THE ASSEMBLY CHRIST’S JOY
RT I had a fresh impression this morning as to the way the assembly was enriched and adorned in view of Christ’s joy. I wondered if we could be helped to be freshly impressed by and take on that adornment. As you think of the Spirit’s movements, what beauty and fine features He is producing. “By his Spirit the heavens are adorned”, it says, Job 26: 13. It is the idea of what is beautiful and attractive in what the Spirit does. There was a tremendous beauty in the wilderness and the system that was there. From one point of view, it looked dull, the badgers’ skins as a covering, but underneath that adornment there was blue and gold, and even on the hems of their garments there were tassels of blue, something very beautiful, something that caught the eye. There was something in the tassels that was to attract their attention: from one to the other, they saw that tassel of blue; something beautiful about the saints. I think it catches Christ’s eye too, what He wrought, what the Spirit has wrought that satisfies Him.
There is a background of orphanage in these scriptures in Esther and the Psalm, and in Ephesians too the background was that they were strangers, disqualified. I think the sense of that would help us to take on more quickly the features the Spirit would impart. That is our position too: publicly we are disowned. There is nothing that we can claim. The sense of mercy can deepen with us, and it makes room for divine activities. Esther must have had it, and God’s people in Esther must have had it. I think it has been remarked that in Esther there is no ark, there is no priest, there is no Levite: there is none of that kind of feature. The background is one of orphanage, but there is something there that makes room for the Spirit and as we rely on it what comes in is beauty which the king appreciates. There is movement in these scriptures: she went in. That is what we experience as together, that we are going in, but we go in adorned and embroidered; there is something that catches and satisfies Christ’s eye. As we speak together we will be helped to take on those features and to think of the need of taking them on, and be with the Spirit to take them on.
Genesis 24 would always come into our minds as we speak of the Spirit, and in going into the country it says, “all the treasure of his master was under his hand”, v 10. The Spirit has come from a glorified Jesus and has brought the wealth of heaven with Him to adorn us with it. We would be exercised that there is with us the impressionable state that can take on these fine features that are for the divine pleasure.
ECB Are these spiritual adornments going to be displayed materially in the city? No doubt the city in the world to come is itself a spiritual idea, but it is presented to us in a great detail of material things, which rather suggests that as it were the spiritual adornment has been made good.
RT Yes, there is going to be a wonderful display of it; but in the meantime we touch something of the inside idea, that Christ is satisfied with the beauty and attractiveness He sees in the assembly.
DJH I was thinking of that this morning. It comes out in display, as Mr Burr says, in the city that comes down, but it is there all the time; and though that relates to one particular aspect, yet it is there; it is there, as you say, inside for Christ, and it is there as the vessel of God’s praise. That beauty that is displayed is there all the time, is it not?
RT It is the time now for taking it on. Esther, as going in, said she “required nothing but what Hegai the king’s chamberlain, keeper of the women, appointed”. We may tend to turn to other things, but this would be something of what we were speaking of yesterday, she would have confidence in him, that she required nothing but what he appointed. There is nothing else will satisfy the divine eye but what the Spirit has furnished us with.
AJEW The things that the servant brought forth for Rebecca had a certain weight of gold, and the 45th Psalm brings in the wrought gold. It is a touch of divine glory, not seen so much in the divine Persons Themselves but seen in what Their labours (speaking simply) have yielded. Is that the point?
RT Yes, I think that is very beautiful. It says too that they gave her clothing. Do you think that, having accepted what the Spirit had brought, Rebecca had to move? What the Spirit brought to her was for another country, it was for another Man. And what the Spirit has brought to us in the ministry creates movement. What He has brought is wealth from heaven, and as we taste those features and take them on it creates movement that brings us into the joy of union with Christ.
JCE It is good to see that these things are given to us ‘for keeps’. They are not just for a time or for any particular moment of service, but they belong to us. I was thinking of the sons being heirs (see Gal 4: 7); they have everything but they have it rightly, and they have it as sons.
RT Yes, they are given us to make us at home in the divine presence, and that we have a sense of divine pleasure in the saints. “Because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”. That is a touch to make us at home in that area. But to think of a divine Person coming into a position that He might adorn the saints! It would have our eyes and our affections expanded toward Him, that we may readily take on, and take on nothing else but what He imparts.
ECB It would be in thought here that Esther knew that she would satisfy the king, because the extra things given to them were what they desired and she desired nothing. Is that something that we ought to have impressions of, that the assembly knows that she satisfies Christ?
RT Yes, I think we get a sense of that. I felt a sense of it this morning, that He was satisfied with what the Spirit had wrought in the saints. It is nothing that we have brought, but it would connect with what we were saying yesterday as to confidence in the Spirit, and making room for the impressions He would impart and the embroidering He would do, and the sense of Christ’s satisfaction in what the Spirit has wrought.
ECB It brings out how unnecessary all that is ecclesiastical is for Christ.
RT In the kind of conditions we are in, what is around us (when we are younger we may turn to some of these things), what a system has developed: music and architecture, and all these things. They have displaced the Spirit of God. Here you get an impression of something very simple about Esther; you think of her as a plain kind of person (I use the word ‘plain’ in a right sense) something like what Peter speaks about: “the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit” (1 Pet 3: 4), something that is spiritually and divinely wrought that satisfies Christ. I think as we go on we get a sense of what Christ really appreciates.
CRB It says that the king loved her above all the women. There is only one that is suitable to Christ, is there not? He presents her to Himself glorious (see Eph 5: 27): is that the thought? There is only one that is suitable to Him, and the Spirit’s operations enter into it.
RT What a thing it is that there is a creature vessel that has taken on divine work and is suited to be at home in the presence of divine Persons.
GAP Would the king’s chamberlain be fully aware of what was suited to the king? And also, as keeper of the women, Esther would have been aware of his service in that way, do you think?
RT Yes. The Spirit only operates in the area of what has come out of the death of Christ. Esther would suggest that: she is cast out, she is an orphan, she has no title at all; and that is our position, there is something wrought in us through the work of Christ that creates suitable material, a suitable area for the Spirit to work in, and what He produces is something that He can love. He loved her. It is a very fine thing to get a sense of that.
WEE Would you say that there should be a right state on our side if this adornment is to take place? I was noticing that she obtained grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins, suggesting virgin affection for Christ; and in the previous chapter we get the idea of purification coming in.
RT Yes; I thought that the exercises we mentioned yesterday would make us impressionable material: “fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Cor 3: 3), impressionable material that could take on the adornment that the Spirit is so ready to impart. We were remarking yesterday that we may detain the Spirit so long on the other side, but I thought this was the normal movement of the Spirit, that He comes to something that is impressionable, something that can be adorned, something that takes shape, you may say, that is entirely suitable to be at home in the divine presence.
BWW You have referred to Genesis 24; would the servant have full knowledge of the Father’s desires as well as the excellencies of the Son?
RT Yes, he went out charged, did he not? We say that respectfully, that he went out charged, she was to be a woman of Abraham’s own lineage, his own order; he did not create her exactly. Something existed that has come out of the death of Christ that can be wrought upon and can take on divine impressions, and as such is suited to be brought in. I was impressed with that in these scriptures, that we are brought in, and as brought in there is joy and love at home. That she obtained grace and favour in his sight would emphasise what we have been saying, there is a sense of Christ’s satisfaction. It is a wonderful thing to think of a glorified Man being satisfied with a creature vessel, but a creature vessel that has taken on divine impress, a vessel that is a product of divine workmanship; and there is nothing more, it is a touch of finality in a sense. He loved her, and more than all the virgins, set the royal crown upon her head and made her queen; she is installed. It is almost a touch of a final position reached that she is entirely able for.
CRB Would you say something more about being brought out of the death of Christ.
RT I heard Mr Taylor once and it left an impression on me. He said that the Spirit had not come to the world; it is not right to say the Spirit had come to the earth, He has come into the assembly. There are certain areas that we may get into in which we could not expect the Spirit, but He has come to the assembly, He has come into an area that is the product of Christ’s sufferings, do you think? Esther may represent something like that; she is not a worldly person, but she is a person that is publicly disowned, you may say, but there is something of the right origin about her.
CRB Would you connect it particularly with the presentation of the death of Christ according to John? “Not of the world”, John 17: 16. It is related, is it not, to the love that took Christ into death? It is not the side of the clearance of sin, indispensable as that is; it is more the side of love as entering into death. Is that what you have in mind?
RT I think that is very good; and the Lord says too, “if my kingdom were of this world, my servants had fought”, John 18: 36. So it is not worldly ideas that govern us but we are of the family. In John’s line we are of the family, and as of the family the Spirit would impart family features, family feelings and family joys into our affections that make us entirely suitable to be at home in the divine presence.
WTA In Acts the apostle speaks of “the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”, chap 20: 28. That is the cost to which God has gone, would you say, in relation to the assembly, which is for His joy?
RT Yes; “the assembly of God” would allude to the dignity of it, that it belongs to Him, it is His assembly. It would be seen, and is to be seen, in the public order of things. What we were thinking of in Esther is the joy that the Lord has in it, the counterpart—
Thy like, Thy counterpart! (Hymn 134)
- we sometimes sing. The Spirit has produced something that is entirely suitable in every way to rejoice His heart, and do we not get a sense sometimes of the Lord’s joy? “Who is this?”, SofS 3: 6. These expressions in the Song, such as “Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes” (chap 4: 9), give some sense of the joy and satisfaction that the Lord has in what the Spirit has wrought in the assembly.
AJEW In the type in Genesis 2 there is no question of Eve being adorned; you might say she is constitutionally suited to the man. I wondered whether that underlies what we are saying as to the assembly; and yet as we come into the full glory of the economy of love the idea of adornment is added as if there is something that God delights to work on in this great matter of the assembly for Christ. Would that enter into the adorning?
RT Do you think that as we take on a sense of the adorning we realise it is for another country; like the tassels of blue in the wilderness; they showed that they really belonged to another country. As the Spirit brings these glories to us and weaves them into the structure of the assembly, woven in and made part of the assembly, does it show that we belong somewhere else and to Someone else? They are for another eye, are they not?
EP Does that mean that the work of the Spirit is to come into substantial expression? It is not something that is hidden up, although it may be to the world.
RT Yes, I think we should be conscious of it, conscious of dignity. In years gone by, we become very undignified about certain things, but I think that as having to do with the Spirit we would be conscious of dignity and of something that is royal—clothing of wrought gold, raiment of embroidery, brought in with joy and gladness. It would give us a sense that it is not worldly features; Vashti took things and put them all on herself, and it brought in pride. The sense of mercy would be in our spirits, particularly in the days we are in, so that these things would be taken on but they are for Christ’s eye and His pleasure.
GAP In Genesis 24 it says, “the servant told Isaac all things that he had done”, v 66. Would that be in keeping with what you are saying, there is something that has been effected for Isaac, the heavenly man?
RT You would have liked to have heard that conversation, would you not? I think he would tell him, too, what grace he had found in Rebecca, the way that she so willingly drew water and how ready she was to take on other features. Our readiness to take on these finer features is something we should be exercised about.
ECB Is it necessary that we should have a better understanding than we perhaps have of the origins of the assembly? Much of what we say would suggest that we think that the assembly is something that has been discovered out of the ruin, but it has its origin, as you said, in Christ’s death, and then in the Spirit coming. Having its origin there it can only be perfect, and it is what is perfect that is adorned.
RT It also has its origin in the purpose of God. Say something about that please.
ECB I think that bears on what has been said earlier, indeed in regard to what Mr Abbott said, that divine affections are involved in bringing the assembly to Christ. Even in the formation there is the feeling of God for man; but then for that particular Man, that is the Man Christ Jesus, that He should have the assembly. It is very interesting how the idea of the counterpart comes into these scriptures. In Psalm 45 it is “forget ... thy father’s house” (v 10), and that is what Joseph said: “God has made me forget ... all my father’s house”, Gen 41: 51. She is his counterpart in that. And “Ye ... shall leave me alone” (John 16: 32); these scriptures, as you said, have the idea of orphanage. There is the sense in which the assembly is His counterpart in all these things.
RT Yes. It is fine to get beyond the moral question. It is something that we need to think about. We love Him because of what He has done, glorious Saviour! but there is something more than that: the vessel, the assembly, fruit of His work, but thought of in divine purpose; sonship too, brought to light through His death indeed, but conceived in divine purpose. Think of loving Christ because of His own beauty, not only on account of what He did for us. I think there is something of that in the royal apartment, loving Him because of His own precious worth. We come to it because of what He has done and the way He has gone, but we come to appreciate the One who did those things.
ECB Does “having long spoken until daybreak” in Acts 20 (v 11) bear on that side of things; that is, it is conversation in relation to things beyond the moral issue? Paul spoke till midnight, but then they conversed till daybreak and is that not beyond the moral questions? It involves the unfolding of the truth that he so fully sets out in his speaking to the elders of Ephesus—as if it was freshly in his mind.
RT That is very suggestive. I had always thought of Acts 20 as correcting a state, but yes, the conversation, as you say, is very instructive, so that that is the higher level. There is room for us to think; you referred in the meetings here in October to the need for thinking, and there is; we get into grooves so readily. I do not want to speak against the moral idea; it is a wonderful thing, the Saviour we have; but think of who He is; and within the royal apartments His own preciousness would absorb our attention.
CRB Our experience as following the Supper is not what we experience with Jesus as here upon earth; it is what we enter into with Him in His own sphere, is it not, where every moral question has been eternally resolved?
RT Yes, and it is what it will be eternally. The eternal idea will not be the moral thing exactly; it is what has come out of it, but it is the intrinsic worth of Christ and the intrinsic worth, you may say, of the assembly.
CRB What we experience at the Supper will be pretty much the same at the rapture, will it not? There will not be much difference.
RT Yes; then it will be sustained. It is an outstanding feature of our times that we touch something that is eternal. There are other things to take place, other prophetic things to be fulfilled, but this family can touch, after the Supper, something that is to be our eternal portion. The question is, Do I have an appetite for that kind of thing? Do I have desires or longings that the Spirit can create and embroider, so that we take these things on more quickly?
WTA In Revelation it says that the city comes down “having the glory of God”, chap 21: 10. Do you mean that it is possible to know something of that now?
RT Oh, surely. Our experience is “from glory to glory”—“transformed ... from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”, 2 Cor 3: 18. That should be formative, something embroidered into persons; and it is there all the time. So she is brought in to the king. “With joy and gladness shall they be brought”. What a scene of jubilation we come into!
EO Mr Taylor made a remark that might bear on what we are saying, and that is in relation to John 13: 32: “God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall glorify him immediately”. He said that would be in relation to the assembly, and added that Christ has had that every day since, see vol 80 p161. Do you think we need to be on that line of reality and seeing that there is this substantial answer in us?
RT Yes, we need to be in faith about that, that the Spirit has come to see that Christ has the assembly and through grace I have been brought to have part in it. So am I taking on assembly features? We sometimes think of that in the outward side of things but what we are speaking of today is, Are we taking on assembly features that rejoice the heart of Christ? “With joy and gladness shall they be brought”. A sense of triumph that we touch in our spirits on Lord’s day, as was said, will be our eternal portion.
JCE There is no sense of question or wonder whether persons will be suitable, or whether the queen will be suitable. We had a sense of that this morning, that as the Lord came in in His glory there was no incompatibility with us, because as having the Spirit we are glorified and suited to Him.
RT “All glorious”, it says, “is the king’s daughter within”.
Where every whit Thy glory tells (Hymn 237)
All the scene expresses divine workmanship, and a creature vessel is at home there.
AEB What is the thought in the reference to ‘companions’ in verse 14?
RT “Her companions, shall be brought in unto thee”: the dominant thought is that she “shall be brought unto the king in raiment of embroidery; the virgins behind her, her companions, shall be brought in unto thee”. It suggests that there are other families, maybe other features, but they only enhance the ‘she’ at the beginning of the verse.
ECB Is it to accentuate the feminine side in its purity? Esther was given virgins also. It is a matter of that thought being extended; and what Paul says to the Corinthians about espousing them as “a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11: 2) would help us to see in a sense how wide that thought is.
RT Yes. I was thinking too of what you have remarked before, that the whole scene will be spiritual, that Israel will become spiritual.
ECB I think Mr Taylor said that, that after the world to come the whole sphere in eternity is spiritual, because “flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom”, 1 Cor 15: 50. Israel will have its portion on the earth in the millennium, but in the final condition everything is spiritual, and everything then is of God who is a Spirit.
RT So it is fine to be taking that on now. There is something taken on now that does not have its origin in flesh and blood. It is being worked out in that condition, but what is being worked out is spiritual and is suitable to be at home eternally in the divine presence. I think if we have a sense of Christ’s joy in what the Spirit has wrought in the assembly it would encourage us to be more with the Spirit, to take on more those features that He alone can furnish us with that rejoice Christ’s heart.
EP It is significant that it is included in the service of God. I mean, this is a psalm, and it says in the heading that it is a song. Do you think that the appreciation of this finds a real response (in the Spirit’s power, but a real response) in the hearts of the saints as gathered in the light of the assembly?
RT Yes. In verse 6 it is Christ: “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever”, and in the verses we are reading it is someone that is made suitable to be with Him in that scene of glory. So there is in the psalm Christ in His own uniqueness and beauty and then there is brought in a counterpart who can be with Him and for Him.
CRB Whilst other things may have to come in during the week on other occasions, do you think something of this experience should be preserved in our spirits through every other occasion?
RT Well, if other things come in, we turn aside. That remark has been made, and I think it is good to remember, that if we deal with other things we turn aside, and we only turn aside because it is to guard what is precious to Christ. Is that right?
CRB Yes, I am sure that is important. We do not work through to this during the week; this is the way we would be preserved normally. As you say, we may have to turn aside to deal with other things, but that would be unusual.
RT I think, because of the kind of persons we are we try too much to work up to things; but it is wonderful grace that in Christianity we work out from the inside—“because ye are sons”. I remember being helped by a remark of Mr Hammond’s. He said, No state could warrant the divine pleasure. You could never work up to or create a state that would warrant the divine pleasure. I think our state is affected through grace and through the touches of divine love that become imparted to us. Do you think that?
CRB Yes. The great matter is to be occupied with divine Persons and divine thoughts, and the Spirit helps us to be in accord with that.
RT I think there is a need to think positively all the time, and that applies throughout life, but specially so in these things because the Spirit of God is going on to positive things. We may detain Him, but that is to our loss. He came in at Pentecost and is carrying things through to the rapture. I think we should be exercised to be with Him today in what He is doing, and that is sustaining things suitable to Christ. He is doing it in some small localities, with brethren, ones and twos, meeting in isolation week after week. What is there? you may say. The Spirit of God is there to sustain something that cheers the heart of Christ in these isolated parts.
Now what is said in Galatians is that He has sent “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”. It brings something of sonship’s feelings, sonship’s affections, into us so that we respond intelligently; we are there in dignity and in full conscious intelligence of what is suitable to the Father. I think “the Spirit of his Son” would suggest that.
DJH We begin with that, do we not? One of the first things the son in Luke 15 hears is “this my son was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found”, v 24. Should “this my son” stay with us?
RT Yes, it is what you are. It is striking how much Paul emphasises it to these Galatians: “because ye are sons”. There is divine purpose, there are divine thoughts. We have too, in Ephesians, strangers and foreigners; that is what the outward position is, but the divine idea is that we are sons. Now to fill out that place in fulness, that it should not be an empty thing, He has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.
ECB That ends the orphan condition, does it not?
RT Yes, it has gone for ever; we are owned here. It is a fine thing to get a sense of that. As we are out there we have a sense of the orphan condition, and we should feel it, should we not? But a sense of this ends it, as you say, and it sustains us when we have to touch earthly surroundings.
AJEW This cry is very brief: “Abba, Father”; yet how concentrated and wealthy it is! There is something peculiarly potent about the brief touches of the Spirit.
RT That is very good, and it would encourage us to say just what the Spirit may give us to say. Some of us sometimes sit on our seat and think there is not enough to say. These thoughts come into younger minds, there is not enough to say, and we have only a few words, but I think this would encourage us to say them. What you find is, once you say those words, other words come into your mouth. It is the Spirit of His Son, is it not?
AJEW It gives emphasis to the precious and holy relationship itself. There is much that can be added as to the detail of it, but does it not help us just to think of the preciousness of this relationship in what it means to God?
RT I think that is very fine. Think of the Father, what He finds in hearing this from His sons.
EC Could you open up a little the thought of being heirs also. We often arrive at sonship; we do not say very much about being heirs and about enjoying the inheritance.
RT I think this is to fill out heirship. Heirship would be the title to it. “The Spirit of his Son” is more than title, it gives you power to fill out the title; the title is not empty. Mr Evershed, you had some thought about heirship.
JCE It was just that we are, as you say, not only given the position of sons but there is the means to keep it up, and to have the permanent enjoyment of these things as our own. I have always felt that there is a great sense of urgency in this section, because “God sent forth his Son” and “has sent out the Spirit of his Son”, and the Spirit cries this brief cry, as if it is all very urgent.
RT Well, we are in this now; “when the fulness of the time was come”. Things have been partial and there has been something different before, but we are now in the fulness of time and the only thing that is in the divine mind now is sonship. It is for all believers.
JCE I would like to enquire why he goes into the individual: “thou art no longer bondman, but son; but if son, heir also”.
RT I think he is trying to encourage the Galatians. They were falling back to something below the dignity of sonship. As we so often do, they were tending to be governed by another principle. So I think that in that verse, “thou art no longer bondman”, he is saying, You are acting as if you were a bondman but you are not that in God’s sight. He is coming down to try to lift them up from these other principles.
WTA It says in the note, ‘God himself has made us heirs’. What do we come into?
RT “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him”, 1 Cor 2: 9. I could not define what we come into, but we come into something that is divine. We are still creature, never out of those limitations, but we come into an area where everything is for God, the sons are for God.
GAP So does the Spirit give us the consciousness of that and the ability to respond?
RT Yes, He has come to fill out what is for the Father’s pleasure: “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. It means that we are made to feel at home in the divine presence.
ECB The Spirit fully understands heirship, does He not? He would make it good to us as sent forth into our hearts. The servant in Genesis 24 says of Isaac, “Unto him has he given all that he has”, v 36. The Spirit would teach us what heirship involves, would He not?
RT Yes, and He would impress on us that it is for another land; we are not heirs for something here. He would bring to us a sense that it is another land, and He would create desires and longings to go in for it in another country.
ECB That leads us to say, “Give me this mountain” (Josh 14: 12), does it not?
RT Yes, that is very good.
EC Must it not be that it is God’s desire for us to enjoy all that is His with Him?
RT Well, we would be lost without the Spirit. A divine Person, the Spirit of God, has come that we may not be lost but be perfectly at home in an area that is sustained for God. It says “we have access”.
CRB “Crying, Abba, Father” involves that we are just taken up with the Person, not exactly with all He has done and all He is going to do, and all He is going to give us and all He is giving us; we are just taken up with the Person Himself, do you think?
RT ‘Absorbed in favour all divine’ (Hymn 116). You get some impression that David had that when he went in and sat before Jehovah; he had a sense of how large God’s thoughts were compared with his thoughts: “thou hast spoken of thy servant’s house for a great while to come”, 1 Chron 17: 17. I think what you say is good, that we become absorbed with the Person and we find that He has thought about us before time began and has destined us for glory, and to be held in glory in suited relationship with Himself.
DAB It has been remarked as to the scripture in Ephesians, “the earnest of our inheritance” (chap 1: 14), that the Earnest we have is greater than the inheritance itself. I wondered if that showed that while the inheritance might relate from our side to the sphere of bliss into which we are brought, the Spirit gives us title to sonship, which is something for God and is in answer to God’s desires.
RT Yes, I think that is full of interest, that we have that now. As remarked already, what we touch in the service of God is linked on with the rapture. There are eternal things tasted to create an appetite in us, to give us to be what we have said, absorbed with divine Persons. What an occupation! to be there at home, absorbed with the Father, absorbed with Christ.
DAB The greatest things we have are what we are for God.
RT Indeed, that is the Spirit’s mission; it is what He has come to do, to create affections that are suitable to God but to bring in persons. “We have access … to the Father”. The idea of access is like coming into a new country, surveying that vista in all its glory and splendour. It fills us with a sense of divine majesty, and yet we are held sustained in divine power to be at home in it.
ECB We should understand that remark just quoted because the basis of it is that a divine Person is always greater than any inheritance, and it is the Spirit who is the Earnest.
RT So that it connects with what we have come to—to Jesus, to God: we have come to divine Persons, see Heb 12: 23, 24. The inheritance is the area in which we know them, but what we know is the Persons themselves. We have access to the Father.
ECB What Mr Byng said is parallel to that. You cry, Abba, Father. You are just engaged with the Father for what He is in Himself, greater than any inheritance.
RT Yes, that develops sonship’s feelings in us, does it not? We are absorbed with the Father. Think of being absorbed with Him! We think of our blessings, and when we are younger they loom large; how wonderful spiritual blessings are! but they only serve as an area in which we are brought to know divine Persons. We have access to the Father, a Person, a Person well-known in grace. We sometimes sing
Well known in Jesus’ love (Hymn 72)
- but we are brought to be before Him suitably, and sustained before Him in the Spirit’s power. These things would help us as to what we remarked yesterday, they would enrich us in our worship to the Spirit.
CRB Several of the doxologies refer to ‘only God’,—“the only wise God” (Rom 16: 27), “only Ruler”, 1 Tim 6: 15. Does that connect with what we are saying?
RT Well, say some more.
CRB You are just so taken up with divine Persons, God Himself, that you are conscious that there is noone else to be occupied with, you might say. I say that reverently. He is the only God.
RT That is very fine; it will be our eternal occupation to be occupied with God. Well, the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, having access by one Spirit: think of a divine Person being on our side, to use that expression, that we are not lost but are held at home as occupied with God.
EP Would “the Spirit of his Son” bring in intelligence in relation to that love, and sensitiveness too?
RT Yes, you cannot think of any disparity there, any weakness or failure or short-coming. The response, it has been remarked, will be equal to the revelation. What has been revealed is treasured in the Spirit. What shone out in Christ in His manhood is treasured by the Spirit and wrought out in the saints so that it is held in relation to the divine pleasure and will be eternally. These things should quicken our affections.
I think that the Spirit is specially occupied in quickening our affections and that produces formation with us.
LONDON
16th January 1977
List of initials (all local except R.Taylor)
W.T.Abbott; D.A.Burr; E.C.Burr; A.E.Butt; C.R.Byng; E.Croot; J.C.Evershed; W.E.Ellis; D.J.Hutson; E.Oliver; E.Palmer; G.A.Palmer; R.Taylor, Barnet; B.W.Ward; A.J.E.Welch