DIVINE OPERATIONS IN THE ASSEMBLY READING (6)
DIVINE OPERATIONS IN THE ASSEMBLY READING (6)
John 20: 17 - 18; Ephesians 3: 14 - 21; 1 Corinthians 15: 24 - 28
SMcC These passages should serve to help us in relation to the knowledge of divine Persons as it bears on the service of God in the assembly. It will be noted that each passage commences with some thought in connection with the Father and leads on to the fuller thought of God. We have been taught that the more we move on to the higher levels of the truth spiritually, the more God as God is before us. In John 20: 17 Jesus says to Mary, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God”. The thought of “my Father, and your Father” is to stress nearness and intimacy with God in this relationship. When we come to “my God and your God” it is not so much to stress the thought of intimacy as in “my Father; and your Father”, but the greatness of the Being who is before the Lord Jesus when He says, “my God, and your God”. It is important to see that we approach God in this known relationship suggested in, “my Father, and your Father”. Our relationship of sonship, alongside of Christ, gives us a wonderful sense of the nearness and intimacy in which we stand in relation to God in that special name and relationship of Father. “My God, and your God” brings us to the thought of Deity; not Deity, exactly, in Its own realm by Itself in absoluteness, but Deity - God as He has drawn near to us in revelation.
GRC Did you make a remark just now as to God the Supreme Being?
SMcC “My God, and your God”, would involve, I suppose, His supremacy, but there is something more than supremacy; God personally is there; God as He desires to be known by us in the blessedness of His being in so far as He can be known by us with creature and finite understanding.
CMM Could we connect this with chapter 13? “He came out from God and was going to God” (verse 3).
SMcC I think that fits in with what John has in mind. He alludes in John 13 to both the Father and to God. We are helping one another in regard to this great matter, and the Spirit affords us latitude. The Comforter is with us, and we are arriving, together, at the truth in this relation.
AEM Is the Lord taking us as far as it is possible to go?
SMcC Very good. Many years ago you wrote to one as a young brother and said that, as regards soul progress and knowledge of the truth, the Lord would take us as far as we wanted to go. That is what comes into this matter; the Lord is taking us as far as we can go.
- .G. Does this reference to, “I ascend”, indicate that the thought of “my God and your God” is above “my Father and your Father”?
SMcC I would hesitate to use the word “above”, as the Father remains in the inscrutability of Deity. The verse is progressive in the sense of widening our thoughts. It is not just the Deity as limited to the Father, if I may speak reverently, but it is the Deity in the full sense, inclusive of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
- .G. I was just thinking of the service as we are privileged to know it and the way of reaching God at the end. That is really what is in my mind when using the word “above”, but I did not like the word myself.
SMcC Mr. Taylor used the word progression, indicating that it was on the ascending line; we are going up.
- .G. I meant “above” in the sense of the ascent by which He went up.
JSE Does it help us if we view the Lord’s statement as coming from One who loves us and who knows the whole matter in its fulness? Does it not require that the Spirit be given the fullest possible scope and that other scriptures must come to our aid?
SMcC Just so. It is important that we have the help of the Spirit, not only in a gathering like this, but in the service of God. The Spirit is helping us in the worship of God, Himself. The Lord Jesus and the Spirit are in the mediatorial position; the Lord as Man by us and the Spirit as helping and strengthening us, and yet neither of Them have left Deity in the abstract sense. We must not attempt to explain “God”, as we are always confronted with inscrutability. The word elsewhere is, “no one has seen God at any time”.
GMS Does the expression, “my God” as coming from the Lord Himself, indicate that, as Man He fully answered to the full thought of God?
SMcC Exactly; in regard to manhood.
GMS It is our privilege to be alongside of the Lord and to see how He regards God.
SMcC Just so, and think of His knowledge of God, how great it is! It is important to see that our relationship with the Father, linked with our place in sonship is carried through. We do not get to a point in the worship of God where we are outside relationship; that is not the thought at all; we remain in the relationship of sons. The appellation, “God”, draws attention to the Name which, although relative, includes the whole thought of the Deity.
APCL Might I enquire as to the word to the overcomer in Philadelphia? “I will write upon him the name of my God” (Revelation 3: 12). He does not say, I will write upon him the name of your God, but “my God”.
SMcC It is interesting to see how the Lord would bring us to finality, as in the Philadelphian phase of church history. The Spirit would help us as to what is involved in the promises to the overcomer. He has to do with each of the assemblies, and would especially help us as to the exalted character of what the Lord speaks of, “the name of my God”.
APCL Can we think of God not only as One Supreme Being, but are we also privileged to think of Him as we have known Him in the economy?
SMcC Exactly, as we have known Him in revelation. Revelation brings out that there are three Persons in the Deity. In the Old Testament Jehovah is presented as Elohim and Eloah, but when we come to revelation in the New Testament, involving Christ coming into Manhood (all hinges upon His incarnation) we find that revelation brings God out in tangible evidence, known in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
APCL You do not suggest that we could reach God in any other way than that.
SMcC Not at all. We must always remember that the coming into Manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit descending upon Him and the voice being heard, did not make or begin the Trinity. The Trinity always existed in Oneness.
APCL I feel that is most important.
SMcC One thing needs to be guarded. Mr. Darby used an expression as to the community of undistinguished Godhead, and if that is taken out of its context in the article in which it appears, it may hinder some minds. Care has to be taken in the use of that expression, otherwise we may drift into the error of Sabellianism.
VTS Would you say a word as to when we might use the expression, “God and Father” in the service?
SMcC After the Lord’s heart has been ministered to on the marital side, we approach the Father in the light in which He is presented in the economy, to speak to Him in that way (i.e. as God and Father) because He is so spoken of and spoken to in the economy. As to the three Persons, while God is One and we are reminded of the majesty and greatness of His Being, we must never forget that scripture carefully maintains that there always was distinct personality. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God”.
PL In John 17: 5, “and now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”. Mr. Darby points out in his note that it is ‘along with’ as to presence and place.
SMcC Just so. That verse brings out the distinctness of divine personality in the Father and in the Son. It has been pointed out that the preposition ‘with’ denotes the community of relations in which They stood the One to the Other. We do not know the form of God, but we do know that love was there - They loved One Another - and glory and light were there.
PL And as self existent!
SMcC Three Persons co-equal and co-eternal in Their glory and greatness, yet One God - “God is one”.
LES It is interesting that after the death of the apostle John, this very matter became the crux of the conflict in the first and second centuries.
SMcC It is, and the great errors of Tritheism and Sabellianism had to be counteracted, and also Arianism.
CAM Would you say a word as to Sabellianism so that all may get clear on it.
SMcC Tritheism is the error which treats of three Gods, and Sabellianism is the error which treats of one God but in three phases. Both are equally wrong.
JSE Is it not the weed of the one that has led some persons to accuse the brethren of the other?
SMcC I do not follow what you have in mind.
JSE In a certain locality five persons accused the brethren of Tritheism, and they made that charge because they refused the intimacy we are privileged to enjoy with the Spirit. That makes me say the weed of Sabellianism was there for them to make such an accusation.
SMcC That is very humbling. God in revelation is known in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. These Names are relative Names bearing on Their relative positions in the economy. The Names do not indicate the relationship in which They stand in essential Deity and absoluteness, and the only way we can speak of the Persons is by the Names by which we know Them in revelation.
GMS Would you say that the root of these heresies is the lack of appreciation of the Person of Christ? In this matter of “my God” we may be deficient in that appreciation.
SMcC We often think of what it must have been for the Lord Jesus to say, “my God”; how He knew God and could speak of God as no creature could, “my God, and your God”! In Christ it would, of course, involve a knowledge that is outside of revelation, for He is not limited to revelation as having part in the Deity. When it comes to us we are limited to what has come out in revelation.
CMM God being love, we can only approach this great matter in the sense of love. This would save us from mere reasoning.
SMcC God is love and He desires to be known by us, and how wonderfully that desire came into evidence! It was in the way Christ came into Manhood. The economy in the Father, the Son, and the Spirit opens up the whole subject of love.
AJG Would you say - that in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we have the complete presentation of love to men?
SMcC Very good.
WH Would the thought of the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Christ who is Head of the assembly, enrich us in our response to that revelation of God? The answer to the shining out of love would thus be equal to the love that shines out.
SMcC That is it. It is important to see that God has not only come out tangibly in love as He is seen in Christ in Manhood, and in the relations in which divine Persons stand to each other in the economy, but He is going to be responded to in love.
PL In Colossians and Ephesians, the Deity of Christ is set forth before His service on our side is introduced in relation to the service of God.
SMcC That is interesting. Sometimes it is suggested that we cannot hold more than one Person in our minds at one time, and sometimes Mr. Darby’s ministry is brought in to support this. It might be interesting to refer to Mr. Darby’s note “m” on 1 Thessalonians 3: 11. “Here ‘direct’ in Greek, as 2 Thessalonians 3: 5, is in the singular; God the Father and Christ the Lord forming, so to speak, one in the apostle’s mind, though personally, clearly distinguished”. Apparently Mr. Darby contemplated that Paul held more than one Person in his mind at one time.
AEM The passage in Revelation 2 helps.
SMcC Just so. John, especially in Revelation, constantly presents God and Christ so that at times two Persons seem to be before us, yet They are presented as One. Christ is presented as God. Sometimes it is difficult to discern which Person he is referring to, but it is clearly evident that, at times, Christ is regarded as God in John’s ministry.
GRC Would you say something further as to the Name “my God”? Is it synonymous with Matthew 28, the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or does it bring in something further?
SMcC I think it involves more, because it is Christ speaking and saying, “my God”. He does not bring “our God” into Revelation 3. In John 20 it is, “my God, and your God”; there is that distinction, but the address to Philadelphia is wholly “my God”. We can take account of a majesty and fulness to it which would particularly belong to Christ.
GRC And yet that Name has to be written on the overcomer.
SMcC That is the remarkable thing about it.
GRC The assembly stands, apparently, especially related to God in that character because He says, “the name of the city of my God”.
SMcC Just so. In John 20 we are, in the same way, standing alongside Christ as His brethren in sonship when He says, “my God”. How wonderful the expression is on His lips.
GRC Is there a marvellous feature of majesty and greatness as attaching to the Deity suggested in “my God”?
SMcC As on the lips of Christ you mean?
GRC Yes, and our coming into it in some measure as alongside Him. I was thinking of the Old Testament name of relationship, Jehovah, and the fact that there are other great names such as Elohim and Jah. Is there not something similar in the New Testament, as not only is there the name involving relationship but the greatness of God as God - Christ’s God?
SMcC While we can stand alongside Christ as He says, “my God”, we must always understand that He can encompass depths of knowledge as to the Deity that we never could. We are alongside Him, however, and in the presence of it. It gives us a sense of adoration and prostration before the Deity.
GRC Do you think the assembly as a vessel can penetrate into the meaning of it as no other vessel can, as shown in the references to “the city of my God” and “glory to God in the assembly”?
SMcC Just so. If we keep in mind that, in using the word ‘penetrate’ we cannot with our creature and finite understanding go beyond what is revealed.
GMS Some of us have misinterpreted a statement by Mr. Raven in which he said that, as we are finite we could not think of the Lord as God and Man at one and the same time. Mr. Raven never intended to convey that the Lord was not both God and Man at one and the same time.
SMcC It is important to see that the Lord Himself stresses in John that He is God and Man at the same time.
“And no one has gone up into heaven, save he who came down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.”
GB Is there any difference in the name God when the Lord says, “my God” and when He says “your God”?
SMcC There is no difference in the name, but there is a difference in the apprehension. In His apprehension, “my God”, we must allow for what is unique. When we come to “our God”, it is the God fully revealed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we are governed by the revelation. The Lord Jesus, as a divine Person, has part in the Deity and therefore His knowledge must be unique.
ACSP Is it important to remember what you were saying this morning about the Spirit? “The water which I shall give him shall become in him”. Is it a question of room being made for the Spirit to give us capacity to understand that which could not otherwise be understood?
SMcC Just so. It is important that we see the necessity for the help of the Spirit in this great matter. We must understand that any latitude we have in such an exalted subject, as Mr. Taylor has said, is in the Spirit. In speaking in this way, God Himself desires to be known, not only in relation to the name Elohim, supreme being, but as He is to be known personally in so far as we can know Him in Christ.
J van S. Would you say a word in relation to Hebrews 11: 6?
SMcC “For he that draws near to God must believe that he is”. That is a clear statement as to His constant Being. He is not like us in that He did not begin to be, nor does He cease to be. “God is” refers to constant Being.
J van S. “To seek God out” - how would you apply that?
SMcC Hebrews 11 is not dealing with the service of God, it is dealing with the testimonial position; it is the realm of testimony.
J van S. My desire is to know how to seek Him out. You have referred to God in several settings. What is meant by seeking out?
SMcC “Without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who seek him out”. It means that you go to Him and pray to Him, cry to Him about matters. We have the idea in relation to the gospel in Acts 17, “If indeed they might feel after him” (verse 27).
AHD I understood you to say that we were governed by revelation but are you making a distinction in Christ’s knowledge of God in that His knowledge was not governed by revelation?
SMcC I would not say it was not governed, but rather that it was not limited to revelation.
AHD Is there something beyond that?
SMcC Certainly. He has part in Deity and therefore His knowledge must be unique, going beyond anything we could enter upon.
PL Would you say that it is not just something beyond, but everything beyond?
SMcC Exactly, although we are brought into it in so far as we can be brought into it.
PL The Lord’s knowledge is infinite.
SMcC Yes, and our knowledge is finite, but our knowledge here, is, “my God, and your God”. It is the same God, but His knowledge, being a divine Person, must go beyond ours. Who appreciated God in revelation in the way Christ did in perfect Manhood! The whole testimony of His sonship in John bears on that involving His appreciation of God, and how He lived in relation to Him. “I do always those thing which please the Father”.
AH Would you say that we are helped in the apprehension of this as we understand that the Deity Itself delights to be known. John 17: 3, “That they should know thee, the only true God”.
SMcC Sometimes when the word Deity is used, it is thought that we are referring necessarily to what is inscrutable. Deity is inscrutable, but then God has come out in revelation and is known in Christ so that we should not be afraid of it in that sense.
Rem Would you say a word as to the doxology in 1 Timothy 1, “Now to the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God, honour and glory to the ages of ages. Amen “. How far is the apostle going in his mind in using that expression?
SMcC He says, “the blessed and only Ruler shall shew, the King of those that reign, the Lord of those that exercise lordship; who only has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”. He is referring to God in His essential Being, unknowable by us in the realm of unapproachable light. We are not dealing with unapproachable light in John 20, we have approachable light. We have first, God known as Father, and then the Name which alludes to the full thought of Deity. God is the final thought in the Name, “my God and your God”. We begin with that in Genesis, God is the primary thought, and God is the final thought.
AR Would the enjoyment of the relationship of Father and all that would mean, help us in passing on to the further thought of God? We have, as you have said, in these different passages, the Father and then God. Is the knowledge of the Father the way to God?
SMcC Just so, otherwise we might be overawed by the majesty of the One whom Christ refers to as, “my God, and your God”. In the setting of “my Father, and your Father”, we are with God as known in that relationship and in all the nearness - and intimacy of which that relationship speaks. How precious it is; how near we are to Him - “nearer we could not be” - and then we come to this great Name “God”, which elicits worship; the majesty and greatness of who He is, nevertheless drawn near to us, as He has in grace, to be known in a personal way; God Himself.
APCL He says, “I have not yet ascended to my Father”. That statement stands by itself. Do you think there is something unique even in relation to His place with the Father?
SMcC I am sure there is. We are brought through grace into association with Him as the Son of God, but sonship in Him is unique, everything from the angels and from Adam onwards looking on to the incarnation. Everything afterwards looks back to the incarnation, the uniqueness of sonship in the Manhood of Christ.
WJB Can you help us as to the thought of God in His Own essential Being? Has that thought a place in the service of God?
SMcC It has in so far as we are able to know Him with finite minds. Whilst the name Jehovah is the name of relationship, it is peculiarly the personal name of God, the personal name of Him who is Elohim, the Supreme Being. Jehovah is the personal and abiding name and indicates to us His desire, not only to be known according to His almighty power, El Shaddai, but He wants to be known as far as He can be known in what He is in Himself. God is love - that is absolute.
WJB Would there be something answering to, “To him be honour and eternal might. Amen”, in the service of God?
SMcC Yes. The majesty and might and the glory which David alluded to, and our hymn book too (which we thank God for) has furnished us richly with outlets in that regard.
WH While there is that which is beyond us, it but awakens the spirit of reverence and worship in our hearts.
SMcC That is it. It is well to keep in mind all the time, that there is that which is beyond us, not at any particular time, but all the time we are in a realm where we are faced with inscrutability. With the Lord Jesus as Man, we have to recognise who He is in His essential Being.
Rem Chapter 20: 12 refers to the head and the feet and the angels. Would the teaching of that enter into our understanding the message given to Mary?
SMcC That occurred to one this morning; I have never noticed it before. We have always linked the feet with Luke where the Lord presents Himself. In John 20, however, the “feet” are to remind us of the way of love, as we are moving towards these great and exalted levels of the truth where God is known as God and as He is. Verse 12, “where the body of Jesus lay” reminds us of love’s way.
WH Would John 12 support that? Mary anointed His feet in view of His entry into death.
SMcC Just so, and the head would remind us of the uniqueness of the Person that was there in Manhood. An address was given the other day as to the name of the angel in Judges, “How is it that thou askest after my name, seeing it is wonderful” (13: 18) and then “he did wondrously”. I think the word ‘wonderful’ links with the head, and ‘did wondrously’ links with the feet, suggesting the way of love in which He moved in the economy into which He had come. Do you think that would be so?
AJG Yes and perhaps be carried forward in this way as leading to the Father, do you think?
SMcC Just so.
PL So that His feet are inferred in the expression “stood” (verse 19)?
SMcC Yes. The way of love not only included going down into death, but also the ascent into the presence of His Father and our Father, His God and our God.
JM Is it interesting that the feet are mentioned in Exodus 24: 10, “under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire”? This is the first mention of the God Israel of which would suggest relationship and at the end of that passage it says, “they saw God”. Is that a progressive thought?
SMcC I am not getting your thought.
JM I was wondering if the God of Israel might link with the thought of the Father in the New Testament, and the feet with the way love has been expressed, leading to the final thought of seeing God, in John 20.
SMcC I think that is suggestive - something to think over and reflect on.
AEM As some young persons may not understand this great subject, is it not comforting to recall that the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit was called over them at baptism? Had this in view their coming under the service of divine Persons so that they might learn to worship Them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the service of God.
SMcC I am sure that is important. We have to do with God from the beginning in our primary relations on Christian ground. We have also to do with Him finally in that exalted way on assembly ground.
PL We come into the knowledge initially by the way of baptism - burial - these thoughts of baptism and burial being preserved in view of our disappearance in relation to all that would be merely mental. Do you not think that there is an indication in the baptism in Matthew of the importance of our disappearing in order to be conversant and at home in all that attaches to divine Persons?
SMcC Just so. As the truth of our baptism is maintained in that way, there would be the disallowance of all that would hinder our entrance into the full light of God as in John 20.
PL I thought all that was intensified in the word ‘circumcision’ in Philippians 3: 3. As worshippers of God, we are of the circumcision.
SMcC Just so. “Who boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”.
In Ephesians 3 we see how the exalted features of assembly knowledge bring the apostle to his knees. This is an important matter. We have been speaking about the woman of Samaria, and the woman in John 20, and now we have the apostle, the great minister, in prayer in a priestly attitude. This emphasises the essential need of a spiritual State. The power of His Spirit, is a wonderful allusion; strengthening us with power in the inner man - marked with such fulness - “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus”. In that verse we see the wondrous fulness of the mediatorial position.
APCL Does Paul show his knowledge of the Father when he says, “according to the riches of his glory”?
SMcC He does. It is a remarkable reference, “according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. It is His glory, His Spirit, and how affecting that is!
WSS Is the reference to the Father not remarkable here? He says, “that he - the Father - may give you”. The Father gives us by the Spirit to know all things.
SMcC Just so. The knowledge of the Father in these passages, and the apprehension of the Father in His activities, are all means to an end. They are not the end, and we are not to make them the end. The great end is, as we have in John 20, “my God, and your God”, and then “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages” - it alludes back to God in verse 19.
WSS It seems such a wonderful thing that there is a suggestion here of the Father serving us by the Spirit to this end.
SMcC One has often been affected by the thought of the Father’s Spirit. Generally, when we speak of the spirit of a person, we think of the inward side of things, and we are impressed with “inwardness” in this whole realm of operations, involving such power. The Father’s Spirit is to strengthen us.
AJG Do you mean that the Father’s Spirit would give us the capacity to have before us the whole range of glory of which the Father is the source? Does it also suggest the Father’s thoughts and feelings in regard to Christ who is the centre of it?
SMcC That is what I thought. This allusion to, “riches of His glory”, and to the great domain that is in mind, is not something that is altogether beyond us. While infinitude enters into it, the strengthening by the Father’s Spirit would help us to apprehend and enjoy it.
AJG Would you say that sons should be able to enter intelligently into all the Father’s interests?
SMcC Just so.
WBS Does that lead us to a point in the assembly service where the response takes more the character of ascribing glory to God?
SMcC It takes that form here, although it is interesting to notice how the mediatorial position is carefully guarded, “ to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus”. Years ago, some thought we reached a point in the service of God when we went beyond the mediatorial side of things and we did not need to say, “in the name of the Lord Jesus”; that will never do. We never get beyond what is mediatorial, and never will even in eternity.
AH Would you say more as to that, please? You said, some used to omit, “in the name of the Lord Jesus”. I believe it would help if you enlarged on that.
SMcC Some did in certain parts, but it was not general. They thought that we reached God in His supremacy, and we went beyond the mediatorial side of things so that we need not use or finish with, “in the name of the Lord Jesus”. We have to be governed by scripture and it says plainly, “Whatever ye may do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by him” (Colossians 3: 17).
AEM Even in praising the Lord you would always finish, “in the name of the Lord Jesus”.
SMcC Certainly, because we are in a mediatorial position. We are in a mediatorial state of things and all things are to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus: we never get outside of that.
HSM We find there is a lack of liberty in speaking to God, having in mind Father, Son, and Spirit. Why do you think there is this lack of liberty?
SMcC I can only speak for one’s own locality and what one has noticed in meetings in the north and around. There is liberty in speaking to God, known in the three Persons. There may be a lack of liberty in certain quarters, but I have noticed that, generally in movements among the meetings, there is liberty to speak to God, known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
AR Would it be right in addressing God to name the three Persons?
SMcC Just so. It is important to see what is involved in the full revelation of God in the three Persons. It does not necessarily mean that every time we name the three Persons, nor does it mean that we exclude the naming of the three Persons. We may speak to God as God without referring to Each of the Persons in Their several names, but we may, and are intended to speak to God having in mind the three Persons in Their several names.
AR It would not be out of place to do so.
AH Would you say that Ephesians 3: 21 involves the cherished thought of the man and the woman, and would that link up with Hebrews 2: 12, Christ praising God in the assembly?
SMcC No doubt. This verse is a very full one, “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”. It not only includes fulness in regard to the three divine Persons, but also brings in the three ways in which those that compose the assembly are seen - the brethren of Christ, the bride and wife of Christ, and the sons of God. It is a very inclusive verse, inclusive of the three divine Persons, and the fulness of the teaching in regard to our relationship with Them.
GRC Do you mean we carry forward in the service the features you have mentioned - the idea of the brethren, and of the bride and wife, into this final phase? We do not leave them behind.
SMcC We do not. They are carried forward and all the wealth linked with each of those phases enters into and augments the final thought in the service of God. We are not speaking of them, but they are there, and with them the wealth, the known love and affection linked with them.
AEM You could not worship God in the highest sense unless you go that way.
SMcC That is it; that is just the point.
GRC The active love of the Christ would give impulse to all that goes on in the assembly in Christ Jesus.
SMcC Just so. The verse, “to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge” is a remarkable reference. It reminds us of His part in Deity, as although the allusion is to Him as Man, the Christ, the reference is clearly to His Deity. It could never be said of a creature, but is said of One who has His place in Deity, and yet is before us as Man.
APCL That One has a place in each of our hearts. It is not exactly in the assembly heart, but in your hearts through faith.
SMcC Very good. It reminds us of the realm of sonship, what we are in this wonderful domain of glory, the Father’s domain. We begin with the Father’s embrace, the Father strengthening us, and we enjoy it according to our individual impressions of Himself and of Christ.
APCL I wondered as to that, because femininity is connected with the assembly as the woman becomes the bride. Yet response to God is in sonship.
- .G. Would you say a word as to “filled to all the fulness of God”? It is not filled with.
SMcC It is the objective side; we are filled to it. The fulness alludes to what has come out as God has shone out in Christ. God intended that there should be an answer to the outshining, and the answer is found in the assembly.
PL And in the heavenly city, would you say, as having the glory of God?
SMcC 1 Corinthians 15 should help us in regard to the finality of things. It says, “when he gives up the kingdom to him who is God and Father” (verse 24). Mr. Darby’s note “r” is interesting - “It is almost impossible to render the Greek idiom, which unites with one article either two qualities of the same person, or two persons under the same quality. But I prefer this awkward English to ‘God, even the Father’, because this phrase is uncertain in doctrine, and might be used as meaning that the Father only is God, which is not the sense.” In Ephesians chapter 5: 20 we have the same allusion “giving thanks at all times for all things to him who is God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The note “y” to that verse says, “’To him who is’. This alone gives the sense. ‘God even the Father’ might be taken as meaning that the Father only is God, and it is far from exact as a translation.” All this is to help us in our consideration of the matter of the knowledge of God.
GRC In a note elsewhere as to the article, Mr. Darby says, where it appears before a noun by itself, it means the totality of the thing. That occurs in verse 28, “that God may be all in all”, and also in Ephesians 3, “the fulness of God”; it is the totality of Deity.
SMcC Just so. This passage is very impressive. It begins with the delivering up or giving up of the kingdom, “to him who is God and Father; when he shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power”. It goes on to say, “when all things shall have been brought into subjection to him, then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”. It would never do to say that the Father might be all in all, or that He who is God and Father might be all in all, because that would exclude the Lord and the Spirit. An end is in mind in the giving up of the kingdom to Him who is God and Father, and in the Son being placed in subjection, and that end is God. God is the final thought, “that God might be all in all “.
AH Is this really the filling out of, “from eternity to eternity thou art God”?
SMcC It would embrace that, although I think our verse involves more. “From eternity to eternity thou art God”, refers to what abides and is an allusion to supremacy. 1 Corinthians 15 includes that, but involves more “that God may be all in all”.
PL Has it not been said that “all” is objective, and “in all” character?
SMcC Just so.
APCL Do you think when it says, “the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection”, the apostle had something definite in mind in that the reference is changed from “the Christ” who has been mentioned in the whole chapter until that point?
SMcC That is a very good reference. The Spirit of God, through Paul, is reminding us of the greatness and the Deity of the Person who takes the place of subjection in the liberty of love in Manhood. The Son is the name of that Person.
APCL “And shall be placed” is as having come into Manhood.
SMcC All is in the liberty of love. The word “placed” suggests that. It is not an arbitrary exercise of power; it is in the liberty of love, because no divine Person could impose a position upon another divine Person in conditions of Deity.
PL Have we not reached now a point in this scripture when all evil has been dealt with and a region for love’s complacency and satisfaction eternally is established?
SMcC Just so. It helps us to see that the economy abides. The divine economy into which God has come and is known in these wondrous relations, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, abides and goes through. The Son remains in Manhood. He does not give up His Manhood. His Manhood is retained, because we shall never know God apart from His Manhood.
APCL I was thinking of Philippians, “taking his place in the likeness of men” (2: 7). The Son takes His place as Man, and in that sense in relation to men.
SMcC That is a beautiful touch. The word “place” is distinctive, as we think of what is related to it. “Then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”. The Son in Manhood is before us, but behind all the relations in the economy, behind all the grace and love seen in the economy, there are the inscrutable relations in Deity. We cannot bind Them to any position into which They come and in which They may be viewed by us.
EGJ What is involved in the kingdom here? Is it an abstract thought, or does it include all that are in it?
SMcC I think it is an abstract thought. The kingdom goes through. There is the eternal side of the kingdom. All that the kingdom is at the present time in meeting the principle of sin and lawlessness finishes, but the kingdom in another sense continues through eternity, because God is God and we are men.
WH And, “To the King Eternal”, would suggest His position eternally in relation to the kingdom of God.
SMcC The thought of reigning also enters into it. Revelation 22 gives us the thought, “The Lord shall shine upon them, and they shall reign to the ages of ages” (verse 5). That involves eternity and shows that the kingdom in some form or another continues, not on the official side in dealing with sin and lawlessness, but from the side of love, rule, and control. God is God and we are creatures.
GRC In the eternal sense in Revelation 21, “He that sat on the throne said, Behold I make all things new”, the throne is still there.
SMcC Very good.
LH I would like to ask about “placed in subjection”. Would that be the final working out of the arrangement between the three divine Persons before time?
SMcC What is arrived at in finality in relation to God and man, is in accord with the eternal purposes and counsels of God.