DELIVERANCE
DELIVERANCE
Reading, Revised by F.E.R.
Colossians 2: 1 - 23 You said there is a distinction between salvation and deliverance, that one is from the power of the enemy and the other has to do with detail.
FER I think so; the grace of God brings salvation, and I have no doubt that the truth of salvation is bound up with the kingdom; that is, the kingdom of God means salvation for man. Man is delivered from the authority of evil by being brought under the moral sway of God. You get the statement definitely, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins”, Colossians 1: 13, 14.
RSS Of course deliverance is included in salvation.
FER I do not think it is exactly.
JT Do you think the Red Sea would illustrate salvation?
FER Quite so. Salvation was from the Egyptian, but the people had the question of the flesh raised afterwards; that is where the need of deliverance comes in, from all that in which the flesh lives, and by which it is recognised.
WM Would you say deliverance would not be needed if we went to heaven at once?
FER The necessity for deliverance comes in from our being left down here upon earth, where things are unchanged; and actually living in flesh.
JSA And therefore there may be souls who have learnt what salvation is, but who are very little in the practical power [p. 111] of deliverance.
FER I think it is plain that if you are under the moral sway of God you are delivered from the authority of the enemy; these two things must go together. When Israel were brought to God they saw the Egyptians dead on the sea shore. I think it is important to remember that the grace of God brings salvation, you have not to attain it.
RH Salvation comes first, and deliverance afterwards in detail.
FER I think that is so in the history of most of us.
GB What do you mean by detail?
FER I spoke of all those things through which evil affects us, that is the detail. We have many things to meet with here, that is, sin, the world, and the flesh; but behind all these is the power of the enemy; the devil could not touch us otherwise. Salvation refers to the authority of what is behind, that is, the enemy.
GR Would you say that salvation is from all that is against us, whereas deliverance is from what we are?
FER I think we get deliverance from what is in a way external, from sin and from law and the world.
JSA But deliverance in detail is a practical necessity if we are to enter into and enjoy the purpose of God.
FER And an important point is that the secret of it lies in the divine nature. It is not effected any other way.
WE Is that what the apostle’s conflict is for here?
FER Well, I think it is. The apostle desired for the saints the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God. Afterwards he speaks of their being risen and quickened together with Christ, and that implies partaking of the divine nature.
GR Could you open that up a little, because it is somewhat new to most of us?
FER It means this, that you get deliverance as [p. 112] you are prepared for it; you get such an appreciation of the love of God that deliverance becomes an absolute necessity and is effected by the knowledge of God.
GR Is that what is meant in the epistle of John, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil”?
FER Quite so. You are free in proportion as you know the love of God, that is, from the detail.
JSA And practically it is really attraction of the heart to Christ, in whom the love of God was set forth.
FER You are quickened together with Him, and then it is that you have put off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
GR Would you say that is the experience of a man in Romans 7? He delights in the law of God, but he cannot do it; he is not free.
FER I am rather inclined to doubt if that man has got salvation — I doubt if he is brought to God; he certainly has not deliverance. What is pictured there is that the flesh is all powerful, so that he cannot do the things he would.
JT In the passage you quoted in the first chapter, “made us meet”, does that include deliverance?
FER That includes salvation, but not deliverance; because the question of your deliverance does not affect your meetness, God hath made us meet.
EP In that same scripture it mentions, He “hath delivered us”, how about the word ‘deliverance’?
FER Yes, but you must not hang too much on a word, else you may make the study of Scripture a mere question of a concordance.
WM Deliverance there has not the same force as that which we are considering.
FER No, it is deliverance from authority or domination; you are brought out of one and translated into [p. 113] another.
WM Does deliverance lie more in verse 13, “hath he quickened”?
FER Yes, but I think you get with that the truth, “ye are circumcised”. So, too, you get the same thought in the next chapter, in a different form; in the having put off the old man.
JT I do not understand what ‘meetness’ means; does it refer to the work of the Spirit in us?
FER I should hardly like to put it that way.
JSA I have heard it said that the thief on the cross was as meet as the apostle Paul was.
FER I think so. We must admit that every christian, though he may not be delivered for earth, is meet for heaven. The work of the Spirit in us does not make us meet for heaven.
JP That brings us back to the necessity for deliverance lying in our being left here.
FER Precisely, but I think you start with a sense that you are meet for heaven, and that you have salvation upon earth.
WM Only that does not suppose a work in us.
FER It supposes the grace of God.
T Deliverance could not be effected in us apart from the Holy Spirit.
FER Nor does it ever go beyond what we are in the divine nature; you do not get enjoyment of deliverance by the presence of the Holy Spirit quite, but you enter into deliverance as you are prepared for it. It depends upon the formative work of the Holy Spirit in the believer; what is called, “the renewing of the Holy Spirit”.
JP You do not enjoy deliverance, but you enjoy that which really involves deliverance.
FER Precisely.
RSS Why do you say deliverance does not go beyond the divine nature?
FER Because you are not prepared for it otherwise. As made partaker of the divine nature I am in [p. 114] the reality of deliverance; it is according to my stature.
RH Is the measure of a soul’s growth in the divine nature the measure of its deliverance?
FER Otherwise you make deliverance a kind of attainment. I do not believe in that.
EP There would not be any need for deliverance except for the enjoyment of what is of God.
FER Where christians do not go on they do not care much about deliverance, because they are content with the enjoyment of the grace of God where they are. The need of deliverance comes in when the soul is exercised to enter into the purpose of God about it. If you are going to pass over to Christ’s side, then you realise the need of deliverance. I doubt if a person realises deliverance except over Jordan. You cannot connect Christ with the wilderness. In passing over to His side you realise deliverance.
JT Where does Numbers 21 come in?
FER I do not think what is typified in the brazen serpent is deliverance. As I understand it, the brazen serpent was for God. I think the answer in our case to the brazen serpent is Jordan; the lifting up was for God, so that He could communicate to man the gift of the Holy Spirit.
T Would you say Colossians 2 is the spiritual counterpart of Jordan?
FER Yes, you are at Gilgal, “putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ”. Deliverance is thus realised; you have come to the truth of your baptism.
RSS What is deliverance from?
FER I think deliverance is from everything by which the enemy can act upon us, by which he can keep us out of the purpose of God. Salvation clears you of the authority of the enemy; but the enemy retains a kind of hold on people by reason of what is in and about them.
[p. 115] T Is it not connected in Romans with these three things — the law, flesh, and sin?
FER I think so. You get the flesh and the world in this chapter. After all, if you speak of the world, the world is sin.
RSS Would it be right to say that deliverance in Romans was from the man, and Colossians from the place?
FER The fact is, it is difficult to distinguish between the two, because the place takes its character from the man. I do not know what the world would be without man.
JC Deliverance is only useful to me as I seek to be outside of this scene altogether.
FER It is useful to you when you are exercised to enter into the calling of God. To put it simply, if you are going on for the truth of the assembly you will feel the need of deliverance, for the assembly is outside of all here. Take a christian in system, who connects christianity with the earth, and this place, he does not feel the need of deliverance. He would not care to go on with the gross things of the world, but he does not realise the need of deliverance. You would never hear anything about it in system.
JP If it is a question of appreciating the love of God, we find the need of deliverance.
FER People in system are going on with the rudiments of the world.
EP Will you give us a definition of the terms, ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’?
FER I think in a general way ‘objective’ is used in regard to what is presented to faith, the light of God’s purpose, His will, etc. ‘Subjective’ refers more to the work of which the person is the subject; that is, the work of the Holy Spirit in him.
EP Do we not get this in chapter 2?
FER I think so, deliverance is connected there with the [p. 116] subjective side.
JSA I think deliverance has very often been treated as if it were in itself an end, instead of being a means in order that the soul might be brought into the enjoyment of God’s purpose.
FER The work of the Spirit in us is to lead us into everlasting life, by bringing us into the calling of God. The Spirit has come from heaven to conduct us to the place from which He has come.
T Would you say that John 4 presents this aspect of deliverance as leading up to eternal life?
FER The Spirit, in John 4, involves deliverance, and you get deliverance just in proportion as the well of water springs up to eternal life.
GF You get the call of God in connection with eternal life.
FER Yes, I think Abraham is a figure of that, because he presents the truth of a man blessed of God. Abraham had to look on. The patriarchs embraced the promise, but had not the things promised, “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect”.
GF You make a distinction between what he was called to, and what he had.
FER Yes. We are called to something, but the power of that something has come in; that was not the case with Abraham. The power of eternal life had not come in for Abraham.
GF Would you say a believer then had eternal life in a certain sense?
FER I answer it in a very simple way, he has eternal life if he has it.
RSS It is not a very bad way to ask those people who say they have eternal life, what they have got.
FER If I came across anyone who asserted it at the present time, I would be disposed to say, ‘If you have got it, let us have some account of it’. Our difficulty in England was that nobody could give any [p. 117] account of eternal life. If there had been anybody who could have given an account of it, the difficulty would have been much less. One person said it was one thing, and another said it was another. One old brother, who affected a good many people, said that eternal life was obedience. He took up a verse in John 12, “And I know that his commandment is life everlasting”, and argued from that that it was obedience. It shows you in what a muddle the whole thing was. Everybody claimed to have it, but nobody could give an account of it. Another brother asked me, ‘Have you got eternal life?’ I did not know how to answer it exactly, because he simply meant resting on a statement of Scripture.
GF Would you not define eternal life?
FER I do not think that we have any definition of it. You can speak of what is characteristic of it, and Scripture gives you that, but surely if you claim to have eternal life you can give some account of it. If a man has a possession he can give me some account of what he possesses. Otherwise I doubt if he has it. I do not say he has not title to it.
RSS Or the enjoyment of it.
FER I think thousands have title to it who are not in the good of it. Eternal life is God’s purpose for you; God gave His Son to that end. I have the light of this, and hence it is mine in title, but to say that I have it is another matter.
GF You could not say that Old Testament saints were in the light of eternal life.
FER In a certain sense they had the idea of it. You get in Daniel that some shall awake to everlasting life, and in Psalm 133, “There the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”, and it is certain that when Christ was here persons came to Him questioning Him as to the way of eternal life, the young ruler, for instance. That proves that the thought of eternal life was in the mind of a Jew. The Lord said,
“[p. 118] Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life”.
RSS What they had before them was quite different from what eternal life is for the christian.
FER What is important is that they had light enough from God to lead them to the idea of eternal life. But God had not revealed the way of it; so Christ says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. It all waited for Christ to come in. It was the same thing referred to all along.
JT Would you say it had no actual existence in Old Testament times?
FER I do not think that men get eternal life apart from the last Adam, and the Holy Spirit. It depended on the introduction of another man, and the Holy Spirit. In the ways of God, the first man was to be set aside, and Christ was to come out as the last Adam a life-giving spirit, and all depended upon that. To talk of people having eternal life before the Son came is not right.
JT Some have thought that it was the life of divine Persons as such.
FER The life of divine Persons is themselves.
T Has “in the beginning” in John’s gospel no reference to time?
FER In the opening of the first chapter of John’s gospel the apostle is, I judge, speaking from his standpoint, not from God’s standpoint. “The Word” was a designation of Christ common among the apostles (see Luke 1: 2), and the apostle is speaking of Him by the Spirit of God from that standpoint, and identifying the One they had known as “the Word”, with God. “In the beginning was the Word, ... and the Word was God”. It is His genealogy. It has been said that it carries you back to the furthest point the human mind can conceive; He was there before the world was [p. 119] created.
EP Mr. Darby said, I think, ‘The beginning of everything that had a beginning’.
FER The finite mind cannot really conceive eternity.
RSS I do not think that we got all that we might as to the difference between the Son and the Son of God. It was apprehending a little of that which we have in Matthew 11: 25, and the following verses, that helped me very much on that subject.
FER Well, I think ‘the Son’ presents Christ in distinctness of person but in relation with the Father, and I think ‘Son of God’ presents Him more in relation to man and the universe. You have “The Father loves the Son” and kindred expressions. ‘The Son’ is presented as Man. One verse proves that (John 5: 26), “For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself”. That is the position of the Son in relation to the Father. ‘The Son’ connects Him with the Father. On the other hand, ‘Son of God’ puts Him more in relation to man.
RSS Why then are we not to know the Son: “no man knoweth the Son but the Father”?
FER Because there is that which cannot be known, from the fact of His having taken a place in view of revelation in which He was not before, and that is beyond our ken.
WM What about the expression, “Baptising them to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”?
FER That is the form in which God is revealed; that is all simple.
RSS Then where it is the “Son of God” it is what He is as to man from the Father.
FER I think so. It is more in connection with man, and is the name in which in that way He gets inheritance, [p. 120] etc.
JT What do you make of that verse in John 17, “the glory which I had with thee before the world was”?
FER I think it is His personal distinction with the Father. All I say is, accept Scripture; do not be hampered by tradition. I claim only the light of Scripture.
JSA I think we are on a practical form of deliverance at this moment, and that is deliverance from using incorrect terms as to scriptural things.
EP Would you say a little about the terms ‘Father’ and ‘Lord’?
FER I think you address divine Persons in relation to their particular sphere; you address the Lord in regard to all that comes within His sphere as Lord; and so with the Father.
GW What are their respective spheres, may I ask?
FER I think of Christ as Lord in connection with administration in regard to the world to come; and I would address Him in regard to that, but I do not see that the Lord has any present connection with the world; I think the Father orders the world, and I would address Him in regard to things here. In connection with service, and direction as to service, I should naturally go to the Lord.
GW Sometimes in one prayer we address both.
FER Yes, you cannot draw hard and fast lines; the point is to enter into the spirit of things. If you attempt to be literally correct in prayer you will be much hampered. I think when Christ was here on earth He looked on the Father as controlling everything, and was Himself occupied with doing the Father’s will, and He is occupied with the same thing still at the right hand of God, and therefore in regard to all connected with the Father’s will I should address Christ; but as to the wilderness I would more naturally go to [p. 121] the Father.
RSS What about that scripture, “My God shall supply all your need”?
FER “To us there is one God, the Father”; “the Father” expresses the particular Person in whom God is presented to us.
T Worship also in Scripture addresses itself to the Father.
FER I think the reason is that the thought of God is presented to us in the Father.
GB We can approach God in confidence since we know Him as Father, because we have confidence in love.
FER I have thought that confidence is the fruit of knowing love. It is so in regard to a child with its parents.
GW You do not think that the result of our prayer would be affected by not being addressed intelligently?
FER No, I do not think it would. The Lord is exceedingly forbearing and considerate, and He deals with us graciously very far beyond our intelligence.
GR There is an interesting passage in the end of Matthew 5, where you get the Father, “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”.
FER It is all simple; divine things are simple to the simple. The difficulty is not in divine things, but in us.
WE They are revealed to babes.
FER If we were as babes we would understand things without much difficulty.