ANGELIC SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD
[p. 316] ANGELIC SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD
Judges 2:1-5; Judges 6:11-24; Judges 13:2-5; Judges 13:15-23
JT These scriptures are presenting the angelic service. They speak of the Angel of Jehovah, but what is chiefly in mind is angelic service representative of God, and in that sense of service rendered to God or on His behalf. The angels were, according to the book of Job, present as the earth was created.
In scriptural records, servants are generally representative of God, characteristically so. So that in our first scripture here we read, “And the Angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up ...”. Jehovah speaks. Although the Angel speaks, it is Jehovah. The service rendered here is to remind us of departure from very great bondage, and in consequence of this, the lower disadvantageous position is to be taken up. We may have to be content with lower, narrower, circumstances. Still there is some result, for the place to which the Angel came derives its name from the same judgment. That is, he came to the place named “Bochim”, meaning ‘Weepers’.
It will be understood that the aim is not to occupy us with the angels themselves, save as they represent what is to do, that is service representative of God, and it is so.
WH Is it your thought that the first feature in the service is that there must be recognition of the public departure and breakdown on the part of the assembly?
JT That is the thought, presenting, as you know, the same judgment. That is, the place of the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt — Israel entering on to Canaan, the land of privilege. This Gilgal represents [p. 317] a moral correspondence to it. If God will bring us into the place of privilege, there must be the corresponding moral conditions. These are represented in the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt, presented here. The privilege of God cannot be attained apart from the disallowance of the flesh.
WH What had you in mind in referring to lower ground, that is its application to us today?
JT Well, the Lord said, as we know, to Ephesus, “Thou hast left thy first love”. The Lord did not propose to restore her to that, to what she had left, and we can only come into the first principles and privileges, as intelligently we accept what was. They called the name of the place “Bochim”, ‘Weepers’. The Angel came to that place. He left Gilgal. The voice to us is that whatever privileges are to be had, there is to be maintained the putting off of the body of flesh — “the body” of it. In principle there shall be no legalised condition of the flesh. Generally it is legalised. The flesh is legalised all round, religiously, circumcisionally. Gilgal means legality of the things of God. There is to be no allowance of the flesh at all. The word of Jehovah is, “I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you; and as for you, ye shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars, but ye have not hearkened unto my voice. Why have ye done this?” They were to make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land — that is no recognition of them at all — nothing with them at all.
HB In 2 Timothy 3: 14 Paul says to Timothy, “But thou, abide in those things which thou hast learned, and of which thou hast been fully persuaded, knowing of whom thou hast learned them ...”. Is that preservative?
JT Quite so — continuing the thing. In [p. 318] Colossians,
the thing is more prominent. Colossians is continuing on the maintaining of circumcision, that is, the disallowance of the flesh. The word is, “Why have ye done this?” God would challenge us as to things in the world, any recognition of its altars.
Ques Why is it that the Lord speaks by an angel to them, instead of through Joshua?
JT You are assuming that Joshua is now alive.
Rem Yes.
JT I thought that he had gone. The book opens with “after the death of Joshua ...”. I think the inference is that it is on the principle of the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is the “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John”. The communications to the apostles were by the Spirit, so that the communications through angels mean in our dispensation that this same thing had happened.
FW This word of the angel is to the people of God as such. The other two references are to individuals. Do you think that the departure was to be met in its beginnings here?
JT Well, this is how the departure is to be met. The next passage, that is chapter 6, is the nation here, how God raised up deliverers, how they recognised their moral qualities. So that we have the question in mind as the angel is mentioned. “And an angel of Jehovah came and sat under the terebinth that was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abi-ezrite. And his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress to secure it from the Midianites. And the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him, and said to him, Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valour”. The man whom God would use as deliverer is in mind and the appearance of the angel is to involve really Gideon’s [p. 319] own condition, some instruction as to the service of God. Gideon says to him, “Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid of the goats, and an ephah of flour in unleavened cakes: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the terebinth, and presented it”. Now Gideon did this himself. So that whilst he is in view as a deliverer, as it is stated, he indicates that he is under the ministry of God — and there should be deliverance, and there are deliverers. The service of God is in mind — something for God — not simply deliverance of the people, but it is something for God.
GHC Would the weeping, as suggested in chapter 2, make way for this in Gideon, do you think?
JT I think so. In this clause in verse 7, we have a further thought on that same line. It says, “And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried to Jehovah because of Midian, that Jehovah sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land, and I said to you, I am Jehovah your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell. But ye have not hearkened to my voice”. Now I think that verse calls attention to the fact that it was not to a man, or servant, God spoke in chapter 2. Here, it is. It is first of all that — a prophet, making way for God to come in in this remarkable way in angels, and that the man in mind to be a deliverer is a man who has some thought of serving God, and of ministering to God. That is, there is much today without any [p. 320] thought of what is to be for God, whereas Gideon represents a person who is thinking of God, presenting something to God; and the prophetic ministry is very significant because it is just what God is now stressing.
FI You mean that it is what God is stressing with us at present.
JT I think so. That is, what is to be for God. So that we have much in the Acts, many instances of conversions, and that is for God, but in 1 Corinthians 14, the prophetic ministry is brought forward as peculiarly resultful for God, that is resultful in the sense that a person comes in where the prophetic ministry is carried on. He falls down. The secrets of his heart are made manifest, and he is judged of all. He falls down and worships God. That is the real result. I think Gideon corresponds here. He says to the angel — the angel does not propose it — he proposes it, “Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee”. Do you think that is a significant fact as to how the work of God is going on today?
FI I do. I think in what you are referring to — 1 Corinthians 14 — the adjustment is brought into the man, and then that leaves him to take up the service of God. That is what you are after.
JT That is right. He is a worshipper immediately.
Rem The apostle speaks of the Thessalonians having turned from idols to serve a living and true God.
JT The word is not simply serving man, but ministering to God, and in view of this, if we have a desire to serve God, He gives instruction. He shows us what to do — that the service is not carried on in the ordinary religious way. It says in verse 20, “And the angel of God said to him, Take the flesh and the [p. 321] unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock and pour out the broth. And he did so. And the Angel of Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And the Angel of Jehovah departed out of his sight”. So that God comes in if we are to worship and to serve Him. He comes in to instruct us what to do.
FI What is the significance of the difference between the flesh and the unleavened cakes? Why are those two things brought together?
JT The flesh would be Christ as our sacrifice. Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore, let us keep the feast of unleavened bread, and that is to show the condition we are in, the state we are in. So that we have the direction in the flesh and unleavened cakes for God, poured out to God. They are associated, the flesh and the unleavened cakes. What is in mind is that it is Gideon’s state, and God accepts what he makes and He uses it. That is, He comes within his range.
GHC Have you any thought as to why the directions of the Angel came after Gideon presents it? First of all there is his presentation and then the direction of the Angel. Would you help us as to that in relation to the service of God?
JT Well, in Leviticus, it is a question of requiring what is to be brought on the day of atonement. But in Exodus, if a man bring an offering, that is whatever he brings, if it is within the range of the law, then it is accepted. So here it would seem as if Gideon’s offering is accepted and not only accepted, but the Angel directs him what to do with it.
HB Do you mean that this rock is his state of soul?
JT His state of soul is seen in his offerings. It is a significant word, extending back into the earlier [p. 322] books, and suggests the foundation of God, that the foundation is there. Things are continued on that principle, that we are on the firm foundation of God.
WH We can speak of “our rock” according to Deuteronomy.
JT Just so. And Gideon had that state — everything in his offering. So that when young people are converted to God, God comes before them and they would bring an offering. Well, if it comes within the range of the offerings, it will be accepted. That act is to represent us as to the law, the principle governing the service to God.
Ques Does that come out in connection with Abraham meeting the angels at the tent door? He offered a suitable offering to them, but Lot only offered the cakes. He had no kid. There is nothing indicating what is here.
JT Well, that is very similar.
Ques Or, do you think this might be more connected with the assembly setting which we have in Gideon?
JT Yes, only I would take it that Gideon represented Levi, who read his Bible; and now there is a divine Visitor before him, so that we go back to the beginning and Gideon is seeking to move on the line and record what he did. He asked the angel to tarry as Abraham did. Abraham asked them to remain under the tree until he brought what he did, and made it for them. They said, “So do as thou hast said”, and they waited for him. I think it is very touching that they did. How patient God is waiting upon us until we are ready to serve Him!
FW Does the waiting of the Lord upon him bring confirmation for him with regard to what the Lord had for him to do?
JT One is to consider the exercises of Gideon all the time, while he is preparing these things. Think of the grace of God in His ways with you. I think [p. 323] it ought to encourage all of us, especially the young, that whatever they have to bring out, if it comes within the range of the law, it will be accepted. I think the Lord’s heart is toward His young people for the first time beginning to offer.
AS Is there any significance in his putting the flesh in a basket and not in a pot?
JT I think it is the principle of a vessel, as the woman of Sarepta had the oil in the cruse, and the meal in the barrel. That is, you are not slovenly. We are to keep our vessels in order, in holiness, so that the thing God values is in the right setting.
Rem The pieces of the offering would be set in order.
JT The Angel says, “Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth”. He did so. He did what he was told. It is on this rock. It is a sure foundation. What we are doing is right.
TT The broth here seems to be an addition to what we get in the Corinthians. In what you quoted from 1 Corinthians 5, it is the passover sacrifice, for us, and then the unleavened bread, but where does the broth come in?
JT I think that is 2 Corinthians. I think it is an allusion to essence. I suppose it is an inscrutable allusion, if you understand what I mean. The thought is of an essence. The broth is the essence of the meat. Gideon brings them. He does not throw the broth away. Everything must be brought. It was an offering. It will, I suppose, be the essence of the meat or the flesh.
WH Would that suggest some recognition on the part of the offerer of the greatness of Christ — what He is personally?
JT I think so. It involves spirituality. It is what is poured out. We have constantly much allusion to what is poured out. Paul even spoke of [p. 324] himself as being poured out. I think it is dealing with the essential things and there is nothing left.
All is there. All is brought.
Rem Like David pouring out the water.
JT Well, that is so. It says, “pour out the broth. And he did so. And the Angel of Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes”. It does not seem as if the essence or the broth is consumed. It is there — all the richness of it is there. What pervades in the service of God is what we are enjoying. What heavenly joy is the pervading note that goes with the concrete expression of our worship.
RMcA Would that indicate, too, that it was Jehovah who was speaking to him? He asked for a sign. In Judges 6:17 he says, “shew me a sign”.
JT I think so. He would be conscious of it.
The Angel of Jehovah departed out of his sight, and Gideon said, “Alas, Lord Jehovah! for because I have seen an angel of Jehovah face to face ...”. And Jehovah stopped him and said, “Peace be unto thee fear not; thou shalt not die”. We often need that.
We pray to be able to take part in the meeting, but when it comes to the real test of having to do with divine fellowship with God, well, there are very few of us quick to do even according to Luke 24. The saints were not equal to the divine presence, but God instructed him, and it says, “Peace be unto thee fear not; thou shalt not die”. And then Gideon builds an altar to Jehovah. So that he made ready.
WH All this service would work out within the limits of His covenants, I suppose. Is not the tendency in christendom to ignore the elements of covenant in the first communication of the angel?
JT Yes. I should like you to say more about that.
WH I was wondering if this was a matter of [p. 325] great encouragement to us that deliverance comes in in coming to the covenant of God, and working within its limits, so that God secures a portion, eventually.
JT So that we certainly are in very narrow places today, and it is ours to bow to it. According to our faith, according to what we are to God, He gives us light as to what to do with our offerings.
GHC Would recognising what Paul says of the commandment of the Lord in Corinthians, make room for the ministry of the second letter?
JT I think that is good. We should not have the ministry to speak of unless we acknowledged the departure now.
Now, the third reference. — The attention is called to the failure of the male side. The appearance of the Angel is a sign to a woman — to a wife. God is reminding us in this that brothers are sometimes behind — not altogether, because Manoah is recognised here. His wife’s name is not given. His is. So that he is recognised. The man is mentioned first by the name, Manoah, “of the family of the Danites”, but the Angel appears to his wife. She tells her husband, and is true to her understanding. She says, “his appearance was like the appearance of an angel of God, very terrible”. That shows that she had certain spiritual understanding, whereas we are told our measure. “Manoah knew not that he was the Angel of Jehovah” (verse 16). That is, he was less discerning than his wife. He had less spiritual understanding, which I would take it, may be the lack of leaders.
FW Do you think it involves there may be hindrance or lack of ability to distinguish when the Lord is speaking and to whom He is speaking?
JT Just so. And then the thought that comes out is, whereas the wife discerned at once, for she says, “He was like an angel of God, very terrible”, yet she does not seem to be disturbed, and I believe he speaks to her in a very feeling way. He says,
“I pray thee” — a very respectful way. He says in verse 4, “Now beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink”. That is the Angel of God, although he may speak in this way, yet she says, he is very terrible, which of course, an angel of God could not be.
WH It would be an encouragement that God is not limited to the leading brethren. He works in relation to His own thoughts and the state of the saints.
JT Yes. And even when the Angel is gone, his wife is ahead of her husband still. She says to him, “If Jehovah were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and an oblation at our hands”. He is the head of the house, yet he has failed as to what is happening, whereas she knows. She reasons from what God is that if He receives a burnt-offering at our hands, He will not kill us. A very beautiful idea.
Ques Would the house of Chloe in the Corinthian epistle suggest the thought of the woman again?
JT That is very good. It is the house. Quite so.
Ques Is it a good feature to recognise her house?
JT Showing that she understood recovery. The woman is acknowledged in Timothy.
FI Did she not emphasise what was shown to her? I suppose what comes in later is constantly under the eye of the Spirit, moving in fresh thoughts and lines to the saints so that there should be a furtherance of things.
JT We do well to listen to the brethren at times, because they may be ahead of us. He did listen to his wife, but his state comes out. He betrays himself. He says to the Angel, “we will make ready a kid of the goats for thee”. He said moreover, “What is thy name, that when thy word cometh to pass we may do thee honour?” He is not receiving the word of God as it is. It has not come home to him, whereas the woman did [p. 327] receive it.
GHC Have you anything in your mind as to the kind of deliverer that is raised up in the first instance, in reference to Midian, and one is raised up who is available, but here it is out of the hands of the Philistines and there would appear to be a prophecy? It says, “he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines”.
JT Midian would represent the flesh contaminating us and take away the food — worldly associations. Gideon was raised up to destroy their power. The Philistines are more an opponent phase. The Nazarite should be stressed in regard of them. You could only meet them on this principle. They are men of great ability and influence. Manoah himself would mature into that if he was not checked. He is a man that exercises his power because he had the position. He thinks himself great enough to do honour to the Angel. He should not content himself. The only hope, indeed in this oppression, is Nazariteship, but in this service we have a further suggestion as to the service of God. “Manoah took the kid”, it says in verse 19, “and the oblation”. It is not here flesh and unleavened cakes, but it is the oblation. It is a question, I suppose, of the humanity of Christ. The unleavened cakes is more our state. He offered it upon the rock. He is following up what happened so far and the Angel did wondrously. That is, we have more than we had in the instance with Gideon, as if we were advancing here. The Lord would, I think, suggest to us that in our assembly setting, He will do great things for us. “He did wondrously”, it says, “And it came to pass, as the flame went up from off the altar towards the heavens, that the Angel of Jehovah ascended in the flame of the altar”. The previous incident relates that the Angel departed out of sight. Here he ascended in the flame. “As the flame went up from off the altar towards the heavens, that the Angel of Jehovah ascended in the flame of the altar”. He is going up with the fragrance of the offering. So that we have his name which is ‘Wonderful’, and he is true to that name. He acts wondrously.
Ques Why was this to the parents, and not to the individual — Samson, as to Gideon?
JT Well, it is to be an assembly matter, really to be brought forth. The deliverer would not be in Egypt, in our deliverance. So he would be waited for, but the parents are brought into the line of this wonderful acting, divine acting, as you say, so that the child is to be brought forth. That is the assembly exercise, you might say. The result is to come.
Ques Is that a different matter from what is in chapter 11, where Jephthah seems to be raised up? The man who has been an outcast, he is brought in, you may say, to give deliverance.
JT Yes. And he is not a product, as it were, of prophecies going before. With a man like Paul, you have prophecies going before. That is, it would be an assembly matter, an assembly exercise. The assembly in Acts 7 and 8, had in mind, I believe, the result. The light is brought in through Stephen and the assembly is viewed as suffering. I believe that Paul was affected. There was nothing like that with Jephthah. Whereas in this case, it is going to be, as it were, the result of assembly exercise. The exercise is in the light of this wonderful acting. It is to work out in the parents. So in Timothy, we have the product, too, from Paul.
FW So is it the exercise that there is something for God from the saints when the light of the matter comes before the deliverance takes place?
JT Yes. It takes a good while. Both parents are brought into it, but it begins with the woman as indicated, but the husband is brought into it. Adam was brought into the transgression, through his wife, but so Manoah was brought into the light of the service of God through [p. 329] his wife.
GHC Would it be right to say that Manoah and his wife looking on both with regard to the activities of the Angel, and then the Angel ascending in the flame, would suggest that the divine activities on this line are for contemplation?
JT That is the idea. The product must be in line with all this. Samson would be a man of this kind, born of all this. So that our coming generation ought to carry in its constitution the light of the previous generation. But here we have a careful instruction as to the one who is to come that there must be Nazariteship. Both parents are brought into it.
Rem It says of the wife, that she bore a son and named him.
JT Well, that is what we are saying. She names him. She is the more spiritual of the two, but then Manoah comes into it and one would hope that he gained by his wife’s answer; when he said to his wife, “we shall surely die, because we have seen God”, but his wife said to him, “if Jehovah were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and an oblation at our hands, neither would he have showed to us all these things, nor would he at this time have told us such things as these”.
WH Would this suggest the elevated character of the service, the thought of the Angel going up in the flame — something of what belongs to us as linked with the thought of ascension?
JT Do you not think God is helping us on those lines and has been for many years? God has helped us greatly. “I ascend”, not ‘I shall ascend’, but “I ascend”. It is the character of things.
WH So that that feature should find a definite place in our service Godward, that we should not drop short of God’s thought in ascension.
JT The ascension would come in in the most auspicious circumstances.