THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL (4)
[p. 351] THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL (4)
Luke 15:22 - 28, Luke 19:37 - 40
JT In order to link on with what came before us this morning, we must revert to chapters 10 and 11. The governing thought from the mount of transfiguration is the Son; delightful to heaven, but to be heard, so that we have to learn everything from Him. Indeed, in Matthew 11, which corresponds with Luke 10, the Lord said, “Learn from me”; here, it is the hearing rather: “Hear Him”. On His coming down from the mount we are told, “The days of His receiving up were fulfilled”, (verse 51). In a certain sense. He was received on the mount, but the full thought is in His ascension; and we have the local thought introduced in chapter 10 in the seventy being sent out “before his face into every city and place where he himself was about to come”(Luke 10:1). Then they return and relate their success, and He says, “Yet in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subjected to you, but rejoice that your names are written in the heavens”(Luke 10:20). So that we are being brought into correspondence with Him as about to be received up.
Then we have the statement, “I beheld Satan as lightning falling out of heaven”(Luke 10:18), that is, all adverse power is removed, and place is made for us without fear of disturbance, a thought which has its place in the assembly, we are to be in an undisturbed state. Then He “rejoiced in spirit”, I apprehend, as an example, although it was perfectly real and normal to Him at this time because of what was coming into evidence. Instead of Israel, He was having the assembly; the babes, to whom He alludes, being the potential material for it. We are reminded of the pleasure the Lord has in us. That is the idea of rejoicing in spirit; a state in Him that would affect us and give a lead, for the [p. 352] assembly is surely the place of joy. It is where He secures the results of His death now, the joy that was “set before Him”, and it lends a certain liberty to us as there, the sense that He has joy in us, and He praises. We have the manner of His speaking: “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes: yea. Father, for thus has it been well-pleasing in thy sight”, Luke 10:21. Then He refers to the position He occupies administratively, saying, “All things have been delivered to me by my Father”(Luke 10:22); and then He dwells on the thought of inscrutability as to Himself: “No one knows who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal him”. (Luke 10:22); Then He turns to His disciples privately and speaks about their eyes, how blessed they were because of what they were seeing. All that is educational, and is intended to bear on the local position; because we have immediately, the idea of the neighbour; who a neighbour is and how a neighbour acts; and then a certain village, then, in chapter 11, He is praying in a “certain place”. It would seem therefore as if the whole section, inclusive of the end of chapter 9, chapter 10, and the early part of chapter 11, is the heavenly position of the saints, and the Lord’s delight in us as belonging to heaven; His own place in the Deity being brought in, and the blessedness of our eyes because of what we see — all that bearing on the local position.
MWB Would you say why the local position is emphasised here?
JT The heavenly setting necessarily enters into the local position as giving colour to our testimony there. Although the general heavenly position is really in this section, until chapter 19 that is, the entrance into Jerusalem, it is typical of what we are to reach from the local side; but our local position is necessarily coloured by the heavenly, otherwise there is no [p. 353] proper testimony.
MWB And does it imply that local conditions must be right before there can be the passing on to what is suggested in Jerusalem?
JT I think so. What comes out in the early part of chapter 10 is the light in which we are gathered, in which we should come together; and then, in view of this coming together, what the neighbour is; and then the household conditions locally. Chapter 10, following on the others we read, shows that neighbourly conditions did not exist, neither did suitable household conditions exist, and I think that necessitates the prayer of chapter 11, and the answer to it is in the Spirit, the furnishings that there must be. So that the Spirit is given to those who ask the Father “who is of heaven”. It is of heaven, not in heaven. The point is, what is out of heaven seen in a locality, and this necessitates the Spirit.
Ques Do you think that the Holy Spirit is omitted from chapter 10 to make way for Him coming from the Father in chapter 11?
JT The Spirit proceeds from the Father; we must have the Father. We have the Father in chapter 10, and prayer to Him in chapter 11, and then that He is “the Father who is of heaven”. In the prayer in the beginning of the chapter the words “which art in heaven” should not be there. In verse 13, it is “the Father who is of heaven”; it is His character more.
HES In the priest and the levite you get what is official, but they have to make way for what is moral and spiritual.
JT That is how the truth stands. The Lord sets out the thing in the parable of the Samaritan, and then He puts it to the man to name it. Which is neighbour? He says. The lawyer is to name which is neighbour, and he says, “He that showed him mercy”, and the Lord said, “Go and do thou likewise”(Luke 10:37).
EuR [p. 354] In chapter 10 we get the thought of city and place and village; would it help if you said a word as to those?
JT Well, the idea of a city is prominent in assembly economy; it denotes an ordered place. It is a place of man’s will, as in this world, but God would set in it what is to displace that. The principle of the present testimony is, that there is something displacing, by moral superiority, what has proved reprobate. The world’s cities are places of organised evil, and organised evil is the worst form of evil, and God proposes to displace that morally, before He displaces it actually. He displaces it morally in what He produces in the assembly; so that, throughout the Acts you will find the thought of a city prominent. The disciples were to continue there, according to the end of Luke; then in Acts 9, Saul is to go into the city to be told in it what to do, meaning that in the city, the place in which man’s will was carried out, God had something in which His will was to be carried out. So Saul is to be told there what he must do. Then you have the idea of a “place”, which would include anything with a name in the shape of a locality. A “village” is something between, having somewhat the nature of a town or city, and yet not a city. The importance of the assembly, by virtue of moral qualities from God, superseding what man has organised, is very great. The Lord in rejoicing in spirit gives a lead to what is in the assembly in the way of joy, a joy of the highest order. He rejoiced in spirit, and in regard to the place of His own in the heavens. It is not merely a better or more ordered religion that we have, but something heavenly, with heavenly feelings attached to it, and all that becomes it in the way of brotherliness, neighbourliness, and household hospitality. I think that is the idea in chapter 10.
PL Have you those features in Paul himself amongst the Corinthians? Is there the neighbourly touch in the way he would spend and be spent for them,
and then the brotherly touch — “Sosthenes the brother” — and then the hospitable household at the end of chapter 16 — “the house of Stephanas”?
JT Quite so. All these thoughts were there. These thoughts had been or were at Corinth, although the whole assembly was not characterised by them. Just as we get here, the right thoughts existed in Martha’s house in Mary, but the house was not characterised by them; and I believe that is what occasioned the prayer of chapter 11. At least, that is the moral link.
What is called the Lord’s prayer here has a dispensational character which, of course, must be allowed for in the gospels. If we look into Luke, we shall see that the Lord comes down in His instruction to where men were. If He wished to set out the place of bliss, He is pleased to speak of Abraham’s bosom. He came down to the Jewish level, so as, in spite of ignorance, to reach people. So that if He gives this formal prayer, He intends, not that the saints should use it in a formal way, but that they should get from Him the initial idea of prayer. He would not take us beyond our stature. You have it modified in Luke, because it is aiming at the saints being brought into the assembly’s way. It reads here, “Father”, which is the way the Lord Himself would speak to His Father, “Thy name be hallowed”. No Christian need be afraid of saying that at any time. “Thy kingdom come”: that also is quite admissible in the Christian’s prayer. “Give us our needed bread for each day; and remit us our sins, for we also remit to every one indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation”, Luke 11:2 - 4. It drops down to where His disciples were at that time, but there is enough in it to link them on with Christianity as they advanced in the truth.
JHT You spoke of light and feelings and prayer. Are they developed for us in the Acts? Saul sees a light from heaven, and then he hears a voice, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” Acts 9:5 — would that represent feelings?
[p. 356] And then in the service at Antioch, would the prayer and fasting there lay the basis for the overthrow of the world’s cities and make way for the formation of assemblies, so that the “praises of Israel” might be known and enjoyed?
JT That is very helpful. The thought of cities runs through, even to the time when the Holy Spirit “in every city” testified to Paul. God had a means of speaking in every city. It seems as if in that we have the suggestion of the triumph and superiority of Christianity; through it God had a means of speaking in every city — of course alluding to cities in which there were assemblies.
HMS Would we also have those conditions in Romans 15? There are brotherly conditions there, and the result is, “That ye may with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, (verse 6)? If that were so, there would be a challenge to the continuance of Rome.
JT Just so. The epistle would show that there was great moral superiority suggested among the saints there, with such power that they could pray for the very authorities, as still owning them as representative of God. There seems a certain magnanimity in that attitude on the part of the saints in the assembly, that we can speak of “the powers that be” as ordained of God and pray for them, and yet know that our testimony implies their complete overthrow, the assembly taking the place in due course of all rule. That ought to give us power to sing.
PL I wondered whether those thoughts of light, feelings, and prayer do not run very much through the book of Deuteronomy, which was given to the people just before they crossed the Jordan and surrounded Jericho to bring it down. Does Moses embody those features in his spirit? So much is said of brotherliness and neighbourliness, as well as light from him, the tenor of the law — the spirit and feeling of things,
[p. 357] and then closing with the song of Moses. Does Jericho fall consequent upon this spirit being found among the people?
JT It is Deuteronomy carried on into Joshua. Deuteronomy is more the spirit of things under Moses; it is more the spirit than the letter: “The letter kills, but the Spirit quickens”, (2 Corinthians 3:6); and it is carried over into Joshua, so that the saints are typified there as walking round Jericho, an unheard-of military procedure, and one that would cause wonderment in the city, but which brought it down most effectively. It is the manner of the power that is there, and that is the character of the testimony Luke would develop; the spirit of it, the moral greatness and superiority of what there is, in the very presence of organised evil, so that the victory is already present in a moral sense.
WCG Would you say how the conversation between the Lord and Martha in her house bears on the subject?
JT The Lord portrays the neighbour, and the lawyer discerns who he is, the one who showed mercy. That is a public need. The lawyer could name it, and it is most important that it should exist among us; unselfish service rendered to needy ones. Then we have the state of Martha’s house, which, although she received the Lord into it, must have occasioned Him great uneasiness; indeed, even He comes under her criticism. How sorrowful that heavenly light should be possessed, as the chapter indicates, our heavenly calling, and the idea of the neighbour portrayed for us, and ourselves having a house and receiving the Lord into it, and yet the spirit suitable to a believer’s house be absent! All this bears most powerfully on the local position. But withal, in the house there was a full answer to what was said on the mount of transfiguration, for that is the point to keep in mind: “Hear him”. Mary is answering fully to that, so the divine thought is maintained in her.
WCG Then Mary’s state would be the effect of the word being operative.
JT It had begun to be effective in her, or she would not be sitting. We were speaking about restfulness, knowing how to sit down and listen. It is said that she, “Having sat down at the feet of Jesus, was listening to his word”(Luke 10:39). She was pleasing to heaven, she was answering to the mind of heaven, as expressed on the mount, and the Lord would not be satisfied until all the house — all the meeting in the place as you might say — is brought round to that. If He has one that He can point to. He has a great advantage. He says, “Mary has chosen the good part”(Luke 10:42), a principle carried forward from chapter 7, where the Lord says, “Seest thou this woman?” Anyone He can point to, as illustrating what is in His mind, is a great advantage to the Lord.
PL Would Chloe provide that element as seen in 1 Corinthians?
JT Yes; it was “those of the house of Chloe”, and they went so far as to show what had to be corrected. Mary shows, in what she was doing, what had to be corrected in Martha; Martha was not doing it. Paul says: “For it has been shown to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of the house of Chloe, that there are strifes among you”, (1 Corinthians 1:11).
Ques Does the Lord give the answer to the need when He says, “How much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him” (Luke 11:13)?
JT I think we shall see that the Holy Spirit is the full supply; nothing short of the Spirit meets the local need. Then, that being set out, the Lord’s activity follows. It says, “He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb”. Now, the angel’s word was that Zacharias was to be dumb because of his unbelief. That was not Satan’s action; that was God’s action; as if, in His mind, speaking is of no value except it is in faith. But here the enemy is keeping a man from speaking, and inasmuch as the Spirit is obtained from “the Father who is of heaven”, the point is to get people to speak under His power. So the Lord was casting out a demon; attention is called to what He was doing, and the demon being cast out, the dumb man spake.
FSM Are these four points essential if we are to take part in the praises of the assembly: the thought of joy of spirit, suggested in the early part of chapter 10, and the restfulness of heart the Lord would have brought Martha into, and devotedness of mind, and then open lips?
JT Yes, that order appears in this section. The idea of speaking is specially a feature in Luke, because the “priest’s lips should keep knowledge”; the praise service as the temple was built was by them, 2 Chronicles 5 So that Zacharias is rendered dumb until the promised child is born. He went to his house, and no doubt went through great exercise with Elizabeth, but after he writes, “John is his name”, he speaks and blesses God. And so the young man who is raised up at Nain began to speak. One having such an experience could contribute by speaking; and now, the demon being gone out of this man, he speaks, the context being the gift of the Spirit. In the assembly we say that Jesus is Lord by the Spirit. Then, in chapter 24, the Lord comes in in relation to what they were saying.
Ques Are you regarding the dumb man as a silent brother in the meeting, and Mary as the responsive element that would be full of matter in the “praises of Israel”?
JT Just so. We have silent brothers, and we should be thankful when they are able to speak by the Spirit. Then we have brothers who speak, like Zacharias, as we may say, but what is said is not in faith. Only what is in faith and by the Spirit is of value in the assembly; in fact, God intimates that all other talking is valueless.
PL “Not knowing what he said”.
JT [p. 360] Exactly; better not to say it at all, if we do not know what to say. So the apostle enlarges on that in the letter to Corinth, as to praying and singing with the Spirit and with the understanding.
JJ Is the thought that the praises reach their highest point in chapter 15 or in the further Scripture?
JT In chapter 15 we reach the house, not as a place to receive the wayfaring, and the halt and the blind, but as furnished with the very best. It is not now exactly a local thought, as I understand it, but general; for the house viewed as the house of God is never local; it is always catholic. The point is to show how it was furnished, and that there was the music and the dancing. It is not said that there was praise to God, the point is the wealth of the place, the merriment, the spiritual buoyancy and fulness of joy that is there, answering to Ephesians. Things are of the very best, illustrated by the best robe and the fatted calf. “And they began to be merry”. It is what is there, and all was within the hearing of the elder brother.
WCG A verse in the psalms corresponds: “I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy; and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple”, (Psalm 5:7). We have had the multitude of mercy leading up to this point.
JT We are there. Chapter 15 is the highest point reached, and is the richness of heaven lavished on the gentiles. The wealth that is there is stressed. It is a great point as to young believers — to make plain that there is a merriment of a spiritual nature. What is seen here enters much into the service of God. It is what enriches and satisfies spiritually.
HES Why is it that in view of the rich unfoldings of chapter 15 the necessity to hear is again emphasised at the end of chapter 14?
JT Chapter 14, from verse 25 to the end, is to bring out what would come about through the preaching of the gospel, as on the principles laid down in that [p. 361] chapter. If more were to come than those who were subjects of the work of God, they would require to be tested and sifted, an important matter in gospel service; that extraneous matter should be excluded. The passage contemplates that there would be a mixture in the listeners, so that, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”, Luke 14:35. Chapter 15 brings out a subject by itself, and emphasises the wealth lavished on the returning gentiles in the house: “In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in (the) Spirit”, (Ephesians 2:22). It is the presence of the Spirit bringing in all the wealth of heaven, rendering the place spiritually buoyant, full of music and dancing.
Ques Would it be a little answer to Psalm 132? “her saints shall shout aloud for joy”, (verse 16).
JT Quite so.
HOS Would the preaching of the mystery in the gospel be connected with that thought, that those outside should hear the music and the dancing going on in the Father’s house?
JT Yes. The idea is that the music and the dancing are within the hearing of the elder brother outside; that it should be heard outside shows how fully the thought was there.
HOS Those inside enjoy the blessedness of the place and those outside hear.
JT “As well the singers as the dancers shall say, All my springs are in thee”, Psalm 87:7. The system, so to speak, is furnished and self-sustaining.
EuR That is very beautiful, and it links with Psalm 87 which says, “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God”. Then it mentions the reprobate cities, and brings in the light of the heavenly when it says, “Jehovah will count, when he inscribeth the peoples”. (Psalm 87:3, 6).
PL Have we something of this kind at Ephesus in the great joy that prevailed, and then is the elder brother seen in Sceva the Jew, one who, so to speak, would not go in? It is said, “the man in whom the wicked spirit was, leaped upon them, ... so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded”. (Acts 19:16). Is that the position of the Jew today?
JT Quite so. It is worse than the case of Zacharias. In Acts 13 Bar-jesus is rendered blind, not to see the sun for a season; it is worse to be blind than to be dumb. Bar-jesus and the seven sons of Sceva represent the Jew under the government of God and Satanic power. In the presence of all this, Luke 15 brings out victory in great moral superiority. Although the elder brother refused to go in, the music and dancing went on, and goes on still.
MWB In the development of your thought, do we pass now from the local idea of Corinthians to the exalted platform of Ephesians?
JT That is what I thought, and that links on with chapter 19, where we come to spiritual geography, as we have already remarked. Leaving out for the moment what Jerusalem was about to become as the place of the Lord’s murder, it is viewed still as Jerusalem, the divine centre, and He weeps over it. So that the places mentioned in the chapter — that is, where the colt was tied, Bethphage, and Bethany, and the mount of Olives — are all near Jerusalem, pointing to what is spiritual in the way of environment; this has an answer in the assembly. It is not only now the Lord there in the greatness of His Person, as in chapter 10, but an environment tending to promote praise. “In his temple doth every one say. Glory!” (Psalm 29:9). So that, whatever one has to contribute in the assembly is enhanced by what is there. The praise here is spontaneous, the whole environment entering into it and enhancing it.
PL Does that bring us to Philippians in principle, consequent on Ephesians? “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, rejoice”, Philippians 4:4. Does the Lord’s descent in chapter 2 provide the holy environment for praise?
[p. 363] JT It does. All these thoughts affect us and enter into us, so that every one says, Glory! as we read in Psalm 29. They speak, and the Lord says in answer to the Pharisees, “If these shall be silent, the stones will cry out”. It is because of what was in the general surroundings and of His presence as entering the city. It says, “all the multitude of the disciples began, rejoicing, to praise God with a loud voice for all the works of power that they had seen, saying. Blessed the King that comes in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest”. What they say suggests that the priestly state was present. Although they were a multitude, they were disciples, and they leave out, “Peace on earth”. If they were copyists, merely reiterating what had been said before, they would have said, “Peace on earth”; but they do not. It shows the progress being made on this line; it is, “Peace in heaven”, and the praise is to God.
Rem There is a difference between the angels and the disciples. The angels say, “Peace on earth”, chapter 2.
JT It was quite right to say it then, but “peace on earth” is not the point now. The Lord is transferring the thoughts of the disciples to heaven after the mount of transfiguration, so that it is, “Peace in heaven”.
EuR Then we have in the assembly not only great light, extending on to the future, as suggested in Exodus 15, but we are privileged to find ourselves in an atmosphere and environment where we are helped in giving expression to our praise?
JT That is quite obvious. They had no sanctuary in Exodus 15; it was not yet set up, so that there was nothing in the environment to enhance the praise, but now there is, as we have suggested here. I do not mean that this is the sanctuary, but we are in the environment of Jerusalem, the centre of things; the ass and the colt were detained there — in the presence of those great spiritual suggestions; Bethphage, Bethany, [p. 364] and the mount of Olives were all in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
JHT It is said of Paul and Silas in the prison at Philippi that in praying they were praising God with singing. Acts 16:25. Did they leave at Philippi the inception of the work of God there and an impression of what was to accrue? He says to the Philippians later, “My God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”, Philippians 4:19. Is the germ of it seen in Philippi in the prison?
JT Quite so. What power there was with Paul and Silas! It brings out in the most striking manner the character of the vessel of praise, how the praise goes on in the most adverse circumstances. But here, it is not what is adverse, but what is favourable. The sanctuary is calculated to enhance the praise. The assembly as ordered of God has all that in it which enhances the praise, so that the Lord reminds us that if we do not praise in these circumstances, we are harder than stones. That is the idea, because the stones would cry out, the Lord said, if the disciples did not; but the multitude of the disciples did cry out and with a loud voice.
MWB In what way would you name the agreeable circumstances or environment for us today? How would you speak of them?
JT The assembly formed in its Pauline character as at Ephesus. It would require spiritual understanding to see the nature of it, but it is conveyed in the apostle’s remarks as to what the gentiles were brought into: “No longer strangers and foreigners, but ... fellow citizens of the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone, in whom all (the) building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in (the) Spirit”, Ephesians 2:19 - 22. If you connect that with Isaiah 56, where [p. 365] God makes those who pray joyful in His house of prayer, you can see how the house is a place that conduces to prayer or praise. If we are there and have no praise or worship in our hearts, the Lord would say that we are harder than stones.
JRS Are you connecting your remarks as to the environment with the house in chapter 15?
JT Yes. Chapter 15 is the house, presenting especially the wealth that is inside it, everything of the best. This chapter 19 is more an extended environment; it is a broader view. Jerusalem is in view, as we may say; the Lord is leading into it. There, is the great objective, and these other towns and the mount of Olives are there, having their own significance. The colt tied is not to be omitted here. It is representative of a young believer, covered with the clothes of his brethren, and the way strewn with their clothes. Everything denotes the care and consideration of love; it is a reflection of heaven; everywhere I look suggests something that ought to make me give thanks to God and praise, especially when there is a multitude doing it.
JJ Is it like what Samuel said to Saul as he anointed him? If Saul had observed the spiritual significance of the places mentioned and entered into the reality of them, he would doubtless have been preserved, 1 Samuel 10:3 - 8.
JT Quite so. That is a good passage bearing on our subject. All those things should have promoted spiritual emotions in Saul. It is a great thing to be capable of spiritual emotions, and this environment at Jerusalem would suggest them. The Lord Himself expressed emotions here, for He wept over Jerusalem. How different it will be for Him when He enters into it in the future! Now the assembly takes its place.
HES Is the idea, that God having brought forth His best in chapter 15, there is now in chapter 19 a response from those in the good of these [p. 366] things?
JT Yes; it is all constructive, so that we are now in the very centre, and the Lord is being carried into the city by this colt upon whom He had been set. The disciples are marked by great and suitable activity under these circumstances. It says, “Having cast their own garments on the colt, they put Jesus on it. And as he went, they strewed their clothes in the way”;(Luke 19:35,36) as if to sustain the thing and to amplify it, “they strewed their clothes in the way. And as he drew near already at the descent of the mount of Olives, all the multitude of the disciples began, rejoicing, to praise God”.
Ques How would you connect this subject of praise with the thought of worship?
JT In a general way praise is worship. Worship in itself may be unspoken, but praise must be spoken. Worship is the idea of motion forward, being fully absorbed in the Person who is before you. I hope we shall have that later, but this is leading up to it, following on chapter 15 of which it is a piece; the latter giving the wealth of the house and this giving the more extended glorious environment; so that the suggestion of praise is so great, that if one is callous he is harder than stone.
PL “Let the sons of Zion be joyful in their King” is right at the end of the psalms, where all that have breath shall call upon Him, (Psalm 149:2). That is the great environment of praise.