WEALTH

2 Corinthians 8: 9; Luke 22: 14-20; John 14: 25-27; 17: 6-8

J.McK.        There was a touch, as we were gathered this morning in the service, of great wealth, an impression too as to the distinctive service of the Lord Jesus. A brother gave a word reminding us that the time of singing is come. All makes way for the distinctiveness of the leadership of Christ. What impressed me was that, as He sings, He sings in an area that is already enriched. I wondered if together we could explore that a little.

The passage in Hebrews 2, often before us, “in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises” (v 12), is preceded by the statement, “I will declare thy name to my brethren”. The Lord invests something in the saints before using the environment which He Himself creates to engage in God’s praise. These things are very great, and as we have sung, ‘In this weak mortal hour’, we need some sense that the Spirit of God is able to strengthen us for them. The Lord’s Day reading is a time for drawing out from the saints what relates to this sphere in which our real portion is. I thought we might get some impression as to how wonderful it is to have a link with Jesus. What these disciples received from Christ was tremendous. The giving of Jesus is referred to in the passages in both Luke and John. Now, the way that it has all become possible is “that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor, in order that ye by his poverty might be enriched”. Thus we begin every Lord’s Day with the emblems on the table, and realise the sweetness, incomparable in its character, of direct links with Him. From that comes the enrichment that enables us, poor creatures as we are, to have part in what is suited in God’s praise.

E.C.B.        He has become rich again?

J.McK.        That is wonderful. Through His stoop there has been the acquiring of this great wealth so that as He appears now in God’s presence, as we sometimes sing of it, ‘love’s return’, is a very wealthy thing.

E.C.B.        I was thinking about “the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ”. It connects with Genesis 24 and therefore with John’s gospel - “to him has he given all that he has”, and “all that the Father has is mine”.

J.McK.        God has acquired the greatest return by entrusting everything to the Man of His choice. What we reached this morning in our spirits was a universal outflow of response, and that we should have part in such a thing is all of God’s grace, and the way it has been reached is through the humanity of Jesus. The fact that He is the Creator of all things remains; the fact that He gave being to all things and they all belong to Him, all remains blessedly true. But had He not stooped into manhood’s place there would not have been this personal link with Himself, that results, not in us simply being informed about things, but being made wealthy in respect of them. One of the hymns we sang this morning expresses it well:

Yield we riches, wisdom, power

How can we, creatures of God’s hand, yield riches in relation to God Himself? I think the answer is in 2 Corinthians 8.

D.J.H.        The emblems peculiarly remind us, we may say because the scripture uses the word, of His poverty - it has been translated, ‘He lived in poverty’. It was an extended matter which would touch our hearts in view of this enrichment.

J.McK.        The scripture is profound - He “became poor”. He took a condition that as to its outward form had that character in the eyes of men, “The Son of Man has not where He may lay his head - foxes have holes, birds of the air roosting places”, Jesus came into a condition that as far as this world was concerned was homeless:

A houseless, homeless stranger.

D.J.H.        Then it is “in order that”. That is amazing! That is what you have in mind that we should speak of today.

J.McK.        I was reminded at the Supper this morning of Mr Darby’s poem, The Man of Sorrows:

Oh suited now in nature

For love’s divinest ways,

To make the fallen creature

The vessel of thy praise!

That is wonderful. If the Lord Jesus had not come into manhood that would never have been possible, but He is in a nature as having become Man that is suited to the greatest things that God has in mind. To lift the fallen creature to become a vessel of God’s praise.

D.J.H.        That will remain eternally. We had a peculiar touch at the Supper this morning as to the stability that this brings to us, He having taken that nature, that relationship, and remaining a man, not now in poverty, but now enriched. We have a point of stability throughout eternity in relation to these riches, do we?

J.McK.        They all come to us through Christ. Earlier in this epistle Paul says, “ye have been enriched in him”. That is very precious - not exactly by Him, but “in him”. That is the secret of all the wealth that comes to us. It is infinite as we hold it in relation to its source.

D.A.B.        I am reminded of the way that Mr Evershed used to speak about the parable of the merchant and the pearl. He said, to outward appearances the man would appear to have nothing, but if you became his friend, one day he might take it out of his pocket and show you, and you would become enriched by sharing that secret with him.

J.McK.        He was prepared to relinquish other things in view of it. Becoming poor was a real matter.

D.A.B.        The things He gave up are in a sense not yet taken back. The world does not see His glory, but are we near enough to Him to share the secret of what He enriched Himself with in return for what He gave up? Our enrichment is in our part with Him in that way is it?

J.McK.        That is right. I thought we could speak about Luke 22, the inauguration of the Supper. We sometimes dwell on the sorrow side and of course it was very real. We sang this morning:

On that same night Lord Jesus,

When all around combined

When the waves rose the Lord felt every detail of that. But I think there is a tranquillity in this immediate circle where the Lord is that relates somewhat to the time of singing. I think there was a sweetness in the link between the Lord and His own that in some sense was undisturbed and that the Supper introduced in that context is very precious.

D.A.B.        Is that perhaps suggested in the interposition of ‘this cup’ in verse 17? The Passover did not have a cup, and it is not exactly the cup of the Supper, but it is something that comes in in between; it brings with it the idea of communion with Him, they shared it with Him. It was not the cup of the Supper which they passed among themselves, but this one they shared with Him.

J.McK.        That is very interesting. The intensity of the Lord’s desire is stressed, “With desire I have desired”. There is emphasis on His desire to be among them indicating that He wanted to share something with them just at this point. I think this might help us about the Supper in the realisation that in its inauguration the Lord has not only enriched the little company that was gathered at that time in the city of Jerusalem but He has enriched the whole dispensation.

D.A.B.        The cup of sorrow He never offered to anyone else. He asked them to watch with Him, but not to share His burden. This cup almost suggests that He would share joy with them, even in that dark setting.

J.McK.         I think there was something that He wanted to realise in the enclosed area of His relations with His own before He proceeded into the wider area of His sufferings.

E.C.B.        The continuance of the Supper, as far as we know ever since this time, would set us in a spirit of tranquillity. We become over-occupied with the way in which the Supper is taken here and there and amongst others, and there are things which might fairly be said in relation to that, but the Supper itself has continued like a rock.

J.McK.        What marks it is the prevailing power of the Lord’s love. If these waves were rising publicly there was something in the Lord’s initiative that was greater. It was the prevailing power of His love that furnished the Supper.

E.C.B.        It is a great thing to contemplate “I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do”; and the Supper anticipated the completion of that work, but I was just impressed with what you are suggesting that there is, as it were, as we gather for the Supper, a focus of great steadiness in the face of everything that is around.

J.McK.        I am sure it is very important to seize that, and the fact that the Lord had not yet gone into death, but He was drawing the disciples into His own state of mind as to what was before Him. There was no question as to the outcome, He would feel it. Mr. Darby says, for Him death was death, and its awfulness cannot be overstated, but there is something here that in its sweetness really gave the Lord grounds for proceeding in the initiative of love, in the strength of what He was to secure for Himself.

E.C.B.        I like your expression that He would draw the disciples into His own state of mind, and I think He would do that for us.

J.McK.        I am sure He would.

E.C.B.        I think John 20 is on that line, “my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” (v 17) drawing the disciples into His own state of mind.

J.McK.        It would not have been the same if He had inaugurated the Supper after His death. If He had done that, to remember Him would still have been right, but it would not have related in the same way to current affection; it would, in some sense, have related to what was past, whereas this is the realisation of the immediate link and the present affection that He has and the direction in which He is moving. “This is my body which is for you”. What a precious thing! I think in giving His body and His blood in this context, He was enriching the assembly.

H.A.H.        I think we had some sense of divine joy and that He comes in with a view to having us in a place where that joy is known, not only that He brings it here, but He would have us there where it is realised in the fulness of bliss.

J.McK.        We quoted this morning the Psalm which says, “blessed is the people that know the shout of joy”, and I believe in some sense these disciples must have got some impression of that. As far as they are concerned in this weak mortal hour of which we have sung, they would have been overpowered, but the initiative of love is so great that they are lifted right out of that and they see that He is actually giving them something that is intrinsically precious.

J.A.B.        It says, “he placed himself at table, and the twelve apostles with him”. We prove that do we, the Lord coming in amongst us?

J.McK.        We do, and how dignified and how deliberate it was. It is as if the Lord could not have proceeded without this. It is as if the circle of the saints formed the point of departure for Him in relation to the great sacrifice that He was about to make. As we were saying yesterday, His death bears upon everybody, but what happened here bears on the assembly. There is something special in the Lord’s link with His own, and to be in such an environment is a great privilege.

B.H.C.        I think it is very attractive. The writer could say, “the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land”. I was thinking of what is shared and enjoyed together and of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the previous chapter you read - how that grace is still known and proved that we might share His joys.

J.McK.        Paul says, “ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”. I think we gather to celebrate the Supper as knowing that grace. It is because of it that the saints are already enriched. We do not come together as completely empty vessels, but as persons who have a knowledge of Christ, and His coming among the saints releases what is there for Himself. He appropriates the whole thing in view of the service of God.

H.T.F.        Grace has been spoken of as supply. I was thinking of that in the context of where you began to read. Supply from Christ must involve the wealth that you spoke of in spite of the very circumstances of outward poverty and so on that we touched this morning.

J.McK.        Who can tell the extent of what is in Him? John’s gospel says “of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace”. The wealth that not only has come, but is coming from Him: this is Christianity. This is why the Lord’s Day is so distinctive in our experiences. The time of the Supper is wonderful. Is there anything to compare with the enjoyment of the saints as, under His influence, they engage in God’s praise? The way we reach it is through the Supper.

D.A.B.        Is that as true for Him as it is for us?

J.McK.        His joy is something that we might speak of a little in relation to chapter 14. I think the Lord expects us, in some way, to enter into His joy. He has richly provided for ours, but I think the full confidence of love, and that is what is proper to the assembly, anticipates what is for His enjoyment.

D.A.B.        I do not want to anticipate, but it gives us something to rise to if we have some sense of His own desires, “I will see you again”.

J.McK.        How fully He associates them with Himself. He is not simply a channel of benefit for them. What the Lord is looking for is persons who come into the current of what His mind is and are therefore responsive. It must be a great pleasure to His heart as the saints are in liberty under His touch. It is like David; he says, the musical instruments that I made. Each of the saints is of divine making; the Lord as minister of the sanctuary brings them into function with the skill of his own hand. It is really this that constitutes what is pleasurable to God.

A.A.C.        In His presence we are set at liberty. He takes us up and brings us into His own mind, but He draws out what He has put there.

J.McK.        I like that thought, that the Lord is actually investing in the saints, love’s expenditure is very great. The giving in chapter 22 of Luke is complete. The Lord actually gave up His life. The condition of flesh and blood into which He came was terminated, but the context of it in this chapter is that ‘it is for you’.

E.C.B.        Does the structure of the scripture in Luke suggest that in instituting the Supper the Lord has something in mind greater than the kingdom?

J.McK.        You will need to explain that please.

E.C.B.        There are two references to the kingdom in relation to the Passover, and then the Lord having said all that, He turns to the Supper. I think in the occasion on the Lord’s Day morning, while we have His kingdom and His throne in mind, the Lord has more in mind the intimacy of His own relations with the individuals that He has secured through His death? “A calling of me to mind”, 1 Cor. 11: is individual, is it not?

J.McK.        Yes. So that what you suggest is that He is drawing them into an area of abiding and affectionate relationships. The idea of His authority is something that we have known. We come together and it is the Lord’s Supper. We come together as recognising kingdom truth, but the Supper is the doorway into what is greater.

E.C.B.        I was wondering whether we need to arrive at the sense that the relationships are greater than the status.

J.McK.        That is abundantly true. Around us we see persons who have dignity as far as title is concerned but because there is not the warmth of relationship, the whole thing becomes diminished, but where relationship is properly filled out according to God, the dignity proper to that relationship is seen.

P.F.E.        In John 14 it says, “and will bring to your remembrance all the things”. There is nothing left out, everything is freely available. Do you think that is right?

J.McK.        I think it is: that relates to the Spirit’s service. The Lord’s giving is prominent and the things that belong to Him. He says, “he”, that is the Spirit, “shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. Now the Spirit in this chapter comes in Christ’s Name. It is very precious to think of the Spirit being here in the Name of the One we love, and His service is a complete one, so that nothing in these intimate communications between the Lord and His own is to be lost. The Spirit is equal to bringing these things forward.

K.M.        The Spirit is referred to as the Comforter. Is that to make us comfortable where Christ is, where there is sweetness and tranquillity, and a sense of liberty?

J.McK.        As the Comforter His prime service is to come where Christ is absent. He says, If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come. The presence of the Spirit involves what is additional. I think it links with what we are saying about enrichment, because He is another Comforter. The Lord Jesus had been amongst them as a Comforter and the Spirit was another, and His service in occupying them with Christ was very enriching. As the Lord comes amongst us, the Spirit as already here having prepared the area for Him, we can see how He appreciates what He finds. From one point of view He brings everything with Him, from another point of view He finds something in the saints that answers to His heart.

E.C.B.         In the type in Genesis 24 the Spirit is familiar with everything that the Father has and everything that the Son has.

J.McK.        That is confirmed by the fact that in chapter 14 it is the Father who sends the Spirit. Here we have the wealth of the divine economy operating for the enrichment of the saints. That is not too much to say, because God’s inheritance is His people and unless we apprehend something of the greatness of how God views them, we shall be diminished in our apprehension of the wealth that is pouring in.

D.J.H.        We get the expression, “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”. It has all come from Himself, by this route?

J.McK.        Yes. Let us be enlarged in our appreciation of it, let us not be overpowered by our sense of public failure, the day of small things, and all the things that afflict the testimony with which we are so familiar. Let us realise the greatness and wealth of what is in the inside place. The Lord’s giving is enriching the saints. He has furnished the Supper for us, and He comes Himself in relation to it and that giving is extended because He continues to impart things.

D.J.H.        Paul prays in Ephesians 1 as to knowing these things – “what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” - but the basis of His prayer is your faith in the Lord Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. It seems as though we need, an expanded view of what the Lord has here and of Himself, in view of our entering into these things.

K.M.        In relation to the Comforter, we sing:

Holy Comforter divine,

Fullest honour now is thine,

Godhead glory thine own sphere.

Would the Comforter have some desire to bring us into that sphere?

J.McK.        He is the power for our entrance into things. The touch of Christ and the power of the Spirit is what we prove. We become vessels available under the touch of Christ, but in the power that the Spirit gives. The Lord says earlier as to the Spirit, “whom the world cannot receive”. The Spirit has not come to the world, but He has come to the assembly. We need to remind ourselves too, that His presence in the assembly is greater than His presence in us as individuals, so that there is a greater wealth proved in the collective side of our experience than if we were simply sitting at home, however committed in affection we may be.

E.C.B.        In John’s gospel, generally speaking, the Spirit is viewed in relation to ourselves here. The opening of a place prepared is largely through Jesus Himself.

J.McK.        I think that is right and, as Mr Darby puts it, He puts us in His own place before the Father and then in the scene of testimony. What I thought we could consider in John 14 is verse 27, “I give my peace to you”. What a precious thing that is if we think of it as part of the Lord’s enriching of the saints.

D.A.B.        It was His legacy; not as the world gives. He could not leave property, but He left something that had served Him well in the scene of adversity which you might say, speaking simply, He no longer needed but they needed, and it would serve us as well as it had served Him.

J.McK.        I think that, and the context of this, “not as the world gives”, is very interesting. It has been said that the world gives away, that is it parts with things, you give something, you do not have it any more. But the Lord says, I am not giving like that; so in a sense He still has it, and therefore it is something that the saints share with Him.

A.A.C.        I love the hymn:

Shares all it possesses with its loved co-heirs.

J.McK.        So the Lord says, “I give my peace to you”. That is the tranquillity that He knew as the man of God’s choice here in dependent circumstances, drawing on His Father for everything and seeking His Father’s approval in everything, and finding it.

E.C.B.        Has it not been remarked that in His giving you can have it all and I can have it all, and everyone else can have it all, and it is all still there?

J.McK.        That is fine! This is different from the giving of His body in Luke 22. He gave His body and that was a gift, as we have already said, involving that something was terminated; it had to be, we understand that. But this is different, this is giving where love shares all it possess with its loved co-heirs, and the wealth of the Lord’s own input into this situation is remarkable and stimulating.

J.S.H.        I was thinking of collective experience and what you were saying earlier about each of us having a knowledge of God. We each have something, but it is as together we are able to unite, to bring something fresh; something would have touched each one of us through another week, some extra knowledge individually, but as we are gathered we are able to bring things which are very precious.

J.McK.        And we realise, as bringing something of the sweetness of our collective links with Him and begin to realise that Christianity is a lot greater than you ever thought it was. What will heaven be? The link we have with Jesus is not confined to the scene of testimony, it is going to go right into heaven, and the sharing that we know in our spirits already is going to be extended until it fills the whole of our lives. “I give my peace to you”.

D.A.B.        It was something He had brought from another world and used in this one, but it is not to be understood simply as confined to the needs of this world is it? It is something of heaven that clearly has its application here, but we must not limit it to that setting.

J.McK.        That is right. Psalm 16 would confirm that, He says, “I have a goodly heritage” (v 6). Think of what the Lord Jesus enjoyed as a man. His life was not all sorrow; He was here as glorifying the Father and what joy was in that.

D.A.B.        It is the peace that slept in the boat, the peace that stayed two days in the place where He was, but that was because, in a sense, the circumstances were incidental demands upon His peace; it belonged to a plane above the circumstances.

J.McK.         There was something in the Lord’s link with the Father that all the opposition which came against Him could not touch. The Lord says, “I give my peace to you”.

E.C.B.        That is Matthew 11. ‘In that hour Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father’. The cities had rejected Him and John the baptist had questions. In that hour, He lifted up His eyes and said, Father. “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened” (v 28).

J.McK.        “And I will give you rest”. The impartation of something from the Lord Jesus personally is what really gives character to the saints. Where does spiritual personality come from? Is it not here?

B.H.C.        The thought of peace is found only in Him. We cannot find this peace at a distance; we cannot view it abstractly. If you give a person something you must be near to them and the recipient must be near to the person that is giving to him. We cannot think of peace as being automatically enjoyed at a distance. It must be entirely bound up with Himself. The Lord Jesus could say, “abide in me and I in you”, reciprocal love and affection for each other.

J.McK. So that it is His peace, it is not simply the absence of disturbance. We think of that sometimes as peace and it is a very empty way of describing it. This is a rich thing, it is “my peace”; it involves wealth and will build something into the saints that is of Himself and therefore can be responsive to Him.

F.S.P.        Those present may be viewed as apostles, disciples, or His own. I have never really been struck perhaps as much as this afternoon with, “with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you”. It is something coming from the Lord. I have never thought about it quite like that.

J.McK.        We get some impression of how much He valued these men, to share the greatest things with them, and things that were personal to Himself, things that belonged to Him in a unique sense. He says, I will give it to you. There was a touch in what you said this morning in speaking to the Lord Jesus, I think you said that He was ‘more than worthy’. I think that is enrichment. We can say that He is worthy, and that it is abundantly true, but I noticed that expression, that He is ‘more than worthy’. That is an evidence that what we are saying is real amongst the saints, and that there is the release of what is spontaneous and what of itself is in character according to Christ.

We should refer to the Lord says in verse 28, “Ye have heard that I have said unto you, I go away and I am coming to you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice that I go to the Father”. What does that mean? The Lord is surely suggesting that they should appreciate what His joy is. He had joy on the earth, but the fulness of His joy was in going to the Father. He said, “If ye loved me ye would rejoice that I go to the Father”. Sorrow had filled their heart because He was going away. That is because they had been occupied with Him and found everything in Him, but here He is saying if you love me, you would actually rejoice in this.

E.C.B.        “In thy presence is fulness of joy”. The counterpart of that is “thou wilt fill me with joy by thy countenance”. You have a sense in those scriptures of the Lord looking at the Father and the Father looking at Jesus.

J.McK.        So that the Man who sings is the Man who has returned into the presence of the Father and realised there the fulness of His own joy, and what He is doing is drawing the saints into such things as that.

D.J.H.        So that chapter 13 precedes this. We do not actually get the Supper there, but you get a sense of His peace, that with all that was before Him - it says he was “about to depart out of this word to the Father” - it is at that point that He speaks of “part with me”.

J.McK.        In chapter 17, I thought this reference “for the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them”, would link with what we are saying. This is further giving on His part and what is suggested here is capacity in the saints to receive what He gives. The source of the words is the Father, the One who is giving them to us is the Son, the Lord Jesus Himself, and what is given finds a place in the hearts of the saints. This is communication at a very high level.

E.C.B.        The Lord speaks of the disciples in John 17 as beyond failure, they will need support, but they are beyond failure. You wonder how much it could be said of us that the words that the Father had given Him we had received.

J.McK.        Our experience at the end of the service would link with what you are saying. Some sense comes into the soul of divine supremacy, the unreached greatness and infinitude, the majesty, of God Himself and you see that no failure can ever intrude there. But that we as creatures of God’s hand should be furnished so that we can be in such an atmosphere was all traced back to the service of Christ Himself. He has enriched the saints so that the area in which He now sings is a very responsive.

E.C.B.        Do you not think that in what you are saying now we should have more sense of what we have arrived at than whether we have put our feet on all the stepping-stones to get there? I think we need a bit of a sense of transcendence.

J.McK.        A sense of wonderment. The detail of that we can leave to God, the concept of our blessing initially is His and He has furnished us with all that we need.

E.C.B.        He says to the Father, I will that those that those thou hast given me may be with me where I am. “Thou shalt remember all the way the Lord thy God led thee” is the wilderness, but it is not quite this.

J.McK.        We referred to simplicity yesterday, and this is simplicity of a very high order. It relates to the end of Revelation where is says, “the tabernacle of God is with men” (Rev 21: 3). The reference is to the immediateness of the link between the saints and divine Persons. It does not require the trammels of orthodoxy, it is a direct link formed by God Himself and sustained in divine power so that the spirit of worship rises up within us. Mr Darby says somewhere that worship is the rest of the soul. I have pondered that. It is not a question necessarily of activity, it is the rest of the soul, and we come to it that not only has God done everything but He is everything, and you can just rest there.

D.J.H.        We have often commented that there is no activity spoken of in the beginning of Revelation 21, to which you referred, “the tabernacle of God is with men”. He is with them, they are His people and no activity is mentioned.

J.McK.        So, what will eternity be? How shall we reach it? We shall reach it as enriched through the service of Jesus.

D.A.B.        It is very beautiful how this chapter is followed - He entered into a garden, He and His disciples. It was beyond the torrent. It is almost as if all the darkness melted away, that they went into something prepared, a place which you might say was a matter of private enjoyment between Him and themselves. I wondered if John puts that in just to leave us with some impression of what the conversation in chapter 17 had left on His spirit.

J.McK.        So that the Lord’s joy had become extended and it included them all. A passage in Nehemiah which has often attracted me says, “The joy of Jehovah is your strength”. We have come back now into the scene of testimony. Where is our strength? Where is the real resource of the heart? The joy of Jehovah.

E.C.B.        It is remarkable what the Queen of Sheba said when there was no more spirit left in her. She touches very high levels: then as if she has some sense of “in thy presence have I rapture and sit down”, she says, blessed be God, and her whole heart goes out to what Solomon is in his glory. She says, “It was a true report I heard in my own land … I gave no credit to it until mine eyes had seen, behold the half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me. Happy are thy men and happy are these thy servants who stand continually before thee and hear thy wisdom. Blessed be Jehovah thy God who delighted in thee to set thee on His throne to be king to Jehovah thy God, because thy God loved Israel to establish them forever. Therefore did He make thee king over them to do judgment and justice”. There was no more spirit in her and she says all that.

J.McK.         That is fine!

 

LONDON

19 November 2000

 

Key to Initials

J.A.Burnett; D.A.Burr; E.C.Burr; B.H.Clark; A.A.Croot; P.F.Eagle; H.T.Franklin, Grimsby; D.J.Hutson; H.A.Hutson; J.S.Hutson; F.S.Pittman; J.McKay, Witney;

K.Marshall, Rotherham