RESULTS OF THE WORK OF GOD

^[p. 314] RESULTS OF THE WORK OF GOD

John 19: 38 - 42; John 20: 11 - 23

JT What comes into view in these verses is the result of the work of God in different persons: one of them a rich man who was holding a social status in the world; another of them the teacher of Israel, holding a status also in the world; another a person with a disreputable history; two others, men of low estate, fishermen: all drawn to Christ-whether thought to be dead or alive, the work of God seen thus but as requiring adjustment. That was what I had in mind that we might consider. Nicodemus belonged to a class, and so did Joseph, and so did the Magdalene, and so also Peter and John; each had his class viewed here as under the government of God, but the effect of the work of God in us, is to take us out of our several classes and set us together.

PL “The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all”, Proverbs 22: 2.

JT Quite so. The word ‘class’ is sometimes used to describe only persons elevated in society, but the word really implies all grades of society in this world. God works indiscriminately; He is the Maker of them all, and He works as He wills, selecting whom He will. The Lord says, “The wind bloweth where it listeth” (John 3: 8); we have to accept that and note the effect of it. But adjustment is needed; the general result is that each is taken out of his class in spirit and mind and brought into the heavenly circle, the circle of the brethren: “Go to my brethren ...”. In principle, that would, of course, include all these persons, but they all needed adjustment-every one of them.

FI Here at this point they had actually come out of their class, had they not?

JT ^[p. 315] You feel what it must have cost Joseph, to begin with, to identify himself in the presence of Pilate with the rejected Nazarene, for doubtless he was known to Pilate as a distinguished man. For a rich man to associate himself with a poorer person was a comparatively small thing, but when he identifies himself with a rejected Christ before persons of his own rank, or it may be even those superior in rank to himself, which would make it more difficult still, there is something moving in his soul. He is like Moses, who recognised the slaves of Egypt, the Israelites, as his brethren.

Rem John shows us there were no half measures with Joseph, in that he says he “demanded” the body of Jesus.

JT Yes, I think he took advantage of his status to do that; no doubt Pilate would recognise he had a right to do that. But could he have done it aside from the help of God? It must have cost him much in the way of sacrifice of feelings to do it.

AH Do you think it suggests the determination to take up the reproach?

JT I think so. These classes answer to the Lord’s remark, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”, meaning that, however much there is in the circumstances to check ardour-that is like a gibbet, the being lifted up-yet He says, they will come; in spite of the reproach they will come; it is the work of God that is in view in John, what it is, how it braves the fiercest opposition; it is the nature of the thing, what characterises it.

AH Is some of the adjustment seen in chapters 3 and 4, in the way the Lord deals with Nicodemus and then with the woman?

JT That shows the nature of the work; this is the result. We do not see the proper result in Nicodemus; he slips out of view, we find him in chapter 7 but he is still in his class, “being one of them”; he speaks a word for Christ, but that is all.

^[p. 316] FI As a result of the lifting up they came out of their class.

JT That is the idea, they are braving the opposition. What natural thoughts in them would dread, the scorn of Pilate or the persons about him, was braved by Joseph; it says he was “a disciple of Jesus, but secretly through fear of the Jews”, but he “demanded of Pilate that he might take the body of Jesus”.

Ques Does it emphasise what you said, that Arimathaea was a city of the Jews; he had come out of that?

JT Well, just so; it was characteristically so, you mean. He is coming out of his hiding; he was in his hiding hitherto, but now he is coming out.

PL So that it says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out: and I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”. Is the testimony to that judgment, both on the world and its prince, manifested in these persons?

JT Well, I think they are moving out of it, do not you?

PL So as they do, they judge it and witness to its judgment.

JT Yes. If Joseph went back to Arimathaea, as he did doubtless, he would go back a different man; he had taken up new ground in the testimony publicly, and it would give him character.

Ques Does Psalm 68, making the solitary into families, fit in with those we are reading of here?

JT I think so; they are coming into view. Of course they have a good lead in the earlier part of the chapter. You will remember how, in the days of Jonathan, they slew so many men in an half-acre of land (1 Samuel 14: 14). They gave a lead, and then the Israelites began to come up out of their hiding places; that is the result of a lead given.

Now in verse 25 we have, “By the cross of Jesus stood his mother, and the sister of his mother, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala”. Think of the fierceness of opposition and the reproach there was against them. John alone gives us this grouping; it is to bring out the nature of the work of God and what it can stand; these two men receive a lead in that. It is the setting of the thing. Whether they knew the women were there or not, there is a lead given by persons identifying themselves openly with the Lord in death. The greatest reproach of all is the cross they were by the cross of Jesus, and now these men leave their hiding places and come out and identify themselves with the Lord. That group in verse 25 is by the cross, but the other verses read show us persons by the grave, undertaking to put our Lord Jesus in the tomb, a holy service!

DrS What would you say corresponds to that in our history as representing this identification with the Lord in His burial?

JT Well, of course, baptism is that, would you not say?

Dr. S. I was wondering if it would correspond with the acceptance of the place we have taken outwardly in baptism.

JT Yes. These two men, as they went on in the truth (we do not get their names mentioned after this) would say, ‘We are baptised already’. We have no record of the apostles being baptised; these women who were at the cross did not need baptism; nor did the thief get baptism: they were already baptised in a more real way than by water. They would all refer back to this when they got the Spirit; this was their great beginning, the complete identification with Jesus in His death and resurrection.

Ques Do you suggest the cross was their severance from all they had been linked with?

JT Just so. It is really more; there is a greater ^[p. 318] stigma in it than in the grave; identification with Christ on the cross is the depth, I think, of degradation, “Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree”. Well, “I am crucified with Christ”, Paul says, and that is what these women would say as they understood it later.

FI Is that why the women, the subjective state of things, predominate?

JT I think so, to bring out the subjective state of the work of God. The fierceness of the opposition starts here; they went through standing by it, not at a distance.

FI Having entered into that, you would be prepared for the burial side, and if we were true to that we should all come out of our class. Class would cease.

JT That is the end of all classes. Sometimes we speak of the upper class, but there is no more virtue in a lower class than an upper class; either militates against the truth of the fellowship.

Ques Does Antioch illustrate this?-persons who have come out of their class. They are first called christians at Antioch; would that be their first identification with God’s anointed?

JT Just so. Five persons are named, drawn out of different classes: one out of Nicodemus’ class, Saul; and we have a Levite in Barnabas, first mentioned, and an aristocrat in the foster-brother of Herod, and we have two Africans, one was called Niger, which means black, it would be a reproach to him undoubtedly that he was black; then there is a Cyrenian, also black. That is the idea; they have come into another realm-”called christians”.

AH How do you view the disciple whom Jesus loved? What aspect of the work does he represent? He was standing by the cross.

JT Yes, apparently he was. It is not just said he was standing by the cross, but still he is standing ^[p. 319] by. He afforded the Lord an opportunity of disposing of His mother: he is a christian near enough to the Lord in this position, to be usable. The others are not said to have been usable; John was usable. It says, “Jesus therefore, seeing his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, says to his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then he says unto the disciple, Behold, thy mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home”. The Lord uses John there, and could you think of anything more desirable than that he should be used of the Lord at such a moment? To have such a charge handed over, not as His mother, but as John’s mother. What an advantage to John, to be usable, near by!

Rem I have often thought what a source of help she would have been to him in writing this record.

JT Just so.

FI One free from the class that fled, though they were disciples.

JT Just so; it says that elsewhere. But Mary would be in his house as his mother, so that the relationship would be in family liberty.

Ques Would you tell us a little as to the relations of these two men with each other?

JT Well, they are usable too, they are being used; they are men of initiative, men who take the initiative in doing things, which is an important item amongst us; whatever your hand finds to do, to do it without a commission. They had no commission; John got a commission, for the mother was handed over to him; but these men did what they did on their own initiative, and that is a very important thing amongst us, that a brother is able to do what his hand finds to do without any special commission.

Rem So record is made of Nicodemus’ first movement-coming to Jesus by night.

JT Just so, he is a man of that kind; and Joseph has initiative ^[p. 320] too.

PL Are not the disciples in John peculiarly marked by that feature-as developed in chapter 12 in the movements of the Bethany family? Cannot love take the initiative with a spiritual taste?

JT Yes, that is good. I think you see it in chapter 9 also in the man who had been blind; he knew what to do. So when the Lord came to Bethany, as you say, six days before the passover, He did not find them unprepared, six days before: “There therefore they made him a supper”. That was what you mean? They were ready to do what was required He did not ask them to do it, but it was the proper thing to do, and He greatly valued it.

Mary too had initiative. It says, “On the first day of the week Mary of Magdala comes”. She does it — and she ran: that is, I apprehend, she did what the work of God would prompt with energy; she is like the hind of the morning: she runs, and that is somewhat unusual for a woman. I suppose she lived in Jerusalem; she would have to run through the streets.

Ques I was thinking of what is practical: do you think we might be hindered in taking the initiative by waiting for the brethren?

JT Well, if your hand finds anything to do, do it; the brethren will be with you. If you want to preach, do not wait for the brethren to ask you, go out to the street corners, and they will be with you.

PL The men who had understanding of the times knew what Israel ought to do.

JT Just so. How becoming it was that Mary should be so early there; it says, “in early morn” and “while it was still dark”. So that she is in line. Joseph and Nicodemus had initiative and they acted nobly, they acted as princes, so far. Their contribution was not exactly spiritual, and yet it was; heaven must have been greatly pleased with this action. It stretched back to Isaiah’s time, for whatever Joseph ^[p. 321] may have known, he was really fulfilling Isaiah 53, so it was a great service.

PL Were they fulfilling a type too in regard of the priests carrying the ashes into a clean place? Is there some analogy there?

JT You mean putting Him into the new tomb. Well, if you can bring that into it. But I think it is a question of the holiness of the action. The dignity of the Person is always in view in John, and He was “with the rich in his death”. “Men appointed his grave with the wicked”; that is, the cruel soldiers who had to do it. Doubtless three graves were dug; the grave they dug would have answered that thought, the Lord being laid in the heart of the earth. How much that meant to Nicodemus! But there is a beautiful touch in the fact that it did not go their way, “Men appointed his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich in his death”. Therefore these two men were fulfilling Scripture; probably they did not know they were, but they were; showing that, in doing what our hand finds to do, we are fulfilling the mind of God, maybe going back for centuries, God knows. The good works of the people of God are all prepared for them (Ephesians 2: 10).

Rem Their idea was to give the very best that could be given; they showed their appreciation of the Person by the way they treated His body.

JT That is how they would regard it, but God was in it. They were certainly doing the will of God expressed centuries before, which gives the act a very great place. Therefore each of us ought to think of that; if God opens a good work for us, God has prepared it for us. If I neglect it, what am I doing? I may be interfering with the divine ordering.

Rem You look at taking the initiative as doing the will of God. Then it affects others also; Mary runs, then later on Peter and John run.

JT Just so. They too fulfilled a prophetic suggestion,

^[p. 322] for Psalm 22 is, as you know, to “the hind of the morning”; the hind is a feminine thought. The agility is not attributable to the Lord, it is the subjective result; that is, it is what the Lord was seeking. So what Mary did was really fulfilling Psalm 22 in the spirit of it. She would not have thought so, but she was. How early she was there! She was running, which would be, I would say, peculiar for a woman; it would be now. Why was she running like that? The Lord knew; heaven knew; every step was delightful to heaven; she may not have thought so, but it is how heaven reckons. It is said of another, “She hath done what she could”. She was running to bring the great news as fast as she could; yet there was not exactly faith, for she thought someone had stolen the Lord away; she represents therefore the great need of adjustment with us.

Ques The two men brought something that was right and intelligent-the linen and the spices. Would that be suggestive of intelligence?

JT I think so, it fits in with the position, the dignity of the Person required it; God ordered it. They must have been in some way amenable to divine influence.

Ques How would that reflect in us with regard to the body of Christ: wrapping up the body in the linen and putting spices on it? Is there anything applicable in that today?

JT It is well to keep in mind the dignity of the Person. I think these two men were impelled by some power. God was governing their movements; they were amenable to divine influences while not intelligent perhaps as to what they were doing; they might not have been able to say to you, ‘Isaiah 53 requires that He should be buried with the rich’.

Rem You would grow in your soul in the appreciation of ^[p. 323] that.

JT Yes, you would. The thing is to be in such a state of soul as to be amenable to divine influence, even if unintelligent. The thing is there to be done; you will see the bearing of it later. We can perhaps each look back on our histories and see things that happened of which we could not see the bearing at the time, but we see it now. We were perhaps not very intelligent, but we were subject, and God used us. There is a current always flowing, and, if I am subject to it, I come into it. Throughout this section it is the work of God coming under divine influence for adjustment; the bearing of all this is seen later.

Ques What adjustment would these two men in chapter 19 be needing?

JT They did not go very far: there is not a word about them afterwards. If they had gone the whole length they would have been there early in the morning; they would have known something about the resurrection, that such an One as this would rise He had said so many times. But they went to considerable lengths, and in doing so they carried out the will of God indicated hundreds of years before, which was a great matter.

Ques Have you in mind that, apart from this adjustment, we shall be disqualified for the circle of the brethren?

JT I think so; we must be adjusted if we are to be in the circle of the brethren, that is what the chapter means.

Dr. S. There would not be in any way the light of resurrection with them, I suppose, in bringing these spices; they would not be really necessary.

JT No. We have the word ‘embalm’, which would be expressive of unbelief, I suppose. But it is wonderful how the work of God comes into view here, and how all fits in; even Mary, unbelieving as she was at the tomb-the chapter shows she held on to the thought of His being stolen for a long time-was ^[p. 324] usable; she carried the tidings to others and carried them quickly; there was nothing slovenly or slothful about her.

Ques Do you think it was affection that brought her there early?

JT Oh, it was nothing else, and that was the fruit of the work of God; but we may have affection and yet need adjustment.

Ques Would you say that, if we take the initiative and get adjustment, the Lord may use us afterwards to give initiative? He gives the message to Mary; then Peter and John take the initiative after adjustment.

JT Yes, her mind was dark, yet the love was there all the same. It shows how mixed we may be, perhaps used to a point, and after that be darkening, for anybody listening to her talking would think the Lord had been stolen; that was a poor testimony.

AH How do you view her regarding the Lord as the gardener?

JT That showed a darkened state of mind. It is to be noted that the two brothers got adjusted first; that is, adjusted to a point. “The two ran together, and the other disciple ran forward faster than Peter, and came first to the tomb, and stooping down he sees the linen cloths lying; he did not however go in”. Notice the word is “cloths” not ‘clothes’; the wrappings of Christ were not one thing, there were several pieces. “Simon Peter therefore comes, following him, and entered into the tomb, and sees the linen cloths lying, and the handkerchief which was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a distinct place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also who came first to the tomb, and he saw and believed”. Apparently they are both adjusted there; faith is assured; they believed. That is, they came in for adjustment quicker than Mary did.

^[p. 325] Ques Does the secret of preparedness lie in the Object they had?

JT Well, no doubt. I suppose the superior intelligence and experience of these two brothers gave them an advantage.

Rem Mary was very much in earnest; she made two visits to the tomb.

JT Yes, and she stayed, it says, which is to her credit; they went home, which is not to their credit. But there is something to their credit that is not to her credit, that they got adjusted more quickly than she did as to the resurrection. The two disciples, Peter and John, got adjusted as to the resurrection quicker than the sister did, although they were not there as soon as she was.

FI I suppose the movement on their side was not the initiative, but they moved on what the woman said to them.

JT Yes, they represent moving on testimony and a readiness to believe when the testimony is adequate. The testimony was adequate; the position of the cloths was adequate testimony; what was in the tomb was the point.

FI Why do you stress the fact that it was “cloths”?

JT It is to bring out the testimony that was inside, in the tomb. These wrappings were all as they were put on by the hands of Joseph of Arimathaea; they were just as they were.

FI Why was the headcloth, the handkerchief, by itself?

JT I think to add dignity to the Person; it was to bring out headship really, the handkerchief wrapped in a place by itself. It evidently was not where it was on His head when He was lying there; some hand had removed it, and it was wrapped in a place by itself. Some hand had done that, which they took account of. That is, it is discriminating intelligence in Peter and ^[p. 326] John, which is a great thing amongst us. Discriminating intelligence is a great thing.

FI I suppose we often lack in that way by confusing what is connected with Him as Lord and what is connected with Him as Head.

JT Quite so. Some reverential hand did that, and they were quick enough to discern it.

PL The activities of our own hearts or minds make us incapable of spiritual discrimination.

JT That is what comes out here. Those brothers’ intelligence was superior to that of Mary; there was testimony inside the grave, of which she apparently did not get the gain as yet.

Rem There is increase of intelligence. It says of Mary and of each one, that they see. There is an increase in what they see.

JT Quite so. So intelligent investigation is what is important, and discrimination.

PL John makes much of that, spiritual investigation, in his writings. The Lord says, “Come and see” in chapter 1 of John’s gospel, and we are told to “prove the spirits” in his epistle. Does not that principle run through John?

JT Quite so, you get it right through. When John quotes the Lord saying “Come and see”, that is first-hand knowledge.

Rem The woman in chapter 4 says, “Come, see a man ...”.

JT Just so, a Man is specified, and she says why she said it.

Rem So the assembly as adjusted would be a vessel of intelligence and affection.

JT That is the idea, to get us on the line of spiritual discrimination. There are those who class things together; they say, ‘This is the same thing as that’, and ‘That is the same thing as this’. It is not so. Every time you get a thing mentioned in Scripture there is something distinctive about it.

PL John’s account of the heavenly city is marked by spiritual discrimination.

JT Yes, and his position in writing the Apocalypse is changed often so that you might get the view the Spirit intends you to get. It is a good thing to follow that up in ministry. If you are ministering in a certain place, get into the right attitude, think of their needs, think of the town, get into the right attitude, and you will have something that will fit those people.

Ques You mean, for instance, that Paul said different things to Agrippa from what he said to the Athenians?

JT Just so-very different.

Ques Would that apply in local ministry too?

JT I think so. The great principle is, you get to see a thing rightly when you are in the circumstances to which the thing applies; you are then in a position to meet the thing.

PL It would keep you from having anything too fixed in regard of ministry before you arrive in the locality.

JT That is an important thing to keep before you. You might say, ‘I will give them this in Birmingham next time I go’, but it is a question of what the Lord is going to do; you ought to be there so that the Lord may do something.

PL “Being in the way” (Genesis 24: 27); is that the thing?

JT Just so.

Dr. S. Mary is the first one who saw the Lord after His resurrection-what is the significance of that?

JT That would bring out the gain of the recompense of love: it is the greatest thing after all, but we must not overlook the length of time she held to her unbelief. It shows how long the best of brothers and sisters may hold to a wrong thought and how hard it is to get a wrong thought out of your mind. You cling ^[p. 328] to it, and bring it up when it should be far away from you. She brought it up even to the Lord Himself.

Rem She got more than the disciples did in going to their own homes.

JT She did, but while we give her credit for that, we must not overlook the balance. She was holding on to a dark thought all the time. You say, ‘Look at that brother; the Lord is using him’. Yes, but perhaps he is holding on to a dark thought in spite of all his love to the Lord, and if I follow him I shall get into difficulties.

Rem It says, “As yet they knew not the scripture ...”, as if, had they known it, they would have had this light earlier.

JT Just so. It says, “But Mary stood at the tomb weeping without”. Now that is a credit, I think; it is not a debit, but a credit. The disciples did not weep, nor did they stand by the tomb; they had not seen the Lord, but they went home; that is a debit to them. It says, “As therefore she wept”, she was weeping, the Spirit of God says, “she stooped down into the tomb, and beholds two angels sitting in white garments, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain”. Well now, I do not think that is as great as Peter and John seeing the cloths and believing because of that. She does not believe in the testimony they believed on, that testimony was nothing to her, and she had angelic testimony. She is not believing what is an adequate testimony. The Lord could not have been stolen as those cloths lay there; they would have taken Him away with the cloths or they would have ripped them off She did not believe that testimony, and I think, therefore, her faith is on a lower level. Angels had to come in to help her, as if the Lord would say, ‘You are not believing in adequate testimony, I will help you to believe, I will send you other testimony’. He is forced to do it. He sends two angels. They are ^[p. 329] restful, they are maintaining the dignity of the Person, one at the head, the other at the feet; but there is nothing said about the cloths to her; she missed that. How could she do other than believe if the angels were there!

Ques Would that be the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11: 1)?

JT Quite so. God has great respect for a person who can believe the testimony rendered, however little there may be.

Ques They called her “Woman”-why was that?

JT Well, it is just what she was; of course it is a dignified term. “They say to her, Woman, why dost thou weep? She says to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him”. Why should she say that? Peter and John had gone off, surely she must have known there was some reason for that; they had gone, and they were not downcast. She was clinging to her thought. One often sees that, a brother clings to his thoughts, and yet you cannot question his devotedness. Sometimes God goes to great pains to make that man believe.

PL The woman spoke to Him in Hebrew; the previous remarks, I suppose, were not said in Hebrew, in a spiritual setting. You find when a brother gets adjusted he takes on a new language, he does not harp on old terms.

JT No. Almost like the language of heaven, for it was the language the Lord used to Saul. They press on her the question of why she is weeping; then she turned backward, which means not intelligence but instinct, and she “beholds Jesus standing there, and knew not that it was Jesus”. Her ignorance is still in evidence. “Jesus says to her, Woman, why dost thou weep? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing that it was the gardener, says to him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast ^[p. 330] laid him, and I will take him away”. She is still holding on to the dark thoughts she had, in the presence of the Lord-she did not know Him. Does not that challenge us?

GCS Yes.

JT Then the Lord says to her, “Mary”. She is now known.

Rem All this would help us to exercise a good deal of grace and patience with those who hold on to dark thoughts.

JT It would, and you can count on God sending an angel, perhaps in the middle of the night in a dream or the like.

PL I wondered whether the patience of the Lord with her was like the Lord’s patience in regard to Thomas. He was full of dark sayings later on and the brethren bore with him for a whole week. He must have repeated it pretty often, but it is to their credit that he was with them when the Lord came again. Did not the Lord leave him with them to test them?

JT No doubt.

Ques It says of the woman she “turned backward”, and then “she, turning round”. Is it in the way we turn that adjustment comes?

JT I think so. The turning is the working of instinct. What have you in mind about it?

Rem She apparently faces the Lord and has Him in her view, so that she gets wholly occupied with Him.

JT And I think that is one point in the chapter, that the two angels maintain the dignity of the Lord, and if you are to exercise faith, it is a full Christ that is before you: it is Himself. They might have spoken to her apart from the tomb, but they are there in the acknowledgment of His dignity, one at the head and the other at the feet. She would never forget that sight.

Ques Would you say the pursuing of dark thoughts ^[p. 331] brings us into a position of loneliness and on to individual lines: it was “my”, and she was alone?

JT She uses the definite article earlier, “They have taken away the Lord ...”, she says, which was right, first; but she comes down to herself, “My Lord”. It is all right to say “My Lord”, but she is on individual lines; it is “the Lord”, that is a better term. But now she says “Teacher” after that, that is an acknowledgment that she needs teaching; she needs to go to school; she is claiming Him as her Teacher.

PL Is this the most testing school of all, to leave earth for heaven in spirit?

JT I suppose it is. She is on the high road now to the heavenly position. She says, “My Lord” and then, “Teacher”, “Rabboni”.

Ques Would you put her beyond the two now?

JT In a way, yes. But she can never have the honour of believing on adequate testimony; she would have to admit that Peter and John were further on than she. God is put to more pains with her, which of course He will always be ready to expend on us, pains and trouble; but still God honours a man who believes adequate testimony.

Ques Is that why Abraham said in the parable, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead”, Luke 16: 31?

JT Quite so.

DrS It would appear from Luke’s gospel that women brought the news first of all to the disciples as to the resurrection. Does verse 8 go as far as resurrection? What do you think?

JT Well, it is not easy to make the records fit. I think the safest way is to take a single record like this; the Holy Spirit has something to convey to your soul and He mentions what He knows will effect that end in your soul. “He saw and believed”; that, I ^[p. 332] think, would mean believed in the sense in which John speaks of believing. They believed the Lord was risen, they believed the testimony that was there. This is written for a purpose, to show how we come into things spiritually on the principle of testimony; John makes a great deal of testimony.

AH And he emphasises believing.

JT He does, very much. “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent”, John 6: 29.

DrS Do you think that in verse 9 they had come to believe in resurrection?

JT Yes, I think what is stressed is that they were believers, which is what John had in mind. Whatever was witnessed in that tomb they accepted; that is the way I would take it.

Ques Would you say that, having believed, you are open for further light?

JT Well, there is a basis there for the divine structure. The dispensation of God is in faith.

PL Then, like the two-and-a-half tribes, you may believe and settle down in Moab. Is that what they did?

JT Well, they believed all that the testimony there indicated. They are capable of that, they are men of that kind; whereas Mary was not a person of that kind; she needed more attention.

PL That kind of unbelief works out in certain fruits as seen in the two-and-a-half tribes. You have to let it work, would you say? It is not rebellious unbelief that has to be dealt with off hand.

JT No, it is a kind of unbelief, or a kind of belief, you might say, but defective; but still it is of value here as peculiar to these two brothers, but not to Mary. It is a kind of faith God values, faith on adequate testimony, for that is how christianity is founded in this world: it is not what is seen but what is testified to.

PL “Blessed they who have not seen, and have believed”.

JT Yes. We are witnesses. God gives adequate testimony, if we do not believe that we will believe nothing. You might say, ‘What about Mary?’, but then she represents another side to our position, the love side. What pains God takes with a person like this, slow to take things in and holding on to a dark thought till the last, but God goes on with her, and she is completely turned round. First she turned backwards, but when the Lord said, “Mary”, she turned round.

Ques Was she about to embrace Him, when the Lord said, “Touch me not”?

JT Yes, I think so. She was about to kiss His feet perhaps, as was said elsewhere.

Ques What do you learn from “Touch me not”?

JT The touch was to be in the company, when He came in. He was to go to heaven first, so to speak; the link is to be established from heaven. It is not a Jewish link here, it is not a link formed in Galilee; it is a link formed here. It is not ‘I will ascend’, but “I ascend”, it is the character of the thing. In principle, He did that and came back to the company; the link is formed there, we are on heavenly ground now.

PL Thomas is actually asked by the Lord to touch Him. Is that in the company?

JT Quite so; that is where we touch Him now. The Jewish remnant will link on with Him later, but He comes in from heaven here, that is the principle of this chapter.

PL So the breathing would be still more intimate than the touching.

JT It would, and it emphasises intelligence. It is the breath of life which refers to the upper intelligence. In Genesis you get vegetable life, then animal life, then human life, that is the highest thing. God “^[p. 334] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. He did not breathe into any other nostrils. So we are fit for the regions above. We are capable of taking in, having His very breath, His very life, His very faculties, His very power of thinking and feeling.

Ques Would you say Mary of Bethany being absent from here had entered into this adjustment early? I was thinking of the Lord saying that she had come beforehand (Mark 14: 8).

JT Bethany is more the remnant side. Bethany is where Lazarus was, “The dead man Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from among the dead”. It does not go beyond resurrection; this chapter goes into heaven.

Ques You would not carry John 12 beyond Colossians, whereas this, you think, is Ephesians?

JT That is right.

Dr. S. The disciples here would include more than the eleven?

JT Yes, Mary would have been there probably.