CONFIDENCE IN THE SPIRIT
RT I wondered if we could be helped together to have our confidence in the Spirit of God strengthened. I think it is something we constantly need, that we might be helped to be expanded in our appreciation of the Spirit of God. Being a divine Person that must be so. The scripture in Romans, as we know, is individual. I think the experiences that we have individually would strengthen our confidence in Him, so that the area He has in our hearts may be increased. It should not always be that there is conflict of a severe kind. There will always be these conflicting things, the flesh and the Spirit, but it would be normal that the Spirit is gaining ascendancy, that we do not always have to be feeling we have grieved Him, but that more settled peace may come into our lives and we may reach some sense of being led by Him. There is “the mind of the flesh”, but there is also in the chapter “the things of the Spirit” and “the mind of the Spirit”. I would like help to get to know those things better. In this chapter the Spirit gives us power for deliverance, power for life, power for sonship. There is a great realm that is in Him. There are many states of soul among us and I think we always need to be reminded that we are not debtors to live after the flesh. We do not need always to be sinning, but as we have confidence in the blessed Spirit we may be helped to trust Him and deny the flesh, that the experience of what is spiritual may be more real and more blessedly enjoyed by us. To be “led by the Spirit of God” suggests an undisturbed area where He has dominance. Many types will come into our conversation together: the widow in 2 Kings 4 would be one that would relate to this chapter. She did not appreciate what she had, typically the Spirit, as she should; but I would like help to come to what the prophet says to her: “live ... on the rest” (v 7).
Corinthians is collective. I just thought particularly of what it says: “we have all been baptised into one body ... and have all been given to drink of one Spirit”. As we come together may we have faith and learn to have confidence in the Spirit that what He has in mind may come into every occasion. For myself I would like help about the Spirit’s place in the service of God. I think there is room, as we know Him better, to be expanded in our response to Him. I feel the need of expansion in what we say to the Spirit and how we worship Him and think of Him. These things will expand as we trust the Spirit for this reading.
ECB Is what you have in mind vital to us in the light of the fact that nothing we have in Christianity is made good to us without the Spirit?
RT I am sure that is right; and I do not know that we always remember that as we should. The kind of conditions we are in, the bodies we are in and the circumstances around us, cause us very often to fall back on some other influence or power. Christendom itself has in a sense shut the door to the Spirit, but I think in our experiences we should come to trust Him and to open that door more and more.
ECB If we consider, as Mr Raven taught, that we do not even substantially know that we have the forgiveness of sins without the Spirit (vol 13 p142), it would make us see the necessity of confidence in the Spirit in relation to everything that is ours; otherwise we are weak all over, are we not?
RT We are indeed. Romans is very experimental, and we often speak of the experience of Romans 7 which is very essential; but equally essential, I think is this chapter: “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. We would all desire that there may be in us increasingly an area where the Spirit is free, and that the flesh is not dominant so that when things come into our lives we do not turn to ourselves or our own strength but to the Spirit; we have confidence in Him that He will see us through. He came for that very thing; He came at Pentecost and will be with us, as the Lord says, for ever. The Lords words in John 14 to 16 would come into our time; He would impart to the disciples, as He was departing, confidence in another divine Person. He says He will be “with you for ever” (John 14: 16) and “he shall guide you”, John 16: 13. He is to be trusted; the Lord imparted that to those disciples, that they were to trust the Spirit for everything.
AJEW The Lord refers to Him as “another Comforter” (John 14: 16); the meaning of the word ‘Comforter’ involves at once that He is perfectly to be trusted. It is significant that John should introduce the Spirit in such a setting as that, involving on our side the trust that you speak of.
RT I think that is very beautiful. What a void there would be in their affections as the Lord left them, but it was to be filled by another divine Person. I think we should remember that, having come so near us as to be in us, yet He is a divine Person and He has all the power with Him that we need. So as these disciples were to be left in a wicked world that had rejected the Saviour, they were to find a Comforter, One who was to bring all that was needed into every circumstance.
FCM The word ‘confidence’ you have used would come very close, would it not, to the word ‘law’ in verse 2? Is it that a new governing principle has come into view, replacing the principle of “the law of sin and of death”, this principle that relates us to the Holy Spirit Himself?
RT Yes, that is right. I think there is a need for teaching as to the Spirit. You remember that the disciples in Ephesus said they had not heard that He had come (see Acts 19: 2). There is a great deal of that abroad, a lack of distinct teaching as to the Spirit and the need for faith that we may apprehend Him, who He is and what He is here for. It is right that we should come into an area where the Spirit has liberty; it is not right that the flesh should always be winning and gaining the ground. It may be true early in our lives and ofttimes later on, but I think we need faith, and we need teaching to see that that should not continue but that the Spirit of God, because of who He is and the near place He has come into, should gain the ascendancy with us.
FCM Does not this second verse give the impression of a divinely-ordered sphere of control and life, which is established and subsists, and in which each of us is consciously to have part?
RT And the death of Jesus, the forgiveness of our sins, has brought us into that. “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. That is something that should come into our lives and settle us however young we are. How many have been disturbed! They are in Christ Jesus, but the light and the joy of it has not permeated their lives.
CRB What would you say as to the way in which the Lord Jesus did things by the Spirit?
RT It brings out the beauty of His manhood; but you could say more.
CRB There was infinite complacency in Jesus as He did things by the Spirit both in His life here and in the forty days. That was how the disciples began to know the Spirit, was it not?
RT Yes, I think it is very beautiful to look at it in Jesus. The Spirit was there in complacency. There was nothing of the struggle that we experience, but we see in Jesus a Man who did everything in power. The elements of darkness receded, not only because of who He was, but because of the way He did things; they marvelled at the way He did things. It is striking in the gospels, the words of grace and power and the way that He did things. That would emphasise the Spirit and the right of way He had with Jesus.
EP So it is moving to understand that He was a sacrifice for sin so that it might be condemned. Do you think it is very instructive that it says “in order that” in verse 4? “in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. What has been involved to set us free to take this up!
RT Yes, the activities of the Lord and His death. As we know in the types the water flowed from the smitten rock. He ended in His death a condition, and the Spirit has come that I may come into the joy of another condition. That would be the exercise here, that we may be in faith and be helped to trust the Spirit, that the dominance of the flesh may recede in our lives and the dominance of the Spirit be more blessedly known.
CCI Is it of interest that following the smitten rock we get the conflict with Amalek?
RT Yes, and the prophecies of Balaam. That is a very interesting section of scripture. As you say, there is the conflict, and they win it. Like the conflict in this chapter, there is power to deal with things, so that the things of the Spirit become very real. Then there are the prophecies of Balaam; you may think they were a picture but they were not; they were true of persons who were in the power and triumph of the Spirit of God.
VHB Is it not a great need among us, to have faith? You cannot divorce faith from the Spirit, can you? Do you not think that we need to be as free to speak to the Spirit as we would to the Lord or the Father?
RT Yes, I am sure that is right. The importance of faith is who it is in—it is in a divine Person. So here we are helped to get on our feet; it says, “who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. That means that there is some triumph coming into our lives as we know a divine Person, the Spirit of God.
JCE Will you say more about the things of the Spirit and the mind of the Spirit.
RT I think there is something infinite about them. The mind of the flesh always seems to be going one way and it finishes in death, but the mind of the Spirit and the things of the Spirit is an area that would attract our affections. There is what He has under His hand, as we learn from Genesis 24; the things of the Spirit include response to Christ and response to the Father; they include the service of God, but they include, too, that we are here in joy, we are here as triumphant persons. I think there is room for the spread of these features, the things of the Spirit, among us.
DJH You cannot limit it in the light of what He says in John, can you? “All things that the Father has are mine”, John 16: 15. Then, “He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”, v 14.
RT Yes, and “shall guide you into all the truth”, v 13. What a thing to have a guide, is it not? We may feel very lost in the world, and in the condition we are in, and through the activities of the flesh. So what a thing it is to have One who guides “you into all the truth”! The things of Christ are things that the natural man is shut out from; we are guided into them and they are revealed to us by the Spirit.
ECM “The mind of the Spirit is life and peace”, it says. Is it linked with the priesthood? I was thinking of Levi: “My covenant with him was of life and peace” (Mal 2: 5), as though Jehovah would commit Himself to those that are walking in the Spirit.
RT Yes; that would substantiate what we said, that there is a need of teaching as to the Spirit, that the way He would go would be life and peace. He will never lead us in any other direction. So as to other things that come into our lives, we can quickly discern that they are not of the Spirit, they are of the flesh. Then we get power to turn to Him, and to come into these things—life and peace—so that there is some stability and formation. There was some formation with Levi, was there not? He was able to do things in the power of the Spirit.
SDKR You referred to Genesis 24. I was thinking of that committal, “I will go” with this man, v 58. Earlier she had said “There is ... room to lodge”, v 25. Is that important?
RT Yes. I think that typically she was possibly a bit ahead of much of this chapter. She did not seem to have the hesitation that I so often have, “I will go” was a very ready response. There were very strong natural appeals in that chapter, but typically she had confidence in the Spirit, she was attracted to the heavenly Man, because she said, “I will go”. I think that is what the Spirit would do, always attracting us to the heavenly Man. But I think in this chapter He brings something into us that triumphs over the flesh. We cannot say often enough, and we need to grasp it in our youth, that the flesh should not always be gaining ground. I often think of the conflict between Saul and David. It says, “the house of Saul became continually weaker” (2 Sam 3: 1); “David became continually stronger”. That would be like the Spirit having ascendancy, that David becomes increasingly stronger.
GWB We learn things from Christ, and the Spirit would always bring Christ before us.
RT Yes, Christ is the objective; I think we learn things from the Spirit in an experimental way. These things are very experimental; the flesh brings grief, even causes us to wonder if we are on Christian ground; but then the Spirit brings life and peace. The Spirit is power for deliverance in the earlier part of the chapter; then He is power for more than that He is power for life. Life would mean that the normal things of God are finding expression and I am finding my delight in them.
JM Is that all in view of finding a settled state of things in our souls, a subject state, in which we can be led into the purpose side?
RT Yes. I think we learn how to do things the next time. Maybe one time we have failed and we have felt the grief; the next time we learn it is worthwhile to suffer so that the Spirit should bring to us life and peace. We feel the suffering as having to refuse the flesh, that is always a test, but I think experimentally we learn the joy of the things of the Spirit, so that it is less burden to suffer; we have experienced the liberty of the Spirit and would jealously guard that; so we are prepared to suffer in the flesh.
AAB In chapter 5 of this epistle we have the reference to the Holy Spirit shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts. Is that to help us to have confidence in the Spirit, in the One who loves us?
RT It is interesting to look into scripture and see how much love is connected with the Spirit. As you say, He has shed the love of God abroad in our hearts. I think He has made us lovers. It speaks in 1 Corinthians 2: 9 of “them that love him”; it is connected there with the Spirit. He would develop suitable affections for Christ, and that would be specially seen in Genesis 24.
AAB We experience, too, the Father’s love and the love of Christ, but there is the love of the Spirit. It would all be embraced in the love of God “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”.
RT Would that be an early experience?
AAB Yes, in order to engender confidence; is that your thought?
RT So lovers are brought on to other ground: “no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. What a lever to expand our affections that is!
RL So we would love the Spirit, and that would help us; you would not grieve One you love. He is a real Person. The Lord said “ye know him’’, John 14: 17. It helps us to appreciate the Person, does it not?
RT Yes, I think there is room for our affections towards Him to be expanded. So it comes to a point; it says, “ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”. How near He has come! As Mr Bellamy said, He has come shedding the love of God abroad in our hearts; but here He has come to dwell in us. There never has been a dispensation when divine Persons have come so near, and we need to be exercised to appreciate what we have come to. It refers in Hebrews 12 to certain things we have come to, and this is one of the things we have come to, God’s Spirit dwelling in us.
DER Unless we have known a little of the soul experience of the preceding chapter, the Spirit will only be a doctrine to us, will He not?
RT Well if He is only a doctrine we will never come into the joy that He brings. I think this chapter is just as experimental as the previous one; we need them both. If we are in the tunnel all the time what despair it brings. But as in the tunnel we have the light of this, that the Spirit is power to get us through; there is no condemnation and there is a divine Person dwelling in us so that the flesh does not have the ascendancy but we are walking and living and being led in the power of a divine Person.
DER As we prove the inability of the flesh to please God, we find that God has provided us a new power which is the Spirit Himself.
RT Yes, so the flesh never gives up and it will be with us all the time we are here, the same flesh; but we grow to trust a divine Person, and He has the dominance, the ascendancy, in our lives. That is not doctrine, that is experience.
DER So everything in our lives is determined then by whether it is pleasing the flesh or pleasing the Spirit.
RT As things test us we need help to have confidence, that supposing we do not see the way through an exercise, we have confidence in the Spirit of God and can trust Him to bring us through in triumph and joy.
ECM Is that confirmed by verse 13; “if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live”?
RT That is a very fine verse; it means that you learn something; you not only trust Him and have confidence in Him but you can always speak to Him and can appeal to Him. I think that would come into “if, by the Spirit”; it would mean that you appeal to Him in an exercise, and He gives you power to put to death the deeds of the body. It means that in that exercise you come through triumphant because of your confidence in the Spirit.
WJRB The woman touched the hem of His garment and was healed. That is perhaps an illustration; power came out of the Lord to heal her.
RT The hem of the garment would be what is nearest the earth, and that would be true of the Spirit. He has not come to the earth exactly, but He has come to dwell in the saints that they may be here in triumph, that what has governed us before need not always govern us, what has reigned in my life up to now need not always reign. But maybe at this time we would be encouraged to have confidence in the Spirit that He may have right of way.
CRB Would you say something as to “the Spirit life on account of righteousness”?
RT I thought that brings us into an area where we can be in life. “The Spirit life on account of righteousness” would involve on the one hand what was met in Christ. But then it would also involve that there is righteousness pursued in my pathway that gives the Spirit room and liberty.
CRB Would it be the working out of verse 4: “the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us”? It is a wonderful matter that the Spirit can help us to do what is right, and as we make way for that help we shall be preserved in a sphere of life. But it can only be that way.
RT Yes, I think so. It brings home to us the sensitiveness of the Spirit of God; that is something we should think about, how sensitive He is! If I am overwhelmed, or engaged in things that are not right, I am shutting out the wealth and power of His service. That is where the need of teaching comes in, that I need to attend to practical things. I think there are illustrations about it in the Old Testament; in the wilderness they had commandments, and the law of Moses ruled. But then at the end of the wilderness the Spirit takes over. Would it be like that in our lives? There is commandment, there is regulation as to practical matters, there is what is right and what is wrong. As we do what is right we make room for an area where the Spirit can be free and can lead us into the things of God.
CRB It brings us into an area of life where He gives us the instincts and the feelings to know what is pleasing to God.
RT Very good; that is something that we should covet. We would grow in those instincts and feelings.
FMK Is that necessary to get a right appreciation of the Lord’s supper—the Spirit’s leading in the service?
RT Yes; maybe that would bear on the collective setting: ‘‘when ye come together in assembly”, 1 Cor 11: 18. I do not think we do that without the Spirit having ascendancy. If the Spirit has ascendancy in our lives, we come together to remember Christ.
JCE Do you think that one great feature of the service of the Spirit with us is that He always gives us an objective? He may have to lead us from one to another, but I was thinking of this matter of righteousness, that He would engage us with that; and then God leads many sons to glory, that would be by the leading of the Spirit here, I suppose, that the things of the Spirit would be brought before us largely by way of objectives that He enables us to reach.
RT Yes, I am sure that is right. Genesis 24 shows us how insistent and anxious He is to bring us to the objective. So these things would encourage us to attend to righteousness, to attend to things that would hinder the Spirit, that we may have greater liberty.
JCE And to proceed with that illustration, if His service to us should take a time, then that time is occupied with impressions of Christ Himself, as no doubt it was there; the servant on the journey had spoken to Rebecca as to Isaac to whom she was going.
RT Yes. There is a verse in that chapter that struck me; it says “Rebecca arose”, v 61. That would be like coming to the end of these exercises, that we rise up; we are empowered to leave these other elements. She arose, it says; that is where the journey towards Isaac commences. So these exercises here would help us to rise, help us to trust Him. She had nothing else to lean on; she had, as it were, cut off everything else and she goes forward in dependence and confidence in the servant, and how quickly she reaches Isaac!
JCE I feel the importance of it for all of us because we do tend to go on in an easy way. And where there is no vision the people perish. It is important for us to have objectives brought before us.
RT I do not think there would be any meeting without the Spirit bringing objectives to us; but He also brings with it the power to reach those objectives, and we learn that it is not in the flesh but it is in Him and in Him alone.
CCI Is an objective view of the Spirit a very important point that beloved Mr Taylor brought before us in view of addressing Him and worshipping Him? I believe he used the scripture in John 14: 17: ‘‘but ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you”. The word ‘know’ is objective knowledge. Do you think all this means that we are learning to rely more objectively on the Spirit’s great work alongside of us?
RT Yes, and His work in us, that He works something in us that has power. We always, as you say, regard Him as a divine Person; but how near He has come and how we should love Him because of that nearness and the power He has brought with Him so that we should be here as persons who are in life and who are led by Him.
ECB I was thinking of your reference to the types in the wilderness. In Isaiah 63: 10 it refers to their grieving the Holy Spirit. Then it says, “Where is he that put his holy Spirit within him, his glorious arm leading them by the right hand of Moses?’’ But then it says, “As cattle go down into the valley, the Spirit of Jehovah gave them rest; so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name”. Do you think all that bears on what you are saying, that there is the power of the Spirit that leads us out, but with no intervening history. “The Spirit of Jehovah gave them rest” in order that God might be magnified.
RT Yes; that reference, going down into the valley, may be a guide for us. The going down into the valley would be a different way from the flesh. It would mean that the man that is always aspiring is not in the ascendancy there, but there is another Man in the ascendancy. “Go down into the valley” would bring us into an area where the Spirit of God can give us rest.
ECB Do you think that, not only in regard to having confidence in looking forward, we need to be able to look back with a positive view of what the Spirit has been to us?
RT That is what Pisgah was. It looked back over the surface of the waste (see Num 21: 20), but I do not think it looked back on the murmurings but on positive divine direction. Numbers 33 is a very beautiful chapter; it says that “they removed ... and encamped”. You get the impression there that there was a great daily movement; and this chapter is like that; there should be a daily movement in confidence in the Spirit so we come to be persons who are led by Him.
ECB Does Galatians 6 also bear on what you have in mind? “He that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life: but let us not lose heart in doing good”, vv 8, 9.
RT Yes, we might have read that scripture as to sowing to the Spirit. It is a deliberate, definite action, is it not?
ECB So it says “let us not lose heart”.
RT I think the experience of it would encourage your heart. Sowing to the Spirit brings us to reap a wonderful fruit, and as we taste it day by day it encourages us and strengthens our hearts so that the next time we are encouraged to sow more to Him and rely on Him, would you say?
ECB Yes. I do not want to go on more quickly than you do, but I wondered if you could expand your thoughts about the worshipping of the Spirit. It might help to point us to the resource we have in Him during the service of God, so that we are more fully furnished for the remainder of the week.
RT Well, say some more.
ECB I share your exercise as to expansion in response to the Spirit. And considering that the Spirit comes in the first chapter of the Scriptures and the last, we have immense scope in relation to Him, have we not?
RT Yes, and maybe the Lord would help us. We normally have one hymn and a thanksgiving, sometimes two hymns, but I feel there is need for expansion in what we say to Him. We so often think of His lowly service, right as that is, because we would not touch anything without Him, but as you said, from the whole of Scripture we can be expanded in what we say to Him and how we think about Him.
ECB We tend to proceed in the service of God from reflecting on the Spirit’s service and then acknowledging that He is God, but I think if we began with the sense that He is God and then came to His service we might be enlarged. It is rather on the line of Mr Raven’s remarks as to Christ, that He could not be the Man He is if He was not God. Similarly the Spirit could not be the servant He is if He were not God.
RT That is something we need always to bear in mind in thinking of any divine Person, that They are never limited to the condition into which They have come. So even if the Spirit has come to dwell in me, He is never limited to that area. As Capt William Johnson again said so blessedly as to Christ: He never ceased to be who He was in what He became. That is true too of the Spirit. Though He has come into lowly surroundings what wealth He has brought into those surroundings, yet He remains ever who He is.
GWB A divine Person at once produces worship.
RT Yes, that is something to bear in mind in all our conversations; we should speak worshipfully. We are not speaking about a doctrine, we are speaking about One who is worthy of our homage and adoration. So these things would regulate us in what we say and how we think. He has come so near us, but He never ceases to be One who could hover over the face of the deep and from a scene of confusion bring in life, and He is One who is going to present the assembly to Christ, glorious. The end of Revelation refers to it: “the Spirit and the bride say, Come”, v 17. What a product of the Spirit’s activities that there is a vessel that will satisfy Christ eternally and there are sonship’s affections produced that will rejoice the Father!
FCM The very fact that in this chapter He is spoken of as “the Spirit of Christ”, “God’s Spirit” and “the Spirit of God”, though this is a subjective chapter, would emphasise that though He so graciously serves us He is primarily serving in relation to glorious divine ends and objectives.
RT We need to bear that in mind, that the prime thing in the Spirit of God coming here was not to help us over the flesh, which was necessary, but to lead us to Christ. That is His mission, as Genesis 24 so beautifully shows. So in our meetings together we should make room for these kinds of things to take shape.
EP I was thinking of the word at the end of the second letter to the Corinthians: “the communion of the Holy Spirit”, v 14. Would that be to enjoy what Mr Mutton has referred to, the way the Spirit would have liberty to introduce us into what is ministering to the heart of God? Communion is something that bespeaks liberty, does it not?
RT A very beautiful verse that: “be with you all”. You say, the Corinthians? Yes, Paul closes his remarks to them in that way: “the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all”. We should gather in the light and faith of that. In 1 Corinthians 12 He is referred to as “the same Spirit”; and it says that you are “given to drink of one Spirit”. We should come together in confidence in the Spirit as satisfied persons. The passage of scripture before us in a reading may seem difficult, we may sometimes be in depression, and we may think the brethren seem difficult, but let us come together in faith in the Spirit, satisfied, drinking into Him and counting on Him that the meeting may proceed in the way of leading us to Christ, developing sonship’s affections in our hearts.
CRB Do you think the Lord would help us to be expanded in our worship of the Spirit?
RT Well, that is what I feel. Say what your thoughts are about it.
CRB If you think of our experience as following the Supper, it is as we are enjoying intimacy with Christ in nearness that we are conscious of our hearts being led out in worship to the Spirit. Are we not peculiarly shut up to the Lord as over the whole matter, that we get right, enlarged, fresh impressions of the greatness of the Person of the Spirit of God Himself?
RT The joy of union would cause us to be expanded to the One who has led us there, the One who has brought it all about. We did not arrive there, there was never anything wrought in us that Christ could embrace, save as a divine Person wrought out those things that the Lord is satisfied with. Think of the Lord saying, “My dove, mine undefiled, is but one” (S of S 6: 9); that is the product of the Spirit’s work. The sense of that, as you say, would cause us to be expanded as to the One who has brought it all about.
CRB It would flow also, do you think, out of some fresh impression as to the wonder of what is in the love of God as it finds expression in the cup? The service of the Spirit must be involved in that; it is seen in its fulness in Jesus, and yet there is the love of the Spirit. So the joy of new covenant relations is all connected with the Spirit and His greatness, is it not?
RT That is a very interesting line of thought. As the Spirit has His way, other families are going to be brought in, but in the meantime He is occupied with the assembly, and He has brought divine feelings into the assembly, what is capable of response. Things are going to widen out, the new covenant is going to be made good with others, but in the meantime He has wrought out something in the saints that satisfies Christ.
RL John speaks in his first epistle of the Spirit bearing witness (see chap 5: 6), and there is in that chapter a wonderful blend of divine Persons. It confirms the objective before us, does it not?
RT Yes. He “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God”, Rom 8: 16. It would strengthen us in our walk here; we are not lost, we are not orphans; the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we belong to a wonderful family.
ECB The assembly being the custodian of what God will have from every dispensation would leave us free in the service of God to gather up in response to the Spirit what He has been in the past dispensation—that is in relation to individuals such as David and others—and in relation to what He will be in the millennium. So would you be free to bring all that in, if you could, in addressing the Spirit?
RT I think we could all grow as to what we can bring in. We tend to get narrowed, but I think there is a broad field to think of. In the beginning of Genesis He was there; He brought in something for God in Noah and in a renewed earth; He was active in Moses and Israel and David. But here in our time He is dwelling in us, He has taken up residence. How distinguished the assembly is, the Spirit having come! So, as you say, we can look back and see His operations, and we can look forward. Think of the Lord having confidence that He would guide the saints! We can have confidence, too, that He will sustain us in the service of God.
DJH He has the distinction of being personally identified and identifiable in the Old Testament, has He not, which would all bear on what Mr Burr says?
RT It was evident, was it not? Think of the times of the Judges, when men were doing what was right in their own eyes; it was evident at times that the Spirit acted in certain persons and brought in deliverance, brought in power, brought in something that was for God. We should always be thinking of that, that He is bringing in something for God. And He would enrich us in our response to Christ and to the Father. And as has been suggested, the Lord too would serve us that we are enriched in response to the Spirit.
DJH I wondered as to bringing in something for God, if it is not referring back to Romans 8: “those who love God”, v 28. We often refer to that scripture but perhaps do not relate it enough to the references to the Spirit that are so closely connected with it. Loving God would include that, would it not?
RT I am sure it would.
JW Would you say that the variety in the assembly, brought out in the scripture in Corinthians, is what the Spirit has brought in for God?
RT Yes; I think it means that as we come together we are not altogether at our own charges; we do not come together in ignorance, each of us has something that has been imparted by the Spirit. So this would apply to our meetings, whatever meeting it is; as we come together each of us has been endowed with something. And we can count on the Spirit as we come together that things may proceed; we are set together as persons who have been baptised in the power of one Spirit and we “have been given to drink of one Spirit”.
AAB Is what you are saying the filling out of your reference earlier to the type in Kings, “live thou and thy sons on the rest”? I was wondering if it does not bear on the local assembly and its personnel in their functioning Godward.
AJEW Do you think in fact that the whole service of Elisha brings out the force of the presence and activity of the Spirit, in the sense that there is no situation that cannot be met and cleared to the glory of God? Does not the whole ministry of Elisha quicken confidence in the Spirit in the widest sense?
RT That is very beautiful. He uses the most simple of household commodities; he is met with a crisis and brings in salt; he is met with another crisis and brings in meal; in another crisis he brings in oil; they are all things that are there: “What hast thou in the house?” Now as to the passage in Ephesians 3, I think “with power by his Spirit” would encourage us to lay ourselves open for the Spirit to have liberty with us that He might bring us, though creatures, into an area that creatures can never comprehend.
ECB Do you think we learn what it is to be strengthened in this way as we begin to walk in newness of life? He was raised from “the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life”, Rom 6: 4. It is the same glory, is it not, that raised Christ from the dead that according to chapter 1 of this epistle is towards us and now is in us? Is confidence in this strengthening by the power of the Spirit necessary to enable us to understand being filled to all God’s fulness?
RT I am sure it is, because how could we stand in such an area? How could you locate yourself? Breadth and length and depth and height: how could you find your place in such an area? It is only as you are strengthened with power by His Spirit. We may feel lost in these things, but I think we should give ourselves to the Spirit that we may be at home in them.
ECB The expression “ye may be filled ... to all the fulness of God” may baffle us somewhat, but if we are filled with the Spirit according to a later chapter of this epistle, and strengthened with His power, we would begin to understand it, would we not?
RT I am sure we would. Although we will never fully understand it we have all of us experienced something of it sometime. And experience should be to encourage us to make more room for it. We have experienced Romans 8, the triumph of the Spirit over the flesh; now we are come into this area; it is the same Spirit but He is at home, in normal surroundings you may say, strengthening us, the Father giving strengthening through His Spirit in the inner man. This is not the outward man, it is the inner man, something that is in us that is of God, that is pleasing to God, finding its home in an area that is creature but belongs to God.
JCE Do you think we need to identify the inner man as something that is complete with us? I was thinking of Paul’s desire that the “whole spirit, and soul, and body” should be preserved, 1 Thess 5: 23. I wondered whether we needed to see that that is what is in mind here, that there should be a complete surrendering, spirit, soul and body.
RT He takes over, does He not? Think of the Spirit of God having dominance. He has dominance in this area and is strengthening the saints that they “may be fully able to apprehend … the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ”.
JCE What I meant was that it is not just something partial within us. We speak of the work of God in us, but I think this word ‘inner man’ is intended to be the whole of the person held available for this.
RT It is something substantial. As we respond to the Spirit on the Lord’s day we would think of this. What sonship’s feelings He is going to promote in our affections! What sonship’s joys He raises in our hearts that is causing delight to the Father!
SDKR It says in Ezekiel 43: 5, “the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the inner court”. Is that to be experienced on the Lord’s day morning, the lifting up of the Spirit?
RT Yes; being in the Old Testament you might think there is something dramatic about it, and there was because of the dispensation I suppose. But we should think of this as something normal: “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. He would cause us to be at home in an area that, we may say, is banned to creatures after the flesh, an area that is exclusively for God and for the divine pleasure; we are there and not strangers in it because we are strengthened with power by His Spirit. We are very much at home.
GWB If we could go back for a moment, could you say what you think about being made to “drink of one Spirit”?
RT I just thought that we would be satisfied persons.
GWB I think Mr Taylor made some connection with drinking the cup. I wondered if divine love would come in as we drink; drinking is easy.
RT I am sure that would be right. As we think of the cup we would be satisfied persons, full of the sense of divine love. We “have all been given to drink” takes away any standing that may belong to us; it strengthens us in our inner man, in this area where the Spirit is holding us for the divine pleasure.
FCM Do you think this expression, “filled even to all the fulness of God”, involves a certain spiritual capability? There was a glorious point in the Old Testament where the priests could not stand, but here you have a company who are standing and serving and there is glory to God in the assembly.
RT Well, as we have said, there have been experiences of this among us and I think we would count on the Spirit that they may be more sustained. Formation takes place in these experiences. We begin to realise that this is our portion, this is our home. We have to go back into normal everyday circumstances but we go back to them as coming from this area where we have been filled. Filled! We have had a touch of it and we carry something of that with us into everyday matters. We have to attend to them, but I think we will attend to them all the better as trusting the Spirit who strengthens us in these inner matters.
HPW Does the reference in Jude help us?—“building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit”, v 20.
RT Yes, and ‘‘keep yourselves in the love of God”. It would be a matter of faith, would it not? And I think it would strengthen us. He is writing about very difficult times but he is saying that divine Persons are set to see us through. So let us keep ourselves in the love of God. What an area to enjoy! I think these impressions that we have spoken of would cause us to be more responsive, more appreciative of this divine Person, the Spirit of God, who has come so near us. Yet the fact that He has come so near should not becloud who He is. The fact that He helps me to deal with the flesh should not becloud the glory of His service, and that is that I might be at home as a son in the Father’s presence.
RL It is Jude who finishes by saying, “to him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory”; it is the divine pleasure in having us there, is it not.
RT That is a fine doxology; and there is room for doxology to the Spirit too. I think Romans 11: 33 is like a doxology to the Spirit; “O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!” It refers back to Isaiah where it would seem to be the operations of the Spirit. I think we need to be expanded that our affections go out to Him more who has helped us in such lowly things. May He become an object for our affections more and more.
LONDON
15th January 1977
List of initials
A.A.Bellamy, Buckhurst Hill; W.J.R.Brodie, Ealing; G.W.Brown Barnet; V.H.Browne, London; E.C.Burr, London; C.R.Byng, London; J.C.Evershed, London; D.J.Hutson, London; C.C.Ikin, Southend; F.M.Knappett, Maidstone; R.Lawrence, Maidstone; J.Mitchell, Bexley; E.C.Muggleton, Croydon; F.C.Mutton, Redbridge; E.Palmer, London, D.E.Remmington, St.Albans; S.D.K.Roberts, Croydon; R.Taylor, Barnet; A.J.E.Welch, London; H.P.Wright, Gillingham; J.Wright, Redbridge