FREEDOM FROM CLASS DISTINCTION
[p. 297] FREEDOM FROM CLASS DISTINCTION
Acts 13: 1; 1 Corinthians 11: 17 - 22; 1 Corinthians 12: 13
JT I hope we may see from these verses how God undertook to establish unity in spite of class distinction. The human race is divided into nations and subdivided into tribes and classes, social and religious. God accepted all this and undertook to establish unity notwithstanding, and the divine record in the Acts and in the epistles shows how these classes were drawn from through the gospel. Their existence, the existence of class, was fully owned to be militating against the unity, and yet the unity was established, so that note is taken in the Acts by the Spirit of classes of humanity out of which material is drawn for the assembly. At Pentecost a large number were affected without any mention of their distinctions, but from chapter 3 onwards we have allusions to different personages right through the book, and these are also noticed in the epistles, and it is shown that, whilst the external relations may not have been much affected, the spirits of those who received the gospel were released from the influence of class, so that, in these verses read, we have all been made to drink of one Spirit. We are thus so graced, bond or free. The distinctions are owned, but the means whereby we escape the distinctions are noted, that is, the Spirit. I am led to this because of the observance of the influence of class amongst the brethren. I do not mean what is sometimes regarded as classes, that is, those who belong to the upper grades of society, but more particularly the lower grades of society. The influence of class is greater in the lower grades than in the upper grades. That is the difficulty, to overcome the conditions into which one is born and brought up publicly, so that the unity may be reached, the unity [p. 298] that God intended, and I suggested the verse in Acts, that well-known verse, because it gives us such a variety of classes outwardly in the persons mentioned, five different persons mentioned, each drawn from a class of his own, but they are together now in spirit. They are in the assembly at Antioch, but they are obviously together in spirit.
AN Would you get it illustrated in Revelation 5: 9, the divine victory; “And hast redeemed to God, by thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation”?
JT That is a good illustration of it. God, taking full account of the diversity, drew from every tribe and tongue and people and nation; not only so, but the subdivision of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, the different grades of society, the different callings or vocations of man are noted.
JM Do you mean that although we may remain in our own calling naturally, we move out of it in spirit?
JT That is what I mean exactly. God never intended the communist idea as it is understood, but He did intend a community of common interest in a spiritual way, so that the saints are together spiritually on the same level. The rich is to glory in his humiliation, but the poor in his elevation. That means elevation spiritually, that he emerges from the peculiarity of his class and is unaffected by it in the assembly. You see how persons begin to be noticed after Acts 3. We have a lame man and a beggar. How was he to emerge from his class?
RP Is this unity brought about by all drinking of one Spirit?
JT That is the secret. We have all been made to drink of one Spirit; that is the power of it.
RP Is that an allusion to the cup?
JT It is. You can see how classes begin to be noticed. Take the man at the gate of the temple.
[p. 299] There were many beggars; the idea of asking alms was a common enough thing, and it has its own effect on a man who does that. It affects him, it gives him character. If God converts him, how is he to emerge from that? Unless he does so he is useless in the assembly. Then we have a man like Barnabas, who had means, was a Levite and belonged to a class. His class would militate against the truth of the unity as much as the beggar’s. Then we have the Ethiopian who belonged to a class. His class would greatly interfere with the unity. There was not only his racial, but his national distinction, and his office, too. All those would militate against the unity. Then we find Saul of Tarsus, who belonged to a class. Then we have Cornelius who belonged to a class, a military class. He was not a common soldier, he was an officer, the kind of calling that is peculiarly against the unity of the Spirit, and so we get the deputy in Cyprus and Lydia and the jailer and Timotheus and so on, the Holy Spirit noting the difference of class. We get the women of the upper classes mentioned. So in this verse we have Barnabas and Saul, already alluded to, and we have a nobleman, and Niger, a black man, and we have the Cyrenian, who was also distinctive. He is called the Cyrenian, meaning that the idea characterised him, that is, he belonged to a nation and he was characterised by the term, the Cyrenian. There they are. God knows all about them. How are they to emerge from their classes and take on the common ground of the Spirit?
SW Would that be seen in the lame man whom Peter took by the right hand?
JT That is right; he lifted him up.
AN Luke, in addressing his gospel, speaks of the “most excellent Theophilus”, but in Acts where it is a question of assembly material, and assembly formation, the ‘excellent’ is dropped. He is coming on to a common level, would you [p. 300] think?
JT That illustrates what I was saying. He is now equal to it. As our brother remarked, Peter gave his right hand to the lame man, but he did not give him the least clue that he would make him more socially. He says, “Silver and gold I have not”. He held out no encouragement to him that he would be advanced socially or financially; there was to be no advantage on that line.
GC Are you suggesting that in Acts 13 we get what is according to the mind of God in the assembly in its normal setting?
JT That is right. I think these five men are mentioned as a concrete example of what we were saying, that they emerged from their classes. They were no longer resting in their classes, whether high or low.
JMcL Do you think that distinctions would cease as we come into the truth of the body?
JT Yes. With Theophilus the ‘excellent’ would be dropped. That is attached to him in the flesh. He would discard it himself. Evidently Luke would not discard it if he did not know that Theophilus had emerged to that extent.
DMcI I suppose, first, we have to see that it is God’s thought that we should emerge. Philip had no hesitation in approaching the Ethiopian.
JT The Spirit of God directed him to do it. I do not suppose he would have ventured to join the chariot otherwise. As he joined the chariot I apprehend there would be such grace in his movements, such spiritual power in his movements, that would commend him to the eunuch. The eunuch would not resent his joining. The point was “join thyself”.
JC Do you think that what would preserve us from such distinctions in the assembly would be the maintenance of the truth as to what Peter saw in the vessel brought down from heaven? “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in [p. 301] every nation he that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him”, Acts 10: 34, 35.
JT I think that is good. We can observe that what was immediately in mind was the line of distinction, very galling to the flesh, and in a man like Peter, who was a fisherman by calling, the thoughts and feelings attached to his calling might be there; his religious feelings were there certainly. ‘Well’, he might say, ‘I do not expect much from him, from a Roman officer’. I mean to say, that is what I would be apt to say, or any of us who had to look up very high to a man like that. We might feel that that man is not likely to yield to God, but God would say, ‘I can work in that man so that he emerges from his class, so that he sees that there is something better than his class’.
JW Would classes have the effect of persecuting the saints? Think of the Lord saying to Saul, “Why persecutest thou me?”. Would that be the finish of class for Saul?
JT Quite so; during those three days who knows what he went through in his heart and mind? During those three days God was working in his soul. He had much to unlearn. Take one like the man who had been laid at the gate of the temple. What had he to be delivered from? You say, ‘Nothing’, but he had. He had a constitution developed by that occupation, by that state, and it might be just as hard for him to get out of that as for Saul to get out of his class. That is perhaps what we do not see.
RM Was the end reached when the lame man came into the temple walking and leaping and praising God?
JT I think so. The right thought was conveyed to him, “Silver and gold I have not”. That was what was in his mind. He was thinking of silver and gold, glad to take anything, but the more the better! He looked as though he expected those things, but that [p. 302] state of mind had to be changed. He could never be in the assembly with any such a mind as that, expecting alms.
FFR His thoughts must have moved on a very low level, but the scripture says, “And leaping up he stood and walked”. Does this suggest that he moved out of this condition to a higher level morally?
JT He escaped. He emerged from the state of his class, otherwise he could not be alongside Peter and John. They had emerged too.
WB He could emerge from his class without getting into a higher social class.
JT There was no proposal of any elevation socially. You cannot have social elevation without money. People may talk about it but it cannot be sustained without money, and we may as well face that, and it was money that was in his mind. If that man got a million, well, he would emerge into another class socially, maybe, but that was not the idea. The idea was that he might emerge from the class he was brought up in and be in the assembly.
WB The apostle said in 1 Corinthians 7:22, “For the bondman that is called in the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; in like manner also the freeman being called is Christ’s bondman. Ye have been bought with a price”. Is that the idea?
JT That is the idea. You may remain a bondman outwardly, but you change in spirit; you are the Lord’s freedman; and you may be a freeman outwardly, but you are the Lord’s bondman.
AN So it would be seen in the epistle to Philemon, that the social relations between Philemon and Onesimus outwardly remain. Onesimus might remain a slave, but when the apostle speaks of him he says, “a beloved brother”.
JT That is an excellent illustration. How different it would be! Onesimus might have to clean his master’s boots, as before, and do everything that a [p. 303] slave had to do, but how different would be his spirit! He would sit down with Philemon in the assembly as a brother. He was greater inwardly than outwardly.
GBD One would appreciate the grace that takes him from the dunghill and sets him among princes.
JT That is what will affect one-sets them among princes according to God, princes as illustrated in Jacob, princes who had the Spirit. It is the universal working of this principle that I think is not seen. It may be seen in a partial way with persons who have social distinctions, but it should operate in them. But then it is also needed in the lower grades of society as much as in the upper.
JM-n This would include everything from the cedar to the hyssop.
JT So that in 1 Corinthians 12 the drinking is all from our side, the side of the classes, whether Jew or gentile, or bond or free, we have all been made to drink of one Spirit, and in the new man there is neither one nor the other in Christ Jesus. In Galatians there is neither Jew nor gentile, bond nor free, male nor female, they are not in it. As soon as you get inside they are not there. It is not that these distinctions should not be there, but they are not there. 1 Corinthians 11 is to show how to get out of them by drinking into one Spirit.
RF Romans 12: 2 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. Would this relate to it?
JT Yes, it does. That leads up to the same thought in the body, one body in Christ.
JC Is your thought that when we come together to remember the Lord at the Supper we leave our various positions in this life, and are together as in the Lord?
JT That is the idea. That is where you come. It is the light in which we meet; that is the mind of God for the assembly, but then the next thing is whether as come together in that light I am free in my spirit.
[p. 304] That is where the difficulty lies, whether I am free in my spirit of the class distinctions, so that we have all been made to drink of one Spirit, whether Jew or Greek or bond or free. Now that means, I apprehend, that we are all satisfied with the same thing. Drinking means satisfaction, whether I am elevated or reduced, I am on the platform of satisfaction in a spiritual way.
JC Do you think that is why it says, “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat”?
JT That enters into it, because the verses read earlier show that the Corinthians came together in the recognition of class. Instead of the disallowance of it as a matter of light, they came together in the recognition of it, so that it says, “For each one in eating takes his own supper before others, and one is hungry and another drinks to excess. Have ye not then houses for eating and drinking? or do ye despise the assembly of God, and put to shame them who have not?”, 1 Corinthians 11: 21, 22. Those who do not have are the poor, that is, the poor class. Those who drink and eat to excess are the rich. The classes are owned to be there.
AN Could you help us as to drinking into one Spirit, and how we are set free from these things? Is the reference as to drinking into one Spirit an allusion to the cup?
JT I think that is so. The suggestion as to drinking in Scripture generally is satisfaction, I think. Well, if we are all satisfied in what we have in common, we are delivered, and delivered from class distinctions. I am satisfied with the one thing. It says, “The trees of Jehovah are satisfied, the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted”, Psalm 104: 16. It is satisfaction that delivers them.
JM-y It is one Spirit.
JT That is right. We have all been made to drink of one Spirit. Think of what is in it, think of what is there, what enters into the cup, for the Spirit [p. 305] of God analyses it. In Mark they drink out of it and then the Lord tells them what the cup meant; then they sang a hymn and went out to the mount of Olives. That is to say, He enlarges on what the cup means, what enters into it, the new covenant in His blood. It is the communion of the blood of Christ.
JM-y There would be no distinctions in one Spirit; they are swept away.
JT Exactly. The question is whether it is so in your soul, whether you are satisfied with the thing. It is a covenant. Am I satisfied with the conditions? They are positive conditions.
Rem We are in new relationships now where there are no distinctions.
JT I am satisfied to have it so. I am not hankering after the old conditions. Satisfaction is deliverance. That is, I think, why so much is made of the covenant to us in Scripture. It involves satisfaction. It is the love of God; it is the divine proposal; it is the best that love can do, and am I satisfied? If I am satisfied I am not hankering after the old conditions. I am delivered.
JW The truth of the death of Christ would deliver us from that.
JT The truth of the death of Christ involves the removal of man after the flesh. That is the doctrine side and you are thankful to accept that, but as drinking into the cup it is the love of God. You are thankful to be relieved from all that to which class distinction belongs, whether the lowest class or the highest, whether the bond-slave or the king. You are thankful to be free of all that because it interferes with the unity and with the enjoyment.
AN The death of Christ would really be the point as to separation, but the Spirit brings you into what is positive.
JT It does, and you are satisfied. The man looking for the alms was satisfied. If Peter and John [p. 306] had given him a few pence, he would have been thankful, but he would have been looking for the next one that came. He would not have been satisfied.
RM There was more than satisfaction. There was excess in “walking, and leaping, and praising God”.
JT Quite so. He was satisfied. That man would never ask for alms again.
RW None but Christ can satisfy. Why are there so many who are not satisfied?
JT I think there is not much drinking.
RW Is there not a difference between salvation and satisfaction?
JT There is, but they go together.
RW The Lord brought in the idea of drinking in John 4.
JT It was a question of deliverance. Just like the man at the gate of the temple. He would beg and beg and never be satisfied, no matter how much you gave him. That was his nature. He was developed by it. So with the woman. She would thirst and thirst again, but the Lord proposes satisfaction, and that is the Spirit, but the highest expression is when we drink together. The Lord says, ‘Now I will tell you what it means. It is the love of God’. Indeed, one of His great services to us is to effect that in our souls, to give us to understand that what we have drunk is the love of God, and that implies satisfaction.
GC Would this help in forming the features of the new man?
JT In Colossians 3, as regards the new man, it says, “wherein there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman”. It is not that there should not be, but there is not. They are not there. That is the other side, so to speak. From the standpoint of the outward position, deliverance lies in [p. 307] the drinking.
JT-n The Corinthians were not drinking together. What is there in that?
JT That is why I thought we might see that class distinctions were owned as there, but the apostle had already remarked that they were saying they were of this one and that one. There were party conditions, but here the distinction is in the persons who had means and those who had not. So that they were not drinking together; they were not partaking of what satisfies together.
RM Do you think the suggestion in 1 Corinthians 12: 13 is that we can drink as deeply as we wish? “And have all been given to drink of one Spirit”.
JT Yes, it is a privilege. God makes no distinction in what satisfies. I think we would be helped if we considered the question more at our leisure, when we have opportunity, and see what is said about drinking. God Himself accepted the idea of strong drink in the sacrifices.
JC In the Song of Songs 5: 1 we read, “Drink abundantly, beloved ones!”.
JT Quite so, and there is a vast amount of instruction that would lead to satisfaction in the saints, and in that satisfaction we emerge from class distinctions so that we are free. I am not living in my class, but I am living in the class that belongs to the saints. I may remain outwardly where I was, but my spirit is free.
Rem Is there not more danger of the higher class dominating things rather than the poor?
JT That is what is seen here. Wealth in this world’s things does not give a man place in the assembly. One may take advantage of this to seek it, but wherever you see that, the question arises, is that man satisfied with what is spiritual, or what is he after? Is it not that he is using what he has as a man in the world to acquire dominance amongst the saints? He is not satisfied with the spiritual.
RW [p. 308] What is the difference between drinking water and drinking wine?
JT Water is satisfaction, but the wine is stimulation. It makes glad. Water is the satisfaction of thirst; it is refreshing, but wine is stimulation. It makes glad the heart of God and the heart of man, but then we must not import the idea of wine into the Lord’s supper. It is not said to be there.
GBD Distinctions of necessity must be dropped before we can participate in the Lord’s supper rightly. The apostle said to the Corinthians, “It is not to eat the Lord’s supper”, 1 Corinthians 11: 20.
JT Exactly. He is condemning the whole thought of class amongst the saints. He is condemning it, and as it has been remarked before, the light in which we sit down together is that we have emerged from class, but then am I able to maintain that in the assembly, as being satisfied? The drinking satisfies, so that I do not wish it otherwise. Now the Corinthians came together in the recognition of class, so that the rich would be sitting by themselves, and the poor sitting by themselves. We can hardly conceive of that today, but that was what could be seen at Corinth at this time, and the Spirit of God seizes the opportunity to unfold the truth. If we are to eat to excess, and the rich man is given to it, well it is in his own house that ought to be done, not in the assembly. The assembly is not the place for that.
LD Do you think that if I were not free from class distinction I would be in bondage?
JT There would not be deliverance. How could the Holy Spirit take you up? The Holy Spirit has a dual action in the assembly; first as in relation to the covenant. He stresses the idea of the covenant in the hearts of saints in relation to the Lord’s supper; hence you see, according to 1 Corinthians 12, no one can say “Lord Jesus” except by the Spirit. It is by the Spirit I say “Lord Jesus”, that is, I am saying it [p. 309] in fulness of spiritual power, and that helps others. I give a lead when I say that in spiritual power. Then there is the Spirit as saying, “Abba, Father”. He cries, “Abba, Father”, that is, He cries through some brother, “Abba, Father”. Well, that gives a lead, too, but if I come with the idea of class I am not available to the Spirit. The assembly is the sphere of a dual action of the Spirit, the one in relation to the Lord Jesus, and the other in relation to the Father, and if I am not free of class, I cannot be available to the Spirit. It is the drinking into one Spirit that sets me free.
JM-y Is it not important to notice that we are baptised into one body by one Spirit?
JT That is the Lord’s action. “For also in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”, 1 Corinthians 12: 13.
JM-y We have to recognise that, have we not?
JT Then the drinking is your own action.
AN What you speak of is a very far-reaching principle, and, while looked at in relation to the social distinctions, would be equally true with regard to national distinctions. It is rather remarkable in Ephesians when the Jew and gentile are brought so close together. “That he might form the two in himself into one new man”, Ephesians 2: 15.
JT That is right; “So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God”.
WB Would you open up a little what you referred to as to the cup in the Supper not being connected with the thought of wine?
JT It is not the wine; the ingredient is never specified as to the Lord’s supper. It is as to the passover supper, and of course it is obvious that it is wine, but that is not the point. What our brother has been remarking as to Psalm 104, “Wine which gladdeneth the heart of man”, is an earthly thought, it [p. 310] relates to what is on the earth. It is not properly assembly ground.
WB The thought of drinking of the cup is not exactly stimulation.
JT No, it is more satisfaction, it is what God is Himself. It is not so much what is seen in Christ; it is not altogether a question of Christ personally, but what God is in Christ. The bread is what Christ is. The bread is in relation to the Lord giving Himself for us, and the cup is what God is towards us in Christ, so that it is not on the ground of wine. Wine is an earthly thought, it belongs to the millennium. The Lord says He would not drink it again until He drank it anew with them.
RW My thought about the wine was that it satisfies. Wine satisfies the heart of God and man. (”Cheers” - not ‘satisfies’. See Judges 9: 13).
JT It does so in regard to the earth, but wine does not belong to heaven. It is an earthly thought, it is what Christ is in relation to the earth. The cup is not a question of what Christ is personally, but what God is in Christ. It is the covenant.
RM It is “the new covenant in my blood”.
JT Quite so; it is in His blood.
DMcI Had the apostle Paul reached it when he said that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?
JT That is right. He had reached it, and what satisfaction there is in that. It is what God is in Christ for satisfaction for us. In the second epistle to the Corinthians we have in chapter 3 great stress laid on the Lord as the Spirit of it. It says, “not of letter, but of spirit”, and a long parenthesis is in the chapter to unfold the superiority of the new covenant, that it is the administration of the Spirit, that it exceeds the old covenant. The parenthesis commences at verse 7 and goes on to verse 16. The Lord is that Spirit, which implies the remarkable merging of the [p. 311] Lord with the Spirit, and all to the end that we might have the covenant effectuated in us, that it might be a reality to us, so that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. There is satisfaction in drinking what is presented to us, and then it proceeds to say, “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”. What a deliverance there is in that I emerge from all I may be in the flesh into the realm of liberty and glory. That is the thread of it, and we do not want to go back to that influence. We want to go on from glory to glory. There is no limit to it.
AN I suppose the simple thought of drinking is appropriation, that is, we might be quite clear as to the doctrine of the love of God, but if there is lack of appropriation on our side, there is no satisfaction.
JT It is in the appropriation I am satisfied. “Drink, yea, drink abundantly, beloved ones !”, as our brother has quoted. We have all been made to drink of one Spirit. What a realm we are brought into !
GBD That would lead to worship.
JT It does. You emerge, and there is no limit to the glory; it is from glory to glory. That is the realm we are brought into.
WB “According to the same image”. Is the effect of drinking connected with that?
JT It has a similarising effect upon us. You can see how all that I may be here in this world is wiped out-from glory to glory.
DM Is there not a beautiful allusion in Psalm 16 “Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup”?
JT Quite so, “my cup”, and so in Psalm 23 the psalmist says, “My cup runneth over”.
TF Full satisfaction.
JT It is shaken together, pressed down and running over.
WMcL Do you get the same thought brought out where the psalmist says, “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures”, Psalm 36: 8?
JT It is all the idea of satisfaction, and it is in the idea of satisfaction that there is deliverance. Abundantly satisfied.
FFR I suppose it is only in these conditions of satisfaction that there could be worship rightly.
JT You see that is how it stands. It is in deliverance we worship.
TF Christ would not be everything otherwise.
JT Christ is everything and in all. Now you see at Antioch what ground had been gained. The Spirit of God loves to bring forward a concrete illustration of the truth, and on entering on the conversion of the nations, the evangelisation of the nations, we have this platform reached. There is the obliteration of class, but we have a higher note. There are five men here, and they are ministering to the Lord. They are absorbed with the Lord. They are delivered and the Holy Spirit can speak to them, as He does, on that platform: “Separate me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them”.
WB Is the fasting that is mentioned in Acts 13: 2 the disallowance of every feeling that would be on the distinction line?
JT That is good. The disallowance of all that would interfere with the satisfaction. So that any person from any nation, whether it were Africa or Asia or Europe or the Isles of the Sea, any person who believed the gospel, the Spirit of God could suggest to him to go to Antioch and see the divine idea. The divine idea is there; you can see what prevails there. God sets out in His evangelising service with His own idea actually reached in a particular place.
JL As the elect of God they put on certain [p. 313] features.
JT I think that ought to mark us in our localities.
If the testimony is to go out, what is behind it? Is there any concrete expression of what is proposed in the gospel? That is the idea at Antioch.
WB “Has shone in our hearts for the shining forth”, 2 Corinthians 4: 6.
JT You can see how suitably this comes in after chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians.
WB Does the apostle confine that to himself or is it a general statement?
JT It is fully expressed in him, but the idea should be with every one of us. God has shone in for the shining out. Rivers of water flow out (John 7: 38).
JM So that the overcoming of class distinctions not only has reference to worship, but also to testimony.
JT To everything. The denominations all around recognise class. You get the hierarchy of every creed, of every grade of class, right up, you may say, to the nobility, the archbishop. There is distinction. It is contrary to the divine thought. But then the person who comes in in poverty and enters into the free pew has got a formation and that man has got to be delivered from that. I believe that is what is not seen. The lower grade is perhaps the stronger in formation, and we have to be delivered from it.