"BEGINNING" (3)
“BEGINNING” (3)
Genesis 15:5 - 21; Ezekiel 47:5 - 9; John 1:1 - 3
JT It is the first day of the week and the day continues to the evening, and it would seem as though we should fill it out. We know the Lord continued on the first day of the week till late in the evening, and it is in mind that we might look at something for expansion, enlargement, which the day would suggest.
The thought is that in the consideration of these passages, we may reach the thought of Deity which is to be linked up with our readings yesterday. It is fitting that as entering on such a subject as we had yesterday, we should come to expansion. So God comes in, according to what He is as God in a plural sense, and all that flows out of that in the sense of expansion. So it is thought that Genesis 15 affords an opportunity to touch on what is subjective in the sense of expansion, for it has to be connected with God, only in the Spirit, not as He is seen in the first verses or the early verses of the book as brooding over the face of the deep, or the waters, but in view of life, in view of expansion. That is in the sense of the Spirit, in the sense of expansion in the Spirit.
Ezekiel serves to bring that out, the river increasing to impassability, and then what flows out of that in view of the believer extending and doubling, for the river becomes double. Indeed, the suggestion is infinitely so because it cannot be passed over.
The verses in John afford the truth doctrinally of all this matter because it lies in the Word, the Logos, that is to say, God in that sense. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” John 1:1. It seems as if the Lord would help us as we are with Him in regard to the first day of [p. 49] the week so that we are set free from all else to be engaged with these things and Him.
OAM Would you say why you stress the Spirit in chapter 15?
JT That is where the subjective truth lies. If we connect it with God that is where it lies; it is a question of the Spirit.
SMcC You were alluding yesterday to the thought of knowledge as entering into Genesis 2 in man. Now in this chapter that we are starting with, we again get that thought coming up with Abraham, do we not? He says, in verse 8, “Lord Jehovah, how shall I know that I shall possess it?” It is a question of knowledge again, is it not?
JT Just so, and I would say subjective knowledge, an expression that is intelligible as we understand the New Testament, not simply objective, but what is subjective, how enlargement lies there.
JRH Would that be seen somewhat in the character of the animals mentioned here, the heifer and the she-goat and turtle-dove?
JT I think that is what is meant, that it enters into the chapter peculiarly, how Abraham was to know. He wants to know how he is to know and Jehovah gives him these creatures, as pointing to the means of knowing.
ANW He believed Jehovah, it says. That would be objective, I suppose?
JT Well, it would. In the prophets it says, “We shall know, we shall follow on to know”, Hosea 6:3. What is seen here-we all know, at least, I suppose some of us do in this chapter is the idea of the word of God as such.
It appears first in this chapter and in the sense of a vision, so that we evidently arrive at enlargement, for God anticipated Abraham; “After these things the word of Jehovah came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward”, Genesis 15:1. That was anticipative of [p. 50] what was going on in the mind of Abraham, but it indicated what was going on in the mind of God, too. We have earlier the suggestion of what goes on, not simply what is in the mind of God, but what precedes it, and so in chapter 8 He says things in His heart. Jehovah says things in His heart. He does not say them out loud, so to speak. He says them in His heart, so there is a suggestion of things that are proceeding in the heart of God. They are to come out in detail, and this chapter seems to afford the opportunity of this, what God has in His heart, what Abraham, too, had in his heart, what he was thinking about.
We have what God had in His heart, and how He would expand His thoughts in view of Abraham. So it says, verse 2, we must remember that he is speaking in the presence of a vision, “And Abram said, Lord Jehovah, what wilt thou give me? seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Lo, to me thou hast given no seed, and behold, a son of my house will be mine heir. And behold, the word of Jehovah came to him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that will come forth out of thy body shall be thine heir. And he led him out, and said, Look now toward the heavens, and number the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said to him, So shall thy seed be! And he believed Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am Jehovah who brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give thee this land to possess it. And he said, Lord Jehovah, how shall I know that I shall possess it?” That is to say, how is he to know it?
ASB Is there some link with chapter 1 of this book as we had it in verse 14, “And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens”, and now He is in vision speaking to Abraham in relation to the filling? You are using the word ‘expansion’ as connected with that to fill it out with persons?
JT Yes. Well, that is what I think is so, and we shall see it further as we look into Ezekiel, because he pursues the line of the river issuing forth until he reaches an impassable point. That is to say, we have the suggestion of Deity, of God, and then what flows from that so that he is led back, whoever is leading him leads him back to the bank of the river, and then we have the idea of the double thought. It is a double river. That is to say, there is enlargement at once; the passage says, “Son of man, hast thou seen this? And he led me, and brought me back to the bank of the river. When I returned, behold, on the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other”, very many. Then we have later the idea of the double river, “And it shall come to pass that every living thing which moveth, whithersoever the double river shall come, shall live”, I think that we should rightly conclude that we are in a section bordering on God, on Deity, and what flows from it, “that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”.
JWB In the epistle to Colossians, full knowledge is mentioned three times. I was wondering if that would help us in regard to what we are speaking of now.
JT Very good. We find it, too, in Matthew 11, a similar thought, and then we find it in Ephesians 4, because God has nothing less than that in His mind for us, clear, full knowledge, what may be called real knowledge.
AHP In the passage you quoted in Hosea, it speaks of knowing the Lord, of knowing God. “We shall follow on to know Jehovah: his going forth is assured as the morning dawn”, Hosea 6:3. Would you regard this unfolding of God’s activities as akin to the idea of His going forth, God coming out and making Himself [p. 52] known?
JT Just so. He is going forth. In that connection we read earlier of the people being destroyed for lack of knowledge, but in Hosea 6:3, “And we shall know,-we shall follow on to know Jehovah”, and then His going forth is spoken of.
JAP The way you were referring to it, can we lay it to purpose, know the purposes of God?
JT Well, quite so. Therefore it leads us into Ephesians. That is where God especially lays Himself out, so to speak, to instruct the assembly. We have general knowledge elsewhere, of course, but in Ephesians, as it were, God is laying Himself out to instruct the assembly. So that Paul says, “That ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ”, Ephesians 3:4. Someone had it and that was Paul, so that the idea is there.
GMcP In the acquiring of knowledge, is there a certain process of soul history like with Abraham in this chapter?
JT That is a good inquiry, because that is the intent of the reading of the chapter, how we shall arrive at it, because that is what he wants to know himself, how he is to arrive at it. Peter raises the thought with the Lord in his final word with Him in John 21. He raises the question of knowledge, of what was there. Our chapter in Genesis 15 is just that. Abraham wants to know. The time has arrived that he should say to himself that he should come into the clear knowledge of things. He had not had a son born to him. He was to depart without a family, whereas in truth his name indicated, and eventually was rightly understood, that he was to be the father of a multitude. That has to be understood. How is it to be reached? So in verse 8 he further says to Jehovah, “How shall I know that I shall possess it?” and then we have these creatures, the thought suggested to him, or the command, really, to take a “heifer of three years old, and a she-goat [p. 53] of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon”. That is what he is told to do and what he is not told to do is what he further does, that is to say, what verse 10 says. “And he took all these, and divided them in the midst”. Jehovah did not tell him to do this, but he did it, showing that he is learning already. It is the basis in him of clear knowledge. “And he took all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid the half of each opposite its fellow; but the birds he did not divide. And the birds of prey came down on the carcases; and Abram scared them away”, showing what Jehovah does not tell him to do is especially to be noted, because we see in it the basis for clear knowledge, of getting on to full knowledge.
AR Verse 13 says, “And he said to Abram, Know assuredly”. I suppose that is to be noted?
JT Quite so. That is to be stressed because there is adversity involved in it. He says, “Know assuredly that thy seed will be a sojourner in a land that is not theirs, and they shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years”. He is to know the adverse side of things because we must know the adverse side. Whatever it may be, go through it; otherwise, we would be just living on objective knowledge. We have to go through things.
NW You have spoken of this as the learning time. Is your thought in connection with this chapter that God uses our present circumstances here to help us reach the truth subjectively in view of our eternal place which is not a learning time exactly?
JT Quite so. Some of us have thought that we go on learning eternally, but it is not so, otherwise we become monstrosities. This is the learning time. Hence in the great chapter, Ephesians 3, we are to know the breadth, length, depth and height, which is a suggestion of creature knowledge, creature limitation, but “the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”, Ephesians 3:19 is not creature limitation. We are reminded that while it is not creature limitation, it passes knowledge, which is our knowledge.
SMcC In 1 Corinthians 13 it says, “now I know partially, but then I shall know according as I also have been known”. How do you regard that — “I shall know according as I also have been known”?
JT The question is to whom the knowledge is attributed. Who is it spoken of as having the knowledge? What has been known of him? What has been known of Paul? If it be infinite knowledge, then of course, it could not be with the creature, but if the knowledge is just what is in Paul, what he is capable of, what his history implies, well, then, it would be simply creature limitation.
JRH That is, he reaches up to God’s knowledge of him. He reaches up to that.
JT Well, I suppose so. The question is now, if we have time to look into it enough, as to the meaning of the expression, whether it is God’s knowledge of him, or whether it is another knowledge of him which is to be the limit, or standard of the knowledge that is thereby attributable to him at all times. “I shall know according as I also have been known” 1 Corinthians 13:12. I hope the brethren are not mystified by such remarks, but I think we need to look into the thing.
ASB How does chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians work in with that? “But if anyone love God, he is known of him” (verse 3). Would that enter into it?
JT That is very clear, but whether I have been known is a sort of hypothetical suggestion and who the person is who knows, is what is in mind. Clearly it is a standard of knowledge that Paul would have to come up to.
ANW Obscure window would seem to suggest that the obscurity is on one side, and not on the other, “but then face to face”. It is the same person,
[p. 55] and as much as is known is to be known then face to face.
JT I think in view of the things that are said in the passage, I mean in 1 and 2 Corinthians, that there is an uncertainty about it, so that in 2 Corinthians 3:17 we read, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. There is something in the sense of what is seen there and what is linked up primarily with the new covenant that needs, perhaps, more consideration than we have time for now.
WC You referred to subjective expansion. The man of whom we are speaking, Abraham, was expanded in a previous chapter. He was told of a blessing in relation to the dust of the earth, but here there is a different expansion. I wondered if you had something more in your mind about the subjective side in the expansion here.
JT We have so far come on to verse 9. Abraham says in verse 8, “Lord Jehovah, how shall I know that I shall possess it? And he said to him, Take me a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove and a young pigeon”. Now we have come to this verse. Your inquiry is whether I have something else in mind. I have the question of knowledge, of the subjective feature of things in Christianity; that is, whether we have learned the initial idea of it, and clearly Abraham had something. Jehovah stops at a certain point and Abraham proceeds on his own account. Referring again to the Corinthian epistles, we have in chapter 7 a very remarkable set of instructions, items of instruction, where Paul differentiates between his own experience and the knowledge that flows from it, and revelation. It seems as if the [p. 56] question is whether we have basically what assures us of the full thought of knowledge, full, clear knowledge, in being able to distinguish between revelation and what may flow from experience, and the Spirit working in us according to that experience.
LES Do you think that what the apostle refers to in Timothy-there were always those who were learning and never able to come to the full knowledge of the truth-would bear upon our passage?
JT It does bear on it, and what has been said about Abraham would meet it compared with 1 Corinthians 7. What is said of Abraham is the basis there of clear knowledge, because he is told by Jehovah what to do. “Take me a heifer”, etc., but then he is left with that. Then it says, “And he took all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid the half of each opposite its fellow; but the birds he did not divide”. Well, I think we have in this verse the suggestion that there is the basis in Abraham of clear knowledge, and that Jehovah is bringing that out as He did in Adam. He did not tell Adam what the names were to be. He left them with Adam and whatever Adam named them, those were their names. So I think God would lay down for us something in this sense as to clear knowledge. That is, if we have the basis of clear knowledge in any sense, then we can proceed, and God will be with us. “Consider what I say”, it says. If we do not do that, we will not get on, but if we do, the Lord gives understanding in all things.
JRH These are not sacrifices apparently, but rather the opening up of the inward parts.
JT There must be the idea of sacrifice in them, but they are to be divided, and another thing is they are three years old until we come to the birds. That is to say, Abraham has got to go out in the herds and find them and in finding them, he is learning. He is learning how nature itself works. We are told that [p. 57] nature teaches us, and we are to be open for the teaching of nature.
TU Do you have any thought as to why the offerings are linked with three years?
JT I think the idea is maturity. That is to say, they indicate full-grown persons, full growth. Hebrews contemplates the need of full growth. We are not all the time learning, and yet never coming to a knowledge of the truth. If we look at the passage in Hebrews 5, perhaps it would help us a little, verse 11, “Concerning whom we have much to say, and hard to be interpreted in speaking of it, since ye are become dull in hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have again need that one should teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For everyone that partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe; but solid food belongs to full-grown men who, on account of habit, have their senses exercised for distinguishing both good and evil”. I think the crux of the matter lies there, of what we are speaking of, that the age of these creatures denotes full growth; persons who have all their senses in exercise can proceed to further knowledge. You are not content with what you already know. You want more.
JHJr Is there a link with Philippians 1, Paul speaking of the love of the Philippians? He prays that their love might abound more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence, that they may judge of and approve the things that are more excellent. He goes on to speak of his circumstances. I wonder if that would link on with this.
JT That helps. The allusion to Philippians helps, indeed, because it is a great subjective epistle, having in mind what he had already attained to, and he had the accompaniments of real knowledge.
AHP It is very remarkable in that epistle. [p. 58] The apostle says that he desired to “know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings”, Philippians 3:10. We might have thought that objective. Do you regard that expression as linked on with this idea of subjective knowledge?
JT That is right, “that I may know him”. He has laid himself out for it. We want to proceed on those lines because it is urgent. It is the time of learning as we have been reminded and to know how is the thing. Abraham raises this question with Jehovah and this matter of maturity enters into it, the age of these creatures. Abraham in seeking them out of his flocks, as we may suppose he did, would be thinking all the time of when these creatures were born. He probably kept a record of the ages of his cattle. Some farmers do. I suppose good farmers ought to keep a record of the ages of their cattle, but especially when they symbolise persons, their ages, so that Abraham is the great family man. He was the great father. We may be sure that he would develop the fatherly thought, and especially as Isaac came into view, how the dates would come into his mind, how old persons were. It is important, too, because the testimony requires that we keep account of dates, the ages of persons, and especially persons that God is using because it may be that God might lengthen out the age of a brother if needed, as He did Moses and as He did Hezekiah, showing what an elastic situation we are in. What love is in God, and developed in us! What a realm we are in!
RRT So that this matter of the age of the animals is something that God distinctly said to Abraham, “Take me a heifer of three years old”, but then you were stressing that Abraham in his intelligence went beyond what God had told him, divided them in pieces. I was wondering if the smoking furnace coming in and moving between the pieces would indicate God’s delight in what Abraham had [p. 59] done and now going on to something further in view of that.
JT Well, that all enters into it. We have already alluded to what his posterity would have to go through in Egypt, but there are other things, too, in the sense of balance and discipline; so he is showing that he is worthy of trust, because he not only knows the ages of these creatures — I mean to say he is to find out where they are and what the ages of his creatures or his cattle might be. He has to search the thing out, work the thing out, because the question of age must come up in each case, when the creature began to have being and how it is now. All that is a process through which Abraham has to go and he does, because he finds the creatures and then he drove away the birds of prey which came down, it says, on the carcases. That is to say, he is an alert man, a trustworthy man. He is not going to evade the devil’s work. If the devil is going to do anything, he seeks to undo the works of the devil. That is what the Lord Jesus has done and that is in principle what we must learn to do, to undo the works of the devil as far as possible. Here he drove away the birds of prey. The birds of prey came down on the carcases and Abraham scared them away. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you”, James 4:7. Therefore, the experience of the believer is worked out in these cases and flows from the fact that he believed in Jehovah. He was a believer. Abraham was a believer, and faith is worked out in all these things.
JTJr In the Lord’s parable about the sower, the word of God was sown. The devil comes in in the first case of the seed sown by the wayside and takes away the seed. Here the birds come and Abraham scares them away.
JT Yes. I think the principle of scaring away ought to be with responsible persons, whoever they are, in either case, because it is when men sleep, the [p. 60] Lord says in the other parable, the devil works. We are reminded that we are to be on the alert in the service of God, in the sphere of His testimony, that the devil does not get a footing at all; and if he does, there is some slackness because it is when men sleep that the devil works. I do not know whether that fits in with your remarks.
JTJr I think it does because the sleeping might allude to those active in service who are not looking after other things. Is that what you have in mind?
JT Just so. Take the history of the assembly and the testimony involved in it. The history of the seven assemblies in the book of Revelation shows that there was great remissness somewhere. There was a need for an Antipas. The devil got in somewhere. We have Christendom now on account of that, such as it is. It is the fruit of the enemy’s work.
EGMcA I was wondering about the significance of the sun going down, the thought of having gone down and being dark.
JT That is a question of experience, so we should not move away from this matter of age and experience and learning based on it. This question of the cattle should be kept in mind first, and the scaring away of the birds. That should be kept in mind and we should go through with it and then see what the next thing is. Abraham so far is successful. Verse 12 says, “And as the sun was just going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, a horror, a great darkness, fell upon him”. Well, I think we are reminded of Genesis 1. The point that we made yesterday was that what we have in Genesis 1 in the days will work out in doctrine and teaching and ministry eventually all down through the history of the testimony, and so we are reminded of that in this matter of darkness. The horror of a great darkness fell upon Abraham. It would appear that we are reminded of the way days are worked out, what the effect is on our lives, so that [p. 61] the day begins with the evening, not with the morning, “And there was evening, and there was morning”. If we look back to the first chapter it says there, “And there was evening, and there was morning” — one day — or “the first day”. There is something in the history of the believer in the sense of the evening that we have to understand and learn that things are not all rosy with us, that we begin to sow really in the beginning of our lives, the evening and the morning. We have to learn that that is the way of reckoning days, and so Jacob says, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life”, Genesis 47:9,or “sojourning”. We have to take account of the way things are mentioned — that is to say, evening first. I think this history of Abraham would imply that he had a very terrible time of it, but he had to learn it himself. All this experience, what we were speaking of as learning, as subjective knowledge, is worked out in our experience in this sense in going through darkness, going through the dark days. Whatever they may be, go through them.
ASB Did you have in mind in relation to the age that it is really here, what is on earth being governed by the heavenly position, the solar system, but in the working out of it, it is brought down to the single days?
JT Just so, the solar system. It is good to touch on those things. The word ‘solar’ would not come in in the first three days properly. It comes into the fourth day. It is the question of the position of the sun. We have to be content at first with the idea of light. God called the light day. He said, “Let there be light. And there was light” Genesis 1:3, not saying whence it came. We have to learn from experience in that sense.
RHS In 1 Corinthians 12 we seem to have knowledge by the Spirit, the word of knowledge. Would you suggest that we acquire knowledge through [p. 62] experience?
JT We do. The Spirit comes into it all. We have not time for that now. I certainly should like that we should all get the idea of this subjective learning or knowledge as contemplated in Genesis 15. Then we have to go on to Ezekiel, and we have to touch a little on John 1. So we will pass on to Ezekiel because we certainly have not finished our subject, and it is a good thing that we do not finish things, that we leave off things and come back to them. We have hardly time now to say any more about our chapter, interesting as it is, save that we have come to the point that Abraham has scared away the birds of prey, and he has gone through darkness. Then we may add that the creatures were set each against his fellow and the light passed through. It says in verse 17, “And it came to pass when the sun had gone down, and it was dark, that behold, there was a smoking furnace, and a flame of fire which passed between those pieces”. Now the power of God has come in. We can hardly leave our subject without touching on this. The power of God has come in in the smoking furnace, and the flame of fire that passes through those pieces. Abraham has set them in a certain position, and God takes account of that position, and the power of God is allowed to come through because there is something substantial there, or we would not have such a scene as this-that is to say, a smoking furnace and a flame of fire. There is some substance to it because there is the smoke and the flame and then the result is that everything is secured. The covenant is made with Abraham. Now we are set up in relation with God and we know where we are and what we are doing. So that in touching it in this way, we may pass on to Ezekiel so as to see how the Deity comes in at the point of human experience. Then we have something that we cannot fathom, that we cannot pass through, and therefore we bow and we feel that we have to do with God [p. 63] and it makes us reverential. We become illuminated and we find there is at least double what we thought there was-first as to the river, and then as to the trees on the banks of it which would allude to persons. I hope the brethren are following, that we are not being mystified. We have taken on a subject but one feels that we should and that we should see how enlargement enters into the first day of the week.
AHP To pass through the waters might suggest to us how knowledge is increased with us. You were saying earlier in your prayer we know in part. Do you think this is progressive, from the ankles, knees, loins, then to impassable waters? Would it suggest something akin to the Spirit’s way with us in forming us in divine knowledge?
JT That is what I was thinking. We must count on the Spirit in all our learning, in all that we know. We must have in mind that the Spirit is here, and the power by which everything is carried through.
AR Is the swimming experimental?
JT Just so. Waters to swim in.
CAM Did I understand you to convey that in chapter 47:5, of Ezekiel, we come to infinitude, the river that could not be passed through. Is that right? In Mr. Darby’s translation it is the end of a paragraph and then he is brought back. My thought was as to your allusion to the trees being persons. Is this to form some practical evidences of this life?
JT Quite. It is a question of having missed something, and now you are brought back to it. As was said already in verse 5, “waters to swim in”, but we are now in infinitude, so that it is the realm of God in that sense. Then someone speaks, someone who leads (the idea of leadership must be in it) — “And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this?”. He had not. So we are reminded of how much we miss. “And he led me, and brought me back to the bank of the river”, and then not only that, “When I returned”, the idea of returning to a point. Then he says, “behold, on the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other”. Already some of us have been speaking of God “bringing many sons to glory”. We cannot say how many. There are very many here.
SWP Is there any link here with the river? You have spoken already of Genesis 15, God speaking of the covenant, and He speaks of the great river Euphrates, and then there seems to be further expansion of a river that is impassable in Ezekiel. Is it the extension of the thought of God in Genesis 15? He speaks of the great river Euphrates and leaves it there as if the thought of the river is to be a future development.
JT The river would be a full stop, you might say. We have come to something that implies a full stop and so David stopped there, but he did not stop there until he had established his boundaries. His empire was extended and finished, looked after properly, and I think that is implied in Abraham’s position, because it is a question of the disposition of the earth in his case; but now when we come to Ezekiel, we are dealing with infinitude which is hardly the thought with David or in Solomon, or in Abraham, but Ezekiel is the power of God. It alludes to that, and we have this wonderful river and all that flows out of it and the idea of infinitude, and then what flows from plenty, from the latitude implied. These trees, very many trees and many other things are touched on in the sense of the power of healing in the river and the double river, that is, the idea is so increased that it is said to be double.
JLP Is there any correspondence in what Job reaches at the end? When Jehovah turned the [p. 65] captivity of Job, He gave him twice as much as he had before.
JT Very good. That would bring up the subject of the meaning of the teaching in the book of Job. It is not infinitude. It is double as much as he had before. There are certain limitations, however, to that, but anyway, it is a picture of Israel. That is, we do not rise to the level of heaven in Job. It is really Israel, only that we do arise to the idea of high priest because Job is constituted that. He is constituted a high priest because he is ordered to pray for his friends, and his prayer is effective so that the whole matter is finished really. The whole matter of the book of Job is finished with Job himself. It is a question of priesthood. When we come to Ezekiel, we are in the prophets, but a peculiar prophet because the idea is power, I think, in Ezekiel and so this river is a symbol of it, but it is such a thing as I can touch, as the creature can touch, and find his measure, too, in it, beginning with his ankles and going to his loins, and then swimming, the means of swimming, so that we might say it is the fulness of God, “filled even to all the fulness of God”. I think that is what is in mind. It is a question of learning things by experience and then, too, the river in itself, in its double character, and the persons, trees denoting persons, a great many of them, and then the power of healing. So that there is much to be learned, as one was saying, on the Lord’s day in all these things, how we are brought to God, how we are in the realm of God on the first day of the week.
RWS Is it not remarkable that all this should come out in the book of Ezekiel where conditions publicly were so weak due to failure and is there not correspondence thus with our day?
JT We are reminded in Philadelphia that while there was weakness, there was strength, at least a [p. 66] little. There is something you can go on and reckon on. It is a little strength.
ASB Is there a parallel in what the apostle experiences in 2 Corinthians 12 in relation to the ecstasy? I was thinking of your reference to infinitude. He says, “I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God knows)”. There was infinitude connected with that. There was great gain as the result of it.
JT Quite so. We are not left in uncertainty at all. That is to say, God knows. That passage contemplates the love of Christ which passes knowledge, and then the next thing is the fulness of God, and that, too, passes knowledge, but we are sustained in it. We are not lost in it. We are there intelligently. That is what I want to understand.
JRH Are you implying that by divine love we are brought into touch with infinitude from time to time, but with all that, we have much to learn?
JT You are always seeking to learn, because infinitude means that you can never end it, only it does not run on into eternity. The present is a learning time. It is a time of learning. It would be a misleading thing for any to put forward that we learn in eternity.
TU Would the expansion of verses 7, 8 and 9 be the result of a subject person?
JT Ezekiel was a subject person? Quite so. That is what runs through the prophetic word. It is a suggestion of leadership. Sometimes you cannot be sure of who the person is, but it is there. The idea of leadership is there.
Now, if we can end with John, because we come to the beginning, the greatest of all beginnings. The allusion is the greatest of all. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. It is different from what we get later and which we hope to look at tomorrow, that which was from the beginning. Now we come down to narrow limits. John 1 is the greatest thought as to our subject, that is to say, the beginning. It is a question of the Person of Christ, a question of God. “In the beginning was the Word”. He was there. He did not begin. He was there at the beginning, or in the beginning He was there. That is to say, it is eternity. He is eternal. He is the eternal God, and that applies to Christ as it does to the Father.
GMcP Is that the link between this and Ezekiel? You spoke of being in the presence of the Infinite. In the gospel we are in the presence of the Infinite.
JT “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.
APT Is John 1 objective knowledge?
JT You mean the verses we have read? Well, they are statements made by the Spirit of God. It is not a question of the knowledge of the person whom God uses to write, because he is just an instrument, but it is the Holy Spirit we have to do with, the Person who is behind it all. So we are in the presence of God, dealing with God and God’s statements, so that I do not think we should speak of the kind of knowledge there. It is a question of divine Persons.
APT In regard to one’s self, how do I understand the truth known objectively?
JT It is a question now of the whole matter of knowledge, how it can be spoken of, and so it is with John himself. He comes down to use the word, “I suppose”. It is just like Paul differentiating between the Lord’s commandment and his own judgment, his own knowledge of things by experience. That is to say, it is limited, creature limitations. When you are dealing with apostleship, with such persons as apostles, you are bound to come to who they are, whether they are just creatures, or whether they are divine Persons,
[p. 68] and John is just a creature, although he is an apostle and the writer of the gospel. He is just a creature, and therefore he is ready to say, “I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written” John 21:25, but in that way he is just saying that the writings and work of Christ in themselves are infinite.