die”. That is confirming the thing, that he is sick unto death. It is the word of God. It is God’s ordering, and Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed, etc., and then we have the encouraging word that he is to live for fifteen years. And then after his recovery he tells in his writing what his experience was. The fact that it is a writing shows it is not only for his own generation, but for later generations. So he goes on to tell us how he felt when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness; that is, he is now a risen man typically, but he is able to give an account of his experience. We may compare him with persons in the New Testament who were raised from the dead. Take the young man of Nain — what could he say? Or Jairus’ daughter, even; a girl of twelve — what could she say about her experience? What could Lazarus say about his experience? We are not told what they said or what they could say, but we can understand that they had solemn and searching experiences. Well, we need to understand what that is spiritually now; what can each of us say of the experience of going through death in a moral way? God puts you through circumstances where it is nothing else but that, and then He takes you out of them.
JS Is this experience in view of teaching?
JT It is in view of the service of God in His house. That is what we are seeking to get to in the account Hezekiah gives. He says, “I said, In the meridian of my days I shall go to the gates of Sheol: I am deprived of the rest of my years. I said, I shall not see Jah, Jah in the land of the living. With those who dwell where all has ceased to be, I shall behold man no more” (verses 10, 11). No true believer would say that now. But Hezekiah evidently had no more light. But how dreadful the anticipation “where all has ceased to be”. He further says, “Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent. I have cut off like a weaver my life.
He separateth me from the thrum: — from day to night thou wilt make an end of me. I kept still until the morning; ... as a lion, so doth he break all my bones. From day to night thou wilt make an end of me. Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I mourned as a dove; mine eyes failed with looking upward: Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me” (verses 10 - 14). That is all historical; Hezekiah is out of the exercise, but he is telling us about it. And then he says, “What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul”. That is the result that God foresaw, and now he says: “Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit; and thou hast recovered me, and made me to live”. That is the man. “All these things”: they are not the great things of his life as a king, as men would say, but they are the things by which he was living. That is a man who is playing his stringed instruments in the house of God.
JS Is that why he adds, “Jehovah was purposed to save”?
JT Quite so; and he also refers to Jehovah’s love for him: “Thou hast in love delivered my soul from the pit of destruction; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (verse 17). That is to be especially noticed because we are now approaching the service of God in His house. His delivering love has this in view; the assembly’s great eternal place and portion in heaven is the answer to God’s “great love wherewith he loved us”, Ephesians 2: 4.
RWS And then does he discover others who had the same experience? The ‘I’ and ‘me’ change, in verse 20, to ‘we’ and ‘our’.
JT Quite so; others would join in the prolonged service contemplated — “all the days of our life”. And that is what we are aiming at now; that the [p. 73] brethren, as in life, might enter feelingly into the service of God; even in the singing of a hymn; that our hearts might be fully drawn into it.
JWD Would you say the measure of our participation in the service of God stands in relation to the measure in which we have experienced death?
JT That is what I thought we might learn from Hezekiah’s account of what he experienced. And so in Colossians, for the apostle furnishes us with names of some Colossian saints. Well, we need, as it were, to set ourselves down in company with the Colossian saints and consider as to how this epistle would affect them and compare the result with the epistle’s effect on ourselves. Chapter 2: 12 says, “Buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead” (verse 12). Paul’s exercise was to arrive at the resurrection from among the dead, not simply as a matter of faith, but of realisation; Philippians 3: 11. And we see in Colossians how the apostle had in mind that they should be brought on to a status of resurrection, especially for assembly service, that we should reach that state of things in power. It is a question of faith laying hold of the energetic working of God in raising Christ from among the dead. It is through the faith of that that we are able to take the ground of resurrection in assembly service.
WGT The word is ‘active internal power’, according to the footnote.
JT It is the thought of ‘energy’. In Ephesians our being risen with Christ is not stressed; it is our being raised up to heaven that is the point; that we are quickened and raised up to a heavenly place and status. Resurrection itself does not take us off the earth; Ephesians contemplates us in heaven, and sitting there. And that involves quickening, our [p. 74] being taken out of death with Christ by the mighty power of God.
JS With a view that we might strike a higher note?
JT Yes; that is in view; our blessings are in the heavenlies.
ABP Where does the “unconquered” daughter of Zion come into this? She seems to be the focal point in God’s mind in Isaiah 37. I wonder if she might suggest that form of power you were speaking of?
JT Quite so; it is the virgin-daughter. It would mean moral superiority, I think, to the Assyrian influence; but then in the same connection you have, “the remnant ... shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward”, chapter 37: 31. That has the same thing in mind only in the idea of life expressed in a vegetable figure.
FNW The apostle speaks of “the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death” (Philippians 3: 10), is that taking root downward?
JT Yes; “being conformed to his death”; and that he might arrive at the resurrection from among the dead; and then to reach the goal, which is the calling on high. “The calling on high of God in Christ Jesus” is Ephesian truth.
FSC Did you say arriving at the resurrection from among the dead was apart from faith?
JT No; while we are down here faith must always enter into our exercises; but arriving at the resurrection from among the dead is a question of energy operating in us. We could not attain to it without the Spirit, however clearly our minds might take it in.
JWD Is the word ‘ye’ in Colossians 2: 12 the idea of an assembly position in life to which I am [p. 75] drawn?
JT A collective position is contemplated, leading to the body in verse 19. “He has quickened together with him”, verse 13 strengthens that. “Together” means that we are collectively linked up with Christ in the quickening.
ANW Whereas in Ephesians the “together” is that we are together?
JT Yes, raised up to heaven by ourselves. Christ is not mentioned until we come to “in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”; not with Him, but in Him; that is, status above. The quickening in Ephesians is with Him. God has quickened us “with the Christ”; that is, that He has been in death, and we have been there, too — “dead in offences”, and now we are quickened with the Christ. Then the next statement is “... has raised us up together”, that is, with each other. It is not a question of Christ being raised but the saints raised together, and not in the sense of resurrection as in Colossians, but raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ.
AR What you are speaking about will presently take place externally when our bodies are changed; whereas by the power of the Spirit operating in us now we are changed internally?
JT Exactly. The Spirit being here, we have christianity. Without the Spirit, however much light we may have, we could not have christianity nor the assembly. It is important to bear that in mind.
JWD What would be the difference between known energy in our souls in a Colossian sense, and the use of the Spirit in Romans 8?
JT There is not much difference only Colossians stresses faith and the working of God, who raised Christ. Note, “ye have been also raised”, which is not said in Romans. Nor is it said in Ephesians, the heavenly position being stressed there. You get it in chapter 1: “The surpassing greatness of his power towards us”, but we are not said to be raised by it; the heavenly position is in view. In Colossians the working of God is specially part of our faith, and hence our being raised with Christ is intelligible: the moral point would be our complete transference from the earth to resurrection ground. The Colossians were in danger of earthly things which might be regarded as good things in themselves; and the thought of resurrection involving the power of God laid hold of by faith implies a basis of transfer from the earth and hence deliverance.
Ques Is that why the apostle says, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ”, Colossians 3: 1?
JT Yes, “... seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth; for ye have died” (verses 2, 3). That is what is called a hypothetical statement; that one thing depends upon another. If I am risen, according to chapter 2, the next thing is that I am dead, like “the dead man Lazarus”; still in Bethany, but dead in this moral sense.
APT In John 11, Lazarus has grave-clothes on which would be removed; I was wondering if there would be any link with what we read in Colossians; certain things had been taken out of the way.
JT Quite so. “Having effaced the handwriting in ordinances which stood out against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it also out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (verse 14). That is what Paul is doing at Colosse. Like Lazarus, the saints there were risen, but they needed to be loosed and let go.
WGT Is burial emphasised more in Colossians than in Ephesians? In Ephesians, we are said to have been “dead in offences” whereas Colossians,
while it also says this, adds “buried with him in baptism”.
JT I think so. We are not said to be risen in Romans, but Romans leads to Colossians where we are said to be “buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him”. It is remarkable that baptism becomes here a figure of resurrection as well as of death; ‘in which’ implies this. Coming out of the water is a figure of resurrection. The apostle is using what is obvious: that the baptised person comes out of the water. It is that you are positively away from the earth, that is, in a moral sense. You do not go back to earthly ways. He is dealing with the earth.
ANW Does that mean we rehearse the baptism in our own souls?
JT Just so. We maintain the thought of it. In Romans we are told that we should walk in newness of life; but Colossians goes beyond this, the earth being in mind, the “good” side of the earth.
RWS Is that why the companionship ‘with him’ is mentioned, to make it practical to leave that kind of a world for another?
JT That is it; if you love the Lord Jesus, you like the thought of being with Him; and then, of course, there is companionship with the brethren also.
JS Do you not have a change of soil in Ephesians, being rooted and grounded in love?
JT You do; the assembly in its formation is more pronounced in Ephesians than Colossians. Ephesians is the full thought of God: the saints set down together in heavenly places.
AR We often speak anticipatively of being thus all together; in principle we have it when we come together in assembly every first day of the week.
JT That is the idea. So Ephesians is essential to the service of God in its heavenly character. We belong to heaven. How often do we touch that?
[p. 78] Very seldom. But we should go out on that note because we are to be here as a heavenly people; no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints, and of the household of God.
JAP Elisha, identifying himself with the child and raising him up, would fit in with your thought of Colossians?
JT Yes. The type foreshadows Colossians. The child’s trouble was in his head. In the process of restoring him the prophet “walked in the house to and fro”, as if there was something in it that had damaged his mind. Placing himself on the child, as described, would imply that as restored he would take character from Elisha.
WGT Is burial an intelligent way of dealing with death?
JT It is; it is a real thing to be buried like Lazarus, buried four days, it is said. It is to bring out the reality of death. Burial belongs to death.
ABP Is this quickening an advance on resurrection?
JT They are collateral, not as occurring together instantaneously, but in general bearing; I am speaking of them literally. In this sense quickening is first historically and in some connections it includes the body: resurrection “shall quicken your mortal bodies”, Romans 8: 11. But in Colossians resurrection is mentioned first, only it is a matter of faith, as we have seen; whereas quickening is actual as it affects us down here and it does not, in this sense, affect our bodies.
ABP Is resurrection an act of power outside of us, whereas quickening is what happens within us?
JT I would say that. When a man is about to be actually raised from the dead, something happens in him immediately before, because he hears the voice of Jesus; John 5: 28. How does he hear [p. 79] it? Something has happened in him corresponding with quickening.
JTJr I suppose we learn quickening experimentally now in the assembly. How do we act in the assembly? Why are there those who are practically dead in it?
JT That enters into what we have been saying — that the living praise God. In Ephesians quickening is put before the raising up into heaven; whereas in Colossians the resurrection is before quickening. The apostle stresses faith in relation to power, enabling the believer to take resurrection ground, because, as we have been saying, it is a question of overcoming earthly conditions.
JWD Do the words “in the which” cover the thought of buried with Him?
JT Yes; the words refer to baptism, which symbolises burial and resurrection, as we have been saying. Association with Christ in burial and resurrection is in mind.
AR Twelve stones on the banks of the Jordan would be a witness to what you are saying.
JT Yes; they represent the people as having come out of Jordan. That is the idea; and as we have often been taught, the Red Sea and the Jordan coalesce. We have to understand that word, especially as there were forty years between the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan.
JWD Is the thought of quickening something experimental, following on the possession of the Spirit?
JT It is, and that is, I believe, why there is so little mention of the Spirit in Colossians, whilst there is a great deal said of Him in Romans and in Ephesians; it is His work that is in mind in Colossians. You need that to understand what coming out of the water means; that it is resurrection; that is, I am [p. 80] free from the earth as well as from the world. Coming out of the Red Sea, Israel entered the wilderness, which Romans contemplates. Colossians is an up line, Canaan being in view. Thus the exhortation, “Have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth”.
FNW Does Mary reach that point in her soul in John 20 in being absorbed with Christ? She is ready for the ascending line.
JT Just so; as the people cross the Jordan, much is made of the ark, especially as in the river. There is no ark in the Red Sea. It is at the Jordan the ark is seen in the water, and it remains there, until the people all go over as following it, but after they go out of Jordan, there are twelve stones taken up out of the water, meaning that they had been there. Colossians contemplates that we “have died”. The twelve stones mean that the Israelites had been in Jordan and that they started a new history there. They came up out of the water, but after that there were certain experiences needed before they partook of the old corn of the land, that is, for us, in the antitypes, food proper to heaven, that in the counsels of God we are indigenous to it.
TEH When the Lord Jesus came up out of the Jordan He prayed. Is there a sense of dependence as you come out?
JT Quite so; you can see the example He sets, as coming up out of the water. He prayed, and while He was praying the Holy Spirit came upon Him. That is the principle, that power keeps you in the wilderness.
AR Would you say more about the idea of the saints as in heaven? We can understand in a little way the idea of resurrection which takes place on earth; whereas according to Ephesians we are raised up together and made to sit down together [p. 81] in the heavenlies.
JT Romans regards us as in the wilderness. We are said to be dead to sin. Colossians says “ye are dead” like “the dead man Lazarus”. Ephesians teaches us that we belong to heaven — in this period of testimony the Holy Spirit takes us there:
“And see! the Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heav’nly door,
Has brought us to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er”. (74:5)