THE TOUCH OF CHRIST IN VIEW OF INTELLIGENCE IN THE ASSEMBLY
[p. 371] THE TOUCH OF CHRIST IN VIEW OF INTELLIGENCE IN THE ASSEMBLY
Mark 1:40 - 42; Mark 1:29 - 31; Mark 7: 31 - 35; Mark 8: 22 - 26
You will observe that these scriptures all speak of the divine touch, the touch of Christ. I might have referred to other gospels for some of these incidents, but it occurred to me that what I have to say would be more applicable and forcible at the moment if I limited my reading to Mark. Mark has in mind the ministry and qualification for it, which extends not only to afflicted men and women, but to all who should serve, as seen in the mother-in-law of Simon being raised up. The saints are the means whereby what is of God is now expressed, the Lord Jesus having gone into heaven and being no longer here. He is in heaven, but His body is here, in which He is to be expressed, and this involves a touch, the laying on of His hands, or whatever other form may be needed, in order to convey something of Himself to men in this poor benighted world. Mark has in mind that those by whom the Lord comes into contact with the world should bear His own impress, so that those we have to do with may come within the range of Christ, that is, Christ mediatorially. With this in view we have in the epistles the idea of the Christ applying to the saints. The confession as to who Christ was by Peter is “Thou art the Christ”. It is a matter of the Lord being representative of God as anointed, that God comes to man through such a One; He is expressed authoritatively and with power. Thus Mark in speaking of the transfiguration, would signify the kingdom of God come, not in word but in power. So in 1 Corinthians, the saints are called the ‘Christ’, “so also is the Christ” meaning the saints anointed (chapter 12: 12). The anointing extends to the [p. 372] hem or skirts of the garments, according to the beautiful and well-known verses in Psalm 133. It alludes to the saints, the anointing flowing down even to that limit, but not beyond it. It is not a loose end, the word is hem, “the hem of his garments”; which would imply that the saints are regulated, held by a bond, within limitations, so the anointing extends to that limit but not beyond it. The hem is a finished idea, compacted throughout. It is like Jerusalem, a city compacted together, no straggling over the country as with some of our cities, without any boundaries. In the city of God there is definiteness, we know where it ends. The state of Christendom today belies that, but God has brought us back to limitations and demarcations, to a finished thought: it is a very important matter that each saint should be seen in his place within the range of the anointing, and representative in his measure of God in Christ: “So also is the Christ”. Would that we had sufficient appreciation of what is ours, of what we are brought into in this respect! “So also is the Christ”; one belongs to that; as having the Spirit of God, one is marked off as of that one body. We are not straggling abroad, or at any loose end; we are not free-lances as is often claimed, but are held by a bond beyond which we will not go, “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints”.
Well now, Mark having this in mind, brings in these touches which I hope will be intelligible to each of us. The first touch is that in chapter 1, in regard of the leper, a well-known subject. I introduce it first, as properly at the beginning of this subject; for although it is not the beginning in the gospel, it is properly at the beginning morally. A man cannot serve rightly or take on the anointing, apart from being cleansed. The Lord touched the leper, and he was cleansed. Now as we have observed in these scriptures, the Lord enjoins secrecy as to these great works of His; He enjoins that they are not to be spoken about by word [p. 373] merely. This applies to the leper; he is to show himself to the priest. It is not what you can say, but what you are, that a change has come over you. The Lord enjoins secrecy in such cases. He means to convey that the thing that is shown is enough, that it is a question of power, and that power is its own testimony. The person himself is the greatest testimony to the power of cleansing. I believe the Lord would instruct us at the present time as to power, and that it is to do its own work. There is to be no suggestion of competition with what is current in christendom. The Lord never undertook to compete with what was at Jerusalem or in the synagogues around, it would have been beneath Him to do so; the power that was displayed was so overwhelming that there was no need of any other testimony, the power itself was enough. The Lord would not compete, nor would He have us to compete with what is current; to take pride in what conversions there may be, in what numbers we have in fellowship, or in the numbers attending the meetings, is beneath the testimony; it is a question of power, and of what God has effected in the persons, what they are. The number of them of course has its own significance, but we may have numbers without any change in persons. It is the change that is the testimony, the change in the person.
So in this case, the Lord says, show yourself, do not speak about it, but show yourself to the priest. This principle might be enlarged upon as to showing oneself, but I am for the moment calling attention to the Lord’s injunction to avoid any appearance of competition with what is current. For instance, He recognises the priesthood, there was no need to disregard its claims, He admitted them all; though the claims of the hierarchy are as nothing compared with what we have here, in the cleansing of the leper; they sink into oblivion alongside of this; it is the power that is the testimony, the power of God.
[p. 374] Well, the first thought here is the cleansing, and I bring it in to apply the idea of being cleansed by the touch of Christ by His work on the cross. It involves the cross: there could be no cleansing of the leper aside from the cross. The cross is anticipated when it is a question of sin. Nothing could be done, and there would be no point in any miracles aside from the cross. The cross is intended to set aside what is here, and to build up another order of man, and all these miracles have their counterpart today, in the operations of the Spirit in the believer. We are made whole. You never get partial healing, for everything that Christ did is complete, that is the idea. God takes on the thing potentially in us now, although it may take years to complete the work in us. So with cleansing, if the man is cleansed it is a complete matter. The Lord would not show a partially cleansed person to the priest, he would very soon pick out the defects. The Lord would never present half-finished work for testimony. So the cleansing is complete; you cannot add to it; it can be shown as the finished work in the man.
Then the next thing is whether we can be useful. The position in Simon’s house was peculiarly difficult, for his wife’s mother lay sick of a fever. We have been speaking today of difficulties in service; now this situation is peculiarly difficult to adjust. You will observe that it is not only Simon’s house, in Mark, but “the house of Simon and Andrew”. It belonged to two brothers, and one of them was married; a combination that would be particularly difficult. Household conditions are often peculiarly difficult, but not too hard for the Lord. He loves to do what seems to be impossible, and the impossible seems to be at times in households. Things are so near; the opposing elements, the contrary elements, are with us morning, noon and night in close quarters, and whilst they remain contrary there can be no right representation of God in the house.
[p. 375] So the Lord is besought about this matter, they ask Him about her. Where difficulties exist, Mark would create in us a sympathetic state. It goes a long way in meeting any household difficulties if the brethren take them on. Very often they are not known, they are private and secret. People are secretive about household difficulties, and they rob themselves of the prayers and sympathies of the saints. It is important therefore to take the brethren into our confidence; christianity is nothing if it is not a system of confidence. If I cannot tell my brother my private difficulties, I am exposing my want of confidence in him. Maybe he is not worthy of my confidence-it is often so, but it goes a long way to the meeting of difficulties and healing diseases in households if we have the prayers of the brethren. God indeed has guaranteed the healing of our diseases, but He has got His own means of doing so. He has means of operation down here and those may be called into service. Why not call them into service? They had no difficulty here in calling the Lord into service. They told Him about her, and He acceded to their wishes at once, and took her by the hand. It is as if He were to say to Peter and Andrew, and Peter’s wife, This is My matter now. Nothing is more comforting in the sense of great difficulty than for the Lord to say, ‘It is My matter now, you have put it into My hands, and I have taken it on’. He took her hand and the matter was ended; she had no more fever. It is a finished thing; there is nothing partial in any of the miracles of Christ, they are always complete in themselves. She arose and served them; that is to say she is a sister now without partiality. “She served them”, she included the Lord doubtless in her service, but she served them, that is, all the saints in the locality, as we speak. I suppose Phoebe is a type of this kind of christian. She was “minister of the assembly ... in Cenchrea”, we are told, a dignified office, but a servant [p. 376] or minister of the assembly does not confine her hospitality, her sympathies, her ministry to the elite of the meeting, as we say; she was a servant “of the assembly”, and that includes all. Paul says that if you look at any characteristic church there are “not many wise according to flesh, ... not many high-born”; there may be some, thank God there are, for they are loved of the Lord as much as any, and all are needed to make a good meeting; but there are “not many powerful, not many high-born”. The assembly is inclusive of all; and this woman in Mark 1 served all, and so did Phoebe. She has the most remarkable commendation. Some of us were speaking the other day about divine commendations, and Paul’s commendation of Phoebe may be regarded as a divine commendation to the church at Rome; and the commendation was that she was “a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea”, Romans 16: 1.
Well now I have in mind to speak of the passages in chapters 7 and 8, because they deal with the saints in their highest capacities. Our hands and feet do not afford the highest capacity for service. The organs that offer the highest capacity in man are his vocal organs, his hearing and his seeing. These are the organs that make man what he is. His body, generally, is but the vehicle for the taking in and giving out involved in the activities of these great organisms of speech and sight and hearing. Man is the masterpiece of God’s creation, but particularly so in virtue of those powers by which he expresses himself intelligently, by which he is marked as an intelligent person, and in virtue of which he is a member of the greatest organism in the universe, that is the assembly.
Now, dear brethren, one hopes as I speak these things, simple in themselves, that we shall begin to think in ourselves whether these organs are really available in us and in a fit condition to be employed by the Spirit of God. The first incident deals with a [p. 377] man who is deaf and has an impediment in his speech; he “could not speak right” (chapter 7: 32). He might speak, but he could not speak properly. The second case (chapter 8: 22), is a man who could not see. Now I wish you, dear brethren, to patiently hear what I seek to say about this. What great depth of feeling was seen in the Lord as to these afflicted people! There is in this world a great desire for education, and education is the most potent factor of pride that there is. Education gives polish to man as he is, and makes him shine as a man here in this world. The universities have that in mind. They not only give persons instruction as to things, how to learn things, but they have in mind to make ladies and gentlemen of them. Sometimes we hear of seminaries and schools professing to make ‘christian gentlemen’, a paradoxical expression, for there can be no such thing. The ideas do not belong together. Christians have to learn to read and write in common with all men, because these things are necessary to communicate with one another, and to do business, but all that is for them but a circumstance on the way to heaven; it is by no means to make gentlemen of them for this world. True refinement according to God is learnt elsewhere; the refinement of the world is of no value; refinement according to God is what stands in relation to heaven. There must be refinement; there must be suitability for heaven. Think of the glory that is up there, the refinement and dignity and moral beauty! How alluring it is where faith exists! And the Lord gives us a glimpse of it by the Spirit. He took up Peter and James and John to give them a sight of it on the holy mount. The Lord was transfigured before them that they might see His majesty. Moses and Elias were with Him “appearing in glory” that they might see it. They would never lose that impression, it would dismiss for ever from their minds any thought of earthly glory that might have prevailed. It could [p. 378] have no place in the presence of the glory that is up there.
Now in all this, beloved, we need this particular kind of service of the Lord. It is so urgent, and so difficult, to get people to hear right and to see right. The Lord takes this man aside from the crowd. The crowd are not to see this matter. In dealing with it the Lord is not concerned about what people think; He is ready to help anyone, of course. The wickedest man in the world would be interested in a miracle, so the Lord took the man aside from the crowd. I am seeking to impress upon every one of us how urgent and how difficult the matter is. The man is not yet speaking right; that is, he does not know how to speak to God in the assembly, nor to speak to the brethren. He may speak, but he is not speaking right, and he is to enquire about this. So that the Lord sighs, a very touching thing. He sighed in the presence of one man who was deaf and could not speak right. One wonders whether He has ever sighed in regard of oneself in this respect, whether the Lord has ever had to do with one in this way; whether one has caused the Lord pain in the way he has spoken to God and to the brethren at times. The Lord is concerned if we do not hear right, and speak right. It says He sighed, He groaned, and He looked up to heaven, as if to invoke all the power of heaven to make one man hear right and speak right. Is it not urgent, beloved brethren? The Lord is concerned not only about the vocal powers, but about the words we use, and although it does not come in here, about the kind of language we ofttimes employ. The common language of the world is unfit and unsuitable, to say nothing of the poison of asps under people’s lips; that poison comes out with every word spoken by unregenerate men in this world.
But now I am speaking of the vocal power of conveying thoughts. The Lord is deeply concerned [p. 379] about this man; what is it, beloved, that He would impress upon us? That He wants us to speak right and to hear right in the assembly. And so He groans and spits, a remarkable action mentioned several times in Scripture, and it must have a profound meaning that the Lord should do this; and then He touched the man’s tongue. I do not know of any action bringing in the Lord in such detail, bringing Himself into the matter, His feelings, His very nature, conveyed in the spittle and the sighing, His very nature as Man here brought into it and that He should deign to bring this into evidence, to make one man hear and speak properly. Is it not worth our while to consider and see whether we cannot improve?-for that is why these things are recorded. Then He says, “Ephphatha”. This is one of the instances in which the Lord’s actual words are handed down to us. There is nothing that touches one more than the actual words spoken by Christ. He did not speak English; it did not exist then, but He speaks it now if He speaks to any of us; He speaks in English if we do not know any other language. It is very touching the way the exact words that He used are recorded in this gospel; He says, “Ephphatha” and Mark tells us that it means, “Be opened”. So also Mark gives us the word “Abba”. Is it not intended to bring the Lord near to us, to bring Himself into this service, and the very words He uses? It is as if He would say, ‘Now it is urgent about this matter, that this tongue should be unloosed, that it should become the vehicle of the Spirit of God in the man’. The Spirit has not become incarnate, He cries “Abba, Father” through our vocal powers. So that one is to be in the hands of the Spirit, his tongue is to be under the control of the Spirit, otherwise one will not speak right. But it is the touch of Christ that brings this about, and so the groaning and the looking up to heaven, and the spitting. We have all these things put together, and [p. 380] the force of it is that the Lord is exceedingly urgent that I should hear right, and speak right.
Then there is chapter 8, where it is a question of seeing. One comes in contact with brethren, seeking to help as many of us do, and a brother or sister will say ‘I do not see that’. They really mean that there is virtue attaching to their blindness, that to say that they do not see is to their credit, but it is not, it is a discredit. They really mean to say: ‘I am at liberty not to see it’; but you are not; you are simply exposing your blindness if the thing is seen by others. If you do not see it, there is no virtue in your eyes not seeing, it is simply blindness. No man can help you, you must go to the Lord about that matter.
Why is it you cannot see it? Thousands do see it. This man here did not see, but it says, “They bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him”. How much this kind of service is needed, this bringing of a blind man to the Lord; you cannot do it yourself. No one can give eyesight but the Lord. They bring him to the Lord, there was need of this, because if the Lord is ministering things in the power of the Spirit, we want all to see and hear. No true lover of Christ would wish that any should fall into the ditch. Hence the thing is to bring the blind ones to Christ, to bring them to Him. If one might speak freely, prayer is the most important service of all today, and it is within the range of every one of us to tell the Lord about the blind ones, that they do not see, and to bring them to Him. And here again you get the same kind of experience-He took him “by the hand, and led him out of the town”. It is a question of opening eyes to what is spiritual, that is the idea; to get people to see things as they are. The Lord spat on his eyes and touched him and asked him if he saw anything. And it says, “He looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking”. This is how we are tested. Sisters in a meeting do not have to say anything so they never [p. 381] expose themselves, but brothers do sometimes. The Lord has a way of asking everyone, ‘Do you see it?’. The blindness is appalling and the simplest things are often not seen. The question is not what others say but what do you say yourself? What do you see? What have you discovered for yourself? We are brought into a spiritual realm which requires eyesight which only the Lord can give, that we may see things according to God. It is a wholesome thing to make a sort of inventory of what you do see. We have all things brought into view by Christ clearly as we are touched. He asks this man “if he beheld anything”, and he says, “I behold men, for I see them, as trees, walking”. That is how it should read, I think. His vision was very distorted, but still he saw something, and the Lord did not deny that. He recognised that there was something there, and a possibility of more. That is a fine thing in dealing with souls, to be assured that it is possible to get them right, for if the will is not at work, they will see. It is a question of the will. If you put virtue on your not seeing, your blindness will remain, but if you say, ‘I do not see it, and I am sorry’, then there is hope for you; you are worthy of notice. As soon as one begins to admit that after all he may be mistaken, there is some hope. The man here says, “I behold men, for I see them, as trees, walking”, and the Lord touched him again, “He laid his hands again upon his eyes, and he saw distinctly”. The Lord will make the thing perfect. So, dear brethren, if we resign our wills to the Lord and confess that maybe we are wrong, then there is hope for us. So the Lord touched the man again and he saw everything clearly. That is, he would look over the landscape and name everything. Every object can now be perceived, and he does not call a man a tree; he regards him in his true proportion.
What I had in mind was to bring out that the Lord [p. 382] would secure here that which is to be representative of Himself, and what is of the greatest importance in that regard is that these organs of intelligence should come under the touch of Christ. As the apostle says, “I speak as to intelligent persons”. To be in the assembly according to God, we need all these curative services of Christ. He is deeply concerned that we should be truly in the assembly, knowing how to hear, and to speak and to see. There are many allusions to ‘touching’ which the Scriptures afford, but as I have said, I confine myself to Mark because he has the ministry in mind, and that which is to be used here is to be marked by this feature of cleansing, so that one is able to speak and hear and see, as belonging to those who form the assembly, the anointed of God.