CHRISTIANITY MARKED BY FINALITY AND STABILITY (2)

CHRISTIANITY MARKED BY FINALITY AND STABILITY (2)

John 15:1-12; John 16:7-15; John 16:21-33

HFN There has been a desire expressed that you would kindly say a further word as to the thought that we closed with this morning, as to John 14: 20. I think you made a remark that there was something more in the verse than the matter of the affections, and the brethren would be very glad if you would repeat that.

AJG I thought it came as a kind of climax to the service of the Spirit to us. For that day is, of course, this day - the day of the Spirit - and, while it is perfectly true that we get a sense by the Spirit that Christ is in His Father’s affections, and that we are in His, and that He is in ours, I do not think it is limited to that. In addition to that, it seems to me that the Spirit brings home to us the wonderfulness of the position that has now come in in Christ: that there is a Man who can be said to be in His Father in a most absolute way, involving the truth of His Person, and yet it is apprehended in a Man; and then that we are in Him. It is not, as we have often said, that we ever partake in Deity, but we are, in fact, united to Christ eternally, and therefore in the greatest conceivable nearness to Christ and to the Father. He is in us, too, because the assembly is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all, and the Lord takes His place in the midst of the assembly; so that the answer which God has now, which is to take form in the assembly, is commensurate with the light, because Christ is in us. I do not know whether that explains it.

HFN Yes, I think it does excellently.

PAR Would you say why the word ‘objective knowledge’ is used in these verses?

AJG Because I think it is a question of the knowledge we get of things, as helped by the Spirit to occupy ourselves with Christ where He is. Earlier in the chapter the Lord says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”; so the whole truth is to be apprehended objectively in Christ. In the epistle we have the counterpart to that, where it says, “The Spirit is the truth.” As we move in things in the Spirit, and only in the Spirit, we touch the truth. The Spirit will never lead us into anything that is not the truth.

GAL Have we not title and power to enjoy our relations with Christ, and then entering into all that He is as Man, in the fact that we are in Him?

AJG Quite so. I only thought that the more we dwell on verse 20, the more it shows how wonderful the position is that God has brought to pass for man, that is, those of the assembly, and how the position really is filled out and made good by the Godhead - the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

Coming to these chapters we have read, it is clear that it is now a question of our position in testimony, but the Lord seems to indicate that underlying testimony is fruit bearing. The spring of all true testimony is consideration for God, and what will afford pleasure to God, and hence the necessity of learning everything from Christ and abiding in Him. The second thing is that in chapter 16 the Lord stresses the place the Spirit has in relation to it, as though the Spirit takes charge of the whole position; so that the Lord says, “When he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth,” and “Having come, he will bring demonstration to the world, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,” and so on. There is the emphatic word “He.” He would guide into all the truth and glorify Christ.

Another thing which comes into great prominence in the two chapters, is the importance the Lord attaches to prayer, and the privilege of it. It is not, so to speak, so much what we are going to do, but we will be in concert with the mind of God, and know the privilege of asking, and the Father doing things, or the Lord doing things. The Lord seems to put testimony in this gospel on a very high level, as being that which was set out in Himself, and now to be continued in His disciples. He says, “I have spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full” (John 15: 11), as though His position in testimony here, though one of constant reproach and suffering, was one of joy to Him.

AH “Every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away,” chapter 15: 1. Would you enlarge a little on that, please? Do you link it in your mind with valuelessness on our part in the testimonial position?

AJG I would think so.

GAL Do you judge it to be important to take account of the figure that is used? The vine is seen down here, as growing down here, is it not?

AJG Exactly. The wood of it is worthless. The whole value of the vine is in the fruit it brings forth as the result of abiding in the stock itself. But the wood itself is valueless, as Ezekiel shows. It is a remarkable picture of the testimony according to divine thought; and it spreads and takes form in clusters, suggesting perhaps what is seen in the local companies.

CG Is it in contrast to the men of Judah; Isaiah 5: 2? They were his pleasant plant, and they should have been for testimony?

AJG Yes, I suppose the allusion is to that, “I am the true vine.”

APA Primarily was the branch not bearing fruit Judas?

AJG It does look as though the branch not bearing fruit is really one who has no part in it at all, but is only in it in the way of profession.

GCS Does fruit for God involve testimony to man?

AJG I thought that was so important to notice. Underlying the idea of our position in testimony, is this matter of fruit for God. So that the Lord says, “I do always the things that are pleasing to him” (John 8: 29), showing what was the motive governing Him in His position here in testimony.

SM What would you say about the thought of fruit and testimony in the bells and pomegranates on the garments of the high priest?

AJG It is just the completion, you might say, of the whole system that depends on the High Priest, that is Christ in heaven. They were on the borders of his garments. It is the completion of the picture of the system that depends on Christ in heaven, that there is fruit and testimony down here.

ETS Would you say a word about “My Father is the husbandman”?

AJG There is the idea of tending the vine, “As to every branch in me not bearing fruit, he takes it away; and as to every one bearing fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.” So that the Father is brought in, in that way, as taking an individual interest in every branch that bears fruit.

GAL Would it be a little on the line of Hebrews 12, and the Father’s discipline that we might be partakers of His holiness; verse 10?

AJG I suppose so. The fact that the Lord brings in the Father as the husbandman rather stresses the side of affection entering into the matter.

HDT Would it be right to suggest that the Lord continues to be the Vine? Whilst He was that exclusively in His pathway here, He is the One who gives rise to any pleasure for God in His saints now, is He not?

AJG I thought so. I thought that was the importance of “Abide in me and I in you.” That is, it entirely shuts out human ideas or methods in the testimony. It shows the importance of maintaining this - “Abide in me and I in you.”

HDT So that, whilst the Spirit of God is not particularly mentioned in this paragraph, it involves His activities with us, for it is only thus that we are in touch with Christ on high.

AJG Yes, I am sure.

AB Would fruit be the result of deriving from Christ, and life in that way coming into evidence?

AJG I am sure that is the thought. It is that really which constitutes the testimony.

HDT Have we connected testimony too much with activity, rather than the thought of fruit, which is a constitutional idea, is it not?

AJG I think we have. I think if these were more carefully attended to, it would entirely shut out popular methods in preaching or service, or anything of that sort. In the earlier chapters of the Acts, while there was the preaching, at the same time when the apostles were released from prison by the angel they were told to go and speak in the temple to the people “all the words of this life,” Acts 5: 20. The life that was to be seen among believers in Jerusalem was the testimony.

HAH “He has poured out this which ye behold and hear,” Acts 2: 33.

AJG “Behold and hear,” that was the Spirit seen in the results He produced in the saints.

HDT So that it says of the man, “Beholding the man who had been healed standing with them,” Acts 4: 14. It does not say that he did anything or said anything. They could do nothing against him.

AJG Exactly.

WSS The thought of love is very much in this passage. The Lord abiding in His Father’s love, and the acquiring of fruit for the Father, would be a love matter, would it not?

AJG It would. It is very touching the way the Lord contemplates that our position in testimony is to correspond with the position He filled in testimony; with Him it was a love matter, and with us it is to be the same.

WSS It seems very wonderful that the Lord says, in chapter 14, “I leave peace with you; I give my peace to you” (verse 27), and now He speaks of our loving one another as He loves us. His love is here. Now He speaks of the Father’s love, so that the Father’s love is here, and the joy that was in Him is here.

AJG It is a remarkable thing that the Lord puts abiding in His Father’s love as being the outcome of His having kept His Father’s commandments, as though He would set out the way that we are to take it up, and we shall abide in His love if we keep His commandments.

WSS So He says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you,” verse 7. Would that come into it?

AJG I thought perhaps that went even further. I thought abiding in Christ really involves that we keep His commandments. It will deliver us from all lawlessness. His words abiding in us would give us intelligence. We need both if we are to ask what we will and it is to come to pass. We need to be delivered from all lawlessness, so that the Father will hear us and our prayers will have power. But then, if whatever we ask is to be given to us, we need to ask intelligently, and hence the need to have Christ’s word abiding in us.

WSS You mean there is a distinction in that way between the words and the commandments. That is helpful.

AJG I think so.

JGW I was just going to enquire whether the scripture in Colossians 1: 5, 6, speaking of the glad tidings and the word of truth preached, and the effect it had constitutionally in those that heard it, those in Colosse bearing fruit and growing, would fit in with your suggestion this afternoon?

AJG I think it does. You get a remarkable expression in Acts 12: 24, that “the word of God grew and spread itself,” as though there is a certain power in the word itself to spread itself.

GAL The Lord Jesus says here, “Without me ye can do nothing,” verse 5. Is that not very important? Should not that enter into every action?

AJG Yes, indeed.

FVW Would the question of abiding involve communion, too? Is this question of communion something that we have to watch in the busy pathway?

AJG I am sure it is, and to understand that all fruit that is pleasing to God is derived from Christ. He remains, in that way, the standard and source of all that is pleasing to God.

JFP Is it not connected with movement in verse 16? - “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have set you that ye should go and that ye should bear fruit.” I was thinking of the words “set” and “that ye should go.”

AJG That is interesting. That is that the full position is ordered of the Lord. I think there is nothing so establishing as the sense we get, as reading these chapters, that the whole position is in the Lord’s hands and that He knows everything. So that, whatever may arise, whatever Satan may bring about in that way by opposition, whatever conditions may arise in the world, the Lord knows everything, and the whole mind of God, too, and here in that position of testimony He has set the saints.

HDT He has experienced it, first-hand - what the world really was - and, as loving His own in that very position, He adequately provided for them.

AJG Exactly, and then you might say it is added to by the coming in of the Comforter.

HDT Yes, quite so. I think the Spirit’s day was in mind all the way through the section.

AJG I am sure it is.

EuR He moves in the midst of the seven candlesticks here, as it is brought in in Revelation.

AJG You mean the Lord moves in the midst of the candlesticks? No doubt He does. But it is not quite the position in view in these verses, because Revelation contemplates a certain judicial attitude on the part of the Lord, whilst this contemplates the normal position of those who are truly disciples of Christ.

HFN Does this chapter really set us in relation to each divine Person, the Father in relation to discipleship, and then we come in as the Lord’s friends, and then at the end we get the witness in regard to the Spirit? And then our position is defined in regard to the circle of love and the hatred of the world. Would the whole position come in in this chapter?

AJG I think it does. We get the stressing of love, the commanding of it, because we are in a world of hatred, and therefore we must have a base of operations, and a base to which we can retire and find comfort. That is in the circle of love, in the circle of the brethren.

AB Have you anything further to say in regard to the subject of prayer? You alluded to it earlier.

AJG It comes into verses 7 and 8. The Lord goes on to say, “In this is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and ye shall become disciples of mine.” I am inclined to think that the Lord is referring to the fact that He Himself was constantly in prayer, as carrying the whole of divine interests in His heart, and praying in relation to them, and that was peculiarly pleasing to God; and He would set us in the same position, and would enlarge upon it in chapter 16, where He encourages us to pray to the Father.

WSS Is the asking in verses 7 and 16 particularly connected with spiritual things?

AJG I think so. I think it is a question of having the whole scope of the will of God intelligently in our mind and heart, and giving ourselves to prayer in relation to it, prayer that would be intelligent, too; that would take account of conditions that are existing, and of the enemy’s movements, too.

HDT So that as abiding in Christ we should, as it were, enquire, and we are in consort with His mind on every matter?

AJG That is what I thought. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will.” It is a most striking statement, as though God, in a way, says these conditions being available you will be in that position.

HDT Did not Mr. Stoney say that it was more to the Lord that the saints should have thoughts in common with Him, rather than all the activities that may result from it.

AJG Yes.

AB Should it result in the saints coming into the confidence of Christ, and what is engaging Him peculiarly?

AJG Quite so, and then that we pray, and the glory then is God’s. It is not that we effect anything and bring about results. The glory is all God’s, and the attitude we take is prayer, and He answers our prayers.

HFN Have you any thought in relation to praying “in my name” corresponding with praying in the Holy Spirit? Would it be the current of the Holy Spirit in the same character?

AJG It must be. But I suppose when it comes to asking “in my name,” as we have in chapter 16, it involves a double thought. First of all in our approach to the Father we always have to bring in the name of Christ; it is a recognition of His mediatorial position and that the access we have is through Him; but also “in my name” involves that we are praying in relation to His interests.

HFN Yes, indeed. So that our position here in His name is that of stewardship, is it not?

AJG I think so.

MPS As to the expression “My words,” does that involve only what the Lord said when He was down here, or does it include what He is saying now?

AJG I would think it includes what He is saying now. It has been remarked that “the words” are the detail of “the word.” The Lord speaks in chapter 14 of “the words which I speak to you” (verse 10), and then, in verse 23, He says, “If anyone love me, he will keep my word.” Whatever the Lord is pleased to say at any time would be His “word.” It is a question of our acquiring intelligence, as going on with the Lord, from whatever He may say at any time.

GCS Peter says in John 6: 68, “Thou hast words of life eternal.”

AJG Yes. The Lord says in the gospel, “The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life,” chapter 6: 63. Hence the great value attaching to the Lord’s words. The words which He spoke down here we have a record of. In the principle of it the words would be extended to what we have now.

EBL Is “Abide in me” a command?

AJG It is a command. The Lord is showing the imperativeness of it.

HAH Would you give us a word as to prayer to the Lord and to the Father? In chapter 14: 14. He says, “I will do it,” in chapter 15: 7, “It shall come to pass to you,” and in chapter 16: 23, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father ... he will give you.”

AJG I think in Christianity we have liberty either to pray to the Lord or to the Father, and in all these things the Spirit helps us so that there is liberty and intelligence, but I think the Lord is specially stressing in chapter 16 the importance and value of praying to the Father, because it means He is placing us, really, in the same position that He was in as in testimony here.

AH He says “Ye shall ask what ye will,” chapter 15: 7. Is that not a very extensive word the Lord has given us?

AJG It is. It seems to me that the enemy cannot possibly withstand this, if only we can grow in acceptability to the Father so that our prayers are heard, and develop in spiritual intelligence. There is nothing the enemy can do to oppose the testimony that will not all be met.

HDT It is contingent upon our abiding in Christ.

AJG It is.

JSE Is there not a suggestion in the address to Philadelphia that the Lord is not judicial in what He says to it? He speaks of these matters, “My word,” and then the detail, “the word of my patience.”

AJG Quite so. I think what you say is right and good, that the Lord is not in a judicial attitude to Philadelphia, and He speaks of His word in a general way, “Thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word.” The “word of my patience” is what comes from day to day throughout the whole period that we have to go on in patience.

JSE And is there not in that assembly peculiar fruit?

AJG There is, in that every thought of God regarding the assembly is answered to, would you say?

JSE Yes. And then in effect there is testimony in that way.

AJG Quite so.

FWK Does the expression, “It shall come to pass to you” (verse 7), involve patience and the matter of process, or would you think it means immediate response?

AJG I do not know that one would have too much the thought of process, nor that it must necessarily be immediate, but rather the fact that “it shall come to pass to you.”

FWK I was thinking of the prayer of Jabez, a man of God, and that God brought it to pass; as if a process was involved in the opening up of things in detail.

AJG Yes, but then that was very much bound up with Jabez. “Oh, that thou wouldest richly bless me” (1 Chronicles 4: 10), he says. But this is a wider thing that Jabez’ prayer.

AH Would you think that this would go as far as the word that James gives us about Elijah, a man by his prayers able to open heaven and able to shut heaven?

AJG That is what I thought exactly, and you get a remarkable instance in Joshua. He could do what Moses never did, that is, to command the sun to stand still, and heaven answered the voice of a man. It is what spiritual intelligence discerns is the need at the moment, if the people of God are to be brought into what God has in His mind. The sun stood still. It shows the power there is in intelligent prayer that is concerned with God’s will.

TJD Does the verse in John’s epistle fit in with what is being said now, “And this is the boldness which we have towards him, that if we ask him anything according to his will he hears us,” 1 John 5: 14?

AJG That is it. “And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him,” 1 John 5: 15. I believe the Lord is seeking to bring us fully into the position that He Himself occupied. I am not, of course, overlooking that in all things He is unique and pre-eminent, but, at the same time, He said at the grave of Lazarus, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me; but I knew that thou always hearest me,” John 11: 41, 42. He is seeking to bring us into the position that we have always access to the Father, and are constantly heard.

JMcM Is Paul using his great access to the Father when he prays as he does in chapter 3 of Ephesians?

AJG Quite so. You may say that probably the answer to the prayers of the apostle went further than anything that he effected himself.

JMcM I was thinking that.

FMcE Would it be right to say that we get in Acts 4 a wonderful living expression of what you say? They “lifted up their voice with one accord” (verse 24), and “When they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” verse 31.

AJG It is a remarkable instance of power coming in, as was needed at the moment in the testimony, as the answer to collective prayer in that case.

EuR Is Epaphras a good model? His prayer was “to the end that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God,” Colossians 4: 12.

AJG That is very good. It shows that Epaphras was intelligent in the mind of God, and especially that he was satisfied with nothing short of completion.

HDT So that this section is confined very much to that side of the truth, is it not? It does not have relation exactly to what is circumstantial. I was thinking of Paul in prison. The Lord did not come in for him at all in that way, and yet, as abiding in Christ, he could ask what he would and it would be done, and yet the prison conditions remained.

AJG Exactly. From that standpoint it is most encouraging, because it puts us in the position where no circumstance can overcome us.

HDT I think that. So that, in the full gain of it, he speaks of rejoicing in the Lord, and making our requests and supplications and thanksgivings known to God. It does not say that we shall have what we require circumstantially, but that the peace of God shall garrison our hearts by Christ Jesus, and the circumstances may remain; Philippians 4: 6, 7. Would that take care of what is circumstantial? This takes care of what is heavenly.

AJG Yes, I am sure. So that in the passage Mr. McE. referred to, they did not pray that the threatenings should cease, or that the pressure should be removed, but called upon the Lord to take account of the threatenings, and that they might have boldness, and the testimony might prosper.

GAL I was wondering how much we are prepared to combat in prayers, as Paul speaks of it; Colossians 2: 1.

AJG I think there is need to make time for prayer of this sort, and perhaps to spend a little less time in one another’s company, so as to have more time to spend before God.

JMcM So that in Ephesians 3 he makes it a point about bowing his knees to the Father. It emphasises your point about making time for prayer, to arrange it specifically.

AJG Quite so.

HDT And seclusion too, to go into our closet and shut to the door, not just as an opportunity comes about, but that it is deliberate.

AJG Exactly. Then in chapter 16 the Lord introduces the Comforter. Not that he had not already introduced Him, and commended Him to us,

but He makes this remarkable statement, “I say the truth to you, It is profitable for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you,” verse 7. Then He seems to show that the Comforter would undertake everything, both bringing demonstration to the world on the one hand, and opening up the mind of God and bringing us into all the truth on the other.

EuR Would you say something as to the character of this demonstration?

AJG I think the note helps us. It says ‘His presence’ (that is, the presence of the Spirit) ‘and all that He does affords this demonstration.’ The fact that there are persons here who have the Holy Spirit, is itself a condemnation of the world, because the Spirit has been sent by the One whom the world has cast out. And then the fact that there is a life known among those in whom the Spirit dwells that is morally apart from the world, and entirely different from it in character, is an exposure of the world.

GAL So that life - the power of life - seems to be the great thing in testimony, does it not - whether it is the life of Christ, or in the power of the Spirit? Both go together, do they not?

AJG I think these words of the Lord show that He intends us to be entirely restful, so to speak, in the recognition now that the Spirit is in charge of the whole position, and what we have to be concerned about is to be going on with the Spirit.

HDT The testimony is not really in the saints’ hands. We are brought into it through Christ, but it is in the hands of divine Persons.

AJG Exactly.

FWK Would the saints be brought into it as “holding forth the word of life,” Philippians 2: 16? Would Philippians support that?

AJG Yes, quite so. At the same time, of course,

there is our side of it, so that we are not to sit down and say God will do everything. We have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

HDT That was in Paul’s absence. Do you think that is a word to us? Whilst Paul was amongst them, they had relied upon his gift and what he had said to them, and referred everything to him, and now in his absence they had to work out their own salvation.

AJG Quite so. And in that way they would come to appreciate the Spirit, and what the Spirit would lead them into.

HDT Quite so.

GCS So that in Acts 13, while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Spirit took action.

AJG They provided the conditions, and the Spirit acted.

Ques Would you be free to say a word in regard to the end of verse 13, “Whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak”?

AJG “Whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming.” It just seems to stress that in His service here the Spirit is Himself in an attitude of dependence. I suppose He speaks mainly through vessels, though not necessarily exclusively so, but the very fact that He maintains this attitude, though one of the Godhead, would surely impress the reality of dependence upon us in whom He dwells.

HDT Is it not a fact that the grace of the economy is really beyond our apprehension, because the Lord, notwithstanding who He was in His Person, could say much the same of Himself, “I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what I should say and what I should speak,” John 12: 49?

AJG I think so. I think we can see that the Son and the Spirit have come in, in order to make way for God. Of course They are God Themselves, but it is to make way for God. God is the subject of testimony, I believe.

WSS “Whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak,” verse 13. Does it suggest that nothing is held back?

AJG Quite so, but it is a gradual matter. He guides into all the truth. We are to move along dependently and attentively with the Spirit, and as we do we shall be guided into all the truth.

EuR The Father maintains the supreme place in the economy, so to speak. Is that right?

AJG Yes. What have you in mind in saying that?

EuR The subordinate positions into which the Son and the Spirit have come to serve the pleasure of God. But the Father has kept things beautifully in hand, and the interchange of affection is very beautiful.

AJG Exactly, it is. In chapter 14 the Lord says, “My Father is greater than I,” verse 28.

HDT Is that why we have so continuously in Scripture, “God and Father,” and “God the Father”? We do not have the expression, “God the Son,” or “God the Spirit,” although we recognise fully the deity of both these Persons. Scripture connects God with the name of the Father.

AJG Yes. So the name of “Father,” and all that is implied in it, is to be that by which God is known.

JSE May I ask a question in relation to the position that the Son and the Spirit are found in, or were found in? Is it right that the One who is here in time, is to be viewed in the most lowly circumstances relatively? I was thinking of the allusions to the Lord being driven by the Spirit and carried by the Spirit. Is it safe to think of the Lord here in His own sojourn as accepting the lowliest place relatively, and now, He having gone up, the Spirit is in that position?

AJG Well, I think it is right, as long as we are guarded in our thoughts and expressions. The Spirit is here in a most authoritative position as far as we are concerned, so that we have to maintain both in our mind. I quite agree that the Spirit in grace has taken a wonderfully lowly position; and it is impressive that He should be content to dwell not only with us, but in us in the lowly condition of mortal bodies, until the Lord comes.

JSE I quite agree.

GCS Is that why we are enjoined not to grieve or quench the Spirit?

AJG Surely.

GAL I suppose one great example of the speaking according to verse 13, is the written ministry of the apostles? That was all the Spirit’s speaking and opening up of the truth.

AJG I think that is right, and I think we may say that all the truth has come out, but now we are in the position of being gradually recovered to what has come out by the Spirit, after it had practically all been lost; so that just the same principle that obtained when the truth was being opened out in apostolic days, is really obtaining now, as far as I see, in the recovery of the truth. We are being guided into it little by little.

AB Is the Spirit spoken of, in chapter 16, that we might not miss one word of what He is saying, not miss one item of His ministrations? It is so important.

AJG I am sure that is it. It is most important. The Lord saying, “It is profitable for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you” (verse 7), shows that the Lord, as it were, says, ‘You will be at a great disadvantage if you do not know the Spirit. You must know the Spirit.’ Do you think there was a touch of consideration in the Lord saying to His own, “But I say the truth to you,” as though there was anticipation on His part that they would find it a little difficult, and so He confirms it in that way?

AJG I think so. In the first mention of the Spirit in chapter 14, He speaks of Him as “another Comforter,” in order to show that He would be to them in a sense what the Lord Himself had been. But now He speaks of Him as “the Comforter,” as though they are to rely upon Him.

AH Does it help to bear in mind verse 12? The Lord says, “I have yet many things to say to you,” but His death was going to intervene, and the Spirit immediately coming in would link on with all that the Lord was saying.

AJG I think so, and add to it. “I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now.”

AP In regard to verse 13, “Whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming,” does that take in the whole of the Lord’s ministry here and after?

AJG It seems to me it shows that the Spirit is here in that dependent attitude, as receiving communications from the Lord, and passing them on, so to speak.

JMcK Would it include what is current, and what has been brought in in the truth in recent years, the deliberateness of it, so that it is not just a matter of things coming up, but the Holy Spirit bringing certain truths before the saints?

AJG That is what I thought, and in an orderly and constructive way. No one can look back with any degree of intelligence over the recovery of the truth during the past one hundred years, without seeing that the truth has been recovered in an orderly and constructive way. And just as the saints have responded to it, something further has been given.

JMcK Would you say likewise that the demonstration which He brings to the world would be complete, and every feature of the truth would be borne witness to? So that certain matters testimonially continue with us, I mean in the way of testimony being borne before men, tribunals and unions and the like, and is it not that the believer in testimony should have the last word in these matters?

AJG I believe that is important. I think, if the Lord helps, we may come to that more as we get on to the end of the gospel, because chapters 18 and 19 are very much that.

JMcK They are.

EuR The soil is very hard. The growing darkness of apostasy is creeping in. Does not John write his gospel in view of a day like that?

AJG I think he does.

HFN Is there not great importance to be attached to the fact that the same principles come out in the apostolic day and the same principles govern the day of recovery? I think if we bear that in mind, it may be a help.

AJG I think it is a help to bear that in mind, because I think some think ministry is given haphazardly, according to what comes into the mind of the one who ministers; but when you take account of the history of the ministry, you find that the Lord has given a lead in the ministry, and that the lead has been orderly and constructive.

HFN I certainly agree, and especially the recovery in relation to the Father, and then in the exercise in regard to the Son, and now we have come into the realm of the Spirit, all bearing witness to the fact that there has been a divinely constructive ministry.

AJG I am sure. Another thing that perhaps might be mentioned is that in Deuteronomy, when Moses was encouraging the people in view of going into the land, and laying down conditions in which God would be with them, he said God would drive out the nations not all at once, but little by little. We may expect that in principle, for we shall find that the enemy will oppose all the time what is of God Himself, but that is just what confirms the truth in greater power than if we did not have opposition. Therefore we are not to be disturbed unduly by opposition in one way or another, because that is the divine way of confirming the truth in our souls. The enemies are not driven out all at once.

SEE In Matthew 10 the Lord is speaking to His disciples in regard to the position in which they would be found in the testimony, and the position that would be against them and the persecution they would endure. He says, in connection with their answering (verse 20), “For ye are not the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you.” Would that illustrate how the demonstration of the Spirit takes character through the saints?

AJG I think so. That is just one illustration, I think.

HDT May I refer to another side of that? The Lord says, in the corresponding passage in Luke 12: 12, “The Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said,” as though we ourselves are brought in as being taught by the Spirit.

AJG Quite so.

JSE Does Paul reasoning with Felix have any connection with this?

AJG I think Felix was made to feel the power of the demonstration.

JSE I was just wondering whether it was a concrete illustration, bearing in mind that we are not just to sit down thinking that God would just do it apart from us.

AJG No. And then I think we may be assured that Agrippa felt the power of the demonstration, too.

ALRT Would it be right to say that what the Lord says about the fact of the Comforter’s presence is intended to help us to a right judgment of the world, so that we are not confused, and are free to lay open our hearts and minds to the truth?

AJG I think so. I think it is important what you say. So that the Spirit just judges of things in their relation to Christ. The world is exposed of sin “because they do not believe on me.” People may say there are certain attractive features about the world, such as philanthropy and doing good and so on. But the Spirit helps us as to that: the world just does not believe on Christ, and it is thereby exposed. It says, “Of righteousness, because I go away to my Father, and ye behold me no longer,” verse 10. There was no room in this world for the righteous One, and therefore He left it as a judged system.

HDT And the place that Christ was given by men shows how at variance the world is with the Father’s estimation of Him.

AJG Exactly. In verse 23 and afterwards, the Lord is returning to this matter of our asking, but encouraging us to ask the Father and thus in a sense to come, in principle, to the place that He filled as in testimony here. So He says, “The Father himself has affection for you, because ye have had affection for me, and have believed that I came out from God,” verse 27.

MPS Have you anything in mind about the first sentence of verse 23?

AJG The Lord says, “In that day ye shall demand nothing of me.” I do not understand the Lord to mean that we are not to pray to Him, but I think He is really directing us to the great privilege of having to do with the Father in relation to testimonial matters.

JSE Is that His own way of insisting that the Father is to receive most from us?

AJG I think that is so.

WSS Does it not bear on what you have been saying about our being (wonderful thing!) in the same position testimonially as the Lord was here?

AJG I think so. In chapter 15 the Lord says, “Ye are my friends,” and then He says, “I call you no longer bondmen, for the bondman does not know what his Master is doing; but I have called you friends.” So that it seems to me the Lord, in this gospel, is exalting the position of testimony to a very high level, and setting us, in chapter 16, in direct relations with the Father in relation to it.

WSS So that we are to be in relation to the Father, we may say reverently, as the Lord was Himself in relation to the Father as Man here.

AJG Except, of course, that it is in Christ’s name. That is, the mediatorial position has to be recognised by us.

HDT Do we understand that confidence is the basis of these requests, and confidence is really the basis of their answer; so that there are those who are filling out the position of reliability so that things can be confided to them?

AJG Yes, I think that is it. I think the Lord’s words at the grave of Lazarus are arresting, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me; but I knew that thou always hearest me.” That is a remarkable thing, as characterising the Lord as in the position here in testimony. He was always heard of the Father.

AWT Is the richness of this section, the constant reference of the Lord to the Father, peculiarly confirming? It is the setting of not only the economy but the assembly, in that it is the name peculiar and appropriate to the assembly.

AJG I think so, yes. Have you something further in mind?

AWT Well, I was struck this morning, in chapter 14, with the constant reference of the Lord to the Father, and that causes one’s mind to go to Ephesians 3: 14, “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” having the great thought of the assembly in view.

AJG Quite so.

GAL Would verse 23 indicate the general trend of our address, in regard to matters spiritual? He prays to the Father in relation to these great matters in the light of the assembly.

AJG I think that is right. I think this chapter supports that, and would encourage us to take it up more definitely.

DM Is there a special significance in the words used in verse 23?

AJG Well, the word ‘demand’ is asking in a sense on a level of holy familiarity, but ‘ask’ is the asking of one who recognises his inferiority, and, of course, you can understand that when we address the Father there is a sense of that with us.

HDT Is it well that that should remain with us?

AJG It is well. One was thinking yesterday of what it says in Ecclesiastes 5, that God is in heaven, and we upon earth, and “therefore,” it says, “let thy words be few.” In addressing God, let us be careful not to become wordy and verbose, because God is in heaven, and we upon earth.

LHBP In Acts 12 unceasing prayer is made by the assembly to God for Peter, and there is a quick answer, is there not? Paul was left in prison but Peter was delivered.

AJG Quite so. You mean it was what the situation required?

LHBP Yes.