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THE HEAVENLY SYSTEM (1)

WB-t Is your thought that the church as set up at Jerusalem was insufficient to set forth the church in the purpose of God?

JT Exactly. I do not think you get the full idea of the church till the link with Israel is formally broken.

RSS Of course it is still the same church.

JT Yes; but the truth of the church did not actually come out till the link with Israel was broken. The church existed, of course, from Pentecost.

WB-t At the beginning there was a distinct link with Israel?

JT Yes. What I had in mind was that we might see how that link was formally severed; while it remained, the full light of the church was clouded; the cloud period continued.

LWB If Israel had received Stephen and his testimony, the Lord would have returned to them, would He not?

JT Yes, if they had received the testimony of the twelve, according to chapter 3; but while the link with Israel remained unbroken there was partial obscurity.

WCR Things were more or less earthly.

JT The cloud period remained. A cloud received Him out of their sight, as we see in chapter 1. That shows that the cloud period had not wholly disappeared, but Stephen sees Him without a cloud. “He looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God”. That lays the basis for Christianity as it ^[p. 344] came to us.

AFM What did the cloud period indicate?

JT Concealment; that God was concealed, He was there, but concealed. It was the same divine presence, but beclouded, and that period continued whilst Israel remained. In other words, the recognition of the nation as specially favoured necessarily beclouded the full revelation of God. The full revelation of God necessitates that all men have the same footing before Him. For that you must have the unfolding of a heavenly system. It is now the Son of man in heaven, not Messiah in Israel.

RSS Consequently you get Peter in chapter 10 saying, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him”.

JT Exactly. That is what Peter had to be led to. He had perceived that by the sheet let down from heaven, but he did not receive it before.

JLJ It all comes out through the apostle Paul’s ministry.

JT It was developed in his ministry, but Stephen’s testimony lays the basis of Christianity as Paul unfolded it. He sees the Son of man in heaven, without a cloud, and the glory is there. The Son of man is there not in regard of Israel specially, but in regard of man. Peter did not bear that testimony. He says, “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”. But Stephen sees the Son of man.

EPL I suppose the twelve apostles were expecting the Lord to come back, as Peter said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you”. They were looking for Him as Messiah,

^[p. 345] JT Quite so, and in chapter 3 the apostle gives them the credit for being the sons of the covenant and of the prophets, showing that God is still taking account of the nation in grace according to its original calling. But Stephen says, “which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?” The contrast between chapters 3 and 7 shows the distinction. Peter adds that God had sent His servant Jesus to bless them. That is the point of chapter 3. Then in chapter 4, the antipathy of the Jewish leaders towards Christ is brought to light, and that developed and grew till it showed itself fully in Stephen’s rejection and death. Stephen’s address takes account of the people not as the sons of the prophets, but as the persecutors of the prophets, and the rejecters of every testimony rendered in grace.

RSS Stephen’s address was largely to their conscience? .

JT Yes. He began with the fact that the God of glory had appeared to Abraham; that is the thesis. That is what God began with, and then he pursues the history of God’s ways, and shows that every intervention of God only elicited hostility from the people till Messiah Himself arrived, of whom they became the murderers. So that there was no longer any hope for the people as such; and then he says, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God”. This shows that if they had rejected the testimony of the glory, God had secured it, but it was in heaven it was secured. They were not the custodians of it, and the Son of man was in heaven. So that now God is free to act in the light of Christ as the Son of man. We may say that God did not give up Israel until they forced Him to do so.

WLP Do you not think it was possible that Saul’s conscience was touched and that moved ^[p. 346] him to greater energy against Christ for the time being?

JT I think the kicking against the goads (Acts 26: 14) shows that Saul had had an impression made on him, but his will was more powerful than the impression.

RSS Stephen had seen in heaven that which God had manifested to the children of Israel.

JT The glory was really the thesis which God lays down to begin with, and He proposed to work it out in relation to the family of Abraham. No family could be more privileged, but Stephen shows that at every point where the privilege came specially to light they were hostile.

WB-t Why does Stephen’s address stop at the house of God? He goes on with the history of Israel to that point and then stops and upbraids the people.

JT I think they were making a great deal of the house literally, and hence he quotes: “Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me?” I think they were limiting God to the literal house, not seeing the spiritual import of it, and hence Stephen, citing another passage, brings out what God’s house really is, that it is the whole universe, not a limited portion of it like Jerusalem. You cannot limit heaven to any restricted part of the earth.

RSS And a climax was reached when Solomon built the house?

JT That is what is intimated in Exodus 15, that God would bring them in and plant them in the mountains of His inheritance, and that they should build a house for Him.

AFM There is also a connection in the quotation in a passage not quoted by Stephen. He says, “but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word;” Isaiah 66. They were just the opposite ^[p. 347] from that.

AAT I can understand Stephen looking up and seeing the Lord as Son of man, but I cannot understand how he could see the glory.

JT I think the point is that the glory is connected with the Son of man in heaven.

AMcB God’s glory in the past was connected with the temple of God, and now it is connected with the Son of man in heaven?

JT That is the point. Ezekiel saw it depart; this really took place when Christ left the temple. The house was “left desolate”. But then Ezekiel saw the glory linger over the city: and so in the early chapters of the Acts we see that the glory lingers over the city and the temple, for even the apostles were connected at first with the temple and recognised it; this showed the longsuffering of God.

AMcB It was an immense moment in God’s ways when the glory came into Solomon’s temple; now all is changed.

JT And the blame attached to them. But God had the glory in view, therefore what Israel spurned on earth is secured in heaven.

LTF Was the Lord referring to these things in John 1: 50: “thou shalt see greater things than these ... Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”?

JT Yes. The title Son of man conveys a wider thought than the Messiah. Take Matthew 16: 13. What occurred there was at Caesarea Philippi, which was in the north-east of Palestine, comparatively near to the place where the Lord met Saul. It was near the Gentile region. There it was the Lord raised the question as to His Person, and Peter confessed that He was not only the Messiah, but also the Son of the living God. Then the Lord ^[p. 348] tells them to say no more that He was the Christ, but that the Son of man must suffer, Luke 9: 22. That signifies that the testimony as to “the Christ” is given up for the moment, and He enters on the wider sphere of Son of man, and dies as such, so that He goes on to speak about the Son of man coming in His kingdom. That is what they were allowed to see in Matthew, a wider sphere in the Son of man. In John’s gospel it was when Judas went out that the Lord says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him. God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”. Judas’ departure from the circle gave the enemy the handle that he required, to take the Lord a prisoner and to have Him crucified. The moral glory of the Son of man is that He carries out the will of God unswervingly; that is man’s true glory. Gethsemane was before the Lord’s mind, and His soul entered into it; it was there He was to show that man’s true glory is to carry out God’s will. He says, “not my will, but thine, be done”. God would give the Lord a glory in connection with His own nature. He would “glorify him in himself, and glorify him immediately”. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. All the Father’s glory was involved in connection with that One — the true Man. He raises Him from the dead and glorifies Him in Himself, and that is done straightway. I think that is the present moment, the universal testimony in relation to all men, and the church comes in consequent upon it. In John 12 we have, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified”. The inherited glory is mentioned before the acquired glory. The Lord acquired glory in Gethsemane and on the cross, and God glorified Him consequent on that, and now in gathering out the church and giving it to Him, but all this is ^[p. 349] pending the time when He enters on His inherited glory which is spoken of in Psalm 8.

LTF What does glorifying Him “in himself” mean? In His own nature?

JT God does not delay to glorify Him. Glorifying Him in Himself had reference to what was between the Father and Himself. I think it is an answer to the cross. The greatest moral glory that a man can have is that he does God’s will. God glorified Christ in Himself in answer to this.

AAT What was it that Stephen saw which he speaks of as the glory?

JT Glory is a moral thought. What Stephen saw was that every attribute of God had found its answer in that Man in heaven. Being filled with the Holy Spirit he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and he apprehended that every attribute of God met in Jesus.

RSS I suppose the glory of God is the expression of His nature.

EPL Why do you say the glory of God in man was established in Gethsemane rather than at Calvary?

JT I include Gethsemane with Calvary. It was on the cross the Lord actually drank the cup of wrath. But it was anticipated in Gethsemane, and then He took the cup from the Father’s hand. There the pressure was on the Lord’s spirit. But of course nothing can be compared with the cross; it was there that He was forsaken of God.

RSS But the Lord went through it all in anticipation in Gethsemane.

JT I think so. The cup was full, and He fully estimated all it contained, and prayed that it might pass from Him; but He added, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done”.

AAT He is glorified now in the saints?

WB-t That is a conferred ^[p. 350] glory.

JT Yes. God glorifies Him immediately, before Psalm 8 is fulfilled; and I think it is brought to pass by the gospel, so that it may be rightly connected with these chapters.

RSS You have spoken of three glories of the Son of man; His inherited glory, and His acquired glory, and the glory that has been given to Him.

JT Evidently the inherited glory is first in order, but last in reception. That is Psalm 8. As born into this world, He is the Son of man. Luke traces Him back to Adam. He inherits all the glory that fell to man in God’s counsels. The heir necessarily inherits all that belonged to the progenitor. All the glory that fell to man in God’s counsels fell to Christ as Son of man; but He says in John 12, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified”. That is the Son of man viewed as heir to all that fell to man; but instead of that He has to die so as to produce fruit. That is the inherited glory.

RSS So that John 12 refers to Psalm 8.

JT Yes; but when Judas goes out in chapter 13, the Lord says, “Now is the Son of man glorified”. That is, it has taken place now, meaning that He was to be glorified morally in carrying out God’s will. And then, “If God be glorified in him [in Man carrying out God’s will], God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”. That is the present time; before Psalm 8 is fulfilled we have the present glory of the Son of man which is acquired and conferred. God glorifies Him in Himself, and then glorifies Him immediately. The latter, doubtless, refers to the assembly.

APM Where do you find the thought of universal dominion in connection with the Son of man?

JT That is Psalm 8, but already He is entitled to universal influence, viewed as Son of man, as Stephen saw ^[p. 351] Him.

AFM Do you connect that with affection?

JT I think that as Son of man He is entitled to have to say to the whole race.

AFM I was wondering, because we have often used that title in a cold and distant way as designating “universal dominion”, but as Son of man He is man’s Son, and does not that involve affection?

JT I think so; and the whole family may claim Him.

RSS I am anxious that the brethren here might get help on this subject of the glory of the Son of man.

JT The moral glory of the Son of man is to carry out God’s will, and that is the privilege accorded to us all. As to our privilege with God, Christ is the pattern of that as God’s Son, but as Son of man He is the pattern of our position here, in carrying out God’s will. I think the term Son of man is not an eternal term. It refers to the position of man here under God’s eye, therefore He is the pattern of our position, as Son of man carrying out God’s will. He is the pattern of the children of God on earth, but as Son of God He is the pattern of our position with God.

EHT Do you mean He is the Man who is under the eye of God suitable to God; that He expresses just what is suitable to God?

JT That is the idea. I do not know whether we have thought of it much, but the Lord’s definition of eternal life is “to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. That is, the thought of it is in the true God and the true Man brought together. The apprehension of the true God and the true Man involves eternal life, and therefore it is of immense importance that we apprehend how in Christ God has been brought into ^[p. 352] the world.

BTF How is the Son of man glorified in the church at the present time?

JT I think it is in the way the church is brought in and given to Christ. Christ has received the church as Adam received Eve. Adam was glorified in Eve because he found in her all that which his affections sought. The church is formed from both Jew and Gentile; it is not limited to either, and so answers to the Lord’s position as Son of man.

BTF Do you mean that the church, looking at it from the divine standpoint, reflects the glory of the Son of man here?

JT I think it answers to His affections. He has in her what His affections sought, and in that way it is His glory, just as the woman is man’s glory.

RSS In what sense is the woman man’s glory?

JT She answers in every way to his affections.

RSS And does she display them?

JT But she must answer to his affections first. She expresses what he is because she dwells in his affections. What came out in the gospels was that Man was there alone, and God said, as it were, “It is not good that man should be alone”, so the woman appears on the resurrection morning; the Man appeared before that. It is very interesting in the gospels that what is in evidence is the Man. The epistles develop the feminine idea. You must have both together to get God’s thought.

RSS Will you give us an illustration?

JT Christ personally is the theme of the gospels, but the epistles, in the main, are engaged with bringing in the church. The gospels engage you with the Man; at the end of each gospel the woman appears.

WCR On the resurrection morning.

AFM The result of that is that the will of God is done on earth?

JT The Lord’s prayer indicated what man ^[p. 353] should be; what angels had been doing should now be done in men; the will of God done on earth as in heaven. The Lord showed what that was in His own Person.

EHT “I am glorified in them”. What does that mean?

JT The Father had given the disciples to Christ, and He loved them, and they loved Him. They were His portion instead of the nation.

WCR In John 17: 5 He asks the Father to glorify Him “with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”. Is that what you have been dwelling on?

JT I do not think that we can say much about that glory beyond that it is there. It was a glory He had with the Father before He became Man.

EHT It says, “We see Jesus ... crowned with glory and honour”. What is that?

JT It is more general there. We do not as yet see the full display of the glory of the Son of man, but there is abundant glory already. He is “crowned with glory and honour”.

RSS That is true of Him now.

AFM Your illustration in regard to Adam and Eve should help us, how that the woman being brought to the man on the resurrection morning, answers to how God would immediately glorify Christ.

JT In Genesis 2 you have first of all Adam placed in the garden, and then God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone”. Then the animals are brought to Adam, and after it is recorded that he gave names to all, it is said, “But for Adam there was not found an help meet for him”. Then a deep sleep comes over Adam, and God brings the woman to him, and Adam says, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of man”. There you have the thought that the Lord, has the church for Himself.

WB I would like to inquire where the term Son of man comes in. Stephen sees the glory of God connected with the Son of man.. It has been said that the Messiah having been rejected by the Jew this title opened up the way for the church to be brought in.

JT That is my thought. In Stephen you have the dawn of a new day. His face shone like that of an angel. That was the testimony to the council. They could not resist the wisdom by which he spake. All they could do was to bring in lying charges against him. What I understand by the shining of his face is that God is bringing in a heavenly witness. An angel’s face suggests what is heavenly. It wag the reflection of what was coming in, namely, a heavenly order of things.

WB I associated the title Son of man with the coming age; you have been speaking of it as applicable to the present time, that the whole race is in the mind of God for blessing.

JT It corresponds to John 13, the immediate glory that God confers upon Him. Stephen is reflecting it on earth, hence Acts 8 is in a way the most evangelical chapter in the Scriptures. It records the activity of Philip, the only man called an evangelist in the Scriptures. He is a sort of counterpart of Stephen. They were joint deacons, and we are told that devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him; but although Stephen is buried the testimony that he stood for is not buried. It was the most critical moment in the history of the church up to that time, because the persecution was so intense that they were all scattered abroad except the apostles. But, instead of the Spirit being engaged with outward defeat, He was occupied ^[p. 355] in evangelical activity.

AFM Outside of the city of Jerusalem.

JT In accord with what Stephen had seen.

AFM I do not want to deviate from the subject in hand, but I have in my mind to ask why the title Son of man is given to such men as Ezekiel and Daniel?

JT I think in the same connection. Their testimonies have reference to the position of God’s testimony outside of the nation. Ezekiel’s testimony was in connection with the captivity and also Daniel’s. Ezekiel is remarkable in that way. It is a question of the testimony of the Son of man, but at the same time of the power of God. The point in Ezekiel is the power of God.

AFM Those men partook of Christ’s spirit.

EPL Would you say our Lord’s official title terminates with the kingdom state when He subdues all and hands the power back to the Father?

JT I think that is it. The point in the Son of man is to carry out God’s will. In Eden Adam broke down, but Christ appears, and He carries it out fully.

AFM Why did Stephen not describe what he saw? He saw the glory of God and Jesus, but when he speaks of it he says: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God”. He does not say anything about “the glory of God and Jesus”.

JT What he said was testimony suited to the moment. It was in a way judicial, signifying that the new departure was at hand. If the Lord is at the right hand of God as Man He will act in relation to the whole race instead of the nation.

AFM We may see, very wonderful things, but it would not always be wise to describe them.

JT It all depends on the persons you are speaking to. It must have been an immense stay to Stephen’s soul at that moment to feel that the glory of God was secured in heaven.

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