THE TRUTH HELD AND PRACTISED
J. G. Chalmers
In the earlier part of this chapter everything publicly is in ruins, so much so that it says in 2 Chronicles 36: 16, “There was no remedy”. Christendom is going on to apostasy and to judgment; there is no remedy, and the understanding that we are part of the public ruin should keep us very humble indeed.
But in this section Jeremiah calls attention to the pillars just as they were in the beginning in Solomon’s day. This is to encourage us and to exercise us, for the enemy has tried to corrupt the truth, to dilute it, and to obliterate it. Whilst he has been largely successful in the public body yet there is an area where the full standard of the truth is being maintained, as we sang in the opening hymn, ‘The Spirit all the truth sustains within the assembly here’ (Hymn 436).
The house of God is here. It is the “pillar and base of the truth”, 1 Timothy 3: 15. The Spirit does not maintain the truth
in its terms only, but He maintains it in moral power in persons whom He has formed substantially in the truth, of which these pillars are a type. Christ is in heaven and the truth is in Him, but these pillars are here and they are the substantial answer by the Spirit in persons to what is in Christ. The presence of the Spirit here ensures faith that the dispensation is going to finish morally equal to the beginning. Those men in the beginning of Acts 3 were pillars in that they expressed in themselves that they were in the power and enjoyment of the truth. The Lord still has such persons here who are formed in the truth and who are working it out together in love, as suggested in the line of twelve cubits.
The pomegranates might point to local assemblies where the saints are marked as being unified in the truth. How attractive and adorning a matter that is! I have wondered why the names of the pillars are not given here and it came to me as our brother was speaking about John, who does not refer to himself by name in his gospel. John is the man for the last days.
He gives us things in their vitality, not officially. Thus the absence of the names here would impress us that the Lord is calling attention to what is here in reality in the saints by the Spirit in the presence of the awful breakdown in the official side publicly.
Then there is a touch that we do not get in Solomon’s time, “the thickness thereof was four fingers”. That is to remind us that it is of utmost importance that we pay attention to, and put into practice, every detail of the truth. The enemy would try to weaken the truth by saying that some details are not important but, beloved brethren, the four fingers would remind us that every detail of the truth is of vital importance, and affection for Christ would help us to pay attention to, and put into practice, every detail of it. The thickness being mentioned would denote that therein lies our moral strength in these closing days. May the Spirit help us then in our exercises to maintain the truth in its fulness, not only doctrinally but in power and enjoyment, until the end.
Word in meeting for ministry, Lossiemouth
28 August 1984