ETERNAL LIFE (5)

ETERNAL LIFE (5)

Galatians 3: 25 - 29; Galatians 4: 1 - 7; Ephesians 3: 14 - 21

AJG I was thinking of the distinctiveness of what has now come in in Christianity and of the way that it is intended to work out in glory to God. Where we started reading it says, “But, faith having come.” Perhaps we do not sufficiently realise that this is now the period of faith; in contrast to periods that went before in God’s ways, that faith has now come as the distinctive characteristic of the period and that involves that God is before us and that Christ is before us, and there is no room now for man, man in flesh: as it says in Philippians, “we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh,” chapter 3: 3. Christianity is now the time of faith and of promise, that is, on God’s side, He has moved now on the principle of promise, and on our side, we come into it on the principle of faith, and both of these make everything of God and nothing of us, and that is what God intends, that everything should be made of God, as we were singing, “Glory all belongs to God.” Hence the chapter brings in that God has “sent forth his Son,” and then that He “has sent out the Spirit of his Son,” so that there is the Spirit in Galatians in the character of the Spirit of God’s Son; and in Ephesians we have the Father, and we have Christ, and we have the Spirit in the character of the Father’s Spirit. But the intention is that God is to become everything to us, and in result should be glorified. God’s ways in previous dispensations, under the law and so on, were to make way for this, that hope must centre in God and in Christ, and there was no hope on any other principle than in what God would be pleased to show Himself to be, and the resource to carry out His thoughts that He had in Christ, and the resource too, there is in the Spirit to bring man into it. So that this chapter in Galatians is bringing out the great thought of sonship as being what was in God’s mind for men - no less thought than that in the glad tidings. As has been said, there is no first and second and third class of blessing in this dispensation, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus,” - and in order that that might be brought in, God has sent forth His Son to redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship, and then has “sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

GAL Faith in Christ Jesus would be faith in the Man in the glory.

AJG Yes, it would indeed. It says, “For ye, as many as have been baptised unto Christ, have put on Christ,” so that Christ is the One in whom God sets out now the thoughts of blessing that He has in mind for man.

GAL And Christ, as glorified by the Father.

AJG Quite so.

HDT So Peter says, “God ... has raised him from among the dead and given him glory, that your faith and hope should be in God,” 1 Peter 1: 21. Is that an entire transference of every hope and aspiration from man to God?

AJG I think so. I think it helps to see that on God’s side it is all based on promise; what God was pleased sovereignly to commit Himself to. On our side it is all based on faith, on that principle, that faith makes everything of God and of Christ, and nothing of us.

GAL So all the distinction in verse 28 belongs to Adam’s order, do they not?

AJG Yes.

GAL Over against that we have Christ, “ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

DMcI Will you open that out for us? “Ye are all one” - what does it mean?

AJG I suppose it involves that these distinctions have all disappeared. It is seen, I suppose, in the assembly; it is seen in the new man, “where there is not Greek and Jew,” it says in Colossians, “circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is everything, and in all,” Colossians 3: 11.

DMcI Does it involve sonship actually here?

AJG It certainly does, because there is no less thought than that in God’s mind, so that in preaching the gospel, whether we actually present it in what is announced or not, that is what is in God’s mind in the preaching, that people should receive sonship, and nothing less than that.

HDT Is not “in Christ Jesus” the divinely provided status for man, in a Man out of death?

AJG It is, and not only in a Man out of death, but in that Man.

FGH So you would have sonship in mind in preaching the gospel.

AJG Yes, I think so. Sonship is primarily for the pleasure of God, and so the Spirit here is presented as the Spirit of God’s Son, not even exactly the Spirit of adoption, although it is the same thing, but it seems to me that the Spirit of adoption in Romans is stressing our side of the matter, that we are enabled in the Spirit to take up the position God’s love has placed us in - we are sons by adoption - but here this has God’s side of the matter in view, so it is the Spirit of God’s Son, so that the response from the saints of God should be fully in the affections of God’s Son.

HDT So in Romans the contrast is, “ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8: 15), stressing what you have just said.

AJG Exactly, that the Spirit enables us to move freely in the position God has set us in, but this is peculiarly, I believe, to show that the response of Christianity is to be worthy of God’s thoughts of sonship; so it is the Spirit of God’s own Son in our hearts.

WMcK Is the Spirit of God’s Son special to this dispensation?

AJG Yes, I think so.

FWr Is that why it is put that way, “sent forth his Son,” having in mind that God had the great thought of sonship before Him?

AJG I think so, so that it does not say, He sent forth Christ, but He sent forth His Son, so that the idea immediately comes into view; and then “the Spirit of his Son in our hearts.” It is wonderful this two-fold sending out, sending forth His Son, and then sending out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

FWr That is what I wondered.

HDT Does it not involve that love is the mainspring behind all the activity that is suggested in it?

AJG It certainly does. And infinite wisdom too, and wonderful grace, because it is really the whole Godhead moving in the matter, is, it not?

HDT Well, it is. But I was thinking of the peculiar affection that is suggested in the term “Son” - and whilst wisdom and grace operate together, I wondered whether the emphasis was very much on love, as being the motive power behind the whole plan.

AJG Well, that must be so, because God is love.

AB Would it be right to say that nothing less than men being before God in sonship would satisfy His heart?

AJG I am sure that would be right, and, therefore, even in the natural order of things God introduces the relationship of father and son, so that men might become accustomed to the idea, in view of God bringing it out in due time as that which was in His mind for man.

FVW His own love, expressed in that way, producing a response that was in accordance with Himself.

AJG Well, exactly. But then in order that the response should really be worthy of God and adequate to satisfy Him, the Spirit takes on that character; the Spirit of God’s Son, so that it is the affections and feelings of God’s Son reproduced in our hearts and expressed by us.

HDT So that nothing really depends upon us. Our entrance into these things is by faith, but things really depend upon divine Persons Themselves.

AJG That is exactly what I had in mind, and I believe the Lord is just helping us a little to come to that.

FWK The epistle begins with the thought of the Lord Jesus giving Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God our Father. Would that be in view of sonship, as you were saying?

AJG Yes, it would. So that in Egypt God said, “Israel is my son, my firstborn,” Exodus 4: 22. So that He had sonship in mind for His people in redeeming them out of Egypt.

FGH I notice that the cry, “Abba, Father,” here is by the Spirit, whereas in Romans the believer cries, “Abba, Father.” I think it may help if you would make a remark as to the distinction.

AJG Well, it is important, of course, that it is we ourselves who cry, “Abba, Father,” and the Spirit is the power for that, and it is presented in Romans as assuring us in that sense that we are made equal to the position, we are sons by adoption and we have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” So that we come into sonship experimentally, but here it seems to me that it is put in this way, that it is entirely of the Spirit, although it is in our hearts, “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” I know I have heard it said it is put that way in Galatians because of the poor state of the Galatians, but I think there is more than that in it. It seems to me that it is the thought that the whole position is filled out by the Godhead itself. We come into it in faith, but it is God Himself operating to fill out the whole position.

FGH I was glad to hear you say that.

ACC So Mr. Taylor’s remark at Bournemouth that it is the same Spirit that was crying, “Abba, Father,” in the Lord, as the Lord was here in sonship, is now crying, “Abba, Father” in the saints.

AJG That is it exactly. And I think it all serves to show how immensely superior Christianity is to anything that went before, and that is what I believe we should be concerned to lay hold of, that we can only really move in it rightly in the Spirit, and hence the great importance that the Spirit is gaining now, because God intends we should come into things really.

AB Would that present the superiority of Christianity, that it really awaited God’s own Son to come in to set out the full thought of sonship? “He shall be my son, and I will be his father,” 1 Chronicles 22: 10.

AJG Yes, quite so.

AB The Spirit of God’s Son is operating in our hearts in order that there might be the same response in character in the saints.

AJG I think it helps to keep in mind that it does require both the coming in of the Son and the coming in of the Spirit.

HDT And as they both come in, it is the guarantee that what was in the divine mind is achieved.

AJG Exactly, and there is no discrepancy between the divine thought as set out in Christ and the perfect answer to it in the saints.

GAL So everything is on the basis of new creation, is it not? That is a very important feature of the truth expressed in this epistle.

AJG Quite so.

JDW Would you say something about the address of “Abba, Father”? Is it the highest form of address to divine Persons?

AJG Well, I think it must be, because it is an address that denotes feeling, I believe, real feeling and affection, being the Lord’s own words, and so far as the record goes, words used under the greatest pressure, which would be calculated to bring forth, as it did bring forth, the deepest feelings of the heart of Christ.

DMcI When we are privileged to take up this cry? Are you connecting it with the Supper?

AJG Oh, it is what is there in the Spirit. You cannot limit it to any particular time.

GAL Is it not the normal ground of our relations with God?

AJG It is the normal cry that the Spirit produces.

DMcI Yes. I was only thinking it says, “because ye are sons,” that is basic, is it not? God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” It seems to be a collective thought, that is what I had in mind.

AJG Well now you are quoting Romans, “whereby we cry.” Here it is “sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” But I think it is regarded as the normal cry of the believer having the Spirit. You may say, perhaps, we have not taken it on as much as we should have done, and that may be the case, but that is how it is presented; it is the normal way the Spirit in the believer expresses Himself.

WHL Do you think we are sometimes in danger of regarding this as a question of growth, and as something to be reached, whereas, as you say, it is the normal thing for a Christian?

AJG So that even the little children in John’s epistle are said to know the Father.

HDT Whilst it is not a matter of attainment, it is the divine mind because it is the time of sonship. I suppose you would have to allow that in soul, history oftentimes the experiences in Romans are gone through until this sense of relationship is really established in our souls.

AJG I think so, but often young souls in the beginning get a taste of it, and then they have to pass through the exercises by which they are brought into the liberty of it in a real way.

GAL Does not the joy of it come in seeing Christ in that position and ourselves in Him? In Romans 8, “there is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus,” chapter 1.

AJG Exactly.

FGH Why does it say in verse 7, “Thou art no longer bondman, but son”? Why is it put in the singular there?

AJG Because sonship is an individual matter. It is the persons who are sons, and each one is a son.

AJM Why is the expression, “crying”?

AJG There is feeling in it, there is nothing formal about it. All around us there is formal divine worship, and it is formal, but what God is looking for is worship in spirit and in truth, and that involves feeling.

FWT Would that be an evidence of life and power?

AJG It would, quite so.

HDT Do you think there would be more spiritual fervour if there was a greater recognition of the presence of the Spirit in this capacity?

AJG I am sure of that.

GAL Is that not what comes out in John 4? The Lord says, “ye worship ye know not what; we worship what we know,” verse 22. One feels that in Christendom the prayers are to Almighty God, it is all out of the dispensation. “Ye worship ye know not what” covers a great deal of that, whereas here we are brought into direct relations with God by His Spirit as in Christ.

AJG And hence the exercise now of the past few years to urge us to cultivate acquaintance with the Spirit more than we have ever done before, because He will bring us into this liberty. The Spirit is the truth, as we were having yesterday, and we want to arrive at the truth, not exactly from the Scripture, although the Scripture is our safeguard, but, in a sense, we want to arrive at it in the Spirit.

HDT In the knowledge of God, really.

AJG Yes.

FGH I remember a reading in 1908, I think, when Mr. Taylor said that there is no expression that gives God greater pleasure than, “Abba, Father.”

AJG I think we can quite believe that, and hence that shows how distinctive this faith period is, that the very same affections, and expression of affections, that came from Christ as Man toward His Father, should now find expression in the saints.

AB In regard of the question of reliance on the Spirit, it says that “God has sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” That is, would He lead us into what is engaging Him, moving our hearts to the Father, He Himself crying, “Abba, Father”?

AJG Yes, I think so. And it finds its full expression, I suppose, in Christ in the midst of the assembly.

GAL I think it is a very lovely thought that has been referred to. The same blessed Spirit which said that in Christ, says it in us, or cries out in us. It brings us into delightful accord with Christ.

AJG And it is very affecting to see that the Holy Spirit will take on different characters according to the need of the moment or the position at any moment, so that everything that is for the pleasure of God is filled out in the Spirit’s power.

HDT I was thinking of Him being in the inside knowledge of all that is in the divine mind, and with the divine capacity to achieve all that amongst the saints. You begin to see how the work of the Spirit is as essential as the work of redemption.

AJG Exactly.

Ques Is the Spirit the answer to faith? Does “Because ye are sons,” link with faith, the Spirit coming in in answer to it?

AJG I suppose it would be right to say that. It says, after ye believed ye were sealed. But it is because God’s thought in this period of faith, which we come into on the principle of faith, is sonship, and nothing less, and because it is God’s intention that it is to be properly filled out, and hence He has sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

WMcK Would you be free to say a little regarding the distinction between the thought of children and sons? In Romans 8 the witness of the Spirit is that we are children of God.

AJG In that chapter children and sons are brought very close together in an interesting way, because it says the creation awaits the “revelation of the sons of God,” and that it will be brought “into the liberty of the glory of the children of God,” Romans 8: 19 - 22. So that they are brought very close together. But sons really are what we are before God for His pleasure, and the full thought of sonship requires the glorified condition, the redemption of our bodies. The full thought of sonship, requires that, complete conformity to Christ, so that the place of sonship is heaven, and the condition of sonship is conformity to Christ, but we have the Spirit of it already in our hearts, but it is God-ward and for the pleasure of God, whereas children is more what we are as born of God and down here in testimony to God.

HDT And the objects of His care too.

AJG Quite so.

WMcK I wondered whether, in that sense, the Spirit would help us to understand the care of God as His children. The Spirit of sonship is the liberty we have to enter into the greatest thoughts that He has about us.

AJG Well, quite so. But then I am not sure whether the fact that we are born of God does not underlie every other position that God is pleased to set us in, so that we cannot separate them too rigidly, although there are different ideas connected with them.

GAL Mr. Darby says that sonship is the status which is given to children.

AJG Well, that is good, because it is a gift, a status given, we are not born sons.

HDT And it is on the principle of adoption, is it not?

AJG Quite so.

HDT Whereas Christ was born into the position, which gives Him a unique place.

AJG Quite so.

AWP Would you say that as proceeding from God in this way, it is in view, as you have already said, of divine pleasure and the satisfaction of divine Persons? So the operation proceeds from God with a view of the return to God.

AJG Yes, exactly. It emanates from God and it is all effected through God, and it is all for the pleasure of God.

FWK So would the Spirit, viewed here as taking the initiative sovereignly, be from the divine side in that way, and the truth is presented abstractly, not as taking account of our state?

AJG What did you mean by the Spirit taking the initiative?

FWK He cries, “Abba, Father.” It is His cry. I wondered whether it was the Spirit viewed in that way normally taking the initiative. It is not a question of our state, exactly, but the truth presented normally.

AJG It is the truth presented normally, as you say, yet He is in our hearts, so that He is not operating independently of us. He is producing the response from us.

HDT Is it not remarkable that Paul should take this way of presenting the truth at this level, to correct the miserable bondage they were putting themselves under?

AJG Exactly; and hence the great importance of realising the distinctiveness of Christianity, faith having come.

DMcI So that the bondmanship in verse 7 really links up with the bondage that they were putting themselves in.

AJG Yes, it does. They were going back to what was past.

DMcI Not that we are not God’s bondmen, but that is not the thought here.

AJG No, it is not.

GAL Is not it interesting in verse 29 of the previous chapter, it says, “if ye are of Christ, then ye are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise,” because that is the great teaching, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” Genesis 22: 18? That is Christ - all the promises of God are Yea and Amen in Him.

AJG Quite so. So that you get the two thoughts in Galatians; first of all you get Abraham himself, and then you get Abraham’s seed. Abraham setting forth the principle on which we are blessed, the principle of faith, but the seed being Christ in whom we are blessed.

MHT As to faith, does that stand related to our responsibility, in part at least, or is it to be regarded as wholly the gift of God?

AJG I think you have to recognise both sides; that if testimony is presented to us we are responsible to believe. I think you have to recognise that. On the other hand, if you believe you recognise that you would not have believed unless God had given you faith. So the fact is that faith gives all the glory to God. You cannot make yourself believe in one sense, and yet you are responsible to believe, if God presents the testimony to you.

GAL So that it is in Ephesians 2 that faith is spoken of as the gift of God; when one is consciously established according to the purpose of God.

AJG Yes.

MHT Does “the gift of God” there rather refer to the whole thought of salvation being on the principle of grace so far as God is concerned, and on the principle of faith so far as we are concerned.

AJG It is on the principle of faith, so far as we are concerned, and that makes everything of God, but it says, “ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God’s gift,” Ephesians 2: 8. I think that must refer to faith.

WMcK Does the idea that we are sons by faith in Christ Jesus imply that while we await the full thought, that is the conformity of our bodies to Christ - while we wait for that - we are to be governed by the light of it in our souls now?

AJG It involves that, but I think the great thought is that “ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus,” that is to say, this being the time of faith, and sonship being what is in God’s mind for man, that is what we come into through faith in Christ Jesus.

HDT So the relationship is already established. The fulness of all that is involved in it awaits another day, but the relationship itself is already here.

AJG Well, quite so.

GAL If I am to see God’s thought for me in this dispensation at all, I must see it in Christ glorified. There is nothing less than that in God’s mind.

AJG Quite so.

FWT Is this personal faith or faith as a system that has come marking the whole economy?

AJG Well, “faith having come,” is, you might say, the system, and it is characteristically a dispensation of faith, but then when it says, “through faith in Christ Jesus,” that is my faith and your faith. The way we come into the blessing of the gospel.

ACC So that in principle in receiving the gospel a person really comes into this.

AJG Exactly, nothing less than that in His mind, so that when David was pleased to show kindness to Mephibosheth he said he should sit at the king’s table among the king’s sons. There was nothing less than that in mind for Mephibosheth.

GAL And that forthwith.

AJG Exactly.

FGH You would hardly present the idea of faith as God’s gift in preaching, would you?

AJG No, I would not.

HDT You could tell people that if they have not got it they can ask for it.

AJG Quite so.

MHT “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief,” Mark 9: 24.

AJG Quite so. I think the intention is that when we come into things on the principle of faith, the Spirit of God would tell us that faith is God’s gift, so that there should not be anything we could glory in but God. If we could accredit ourselves with the faith, it would be something we could glory in about ourselves, but the dispensation of faith is that God is in all things to be glorified.

EAS Is that why it says in verse 7, “heirs also through God”?

AJG “Heirs also through God.” God not only makes us sons but He gives us the inheritance, too.

HDT Does not Paul insist on the principle of faith right through, you might say, to the acme of his exercises as a spiritual person, as keeping what belongs to man out and bringing what belongs to God in. For he says, “That I may be found in him, not having my righteousness, which would be on the principle of law, but that which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God through faith.” It is remarkable that he should bring it in in that particular passage. Do you think it shows how we tend to bring in something of ourselves unless faith is active to keep it out.

AJG Well, quite so.

GAL Do we not have to understand that Christianity is essentially a matter of what is conferred upon us in grace? Everything we have received is from God and that gratuitously.

AJG And so it says in Romans, “Therefore it is on the principle of faith, that it might be according to grace,” Romans 4: 16.

DMcI Could we have a word as to the dual way in which it says, “God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law”?

AJG Well, I suppose “come of woman, come under law” means that He came in a way that would enable Him to take up everything that man was under. We are not all under law, but there were those who were under law, therefore He would come under law to redeem those who were under law, but we were all under the effects of sin and all that the human race is involved in, so He came of woman, truly a man, entering, sin apart, into all that lay upon man, and if some men were under law, then He would also come under law.

DMcI Why is redemption limited to those under law here?

AJG I suppose because the Galatians were putting themselves under law, and therefore the apostle would stress that the Lord had come to redeem those who were under law, that is to lead them out of that position.

DMcI With the great end that we might receive sonship.

HDT Is it not a point in our souls’ histories when we really come to the import of the fact that the promise made to Abraham was all that time before the law?

AJG Yes, quite so.

HDT And the giving of the law did not alter it at all.

AJG No, and the promise is purely from God; what He is pleased to announce that He is going to do, and faith can always fall back on that.

HDT Quite so, and has to fall back on it.

GAL It was given to Abraham when he was still a Chaldean idolater - the God of glory gave it.

AJG Yes.

PH Would you say a little more as to this matter of bringing this thought of sonship into the preaching?

AJG We want to give an impression of the grace of God, the true measure of it, so that preachers often preach from Luke 15, and that chapter is not complete until you have got sonship, “This my son was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found,” verse 24. The best robe and the ring and the shoes, all those were for the man who had been in the far country.

- .J. Would you say a few words in relation to the inheritance, the sons being heirs also? Would you open that up a little for us?

AJG I think the apostle is just enlarging on grace; be is not here exactly delineating the inheritance, but he says, “Thou art no longer bondman, but son; but if son, heir also through God.” That is, he wants to show the Galatians how enriched they are so that they should turn away from what he calls the beggarly elements.

HDT The prodigal son said, “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” He said it to himself, but it was not the father’s thought at all.

AJG It was not at all.

GAL He could not say it when he got into the father’s presence.

AJG No, he could not; exactly, because the suggestion, while it might appear humble, conveyed the impression that at least he was worthy to be a hired servant, but that will not do, that does not give all the glory to God.

SGM Is it noticeable that it is in Mark, the servant’s gospel, that we get the expression, “Abba, Father,” and not in the other gospels? I was thinking that there service is on a far higher level than the man in Luke 15. There is a service, but it is a service of sons in all the tender feelings towards the father.

AJG Well, quite so, that is the service is not bondman service, the service of God is characterised by sonship, so that Mark’s gospel starts with “Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” Before He is introduced as Servant, He is presented as Son of God.

JWG Do you think that the reference to the preaching of the gospel would involve that you move forward with the consciousness of sonship in your soul?

AJG I think so.

HDT But you cannot present that if you are not enjoying it yourself.

AJG No; you cannot.

GAL And yet if we do not present it, we fall short of the full thought and preach something less than the full thought of the dispensation.

AJG I was thinking in relation to Ephesians 3; it is a scripture which we often dwell upon, but we get the Spirit brought in here in order to fill out the thoughts of God regarding the assembly, but brought in in the character of the Father’s Spirit, so that the Christ might dwell, through faith, in our hearts, and that we might be able fully to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height. That is to say, the Spirit as the Spirit of God’s Son capacitates us to respond to the Father suitably in affections and feelings of Christ, but now the Spirit as the Father’s Spirit, enables us to enter sympathetically, you might say, into His own thoughts and outlook; His own appreciation of the Christ, and His own outlook upon the whole extent of glory which He is bringing in.

GAL That is delightful, because when the Lord Jesus was here, He had to say, “No one knows the Son but the Father,” Matthew 11: 27. So that it is delightful that we are brought in by the Father’s Spirit to understand something of the glorious excellence of Christ.

AJG Well, quite so, it is the Christ. It is Christ, not of course in His essential Person, although we know who He is essentially, but it is Christ in relation to the whole scheme of glory which God has devised, involving many families.

HDT You might say, the whole divine universe.

AJG Yes, exactly.

HDT I have often thought that in our pleasure in thinking of the assembly and Christ’s relationship with it, we may almost unconsciously become a little selfish. Paul here is thinking of Christ in relation to the whole realm.

AJG Exactly, because he is not expatiating exactly on the blessings of the church, he is expatiating on the greatness and blessedness of God which should be the theme of the praises of the assembly.

GAN So we have four dimensions here, giving us the universe, breadth, length, depth and height; and you might say, Christ fills it all.

DMcI Why does he begin by saying, “that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts?”

AJG Well, because we begin at the centre, I think, and if the Christ, that is Christ in relation to the whole system of glory, is dwelling in our hearts, then we do not find it very difficult to get an impression of the system itself. But He is to dwell in our hearts, because the assembly is united to Him, so that as Mr. Raven used to say, It is something like a husband who is absent. He dwells in the heart of his wife, because she is his wife, and all the husband’s interests are in her heart. That is the idea, that the Christ is in the assembly’s heart, because we are united to Him and, therefore, the whole system which centres in Christ, becomes known to us. So we are not selfish, we are not thinking only of the assembly’s portion, but we are thinking of the whole system of which Christ is the Head.

HDT Do you think there is a link between the Scripture you were speaking of last night in John 14, “ye believe on God, believe also on me”? Do you think that is rather Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith?

AJG I do; I have often thought that.

HDT And “every family” would correspond somewhat to the many abodes, and then the particular place the assembly has is indicated in the words that follow.

AJG Quite so.

GAL After all, John 14 gives us the Father’s house, which goes into eternity. We are very near to what is eternal here, are we not?

AJG We are.

WMcK Would the Father’s Spirit give effect to what the Lord Jesus says in the last verse of John 17? He says, “that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.”

AJG Yes, I think so. That is a wonderful thing, that the love wherewith the Father loves Christ, should be in us. It is not there what we get earlier in John 17, “that thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me,” (verse 23), but it is that the Father’s love for Christ should be in us, that we are capacitated in some way to love Christ as the Father loves Him, and we can understand that that is possible in the power of the Father’s Spirit, that we share in the Father’s own outlook upon Christ. It shows how near to God God is pleased to bring us, so that we can share with Him in His chiefest joys.

AWP Is it from this standpoint that we are able to take account of the whole compass of what God is doing, as we appreciate the unique place that the assembly has in Christ’s affection.

AJG I think it is.

HDT I would like to ask, if it would not be diverting, whether you do not get two thoughts of access? One in chapter 2, “through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father” (verse 18) and then in chapter 3, “according to the purpose of the ages, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access in confidence by faith of him,” verse 11 - 13. Is that not entrance into the divine realm, including the whole extent of what God is going to secure for eternity.

AJG Well, I should think so.

HDT I wondered whether it would just enlarge us a little, it would not minimise in our minds the particular place the assembly has, but it would make us think that God has many interests and Christ is the Centre of them all.

AJG I think so, and it would enlarge our thoughts of God and that is to be the great thing, I think, that the assembly is to be enlarged in its apprehension of God, so that the final note in this chapter is “To him,” that is to God, “be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus.”

JI Paul declared the whole counsel of God to the Ephesians. Does that include the assembly?

AJG It cannot be limited to that. It is the whole counsel of God, and the thought is that we are to become fully intelligent, which is a feature that marks sons, so that in chapter 1 it says he has marked us out for adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself and “taken us into favour in the beloved.” Then it says, “according to the riches of his grace; which he has caused to abound towards us in all wisdom and intelligence.” So that sonship is not simply marked by affection or dignity or liberty, but also by intelligence. The assembly, or those who form the assembly, are to be made intelligent in all God’s thoughts that He has brought within the range of the creature.

GAD So that every form of activity that pertains to God is a matter of great interest to one who is in the position of sonship.

AJG Yes, it is.

GAL And it seems to me that from the point of view of sonship, every feature of divine operations may become a theme for worship.

AJG Yes, I think so. Indeed that is what God has in mind in sonship. So that in the creation the sons of God shouted for joy, everything that God was doing calls forth an answer from sons.

HDT Do you think that as the dispensation draws to a close, the more we enjoy the assembly’s distinctive place the more we shall be free to think of what is coming on, and the interests that God has, and what He is about to accomplish on the earth? The world to come and a great many other things that we do not often think much about, may loom more largely in our minds.

AJG I think so. You might ask yourself, why is God pleased to have two spheres, heavens and earth, in eternity, and why is He pleased to have many families? It may be we cannot answer those questions, but at any rate we are impressed in creation around us that He loves great variety, an infinite number of gradations of life, characters of life too, and so in the spiritual sphere we are to be enlarged in our thoughts as to God.

GAL So you may approach the prophetic Scriptures from the point of view of sonship, and they have an added lustre and glory because of the God who is so moving.

AB Is that why Paul refers to bowing his knees to the Father and then the reference to the many families? Is he impressed with the greatness of the Father’s affections?

AJG I think so. And I think He is casting us upon the Spirit as the Father’s Spirit, that is to say, Paul is not attempting to open these things out to us, and tell us about them, he is really casting us on the Spirit, the Father’s Spirit, and you might say, urging us to bow our knees and pray on these lines, because it is in the power of the Father’s Spirit that we shall begin to get some concrete understanding of these things of which we are speaking.

FGH Before we close, would you say a word as to the last part of verse 19, “that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”? What do we understand by the fulness of God, and being filled to it?

AJG Well, I suppose the fulness of God is the way that God is known. That is, it is the way God has come out in expression. There is that about God, of course, which the creature can never know, but there is the way He has come out within the range of the creature and what He capacitates the creature to know, and, I suppose, it is involved in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So that when we are brought into these things in some degree, we apprehend the Father as supreme in the economy, and that Name giving character to all, but we also apprehend the part that has been taken by the Son and is filled by the Son, and the part taken by the Spirit and that is filled by the Spirit; so that you are in the presence, it seems to me, of the fulness of God, and you are, to some extent, made equal to it. I do not know that one can say very much about it, but the fulness of God, it seems to me, is love in the wondrousness of its actings, adapting itself to the creature and adapting the creature to it.

HDT Would you think that it would be just to say that in the economy the Father is presented as the Source of all; the Lord Jesus, the Son, as the expression of all; and the Spirit of God as the Power for all? So that the thing is filled out substantially in result for God Himself.

AJG Well, exactly. I think it is that, that God is to be before our hearts.