THE SELECTION OF VESSELS
[p. 321] THE SELECTION OF VESSELS
Romans 9:23,24; Acts 9:15,16; 2 Timothy 2:20,21
JT The subject proposed occasions opportunity to speak of divine choice in the selection of vessels; hence, extending back to the divine counsels and coming down to ourselves, as the word read in verse 23 indicates: “that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory, us, whom he has also called”. So that the ‘us’ may apply at any time to those to whom it applies. ‘Us’ — lifting us out of the mere circumstances of time and of human distinction into the divine way from the beginning and the divine choice, and that it reaches, as Peter says, even to us, for we are among those who are chosen, as we read, “that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory, us, whom he has also called, not only from amongst the Jews, but also from amongst the nations?” So that God brings the great subject down to ourselves; and, of course, it is with the thought that we might understand that the choice is not to go back, that it is made and applies to us who have our part publicly in history, but have seen that the choice is for us to value and understand and enjoy, qualifying us even for a variety of things, but it being basic directs us to divine choice and what it is intended for.
ANW The excellence of the idea shows up, does it not, by the dark background and the contrary vessels which are said in the earlier verse to be fitted? I thought of the excellency of the word ‘prepared’ as distinct from ‘fitted’. Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, but these vessels of mercy prepared.
[p. 322] JT Very good.
ANW It does not allow for the preparation for those vessels. That is not in the idea, is it?
JT Thus we can understand such men as Judas and the beast. It is said of Judas that he went to his own place, as if he were fitted for it in the sense of destruction, the word ‘destruction’ not meaning obliteration but in a moral sense. The lake of fire will afford thought for this matter when the time comes for the persons fitted for destruction; it will be found that their places were there. Terrible. You might say no one else can fill them. Each has his own place. Poor Judas went to his own place.
WFK Are these vessels for service?
JT Those that we read about are, yes.
WFK They obtain mercy first before they can serve.
JT Quite so. They are prepared, “which he had before prepared for glory”, over against the dark, dark realm of the lost. Their identity remains; the identity of each remains. This present time, too, has afforded for us to solemnly picture to our minds what sin is. The man of sin is presently to come. These men who have already come and have gone sought, under Satan’s influence, to take things into their own hands and shut God out. They have gone to their own place, and we cannot but be affected by the manner of their going. What sin is, and what a warning it is to any of us, to young people to abhor sin for it is lawlessness in whomsoever it may be; whether he be a great man as the world speaks, or an ordinary person very little known if at all, yet sin is lawlessness and the person who sins has his own place assigned to him according to the books. It is all written down. The books were opened, we are told, so that there is no doubt about it. Each is assigned his place, and the beast and the false prophet are, you might say, the first of living men, or men [p. 323] who have part in history here to go into it. They are cast alive into the lake of fire.
ANW Although that place was prepared for the devil and his angels, two men were the first to go into it.
JT There is a word which confirms what you say fully. I believe it is in Isaiah 30:33, “For Topheth is prepared of old; for the king also it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; its pile is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it”. I thought of that as you mentioned it; “for the king also it is prepared”. Whether it be Satan or some great ones like him, it is prepared; God Himself ignites it.
CE As looking at these vessels of mercy, do you not think we ought to greatly value our position before God?
JT That is what I was thinking, that this afternoon it might come home to us what we are prepared for: “before prepared for glory”. And now that the history has told out what has happened in the great scheme of redemption and the Spirit having come, it is for us to lay hold of the great fact and enjoy it and find ourselves fully prepared for glory.
FHL In the beginning of John 17 the Lord says, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me”, John 17:6. Would not the eleven appear as vessels of mercy prepared for glory as over against Judas?
JT Just so. None of them was lost but the son of perdition. There is the one singled out; the others were the prepared ones, prepared for glory.
AR When does this preparing take place?
JT It is a question, I would say, of history; a spiritual history, of course, but it is history, anyway, whatever it be. The preparation takes place in history, and when the time comes for the fulfilment of the prophetic word, that is, a prophetic word [p. 324] indicating the divine mind, we shall see or we do see, indeed, how it is that the brethren are just of that kind characteristically. So that in John 17, as it has just been remarked, the Lord speaks of those whom the Father gave Him. “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee; as thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal. And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. The eleven, as has just been remarked — the twelve is the number designated or singled out in John’s gospel peculiarly, but the others are also singled out as prepared for glory in the history of this book or this gospel and the other gospels, but particularly John shows how the preparation took place and how each fell into his niche in the scheme. So the test came in John 6; it is a very long chapter in the book. The test came by certain going away. They went away back, we are told, and walked no more with Him. The Lord did not send any after them as if they could be saved; not but what that principle may arise too, because it does: persons who go away are saved, restored, but these apparently are not: those alluded to in chapter 6. The Lord says, “Will ye also go away?” The ‘ye’ refers to the eleven, although publicly it referred to Judas as well; he was there. The Lord made it plain that he spoke of Judas, that he was a devil. There is no hope of a devil being saved, none at all. He will never be saved; he is fitted for destruction. And now in history when the test comes out Peter answers the Lord saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”, John 6:68, just as we had it in chapter 17. The Lord was in the place of giving there and they were the ones who were examples of those who should receive it; as many as the Father gave Him that they should have eternal life. Peter says, however, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal; and we have believed and known”, meaning that this brings out who they are, and how we can discern that they are the ones, or examples of the ones who are prepared; they are prepared before. Hence, Peter announces the fact that they had believed and known that Christ was the holy One of God. And then the Lord says, “Have not I chosen you the twelve? and of you one is a devil”, John 6:70, so as to remove any possible doubt as to Judas, that he was a devil, not a demon but a devil; that is different from demons; he was a devil.
RWS Is there a link between these vessels of mercy before prepared for glory and the good works which God has before prepared in Ephesians? I thought of what you said in regard to history, what enters into history. It seems that God has prepared the vessels and God has prepared the good works for the vessels. He has prepared the persons and then He has prepared the good works that we should walk in them.
JT That is good, showing that the purpose of God is exemplified in the persons who are chosen; it is exemplified in their good works. The good works themselves are ordained or prepared for them, all showing that God is the Source of everything for Himself.
JS Is Judas one who resisted His purpose? “Who resists his purpose?” Romans 9:19.
JT It is said in the verse you allude to, “Thou wilt say to me then, Why does he yet find fault? for who resists his purpose?” This is a challenging voice, challenging God; the natural mind lifting itself up to challenge God.
JS It enters into history, does it not?
JT Just so. The apostle says, “Aye, but thou, O man, who art thou that answerest again to God?
[p. 326] Shall the thing formed say to him that has formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Or has not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour? And if God, minded to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction”. So that the answer is overwhelming; a worm of the dust, as we might say, undertaking to challenge God in what He is doing.
JS Hence Judas went to his own place.
JT Quite so.
AR Does the preparing take place before we are born, as with Jacob and Esau?
JT Well, that is another thing that comes up, but the thought of God was there before as in the case of Esau, before they were born, before they knew anything to do good or evil, we are told in the early part of the chapter. That raises a great deal of question. It says in Genesis 2, “These are the histories of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens, and every shrub of the field before it was in the earth”, Genesis 2:4,5. There are concurrent facts alluded to, but it is before the thing happened, before the purpose grew. The purpose of God is there and He knows it, but the question is, Who else knows it until history brings it out? So again, another illustration that some of us have had before us lately is in Psalm 139: “I will praise thee, for I am fearfully, wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My bones were not hidden from thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my unformed substance, and in thy book all my members were written; during many days were they fashioned, when as yet there was none of them”, Psalm 139:14 - 16. So that we are [p. 327] challenged as to how much we know as to these abstract or inactual things that would become actual presently. We are challenged as to whether we can know these things or whether they are not just within the divine realm of knowledge alone, whether we can say when they happen and whether we can distinguish between the abstract happening and the concrete happening.
ANW In that connection, would you emphasise the words ‘in him’ in Ephesians 1, where we are told He has chosen us before the world’s foundation? That would be the abstract thought and what is not actual. Would you underline the words ‘in him’?
JT Just so. The ‘in him’ would have some actual being or existence but whether the creature mind can take that in is a question, or whether it does not belong to the divine mind alone. How can we say that we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world? That is intelligible, but it is a question whether we can take that further; whether there is in some sense a concrete evidence which only the divine mind could speak of. Therefore, is it not so that we can begin with the choice in Christ before the foundation of the world as having in the divine mind at any rate an actual person although from the other point of view only abstract, awaiting the concrete, until we are actually in existence by the work of God?
WR The scripture really makes it very searching for us: vessels of mercy.
JT It does, indeed, make it very testing for us as to what we are actually engaged in at this moment, and what it is possible for us to be engaged in. We have to regard God from the time of the beginning of His purpose, that everything was there before Him. I would think, for instance, take any one of us — God could look on to him walking here on the earth. The works that God had prepared for him to walk in [p. 328] were before the mind of God. Why can God not thus speak of things? Why can He not? And why cannot we, by the Spirit, lay hold of these great things and see how great the things are that we are engaged in, and how we should lay aside all else in view of them?
APT The last verse of Psalm 22:31 reads, “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it”. That is a prophetic touch, is it not, in relation to what God has in His mind? Would that fit in with what God has in His mind in relation to persons coming into blessing?
JT I think the Psalm contemplates the concrete in some sense. It is a prophetic word. Psalm 22 is well known to us — the great sorrow psalm of the Lord Jesus, the great suffering psalm in which He was forsaken of God and the consequences of it. So the psalmist does not stop until he tells us about the concrete results, and the first great one is in Psalm 22:22: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear Jehovah, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and revere him, all ye the seed of Israel”. That is history, but it is prophecy before it is history. The Lord in speaking of the results of His redemptive work says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren”. That is a prophetic announcement that the Lord would have brethren but the Lord had to wait for that. It requires the full redemptive work of Christ for the concrete thing to come into existence. Well now, that is verse 22. Psalm 22:30 says, “A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation”. That is prophetic. “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born”, that still is future and prophetic but it is presently going to be and has now become a fact: namely, a people shall be born. “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it”. When the concrete comes into full evidence, the testimony will be that the Lord Jesus has done it but counsel was there before. And God can begin with counsel; as it says He can call the things that be not as though they were, and hence, God can look down the ages and see us as we are here today. In eternal ages He can look down and see us as we are here today and as we shall be in eternity, so that the history really begins with God; whether we treat it as prophetic history or actual history it begins with God.
CFN So in connection with what you read from John 17:6 the word is, “They were thine, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word”. Those three sentences enter into what you have in mind — purpose. “They were thine, and thou gavest them me”, would be history, and “they have kept thy word”, would be a concrete idea.
JT Quite so; the fulfilment of the works that God had prepared, that they should walk in them.
RWS That really affected Paul, I suppose, so that he says, “O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? or who has first given to him, and it shall be rendered to him? For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen”, Romans 11:33 - 36.
JT Very wonderful, because it brings the whole matter together, as it were, of the divine counsels and the concrete result of them. All come together in the mind and in the fact, too, so that we are obligated now according to what we have been saying to look into these matters and see whether we are able to go on with them in any practical way. It says, “that he might make known the riches of his glory”, not simply that that might be in counsel but “that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory, us, whom he has also called, not only from amongst the Jews, but also from amongst the nations?” Romans 9:23. So that we have actual evidences now.
AI Would you link in any way with these exalted thoughts which you are expressing to us, the man in 1 Corinthians 5? How would you link him on with this idea of vessels of mercy?
JT Do you mean the man that was put away? Do you want to bring out that that man is prepared for glory? Fully. He vindicated himself in that according to the second epistle. They had brought the tidings to the apostle of what had come about and he rejoiced. It is the bringing out of the very thing we are speaking of. It is not only that he should be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus but he was already saved in the present day. The day of the Lord Jesus would allude to the future, but it also includes the assembly’s day; the day in which great things are happening in the members of the assembly.
AR God has put us in relation to each other in His sovereignty. That is a great point, is it?
JT That is the practical point as to what we are going on with and what it means to us. Does it mean anything at all to us that we can talk of these things and picture ourselves as in them, as prepared for glory? The time of glory in one sense according to Romans is come, because it says, “but whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”, Romans 8:30. The thing has taken place already in the presence of the Spirit in us.
JAP The Holy Spirit in that way helps us to be concrete. It says, “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 [p. 331] love him, but God has revealed to us by his Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 2:9.
JT So that the thing, according to Paul’s method in Corinth, has already taken form; and the brethren, I am sure, will remember in referring back to the two letters to Corinth how much Paul says about himself in both epistles, and what can it be but to bring before them that he was realising the thing that he was speaking of? God has revealed them to us by His Spirit; so that he would say that to them to the end that if young persons there perhaps were not going in much for things — Paul is an example, and so is Timothy. So he says, “For this reason I have sent to you Timotheus, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ”, 1 Corinthians 4:17. The thing was taking form, and why not? It is the assembly’s day. It is the Spirit’s day, and it is Christ’s day, too, in a sense, but especially the Spirit’s day. This dispensation may be regarded as the Spirit’s day and what He is doing.
APT Peter puts the Spirit of glory first. He says, “For the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”, 1 Peter 4:14. That is rather interesting, that he puts it in that way. It rests on the saints now. Is there something in that?
JT Quite so.
APT It rests on you: would that be the way we move in and out amongst the brethren?
JT Quite so — what you say. Take Stephen as an example. All that were in the council looked on him and saw his face as it had been the face of an angel, Acts 6:15; a heavenly being, you might say, already.
WR Would you have this same thought worked out in Hebrews 2. I was wondering as to the divine choice in the selection of the vessel. “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to [p. 332] make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings”, Hebrews 2:10. So that you have the vessels there and the Lord Jesus the perfect Vessel, as it were.
JT Yes, the perfect Vessel, and He is perfected; not in the sense that He was not perfect at any time in the ordinary sense, but He is perfected through sufferings. He had not gone through death yet, and He needed to come through death in the sense of suffering so that the perfection might take form in Him; and, therefore, we are associated with Him. The author of our salvation is made perfect through sufferings. We are perfected, too, in that we are of Him. As it says, “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Hebrews 2:11. Therefore, the thing has already taken place and it must be so if the assembly has concrete evidence, and it has concrete evidence.
JAP Peter and John say, “Look on us”, Acts 3:4. Would that man be a vessel of mercy prepared for glory?
JT Quite so. “Look on us”. So that Paul was concerned that that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ should be filled out. There was something behind. The saints were lagging behind, I would think, especially at Corinth, but he had in mind that the whole matter should be filled out and that involves suffering. Therefore, the assembly comes out both in time and eternity as the wife of the Lamb; that is, the Sufferer. She belongs to Him; she is the filling out of Himself as the Sufferer.
WFK Would you regard Acts 9 as an example of the elect vessel?
JT I thought we might see that as to the saints — for use. An elect vessel to Me, the Lord says; the Lord, as it were, making him elect in a special way, for use in the assembly. He is showing how things are [p. 333] to be done.
WFK He has to go to the assembly first and be told there.
JT Quite so. That, of course, would come into it, but the great thought the Lord had in a very concrete way was, He is an elect vessel unto me, Acts 9:15, and He said that because Ananias was questioning him. He was not sure. He did not think the Lord could be right about that, but how serious that is. Ananias was not like Judas; Judas complained about Mary of Bethany, but Ananias complained about Paul, telling the Lord how he had heard certain things about him, but the Lord says, He is an elect vessel unto Me. The Lord silenced all that in Ananias and saved Ananias for service to this great servant.
RWS Is there a difference between Peter being made something and Paul being an elect vessel?
JT I would think that as to the word ‘elect’. What a vessel he was! What pleasure the Lord must have had in him! “An elect vessel unto me”; not simply an elect vessel, but unto the Lord. I suppose the Lord would say there is none like him. There is only one Paul. He had to do a great work, and that work would culminate in the assembly; hence, the allusion in Ephesians particularly and many other places to that: “With a view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ; until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”, Ephesians 4:12,13. Paul was in all that. It was in the Lord’s mind equal in value to the thing itself that there should be such a vessel, such workmanship.
DP What is the thought in Jeremiah 18 about the vessels there? One of the vessels was marred in the potter’s hand. “And the vessel that he made was marred, as clay, in the hand of the potter; and he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make”, Jeremiah 18:4. What is the thought in that?
JT I would think that would be the trial with the first man as compared with the complete success of the second. He establishes the second. That is the principle that comes out there, and enters into what we are saying. He takes away the first that He might establish the second. The second was what was in the Lord’s mind. Adam was not in His counsels at all in the sense of which we are talking of them. He is taken away in the sense of being the first. Adam must come into the second on another principle; that is, the principle of the counsels of God and the work of God as a believer. Adam must come in as a believer, but the point is that Jeremiah sees the worker on the wheels. “The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words”. As if God would let the historical speak and simplify His words. God could have done this without the prophet going down to the potter’s house, but He is going to show His words by the actual facts. Hence, it says, “And I went down to the potter’s house; and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels”. This is the trial; we must connect this with Adam’s formation. “And the vessel that he made was marred, as clay, in the hand of the potter; and he made it again another vessel”. This brings us down to the second, that is, Christ: “another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make”. “Seemed good” — notice that; the word ‘seemed’ would allude to eternal purpose. “And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, House of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith Jehovah. Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are ye in my hand, house of Israel. At the moment that I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to [p. 335] destroy, if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, then I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at the moment that I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant, if it do evil in my sight, that it hearken not unto my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. And now, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I prepare evil against you, and devise a device against you: turn ye then every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings”. That is, receive the gospel, you might say; how God tested out the first subject, and, of course, He had a right to make a test, to make a trial, to bring out what Adam was, what that type of man was; but then He had in His mind all the time the second Man out of heaven, and that is what this alludes to, as it says here, “And the vessel that he made was marred, as clay, in the hand of the potter; and he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make”. That brings out what God has effected in Christ.
ANW It says “as clay” in Jeremiah 18:4; it is like Romans 9:21; the clay is referred to. In Jeremiah there is a broken vessel that is never mended.
JT That is all very solemn and no doubt some of us have gone over it in gospel services and the like, but it all is seen worked out in the redemptive work of Christ — how the fact is established.
FHL Would you not say that the Lord was preparing Saul during the three days? He takes the clay and makes the vessel to honour, it says, 2 Timothy 2:20?
JT Would you read on, please.
FHL You were referring to the scripture as to his being an elect vessel. I was wondering if spiritual formation to make the vessel was not in view in the three days of [p. 336] blindness.
JT Quite so. It was all what the Lord Jesus had in His mind, and He would work out a man like Himself in the divine service, and hence the wonderful results in Paul’s ministry. Take, for instance, Ephesians 3. He says to the Ephesians, “ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ”, Ephesians 3:4. What a workman he was! What intelligence he had!
AI Does the apostle have in mind what we are speaking of when he says in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”? Would presenting our bodies enter into what you are saying in relation to the vessel?
JT That is just it. When you come to the hortatory part of the epistle you see the doctrine of the epistle worked out practically in chapter 12. Then you have the work of God coming into mind in the chapter we read in Acts. What a thought God had as to the kind of man; he is an elect vessel unto me, the Lord says. As the Father thought of the Son, the second Man out of heaven — so Paul would be the continuation of that; not, of course, a divine Person, just a creature, but still wonderfully wrought out for the perfection of God’s work in the assembly.
APT We should try to help everyone that is on this line. Our position in the testimony should be to help every brother whom God is taking up, not having any jealousy or anything like that; but help the brother. He is an elect vessel; help him along in the work.
JT Do you mean a weak brother?
APT I was thinking of Ananias. He was more or less trying to dictate to the Lord about this servant. I only suggested that we should try to help any brother whom the Lord has elected to serve Him and His people.
JT [p. 337] Make the most of him. It is a question of what the Lord has taken up, however weak. The work is going on and we all have our part in it. That is very practical for all of us.
Rem I noticed you brought forward the vessel prepared for glory before the vessel for service. Had you anything in your mind?
JT The selection of the scriptures was very deliberate and we are dealing now with the question of service, what comes out in the servant, an elect vessel in the service; not a saint but a servant; not a son but a servant. It has a great place in Scripture as anybody will see who looks into it — the idea of a vessel for God’s pleasure.
Rem There are gradations, so to speak, in the vessel.
JT Just so.
ANW You can carry election back prior to his birth and then the setting apart at his birth, and then the calling, I suppose, on the way to Damascus.
JT Quite so.
CFN So that his service would be coloured by the service of Christ. As he serves he would reflect glory.
JT What a servant may be in the Lord’s mind in the classified sense, because He has a classified system of servants. He has His Paul, “an elect vessel unto me”, and He has His John, whom Jesus loved, and He has His Peter, and so we cannot number them; but there are classifications.
GFN So that here, as you say, it is very dignified. It says, “to bear my name before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel”.
JT The Lord had all that in mind to work out this wonderful vessel that was there before Ananias. The Lord had all that in His mind about him, and [p. 338] Ananias takes it upon him to question the Lord Jesus Himself about him.
JS You would regard Paul as in training from his birth up?
JT He was taken up in that sense and even things he did before he was converted could be turned into account. The Lord could turn them into account.
AR The eleven were selected on the basis of sovereignty. Paul’s selection is really greater in that sense than the eleven.
JT Just so; “last of all, as to an abortion, he appeared to me also”.
APT In 1 Corinthians 12 which you quoted in prayer at the outset, you referred to “And God has set certain in the assembly”, 1 Corinthians 12:28, and then prior to that it says, “God has set the members, each one of them in the body”, 1 Corinthians 12:18. How do you view those two thoughts in relation to service and anyone that God may take up like Paul?
JT I think it comes under the head of what we are saying; the head of classification. We are not all of the same value. It says in 1 Corinthians 12, “And God has set certain in the assembly: first, apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers; then miraculous powers; then gifts of healings; helps; governments; kinds of tongues”, etc. The same would apply in principle to the body. “Now ye are Christ’s body, and members in particular”, 1 Corinthians 12:27. We are not all of the same value, but each has his own value, and that is what gives variety and such pleasure in the Lord’s mind, and what pleasure He had in Paul; “an elect vessel unto me”.
And then as regards the passage in Timothy so as to keep to the subject, you see how fitting it is that it should be brought up in Timothy — this question of the great house, as if God would have that brought [p. 339] into this subject. What is pictured in the great house is the great profession today of servants. It says, “But in a great house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen; and some to honour, and some to dishonour”. That would indicate there are many who are not really converted at all. But then what one had in mind was this matter applied to the profession of Christianity, persons who are viewed as vessels — whether they are unto honour or dishonour. And verse 21 says, “If therefore one shall have purified himself from these” (that is, vessels unto dishonour), then we have the interpolation of the words there, “in separating himself from them” — these words are necessary to the understanding of the passage, that it implies separation. A person might say, It is not in the original, but it is a question of spiritual intelligence as putting in words that are needed to give the sense, the full sense of the Spirit of God in this passage. So that separation is needed to bring out in the persons who are ministering professedly, whether they are real or not. If they are not real they have to be separated from; a very solemn matter, whether we are allied with persons who are not really Christians, because the apostle says elsewhere, “lest after having preached to others I should be myself rejected”, 1 Corinthians 9:27. That is a very strong word, meaning he would not be saved at all. And so here persons who are to dishonour, who are questionable, you cannot say they are Christians, or that God so classifies them, and He says we must separate from them to be serviceable to the Master. We are constituted vessels to honour and sanctified and serviceable to the Master and prepared unto every good work if we are separate from vessels to dishonour. I thought it would be necessary to add this thought for us practically as to service in the midst of a mixed [p. 340] profession.
WR So that Paul can really hold himself up not only to Timothy but to the saints at large as a model believer. He speaks of his ways and manner of life.
JT Quite so. He sends Timothy to the Corinthians to illustrate that.
Rem I suppose we see the thought of separation in the latter clause of verse 19 as taking on the Name?
JT “Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”. It is that truth turned around into the great house principle.
JAP Is Daniel representative of this? Nebuchadnezzar took the vessels from Jerusalem but Daniel always maintained the principle of separation.
JT Quite so.
ANW While vessels to honour are mentioned in verse 20, they do not seem to appear really until this separation has taken place as in verse 21. There are vessels to honour and some to dishonour in verse 20, but the vessels to honour really come to light in separating themselves from the others.
JT Otherwise you would hardly discern them. If you meet with persons who are serving the Lord and they are mixing with worldly people who are serving, too, you can hardly discern the difference. There must be separation. That is why the translator put in these words that are in brackets, “in separating himself from them”. He marks himself off in that sense as acceptable.
RWS It is the Lord in Acts 9 but it is the Despot here in 2 Timothy. In verse 21 it is ‘Master’, and the note says, ‘despot’. He will brook no interference. He will not use one who is mixed with unclean vessels.
JT Just so. It makes it very solemn as to the persons who are turned out as ministers in the colleges and what the Master is going to say about them, whether they will pass muster or [p. 341] not.
WFK According to this scripture you are not serviceable unless you are separated, and yet persons are converted through them.
JT You have to leave that. You must also remember that you cannot always be sure of the converts that are spoken of.