THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT (4)
[p. 51] THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT (4)
JT The last verses read are suggested because they bear so much as to their teaching on the whole chapter, and they are intended to appeal to us here and now as to whether we hold on to the truth or leave it. “From that time” it says, “many of his disciples went away back and walked no more with him. Jesus therefore said to the twelve, Will ye also go away?” Peter’s reply is, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”. So it is in regard to this appeal that these final verses are read, because they should come home to us as to continuance in the truth. They are addressed to the twelve, and Judas is in mind as the traitor, showing how we are to be challenged by the truth in this sense. It is a very long chapter, 71 verses, but the words of eternal life govern the whole chapter.
JSSr This side is the eating rather than drinking, is it not?
JT Yes, the idea too of the bread of life coming down.
SMcC In the course of these meetings you have stressed more than once the thought of eternal life in John 6 as connected with what comes down. Would you open out a little more what is on your mind in connection with the coming down?
JT I think it ought to be borne in mind that eternal life in the main is for the earth. It is linked up with heaven, of course, hence the fourth chapter makes much of the water of life springing up, so that we have to keep the two thoughts in mind so as to have right balance. Eternal life is really here where death is, but at the same time there is the power to raise us up, however long we may have to [p. 52] wait. The last day will see it consummated; that we are to be raised up. The bread of life is to maintain us in life here where the testimony is, hence the first verse that we read; “Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto life eternal, which the Son of man shall give to you; for him has the Father sealed, even God”. It is a question of food or sustenance where the testimony is, and we are not to be making the natural everything, but what abides unto life eternal.
CAM I was wondering whether it would be right to connect the thought of the springing up, in chapter 4, with the words ‘abide’ and ‘dwell’ that so constantly occur in this passage; as to whether we reach a sort of objective in that way as to eternal life?
JT Just so, it abides, it goes through, because the millennial world will be a world of men as we are in flesh and blood, but then there has to be some change in order to condition us for eternity; and therefore the idea of continuance and of abiding, that death will not overtake us as a penalty, that we are to be raised up. There is a certainty as to it; we are to be raised up at the last day.
ANW The Lord speaks of the Spirit in the chapter as quickening, “It is the Spirit which quickens”. He has to say, “The flesh profits nothing”. Would you say where the Spirit comes in in this matter? Is it that He comes into every apprehension we may have of this and every other feature of the truth?
JT The question therefore is whether the Lord Jesus Himself comes along for us to change us, or whether the Spirit has a part in it too, and we may say, both are true. Romans 8 would say that the Spirit quickens, so that He too has a part in it.
ANW “Shall quicken your mortal bodies”, you [p. 53] mean.
JT Yes. Quickening our mortal bodies because of the Spirit which dwells in us. That would, of course, solve the question of eternity, and when we say eternity we must include eternal life; though eternal life in itself is more limited in thought. It has a peculiar application to the millennial day, in that God has a way of keeping men and women and children alive on this earth in that day. There will be ultimately new heavens and a new earth, “wherein dwells righteousness”, according to 2 Peter, and he says we await that. But in the meantime God will have His way as to things. The course of time evidently is divided up into seven periods, and we are coming on to the seventh day which is, I think, the millennial day. We are living within the period of testimony, the assembly has part in that. But in the last day God will raise us up; we come into that according to the promise; we come into the idea of being raised up even if we have to wait for the last day. At the same time there will be a life here on earth in the millennial day in which God will have His way and show that He can keep men alive on the earth without dying. I do not believe the millennium will be marked by death at all, although a man may live one hundred years and yet die, but in general the idea in the millennium is eternal life.
SMcC As to the millennium, do you regard it as quickly coming, or will there be a gradual development or change in things?
JT If we look at the prophetic side, I believe there will be a gradual change. But we have a complete idea as to the thing. The Lord Himself will not be here until the falling away happens, and I believe that will happen as soon as the assembly is taken to heaven. But then God will carry on His earthly thoughts as to Israel, His final thoughts, so that all Israel shall be saved; all Israel, meaning [p. 54] the whole twelve tribes. The whole divine ideal will be realised in the millennial day. It will be a wonderful day, marked out to show the devil and his upholders what God can do in spite of conditions. He can in general abolish death and keep men and women and children alive on the earth, because children are alluded to in the millennial day, and old men and old women too. The Lord is saying here that the Father will draw all that shall come to Him; the Father therefore will act in relation to the Lord. There will be a means of dealing with death and keeping men, as such, alive on the earth. That will be a triumph for God. John intends to show that.
RBP Would you say that the rapture and the resurrection are synchronous?
JT Well, they are for us, but what the Lord is going on to say here goes beyond that. That is, I believe the millennial day is in mind, but we come into something special; Israel is not, though Israel is in God’s purpose, “beloved for the fathers’ sakes”, Romans 11: 28. Things happen to them because of the fathers, but not so to us.
EP In relation to your references to Isaiah 65: 20 and death as referred to there, do you mean that that is not what will generally obtain in the millennium? It says there that “the youth shall die a hundred years old”. Are you saying that that will not generally obtain?
JT That is a sinner, that if a sinner arises, death will lay hold of him, but generally it is a question of life, and eternal life applies to that period. Eternal life applies to us too, but we are special; it applies in a peculiar way to us, because it leads into the assembly.
Ques Will the millennial day be just confined to [p. 55] Israel?
JT No, there will be nations as well, and the nations shall walk in the light of the heavenly city.
SJH When the Lord said to Nicodemus, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not”; would that include eternal life?
JT That is a question, but I do not believe He means eternal life, because He is going to speak of eternal life in the full sense of it. He is going to speak of it as applicable to the assembly, and that does not mean it is earthly. He speaks of springing up; the fourth chapter shows that the water that the Lord Jesus gives shall spring up into eternal life; “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. So that we have to be cautious and see that we are saying what is true in the Scriptures; they are so broad; “Thy commandment is exceeding broad”, said the psalmist (Psalm 119: 96). Sometimes it is wider than at others, so to speak. But when we come to the assembly we come to the specialty; it is the heavenly side of things and eternal life leads to that. But at the same time eternal life leads to the millennium, which is the broadest sense, including the nations, “And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it”. Revelation 21: 24.
FNW The definition of the assembly side of eternal life has come down to us from Mr. Darby, I believe. He spoke of the out-of-the-world, heavenly condition of relationship and being, in which eternal life consists.
JT That is right; that is what I would call the present application of eternal life, but it has a wider sense when we come to the millennial day, because the nations will be included as well, the nations shall walk in the light of the heavenly city. The heavenly city is the assembly, but it is in the heavenly place.
SMcC In regard to what you said a moment ago as to the resurrection and what occurs in regard [p. 56] to ourselves as of the assembly, do you look for another operation of resurrection power in regard of Israel following the rapture and before the millennium?
JT I think that is the truth. There will be the application of the idea according to this chapter in the last day. That is not the assembly day, it is the millennial day; the last day is a very extended idea, it is not a literal day, it is a question of a period of time.
ANW Does not Matthew 25 support your statement that the nations shall come into eternal life? The nations are brought into it there. The paragraph begins with the Son of man coming in His glory, and “all the nations shall be gathered before him”. The section closes with the words, “Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have not done it to one of these least, neither have ye done it to me. And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into life eternal”.
JT “Into life eternal”, that is very good; it clarifies the whole position, that eternal life is the thing they go into. The righteous go into it, whereas it says, in chapter 3, as to the persons who die not subject to the Son, that the wrath of God abides on them. The righteous have their own place and they go, not to heaven, but into eternal life.
RBP Then the reference to the last day in John 11 would primarily refer to Israel?
JT That is right, that was what they knew; that is the thing they were all thinking about, what Israel would come into.
AR Would the two resurrections be seen in Revelation 20? “The rest of the dead did not live till the thousand years had been completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy he who has part in the first resurrection: over these the second [p. 57] death has no power; but they shall be priests of God and of the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years”.
JT So that the first resurrection is an extended period, just as we were saying; it is a day, as it were; many things happen in it. You cannot say that it is a question of a physical day, but a period of time in which things happen. It is classified there as the first resurrection, and blessed are they who have part in that.
GH It says in John’s epistle, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. Would that really be eternal life, do you think?
JT That would be what we are enjoying this afternoon, perhaps between the meetings too. It is a question of life functioning as we are together in the Spirit, but that is not the full thought, that is only in principle.
SMcC In regard to the general teaching in this chapter as to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man, is it to prepare us now spiritually and constitutionally in relation to this great thought of change?
JT I was thinking of that. We are quite entitled to take on prophetic subjects as they did at the beginning of the revival in 1825 and 1827 when they had meetings in Dublin to look into the prophetic word. That was quite right, and it opened up the spiritual map to us. But we are not confined to the spiritual map in this day; we are thinking primarily and almost altogether of the assembly, of our coming into that, and of the service of God, as to our having part in that, carrying on the divine ideas right into the millennium. As engaged with these thoughts we are in our own period. The apostle Paul said, that this salvation is sent to the gentiles and they will receive it. The Jews rejected it, but the gentiles [p. 58] would receive it, and we are the gentiles who have received it; we are coming into the heavenly part.
SMcC So that the teaching of this chapter involves the acceptance in our souls of the termination of a certain condition of things, does it not?
JT Well, both things are applicable in this chapter. It is very long and very comprehensive in its contents too, but what we are dealing with now is the prime thought of the assembly, and how this chapter deals with the assembly, and how we may come into the truth of it through the teaching of this chapter.
SMcC I was thinking of the importance of the teaching to which you are alluding in this chapter, as bearing on the acceptance of it in our souls. It is hard, but as coming into the assembly we have to accept the termination of a certain condition of things, have we not?
JT Yes, quite, but I think the Lord’s listeners were turning away because of the things He was saying. They could not follow them, but the question is whether we can follow them and make them good. I may say, I should like to go in for all that, and be truly in the assembly. But am I equal to it?
AAT You used the expression, the present period. How do you cover that period, I mean when does it start?
JT It is the period of the assembly. It started from the time the salvation of God was sent to the gentiles, from that time in the book of Acts.
ANW That is a period which would not appear on the prophetic map you were speaking of.
JT No, I would say in a certain way it may, but strictly speaking it is a period by itself that began not exactly at Pentecost, but when the salvation of God was transferred to the gentiles. At first it was according to Ephesians, that we both might have access, that is, Jew and gentile, but we would [p. 59] not say that now. The apostle Paul would not say it if he were here. What is in mind now is the gentiles; there is hardly a Jew in the fellowship. There are one or two here now, and we thank God for them, but there are hardly more than a few. The bulk of the saints are gentiles, and God is going on with them. It is the time of the gentiles; “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”, Luke 21: 24.
SM Would that be like the day that the Lord has made?
JT “This is the day that Jehovah hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it”, Psalm 118: 24.
CAM Referring to the change of condition in this chapter, it has connection with this flesh and blood condition, has it not? The Lord’s flesh and the Lord’s blood are separated, which involves a change in the condition of things that we are in at the moment. As to ourselves, does not the eternal life as it is dwelt on here involve our entering in some spiritual sense beyond our present flesh and blood condition?
JT Well, quite so. Peter for instance was in an ecstasy, he got into that condition; he was outside the reckonings of flesh and blood. That was common in the beginning, but it is not common now as it was then. A wonderful thing that it was so.
CAM Does not the idea of being in an out-of-the-world condition involve something of that?
JT Yes, but it is not an ecstasy, an out-of-the-world condition is a condition that is suitable to us now, in this meeting for instance, or any meeting at all, such as that for the breaking of bread, or the ministry of the truth; it is an out-of-the-world condition, and the world has no part in it at all. Our attitude is out of the world and that means we are rejected of the world in a moral sense. We are still in flesh and blood, of course, but at the same time we are not moving on that line at all; we have [p. 60] an access to heavenly things, to assembly things, and the more spiritual we are the more we shall enjoy them. It is a question of spirituality, not of literal ecstasy, but of the power of the Spirit in our inmost souls; and the more of us there are together the more it is enjoyed. So that we may say we have enjoyed eternal life this afternoon. We mean it just in a limited way, but it is there; that is to say, the Spirit of God is free amongst us.
HB When it is said of Enoch, that he was not, that is a moral idea, is it not?
JT Quite so, it means he was taken; God took him, it says. They missed him, I suppose. The neighbours there might miss him and ask, What has become of Enoch? Well, God had taken him. That is the fact the Spirit of God records. But before he was taken or translated “he has the testimony that he had pleased God”, Hebrews 11: 5. That is the moral side of it, that is the reason he was translated. What can we say today about Enoch or Elijah? We do not know. They are somewhere in the heavenly regions, but we cannot say more than that. Sleeping saints are there too, but not all; some of those that slept arose and came into the holy city, after the Lord’s resurrection. How many arose we cannot tell, but they entered into the holy city and appeared to many. What has become of them? We cannot say. God has not been pleased to tell us, but it was true. The point morally is to seek to please God. He is looking for people who seek to please Him.
JEP With regard to the out-of-the-world conditions, the Lord introduces in this chapter the names of all the divine Persons, suggesting to us, would you say, a realm in which divine operations are going forward in a practical way, and we come into that?
JT Yes, I think so; it is a practical time, and we are called to be practical [p. 61] and simple.
ANW When He that restrains, and that which restrains are gone, things will move rapidly enough; surely they will move very rapidly when these restraining powers and persons are gone.
JT Quite.
SM This current exercise about the unions seems to be a special test to us in connection with working for food. The Lord says here, “Work not for the food which perishes”. That is the test to us now; is it not?
JT That is the whole subject, with these unions, it is a question of the food. They are materialistic, but we are to learn to get out of that; we do not belong to that system of things at all.
SM We want to please God.
JT There is an out-of-the-world, heavenly condition of relationship and being in which eternal life consists. Well, we have part in that, and certainly it is not a question of food and raiment. It is a question of spiritual power and enjoyment implying the fellowship that we come into; the fellowship of the Spirit, it is called.
VCL Verse 35 reads, “And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst at any time”. Would you say a word as to the difference between the not hungering and the not thirsting?
JT It is just a question of the word, either thirst or hunger would have the same force; it is a question of what is eternal, of what never happens, that we never thirst and we never hunger. Surely that is enough for us, we get that relief in coming to Christ, because it is coming to Him now, it is not simply that He comes to us and takes us to heaven, which He will do, but our coming to [p. 62] Him, involving fellowship.
VCL And does believing on Him involve the Holy Spirit for us?
JT Well, it does; the Spirit would come in to support that faith. But then the idea is faith whether we do believe, whether we are living in a faith condition. The millennium will not be a faith condition, it will be a condition of sight, but we are living in a faith condition now, so that the end of John’s gospel says, “Blessed they who have not seen and have believed”.
EAL When they said to the Lord, “What should we do that we may work the works of God?” He answers, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent”.
JT That is the work of God, just so, to believe. We are living in a faith condition, whereas the millennium will be a sight condition.
AR So we should all be satisfied christians, should we not?
JT Quite so, never thirsting. We are all made to drink into one Spirit.
JHP Would you say a word about the drawing of the Father?
JT That is the time we are in, the time of this drawing. We are in what is called the expanse. God called the expanse Heaven, and that is the area or region in which He is operating and we are in that now. It is a period of faith for us. The Old Testament was not that and the millennium will not be that, but for us it is a question of whether we are living by faith or by sight.
Ques Is the period of faith, then, in some degree greater than the period of sight?
JT Oh, it is, clearly, that is what the Lord is saying here, that blessedness lies in those who believe [p. 63] without seeing.
LLP Would the dignitaries of chapter 11 of Hebrews have reached beyond their dispensation; that is, do they belong to ours?
JT They anticipated our dispensation. The word faith governs all that section. They cannot be perfect without us; that is what the apostle says, “that they without us should not be made perfect”. That shows the greatness of ourselves; that is of the assembly.
GH Do you mean that the expanse in Genesis 1 is like the period of faith?
JT No, that is not the idea, but it corresponds, it is the same idea as the expanse. He called the expanse Heavens. That was the area of God’s operations then, but it is a question of what He is doing now; He is gathering out the assembly; that is what He is doing. Earlier than this, He was gathering out Israel, and many other things He was doing in the Old Testament times.
EAL Would you say then that prophecy in ministry is an expansive idea, always expanding, so that we shall always be learning?
JT That is the idea. The word here is. “And they shall be all taught of God”. That peculiarly applies to ourselves now.
SMcC In connection with this food, He speaks of the bread of life, the bread from heaven, [p. 64] and of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man. What distinction do you make in regard to these suggestions of food?
JT It is a question of appropriation; eating is just a question of appropriation, but it is a most vivid feature or picture of it. Are we appropriating what is within our reach? This chapter shows what is within our reach, and the greatest matter is the flesh of Christ and the blood of Christ. That is not the Lord’s supper; the Lord distinguishes that from His Supper, although it bears on it.
EP Does eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood go beyond the type of the manna?
JT Certainly. It says, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died”; but then the Son of man has come in and He must be greater than everything else and every other person.
SMcC Would the bread from heaven have the positive side more in mind, but the flesh of the Son of man more the negative side; that is, the ending of a certain condition of things?
JT I think the word heaven must have some weight there, bread from heaven shows the character of it, but then the flesh of Christ and the blood of Christ is a matter of literality, it involves that the Lord actually died. We are to appropriate it in the negative sense to separate us from the world.
ANW In that way, would it not negate such an idea as that in verse 42 for instance, which might be in any mind? “And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we have known?”.
JT That was all they had in their minds, that He was no different from anybody else, whereas we are dealing now with the spiritual side of things, and when the Lord speaks about His flesh being bread we have to see that it is a question of spiritual food which we appropriate for sustenance. Eating is simply a figure of appropriation, appropriating something that the Lord Jesus has provided for us in coming down from heaven and dying.
AAT Is there something in it being said that it is the flesh of the Son of man?
JT We have often spoken about the use of that title in Ezekiel, that it is a question of the Lord’s relations with man, and not simply with the Jews. If the Jews are to come into it at all they have to take the ground of being men; God will allow that [p. 65] they shall come into the period that refers to the Son of man, the Son of man’s period.
AR In regard to this matter of appropriation of the flesh and the blood, it is after He is dead, is it not? So that it is important to realise that we appropriate a dead Christ.
JT It has often been said that what is before us in the Lord’s supper is a dead Christ. We come later in the service to a living Christ, gone up into heaven. “And has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”.
SMcC What is the force of verse 54, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up at the last day”?
JT That means that you appropriate for two things; you appropriate for support in the sense of strength, and then you appropriate what satisfies you morally; that is, you are not dissatisfied, complaining; you are free; you are fully satisfied.
SMcC How does eternal life come into that?
JT That is the point, that there is satisfaction in the sense of strength, the bread to strengthen man’s heart, but then wine is to make his heart glad.
BW Would you say a person that is satisfied with divine things is in the good of eternal life?
JT Just so, he has means, he is not a theorist. You do not look at your bank book to satisfy yourself. You have food to satisfy you without anything else, the food the Lord supplies for you, and it is no less than Himself. His own body; that is to say He has died for us, as Paul says, He “loved me and gave himself for me”.
WW We might be like the disciples on the line of unbelief, and saying, “This is an hard saying”. His own disciples said that.
JT [p. 66] Just so, but Peter gives the answer, as if he were the great answerer of questions as to the Lord. He said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”. That is what I was trying to say in the beginning, that we are dealing with words, not simply with paragraphs but the actual words, and they are words of life, words of eternal life.
SMcC In verse 57, the Lord Jesus says, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. Does the eating Him there refer to the appropriation of Christ as He now is?
JT I think the truth is advancing in this chapter; it is ‘higher and higher yet’, and when we come to the Father and the Son, and how the Father suggests the Son as food, I mean the life of Christ and the death of Christ, if the Father speaks about that we are on a higher level. They are acting together, and we are coming into what the action is; “he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal”. And then verse 57, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. That is a higher thought, that is my position now, not simply that I am in fellowship, but I eat Christ; the Father gives me that food. The Lord says, “I live on account of the Father”, and we live on account of Christ. That is the word, “on account of”. The Lord says, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. Notice “the living Father”, it is a remarkable thought; not simply ‘the Father’, but “the living Father” and then “on account of”. So that I am living on account of Christ or by virtue of the fact that He has supplied this food for me. It is the very highest level, you might say, as to [p. 67] eating.
SMcC What you have said is very helpful. It involves Christ in glory, does it not?
JT Just so; coming down to where we are and providing food for us in that living way, “The living Father”, I do not know that I ever noticed it more than I do now, that it is the title, “living Father”.
RP Say a little more as to it.
JT Well, I do not know what to say; there it is, just one of the things that enter into this long chapter that is so precious, because it is a leading up, it is a steady leading up to the higher level in John 6. There are seventy-one verses about this great subject so that we should be entirely here on account of the Father, here in life as living people by the Father’s power.
VCL In verse 32, it says, “My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven”, but in verse 58, “This is the bread which has come down out of heaven”, as though it would be something further.
JT It is further. It is a further thought in the chapter; this matter of the living Father and living on account of the Father, all that wording is what we might call ‘higher and higher yet’. The chapter ascends as we go to the very highest level short of the assembly and the heavenly side of the truth. So that there is no difference at all between the heavens and the earth in that sense, we go out of the earthly side into the heavenly; our place is heaven. He has raised us up together and made us to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ.
WS Does Mr. Darby’s note help in that connection? It reads, as to the expression “on account of”, the sense is, ‘by reason of what the Father is and His living, that I live by reason of His being and living’.
JT Very good, showing the high level we are on [p. 68] now.
SMcC What you said a little while ago, helps as to the heavenly bearing of eternal life in John’s gospel, while it is for the earth. Is there not a distinctive heavenly touch in John’s gospel in relation to eternal life?
JT There is a heavenly touch; that is why it is brought in, I think, in chapter 3, as to “the Son of man who is in heaven”; the Son of man, mark, not the Son of God, but the Son of man. His real manhood is implied, and that He is in heaven. It is a mysterious thing.
SMcC So that eternal life as we enjoy it now in the assembly is really on a much higher plane and level than it will be in the millennium.
JT That is just the truth. It is on a higher level than it will be in the millennium. The millennium is part of the division of time, you might say, the seventh day; it is the last day here in this chapter. As linked with the first of Genesis it belongs to the great period of divine operations in the expanse.
JHP Is the high level that you speak of seen in the last sentence of verse 58, “he that eats this bread shall live for ever”?
JT Quite so, “He that eats this bread”.
AAT In an afternoon like this, do we touch heaven?
JT We do touch heaven, because the Spirit of God is here, and if He is amongst us, He brings everything with Him. You cannot add to or subtract from a divine Person; He brings everything with Him. If the Lord was here, He would bring everything with Him, and so with the Father. Divine Persons take you to finality and totality. When we come to the eternal state of things, they will all be there, and there abidingly, eternally, and we shall be [p. 69] there too.
JKP There is a distinct contrast in verse 58 between the old dispensation in which it says your fathers ate and died, and this special dispensation to which I understand you are referring now, in which death is not introduced at all morally. It is a question of living for ever.
JT Quite so, we touch that too in some little degree; it is always a small degree, we may, say, but it is wonderful that it can be touched. Take Peter; he was in an ecstasy; he was waiting for a meal, and he said in effect, I will go upstairs and pray, and as he did so he became in an ecstasy. Well, it is wonderful that that could have happened. That is the beginning of the dispensation we are in now. It has nearly ended, but that is what was at the beginning; so that we have to watch and see the possibilities.
EP You mean that we touch eternal conditions and that is what really gives character to eternal life here.
JT That is so, and the assembly is no less than that, it is no less than the place where we enjoy eternal conditions. It is never an earthly thing, it is a heavenly thing, the house of God is heavenly.
SMcC So that in the assembly properly speaking death does not exist; it is a deathless state of things?
JT Just so, deathless. That is a fine expression; we used it years ago. We have come into a deathless condition spiritually.
EP “And everyone who lives and believes on me shall never die”, John 11: 26. Is that our outlook?
JT That is the idea exactly, “never die”.
AD So the Lord says later on in chapter 17, “I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one as we”.
[p. 70] JT John 17 is a wonderful chapter, one of the most wonderful, it is the Lord’s prayer, not the one that you get in Matthew. John 17 is the Lord’s own prayer.
SJH Do I understand you to say the title “living Father” is peculiar to our dispensation?
JT I do not know where else it is, I am not sure that it is elsewhere; it just comes in here with a peculiar touch to emphasise the Father; He is the living Father. He is the living God too, but this gives an added touch to what is said.