SELECTION IN DIVINE COUNSEL AND IN TESTIMONY
[p. 207] SELECTION IN DIVINE COUNSEL AND IN TESTIMONY
Matthew 16:28; Matthew 17:1 - 8; Matthew 26:36 - 46; Luke 8:49 - 55
I have in mind to speak about divine selection, and, as a secondary application of the thought, to speak of it in relation to service or testimony here; but the primary thought is in relation to the divine counsels. The fact that selection or choice is related to these counsels implies that there were some who were not selected; before the selected ones or the unselected ones had any being, they were all before God. The idea of selection or choice necessarily implies that all were not included in the choice; some were excluded. And so we have the idea of foreknowledge in God, meaning that He, as looking down the whole course of time, saw all, even in regard to life; He foresaw a time when it would be needed and the need felt, and promised it. In connection with this side of the truth, we have the idea of choice connected with our circumstances here, that is, that all things work together for good to those who are the called according to God’s purpose, and then the thought of foreknowledge, and that this led the way for what is particularly in the divine heart, that is sonship. “Whom he has foreknown”, we are told, “he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). That is perhaps the most choice bit that we can get, as bringing in what is in the divine heart, foreknowledge, predestination, and conformation to the image of God’s Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. That is the great divine thought, the thought of God’s heart seen in Christ and in those that are like Him, conformed to His image. That is, as I said, the most choice selection of words that you can get as bringing [p. 208] out how, as God begins to speak to His people in regard to their circumstances here, He moves on to His own thoughts. And then further, so that the whole range before Him might come into view, the Spirit says, “Whom he has predestinated, these also he has called”; that is time, it is history. We have to learn, dear brethren, to think of God as He is, that is always in the present; and then as the historical God, that is God historically; and then as the God of prophecy, the God of the future. The more intelligent we are, and the more we love Him and know Him, the more we shall begin with the ever-present God, Him who is. That is how intelligent believers begin in thinking of God, “He who is, and who was, and who is to come” (Revelation 1:8). Others who are the outcome of later thoughts, like the living creatures, begin with the historical God, this thought having its own place (Revelation 4:8); but affection regulated by spiritual intelligence will begin with God as He is, He who is, first, for it is a present God who has spoken to us and who has put His love into our hearts. So that we should learn how to speak to God as God, not only to recite historic facts in His ear, even the most precious things relating to Christ but not that only; that is right in its place, but God looks for more than that; if we speak to Him who is, we ought to be able to speak about Himself. So that whom He foreknew He “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”; that is all a matter of counsels before the world was. We know God there in relation to that, but then the next thing is, “Whom he has predestinated, these also he has called”; that is historical, “and whom he has called, these also he has justified”; that is historical too, and “Whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”, that also is historical, I mean, as applied to any christian at any given time. The third set of historical things in that chapter has in mind [p. 209] the saints being used here as glorified, God intending to use glorified persons in His service; He is the God of glory, and surely, as the God of it, He would attach it to, and bring it about in, those who are carrying on His service; He would make us glorious. So the Lord says, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:22), in view of testimony here. So that, if He has justified us, He has glorified us, in order that we should be representative of Him in our service. All service is enveloped in glory in the divine thought; we are “vessels of mercy”, as we are told, “before prepared for glory” (Romans 9:23). And that leads me to what I have in mind, that these three selections, all relating to the same three persons, have in mind service and testimony at the present time. I speak thus, dear brethren, so that we may see how the word, selection, or choice, stands, that the more we know God, the more we see that everything must work out from His selection. It is not anybody or everybody; it comes to this in the end, it is divine selection. It may not appear at first, but it will appear. It took a good while perhaps before the apostle Paul shone out as an elect vessel, but it was in the Lord’s mind when He spoke of him first; He told Ananias of Damascus, “This man is an elect vessel to me” (Acts 9:15), and what a vessel of mercy before prepared for glory he was! Nothing, in a way, would be more interesting than to trace the history of that great vessel and see how the glory shone in his service.
Well now, the first passage is to bring out that the selected ones are to have the great advantage; they are to have every possible advantage that the divine mind can devise. You cannot conceive, dear brethren, that God would be at all meagre in His provision for those who serve Him; the matter is so important. His thought is not to wait for the future for glory; we are brought into a system of glory, and every [p. 210] agent in it is functioning in glory; whether it be actual display in power, or in a moral sense, glory is there, and God intends it to be there; and hence the selection for advantage. The Lord had spoken to Peter in this chapter 16; the Father had spoken to him; and that reminds me of another beautiful truth entering into what I am saying, the Father’s part in those who recognise Christ. The Lord says of those who came under His influence, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have set you that ye should go and that ye should bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide” (John 15:16). Of them the Lord says to His Father, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me”. And He says, “They have kept thy word”. You say, ‘They were given out of counsel’; well, it does not say that there; the Lord says, “The men whom thou gavest me out of the world”; that is another matter. They have had their part in the world, and the more they have had to do with it the harder it would be to make out of them what is in the divine mind. There is no diminution of that at all; “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”, He says, “and they have kept thy word”. Well, who is to be credited with that? It is the Minister. Whatever accrued in the wilderness, in a certain sense, was accredited to Moses; the people were given to him, you might say, out of Egypt. Think of what they were: what a difficult set of men they were! what a difficult man Moses himself was until he was brought into a state which was a type of Christ as the great Minister! Jehovah, as it were, gave them to Moses out of Egypt; indeed He says in Matthew 2:15, “Out of Egypt have I called my son”. Sonship there is cited in Matthew as applying to Christ, but in Exodus 4 it applies to Israel. Who could see the traits of a son in them? They were there nevertheless; they were there potentially, and {211} [p. 211] the ministerial service was to bring that out. Hosea shows what skill and patience were exerted in bringing it out in Israel. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son”, and then we are told what skill was expended upon him. Moses’ ministry was to bring that out, and it could be shown that it was brought out. Moses’ blessing of the tribes in Deuteronomy shows that it was there, the traits of sonship were there, all the fruit, under God, of the ministerial service; but the work was God’s, so that “it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!” (Numbers 23:23). That is to say, all extraneous matter should be set aside in ministerial power so that what was of God should shine out. That is how the matter is; so the Lord says, “Thou gavest them me”, and He immediately says, “they have kept thy word”. And not only that, but He says, “Now they have known that all things that thou hast given me are of thee; for the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them, and have known truly that I came out from thee, and have believed that thou sentest me”. How did all that come about? Through the wonderful service of Christ, in spite of the fact that they were out of the world. And the Lord says, “Righteous Father, — and the world has not known thee”, how He knew it! How He saw what it meant in dealing with it; He sees it, of course, in every sense; He sees it in every one of us, He sees those He is working with. What sorrow of heart we cause Him as He is working out the divine thought in us.
So, according to this chapter, the Father had spoken to Peter so that Peter speaks about Christ. He says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. The Lord says, ‘The Father revealed that to you’. But then, in spite of that wonderful treasure in his heart and mind, Peter was out of the world,
[p. 212] and immediately he would turn the Lord Jesus away from the path of suffering; it is the spirit of the world; “God be favourable to thee, Lord; this shall in no wise be unto thee”, as if he would flatter the Lord and divert Him from the path of the will of God; that is what he would do. Is this tendency in Peter only? Not at all, brethren; this incident as to Peter is only given in order that each might see that these are the terrible contrarieties the Lord has to deal with; and He deals with them, and, in dealing with them, He gives us every possible advantage, so that He may have vessels of glory. So He says, “There are some of those standing here that shall not taste of death at all until they shall have seen the Son of man coming in his kingdom”. And one of these was Peter; the Lord knew that. In spite of the fact that he would turn Him away from the path of the divine will, the Lord says, I am not giving up. What a comfort that is! Where would any of us be if He did give up when these terrible contrarieties come out in us! He does not give up; it is to bring out the divine workmanship. He reaches His end. So He says, “There are some of those standing here that shall not taste of death at all until they shall have seen the Son of man coming in his kingdom”. One can understand how Peter would say, ‘Well, I am ashamed of myself for what I said to the Lord; He rebuked me, He called me Satan. Can He ever make anything out of me?’ I hope he did say that. Anyway, he was a man with a tender conscience; he was capable of being affected. No doubt he did feel that he should not have said that to the Lord. The Lord turned round and said, “Get away behind me, Satan; thou art an offence to me, for thy mind is not on the things that are of God, but on the things that are of men”. How stern the Lord can be! But He is dealing with the incorrigible flesh that is there and has to be judged in our hearts, so [p. 213] that we should be aware of it. Now He says, “There are some of those standing here”. He does not say how many, He does not indicate their names, they would all be challenged by it. What a wonderful thing it would be! And six days after He selected those three, Peter and James and John, and took them up to a high mountain apart and “was transfigured before them. And his face shone as the sun ... and lo, Moses and Elias”, not “two men” here, it is the dignity of the persons, “appeared to them talking with him”. These were two great servants in their day; God has taken wonderful pains with them, and He has brought them to this; now there they are, Moses and Elias, in the glory. No history is given, every one is supposed to know them in the glory. They are the handiwork of God; they are taken up with Jesus. We are not told what they were saying here; it is the dignity of the persons. Luke says, “two men”, that is to bring out that side; but Matthew is the dignity of the persons whom you see as the Lord is pleased to take you into the vista of glory; behind the persons is the handiwork of God there. The Lord is transcendently great there; His countenance is like the sun shining and His raiment “white as the light”; but still these men are able to talk to Him. He is great and glorious beyond words, but they are great, too. Let us not think that we detract from Christ in saying that His handiwork is glorious too; it is really glorifying Him. Well, I cannot say more about this passage except to point out how perfectly the result was reached in Peter. It took a long time; Peter represents what is reached in a lifetime. We have a full-size picture of him from the time he was converted, and what may be done in the lifetime of a man like that! So that we have dates: that is, we have the time when he was about to put off his tabernacle. That is not an accidental word there, it is a spiritual word. He had used it wrongly on the mount; he says, ‘I am not going to do that again’. He had said, “Let us make here three tabernacles: for thee one, and for Moses one, and one for Elias”. He is never to say that again, nor did he. He says, “the putting off of my tabernacle is speedily to take place” (2 Peter 1:14), that is, his end is reached; it had already been indicated. He says, ‘The Lord told me about it’. And, so that we might see that the end is reached in him, he immediately proceeds to provide for the saints after his departure and tells them that he had not followed cunningly devised fables, but they were “eye-witnesses of his majesty”. How his heart was full of that thought! It cannot be doubted that it shone in him from the time the Spirit came down right through. The Spirit would give him such a view, such a sense, of what he saw on the mount, that it would shine out in his service and in his suffering. But he was a vessel of mercy aforetime fitted for glory, so the glory shone. And he goes on to say they heard the voice of the Father saying to Him from “the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. He says, ‘You have heard that, and we heard it when we were with Him on the holy mount’. So full of the thought is he now, the divine thought being reached in him, that he can use such words, even attaching holiness to the very mount itself. Then, as to John and James, how this shone in them too! I suppose no one speaks more about glory than John. It is for us to work the thought out in them. James, who, we are carefully told, was the brother of John, was slain by the sword of Herod; he suffered. Peter waited a little longer; he knew his time would come, and it did come. John says the Lord alluded to Peter’s death as that by which “he should glorify God”; he died in glory.
Well now, I go on to chapter 26, and the next thing is being drawn into the sufferings of Christ by selection. I use the word ‘selection’, or ‘choice’, or ‘election’, but it is selection I have in mind, and how it challenges us! ‘Is it so’, you say, ‘am I to be included?’ God would give you to understand that after all, whatever you do, however much you may seem to do, you must come back to His choice, and the more you get on in the truth the more you will be concerned that you may come back to that thought that the Lord has chosen you. I should not like to have any other thought than that, that whatever I may do, it is a question of the Lord’s choice, and of being prepared for glory, that is, the glory of service. So we come to suffering. I cannot say very much because of the time, but, before I proceed, I would remark that, whilst Peter identifies the holy mount and the glory of it, “the Son of man coming in his kingdom”, with his public testimony, that is, the making known of the truth, he identifies the public side with eldership, he says, ‘I exhort you that are elders’. You understand that we are not assuming to have official elders; still there are elders, and we are to know them too, and we are to know how to behave in relation to them, not to receive any accusation against one of them without good testimony, and that we are to entreat them as fathers. God is careful about these matters, but Peter says, “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am their fellow-elder and witness of the sufferings of the Christ, who also am partaker of the glory about to be revealed”. So that we have now something that bears on our care, and the Lord has greatly stressed the thought of care or eldership of late. All are brought into it, of course; the epistles to the Corinthians do not say a word about eldership but they stress all the saints, even the one least esteemed in the assembly is not to be ignored; he is to have to do with the administrative matters. But still one scripture cannot abrogate another, and one scripture {216} [p. 216] holds as a principle, and where there are elders there are elders, and they are to be respected as elders, and on their side, they are to do the work of eldership, and that means suffering. There are two words used, one is ‘elder’, the other ‘overseer’; they should be combined; an elder has moral weight, an overseer oversees and attends to things; they really refer to the same person. So there is no ground at all for episcopalianism or presbyterianism, the two ideas really refer to the same person, the looking after of things. “If one does not know how to conduct his own house, how shall he take care of the assembly of God?” (1 Timothy 3:5). “Take care”, that is a good word, referring to our meetings for care. But I am speaking of suffering and how the Lord selected those three men that they should be real witnesses of His sufferings. Peter says he was a “witness of the sufferings of the Christ”. They failed in it; fancy their going to sleep! The Lord carefully selected them; He says to the others, “Sit here until I go away and pray yonder”, and then He takes these three with Him to be near Him. What a favour! How they must have been ashamed of themselves afterwards! As they were asleep on the mount, so they were asleep here in the garden of pressure. The top of the mountain does not suggest pressure, but the valley suggests pressure. But they are there, and they were selected by the Saviour who was about to die to be with Him in those last few moments, but they missed it. Still the Lord does not give them up. How He must have felt it! “Thus ye have not been able to watch one hour with me?”, He said, as He went away again and prayed and told His Father what He was going to go through, and said, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt”. And they were asleep; but He finally said to them, “The spirit indeed is ready”, He knew that; that is the potential side, that is the golden thread He is working on; it is there. And in [p. 217] time all that miserable flesh in its weakness and cowardice will pass away, and they will become fixed in their souls as they take on the mind of the suffering Christ. “Arm yourselves”, says Peter, “with the same mind; for he that has suffered in the flesh has done with sin, no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh to men’s lusts, but to God’s will” (1 Peter 4:1,2). That man will be an elder, he has done with sin. It is a remarkable way of working it out, arming ourselves with the same mind, Christ having suffered for sin in the flesh we have done with it. How can we have done with it save in the power of the Spirit of God? But we come to it, the Lord sees to it that we come to it. But Peter is an elder, a witness of the sufferings of Christ and of the glory. The first epistle of Peter deals with this matter, and lays down the principles that govern us as old brothers and young brothers, but the outstanding thought is the sufferings of Christ; it is only in the apprehension of these we can take on the service of eldership, whether we are old or whether we are young.
Finally, in the passage in Luke we have the selection again of the same three men, and what I have been saying about the sufferings of Christ must enter into this, because it is a question of the saints, of whether there is life in a person, a nominal believer, or not. The Lord is about to do something very spiritual, and what He is stressing now is that He is aiming at what is very spiritual, because that is needed for the eternal thoughts. He is preparing us for the eternal thoughts, and incidentally, at least in the meantime (for this same material is to work out here in the formation of the assembly) the chapter treats of the component parts of the assembly. We have often spoken of it before, but it is well to introduce it here so as to get the bearing of this part of the service. The demoniac is seen sitting, clothed and in his right mind, and the man wants to be with Jesus, but the Lord says, “Return to thine house and relate how great things God has done for thee”, and he did. That is one side, one element of assembly material, that is the intelligence and the courage and ability to stand by oneself; he stood by himself in Decapolis, the concentration of cities. Referring to our time, the time of cities, how young men are called upon to stand alone in the midst of the corruption and wickedness. He did it by himself and he did it well, he testified to what Jesus had done for him in a place where Jesus was rejected. They asked Him to leave. Think of being called upon to serve in a place where Jesus is rejected, really it is the whole world. Now it is necessary that the believer should be able to stand by himself, and then to be put in his place in relation to others, as the boards of the tabernacle. Then we have the woman who is mentioned here, she is the second component part of the assembly. And then we have the child. ‘Oh’, you say, ‘she is only twelve years old; children should be segregated and taught separately’. Yes, and sometimes taught by an unconverted person; where can you get a spiritual thought from an unconverted person? The thought with this child is spirituality, a remarkable thought which is not stressed with the man or the woman. I am not saying it is not there, but spirituality is stressed with regard to this girl of twelve years old; she must be raised into a spiritual atmosphere, and Peter, James and John are selected to be in that company in which she is to be raised. Can we not assume, dear brethren, that the previous selection enters into this? I am a witness of the glory, I am a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, now I am spiritual, for I can only be glorified as spiritual. I am not saying they had the Spirit yet, for they had not, but these gospels were written after the whole of christianity was propagated in the world. They have a peculiar place: they are to show how, as [p. 219] the result of the handiwork of Christ, the apostles worked like Jesus and reached the same end, so if they are to be spiritual, they must have the Spirit. And so here we have to assume that this part of Luke has in mind the component parts of the assembly; the first is intelligence; the second is the sensibilities in the woman. The truth is that the woman there represents the body, for the virtue came out of Christ and she was affected by what came out of Christ. We can understand that now because we understand in measure the mystery. She is a daughter, and she is sent away, and she is accredited with faith; that means she is trustworthy, it is her own faith, what she had. She had been untruthful in spirit, but she is not that any more, she is to be transparent, the whole matter is out in regard of her; she is an element in the assembly, dear brethren; that is essential. Trustworthiness, subjective feelings and sensibilities are most essential; indeed the assembly cannot be formed without the subjective side for the body depends upon it. And then the twelve-year-old child. Is she too young to be received into fellowship? Well, I believe if we say that we are cutting across this scripture. The Lord is aiming at this young girl being brought into a spiritual atmosphere, and He brings those three men with Him, selects them, Peter and James and John; and the mother and father of-the child; that would be six, and the girl would make as living, the seventh. What a scene is formed in that house! and the Lord says to her, “Child, arise”. What was in His mind at that time? The Spirit of God records this years afterwards, after Peter and all the others had come into the good of the Spirit, and knew what spirituality meant. What times they must have had in that upper room after the Spirit of God came down! What spiritual power was there! What spiritual influence anyone converted in this way, like the man who [p. 220] lay at the gate of the temple, would come under! and so here, they would not forget this. Why did the Lord ask them to go? Well, surely He is endeavouring to bring them to the thought of spirituality, because the flute players and the instrumentalists are all put out; the Lord puts them all out, and replaces them with Peter and James and John. So that the child of twelve and older, I am not saying a lot older, is brought up in the spiritual setting where they get spiritual impressions, where they get food from those who love them, that is their parents, and where they grow up. What would this girl in after years think of Peter, James and John? How she would remember; and supposing she lived on and came into fellowship, as doubtless she did, how would she regard Peter? If you were to ask a girl whom she knew to go to a Sunday school, she would say, ‘You go to the meeting, go to Peter, James and John; there you will get impressions that will stick to you’. That is what she would say; and that is what we say now, some of us who have come to see what these things mean, and how the Lord is selecting His servants and preparing them. They would see what He did and the effect of it on this girl and on the whole house, and they would remember it afterwards. Peter raised up the woman later in Joppa, as you will remember, and he presented her living. She had been a good sewer, a good garment maker, but now you have a living sister in your midst. That was his thought, and God is glorified in His doing it.
May God bless these thoughts.