THE ADMINISTRATIVE FEATURE OF CHRISTIANITY (3)
[p. 104] THE ADMINISTRATIVE FEATURE OF CHRISTIANITY (3)
Hebrews 2: 16 - 18; Hebrews 5: 5 - 10; Hebrews 7: 26 - 28; 1 John 2:1, 2; John 14: 15 - 17
JT Our subject is the administrative feature of christianity, and how it is to be maintained. Priesthood and advocacy have a large part in the maintenance of the administration. They are, indeed, part of it. We will read Hebrews 2: 16 - 18; Hebrews 5: 5 - 10; Hebrews 7: 26 - 28; 1 John 2: 1, 2; John 14: 15 - 17.
This scripture in John 14 is added because it links the Holy Spirit with our subject, the word ‘comforter’ being the same as ‘advocate’ in John’s epistle. But the first part to be considered is the priesthood. We mentioned yesterday, in relation to Hebrews 4, the boldness of access which we have to the throne of grace. The high priesthood of Christ stands in relation to the house, the throne. So that it was brought in yesterday, but the thought is to look at it more extensively, and to see how the Lord’s priesthood sustains the house of administration. And what helps in the types is that the Lord is seen in Exodus 21 in the exercise of love, in the type of the Hebrew bondman. Jehovah had said “them that love me” in chapter 20 and in chapter 21 we have this type of Christ as showing love. It is said, “we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us”. So that we have One saying, “I love”. And when He says that we look for the way of love. We are to serve one another by love, and love enters into the subject of priesthood peculiarly. It is fundamental with regard to this subject, as it is fundamental with regard to the great subject of administration. “The Father loveth the Son”. Here it is the Son loving the Father. “I love my master, my wife, and my children”. So that we have the way of love introduced in the type after we are notified that there are lovers of God. We have One who says, “I love”, and then we have the way of it. He laid down His life for us. And we are to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is the way of it. Hence the bondman accepts death in type. His ear is bored through, alluding to his intelligence. Hebrews says He was heard in that He feared. Priesthood implies manhood. Manhood is fully seen in servitude. It is a question of what is heard. So that his ear is bored at the door-post, and he professes to abide a servant for ever. Then in chapter 28 He introduces Christ as again seen, not as a bond-slave but as a priest, One who would serve in a more dignified way. So it is not to serve Me as a slave, but as priest. And that raises another question which leads us back earlier in Exodus. The service is to be by the son. “Let my son go”. When the actual service is to be performed God’s request is for the priest. The sons of Aaron are included as well as Aaron. They are to be robed in a dignified way for this service. And that is what Hebrews takes up.
CAM It is an interesting matter about the ear, and the being heard. You were connecting the digging of the ear with hearing.
JT Quite so. That is the meaning of Psalm 40. ‘Ears hast thou digged’, alluding suggestively to incarnation. Becoming incarnate, the Son was here, taking the place of hearing. Satan would take Him out of that position. But the Lord says that “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. It is a question of the ear being ready to hear what God has to say.
CAM Yes. The priests have to do a lot of speaking. It would seem to follow that.
JT Yes. And he was to hear. The anointing included the ear, particularly corresponding with the boring [p. 106] of the ear.
ANW Would the service of bondman be up to the brazen altar and the service of priest from there on?
JT That is good. Of course, we have here the actual service at the altar, connecting with priesthood. That is, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make propitiation for the sins of the people, in that He Himself has suffered. He suffered on the altar. He was the offering priest. As you touch the altar you come to the priestly side.
He was a bond-slave entirely devoted to the will of God, even unto death.
ANW He offered Himself without spot unto God.
Rem What did you have in your mind when you spoke of the thought of the son underlying Exodus?
JT Well, the word to Pharaoh was, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”. That is the primary thought of God. But when God asks for a servant He does not use the word ‘son’, he uses the word ‘priest’, pointing to the fact that we are still in an environment that is marked by evil and the exercise of will, and that is what priesthood is for, that God might be served under these conditions. It suggests one who hears. So that the Lord says He does not do anything of Himself. What He sees the Father doing He does. The Father reveals everything to Him. It is only on the principle of hearing. He does not speak of Himself. He emanates from God; and hence priesthood involves training and instruction. Not that the Lord needed this. He knew all. But He knew man’s place; and everything emanates from God through Him.
AFM Do tell us why in Hebrews 10, Psalm 40 is translated to mean “a body hast thou prepared me” instead of, ‘ears hast thou digged for me’.
JT Well, that would be equivalent. How does the psalm read?
AFM Psalm 40: 6, “Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire: ears hast thou prepared me”. I think that is translated in Hebrews, “A body hast thou prepared me”. Does that emphasise the thought that He had taken that place? The whole body was set for hearing.
JT That is it. The ear being bored or digged or hollowed out — the language is to convey thoughts. These words ‘digged’ or ‘hollowed out’ mean simply that the Lord took a body, took a bondman’s form, took on humanity. And He says to the devil, in manhood, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. So in the prophet He says, “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed. The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear”, Isaiah 50: 4, 5. It is a remarkable thing that the Lord should take such an attitude, and it ought to appeal to us, that we might speak a word in season.
NW “God ... has spoken to us in the person of the Son”.
JT Quite so. Over against the prophets, here is One here who has the feelings of a man. So that there, in the first chapter of the epistle, it is to bring out who the Speaker is. “God ... at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son”. The article is omitted in the original to show that it is a divine Person in sonship. “By whom also he made the worlds”, and he goes on to speak of His greatness. But in chapter 2 He is on our side. And so it says, “For he does not indeed take hold of angels by the hand, but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like to his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people; for, in that himself has suffered, being tempted, he is [p. 108] able to help those that are being tempted”, Hebrews 2: 16 - 18. Now we have Him on our side with feelings like our own, sin apart. So that He can sympathise with us. And I think that the ears being digged alludes to incarnation. John used it properly when he said, “the Word became flesh”. That is incarnation; the Word becoming flesh. But the psalm would stress the hearing, taking the position where He hears. So that God has One here great enough to convey all His thoughts, but feeling enough to sympathise with us as hearing the things.
EP Would there be any connection between the thought of digging and hollowing out and learning obedience by the things which He suffered?
JT Well, there is a link there. How entirely human He was! He learned obedience. The learning is experimental. God cannot be said to experience obedience because He is not man. But Christ became Man, and experienced obedience. So that He learned from the things which He suffered, and then it adds, “having been heard because of his piety”. He was a pious Man, infinitely so. Yet God accredits Him with it and gives Him a hearing. But the great thought in His having an ear is that He should hear God. So that it comes to us first of all in the Son, and then in One who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
Ques Is the idea behind this priestly administration that we should take on the same features?
JT That is the intent. That is, you come into the benefits of the thing, the benefits of the priesthood.
Rem I was wondering if you would get an exemplification of the practical working out of this in Paul’s approach to the Corinthians. He was as a workman amongst them. He associated with them, and was able to help them in that way.
JT Yes, that is good. You get to know what people are by associating with them. Jonah entered a day’s journey into the city to know what kind of place it was. And then he cried. Paul worked as a tradesman in Corinth. He had come to know what was there. So that divine help comes to persons through one that knows them. As much as to say, I have been through the thing, and I can see that you deserve this. The principle is there. How perfect it was in Christ. As becoming Man, He moved about in this world and saw it as it was, and speaks accordingly.
Rem That makes a prophetic word all the more solemn.
JT Quite so. One thing in ministering is to know the people you are ministering to, what they have to contend with, what their environment is. So that Paul makes more of that in regard of Corinth. He determined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Divine communications come through the man that knows.
GD This priesthood is available to the seed of Abraham. What kind of persons are they characteristically?
JT It is to bring out the human side, I suppose; taking hold of the seed of Abraham. It was already sanctified. The Lord did not come into corrupt humanity. It was the seed of Abraham, already sanctified. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled”. The incarnation was infinitely pure. I suppose He takes up the seed of Abraham in that connection.
Mary was on that line, and she is taken up. Joseph, too. The seed of Abraham has a place spiritually.
It is not corrupt humanity. God knows how to take up something. The seed is there — holy seed.
JS Is it characteristically those called out?
JT I suppose so. It is not the ordinary corrupt humanity of Sodom. It is what already has been prepared. He has come in in that way.
Rem Like Romans 4. Those that are of Abraham,
[p. 110] on that line of father, whether they be gentile or Jew. Or are you confining it to the Jew?
JT Well, here it is the seed of Abraham. It alludes to Mary, the Lord’s mother. The word in Matthew is a unique word. “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”. It is a unique word. Not the ordinary word at all. It alludes to that kind of generation.
Jesus was seen at the end of the line. God looked at that line, and took care of it in that way. You can see how important that is. “Of whom was born Jesus”. Mary was His mother, and Joseph was His reputed father. It is a line under divine care, but still as human as any.
Rem Is that why you get the generations in Matthew?
JT Yes. Everything is divinely handled and certain ones are eliminated, so that the line is kept pure.
Rem And as you were saying, He is at the end of the line.
JT It shows how the line was under God’s eye; and then the Lord’s conception and birth. Luke gives you that side. He shows how it is preserved, how holy everything was. “The holy thing”, meaning that it was substantially holy.
CAM So that humanity in the mind of God seems to impress you with the fact that it is preserved all the way through; whatever journeys, from this place to that place; and eventually to Christ.
Ques Is it a creational view of humanity, or based on humanity?
JT We are created of God. That never applies to Christ. He is not a creature at all. He is a Son, though.
NW “In all things to be made like to his brethren”, does not suggest union with [p. 111] humanity.
JT No. He has taken on humanity, but thus cared for.
WB Does God introduce the family line with Abraham — a special thing?
JT Quite so. That is the reason he is given the name ‘father’. He is first called ‘high father’, meaning that he is morally dignified. God made him that. He would not be ashamed to be called his God.
ANW You were saying, while there are some shut out, there are some brought in.
JT Those who have manifested the fruit of God’s work. So that He takes up Abraham in Mesopotamia before He changed his name, as if he were morally dignified. And, He says, Your name has been ‘high father’. Now it is to be Abraham — ‘father of a multitude’; because I am Almighty. “Walk before me, and be thou perfect”. Not simply like Enoch, but walking before God. Enoch and Noah walked with God. He is the first one that walked before God. God sees all that happens in walking before Him. That is where the seed comes in; no other than Isaac. It is a holy seed. “In Isaac shall thy seed be called”.
Ques Will you distinguish between Matthew’s presentation and Luke’s, where he goes back to Adam?
JT It is all under the care of heaven. Outwardly, you might say, it might easily have been destroyed. But it cannot be destroyed. “The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee”, Luke 1: 35. God is there to look after everything. He who made the heavens and the earth can look after that.
GF What is the difference between walking before God and with God?
JT Walking with God is taking up companionship with God. He is not now questioning you so much; it is your selection. That comes in in Genesis 5. Enoch made that selection when Methuselah was born. Children require that you should [p. 112] make that companionship. Give up all other associations. Noah was the same. He was perfect in his generations. He walked with God. But to Abraham He says, “walk before me”. He did not say that early. In Genesis 17 He says that, as if He had already proved Abraham. God says, I am the One and you are the other. God enters into a covenant with him. God’s eye is on him all the time.
AFM The thought of ‘high father’ precedes the thought of the ‘father of a multitude’?
JT Well, I think it does. A man is not entitled to have a family on the low level. If he is a high father, he will baptise his children. He will lift them above the level of this world.
Rem At that point is where his name is changed.
JT Yes.
GF He will command his house after him.
JT Quite so. That is good. The fact is that Abraham becomes a judge. In chapter 17 God comes to him and carries on a conversation with him with regard to the setting aside of the flesh. So that Jehovah went up and then came back to him in chapter 18, and there is the wonderful event of Abraham entertaining God. And then the question of judgment comes up. Is there anybody in the world that can judge? Is there anyone that can discriminate between good and evil? Abraham can. He says, You are the Judge of all the earth. God says, Abraham can judge, because he ruled his house after him. “To do righteousness and justice”, Abraham is the source of that. Abraham says to God, You are the Judge of all the earth. Chapter 18 brings in that side.
Rem If our houses are not right there is something wrong in our judgment.
JT Quite so. Judgment goes with the patriarchal side. He discerns between good and evil, not only for himself but for his house. I will make him My friend, God [p. 113] says.
EP Does priesthood come in in that connection? Judgment is about to be rained on Sodom, and Abraham assumes a priestly attitude.
JT Yes. He is really a priest there. He is interceding on the ground of righteousness. He does not want anything else. And that helps us with regard to our subject. Priests are clothed with righteousness. The first thing to see is how the Lord is on our side, taking on Abraham’s seed, and so feeling with His brethren, because it is His brethren here; and He is able to sympathise in that He Himself has suffered. Having been tempted, He is able to help those that are being tempted. For it is only the two or three that He was with. It is the great principle that is being worked out. He is helping those that are tempted.
EP Do you get a touch of that in Paul, where he says to the Corinthians, “God ... will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear”?
JT Exactly. He knew how far to go with them. He did not put any more on them in ministry than they were able to bear. Priesthood means I know what the brethren here need, and how to help them.
CAM You can understand him starting with the exceeding greatness of the Person, and how amazingly great that makes the thing.
JT Yes. In chapter 4 we have this great priest over the house of God. He can sympathise with our infirmities, being tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart. And then in chapter 5, “Thus the Christ also has not glorified himself to be made a high priest; but he who had said to him, Thou art my Son, I have today begotten thee”. Now we come to the order of it. Whilst Aaron is in mind right through, Aaron does not represent the order. It is another order of priesthood, that is, Melchisedec. “Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up both supplications and entreaties to him who was able to save him out of [p. 114] death, with strong crying and tears; (and having been heard because of his piety;) though he were Son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered; and having been perfected, became to all them that obey him, author of eternal salvation; addressed by God as high priest according to the order of Melchisedec”, Hebrews 5: 7 - 10. Now we are on another great platform, the platform of order and eternal salvation by one who has been perfected. That is the second time we get this word. He has taken on another kind of humanity. That is the humanity that is in the mind of God, and that is in view in salvation.
ANW Is that the meaning of ‘perfected’? That He is in a position never to change?
JT Yes.
Rem I was thinking of the acacia wood — does that refer to this order of humanity?
JT Well, acacia wood is a type of Christ carrying things. You get other woods in the temple, but the idea of wood is attached to Christ in type. He showed Moses wood. He is of another order morally, as in the flesh here. He is cast into the water there. The idea is carried through into Solomon’s day, what is dignified.
CAM I want to ask you about this matter of the order of Melchisedec. The order precedes the functioning of it.
JT It brings up a very important side of our subject. It came in in Genesis 14.
ANW Actually linked with Abraham himself.
JT Just so. It is to bring out the superiority of Christ’s priesthood over the Aaronic. It is marvellous the way the scripture is employed; just to bring out the superiority of our priest.
Ques Is it the thought that we should start with the Melchisedec side?
JT I think all the service is on the Aaronic [p. 115] principle. Melchisedec does not refer to the sympathetic side at all. It is to bring out the superiority of our priest. “Without father, without mother, ... abides a priest continually”.
JS One who is not subject to death.
JT Personally, He is immune. He did not need parentage like Aaron. He is without father and mother.
CAM In order to bring out this greatness primarily, this matter of order, the matter of need does not come in as yet.
JT It is a question of getting the greatness of the Person. The actual way that He teaches us is in sympathy. It is afterwards that you come into the idea. So that you do not get the Melchisedec order as early as you do the sympathetic side. You get it in chapter 4. That is like the dignified side we come back to, as we prove the sympathies of Christ.
JS It is a heavenly order.
JT That is the idea. The description is in the beginning of chapter 7, “For this Melchisedec, King of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from smiting the kings, and blessed him; to whom Abraham gave also the tenth portion of all; first being interpreted King of righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is King of peace; without father, without mother, without genealogy; having neither [p. 118] beginning of days nor end of life, but assimilated to the Son of God, abides a priest continually”. So that it is a continual priesthood. He does not die. Not that He has not died. He has gone into heaven. It is the priestly state that Christ is in.
Rem In chapter 5: 5 it says about Christ, “Thus the Christ also has not glorified himself to be made a high priest; but he who had said to him, Thou art my Son, I have today begotten thee”. Is there glory attached to [p. 116] this?
JT Certainly; this epistle is built up on those two psalms. “This day have I begotten thee”. That is what is alluded to here, to bring out the deity of Christ, and His immunity to death.
ANW But why is He first saluted as Son before He is saluted as priest?
JT To bring out the Person. The Son is more than the priest. The Son is God. He is saluted as Son in the second Psalm. “I this day have begotten thee”, in verse 7; and “in another place he says, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec”. The sonship as taken in the Psalms is wider in its bearing. It is political as well as priestly. The Son is everything. The One who is owned as Son is the priest. He is a priest for ever. Everything attaches to Him. But it is the permanency of the priesthood. He is a priest for ever.
Ques. Why is that?
JT It is just the way God brings in things to help our minds. It means the permanency of the priesthood. It does not go so far as sonship. Sonship is wider.
CAM Sonship underlies all the gospels.
JT Quite so.
FC Is the thought of Melchisedec inscrutable?
JT Yes. You may say that. “Without father, without mother”. He comes on the scene abruptly and disappears abruptly. This chapter tells us all there is about him.
JS Is it in regard to the humanity of Christ, lest we should think He is a Man of earthly order?
JT Quite so.
ANW The Melchisedec order comes in first. God secures what is His.
JT Quite so. He remained that for ever. So that when you come to chapter 7, “such a high priest became us, ...” the blessed God would bring out the greatness of [p. 117] the saints.
CAM Yes. The first thing would tend to take us out of ourselves. The greatness of Melchisedec — the words used — all tend to make you feel this is something far exceeding myself. That seems to help a soul.
JT Yes. And the word is to deliver the people of God from man-made priesthood. Christendom is founded on this sort of thing. And Melchisedec is to get into my soul what that word means. That means that all this sacerdotal system that is around us is simply wiped out completely in my mind. Here is a priesthood that was preconceived and is to abide for ever. And it is to deliver us from sacerdotalism.
AFM Is not this priesthood Aaronic priesthood? Does it not endear Christ to our hearts as priest? Do we not go on to appreciate Him as after the order of Melchisedec?
JT I am sure it does. So that the types in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy deal with the Aaronic side. But the Melchisedec side is brought in first. So that we should have in our souls the greatness of our Priest. But then, let us not discard the functioning of a priest. What is said about Aaron is to be understood. The Scriptures make Aaron the basis of it. How he serves!
WB Do you connect sympathy with both? He came to Abraham after he returned from the battle with the kings. Was there not sympathy there, too?
JT Well, there would be. But the point made here is not that. Consider how great this man was. The point is how great he is. He is said to be King of Salem. It was a question of kings once. There were nine kings. But here it is the King. The real one comes and he brings in life. He met Abraham returning from smiting the kings, and blessed him. Abraham gave him the tenth portion of all. And then we are told what this name means, King of righteousness, King of Salem, and then “without father and mother, without genealogy; having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but assimilated to the Son of God, abides a priest continually”.
Ques What does assimilated to the Son of God mean?
JT It is to bring in Psalm 110, what that psalm means. He is the Son. This person is assimilated to the Son of God. The Son of God is a wider thought.
This personage represents it in one sense. He is a great personage, and he delivers our souls from the whole sacerdotal system. Abraham the great patriarch was less than this great man. Melchisedec was great. Abraham paid him tithes. The priestly tribe paid tithes to this great man. It is for the Jewish mind.
CAM He was greater than Abraham, and it is shown in the fact that Abraham gave him tithes.
EP Do you think this idea of the priesthood enters into conflict in the testimony? It says in Psalm 110, “The Lord ... will smite through kings”.
There is the thought of Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, then the establishing of the King of righteousness and peace.
JT Yes. The thought of smiting through the kings. You must smite the kingship. The sacerdotal system is based on kingship. The whole system has to go.
EP You feel how these principles work out.
Abraham came up out of the slime pits. As coming up out of those conditions, Melchisedec met him.
Melchisedec brought forth the bread and the wine.
JT Quite so. And another thing that comes out is the idea of persons. Abraham was fortified by Melchisedec about the idea of persons instead of property. The king of Sodom wants the persons.
Abraham and Melchisedec stood for persons. It is a question of persons. This epistle is working out the greatness of persons. The people are so great; they need a great high priest like this.
[p. 119] EP In these difficulties we come to value the souls, not the things.
JT Just so.
APf “Neither beginning of days nor end of life”. Would that make it an eternal priesthood?
JT That is right. Here the testimony is that men die. But this man lives for ever; so that it is an abiding priesthood.
Rem The word in chapter 7: 16 is, “who has been constituted not according to law of fleshly commandment, but according to power of indissoluble life”.
JT Quite so. That is the way God works the truth into our souls. It is Christ as risen from among the dead in the power of life.
Rem We are quick to lay hold of being sanctified.
Do you not think we are slow to take in the glory of this One?
JT Time has nothing to do with it. It is superior to it. It is above all power of corruption.
McC Would you say a little about our attitude toward time and our attitude in the eternal state?
JT I do not say that it would be altogether out of sight, but sonship is the thought. Priesthood comes in between because of conditions. The point is, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”. The last book of the Old Testament brings it out. “They shall be unto me a peculiar treasure, saith Jehovah ... and I will spare them”, Malachi 3: 17.
CAM It ought to help everybody in connection with deliverance from religious system — what God thinks about the persons.
JT Yes. This chapter stresses it particularly.
“Such a high priest became us”. That is to bring out the greatness of the saints. They need such a Man as this. You might say He needs us, but we need Him, to elevate our souls as to our greatness in the mind of God. “Holy, harmless, undefiled,
[p. 120] separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens”.
Rem Say something about that thought “higher than the heavens”.
JT Well, it is a remarkable word. The heavens are for height, we are told. They represent that thought. The earth is for depth. The Lord went down to the depths. We are to measure the height, depth, breadth, and length — it is the four dimensions. We get it in Ephesians. But here you have what goes beyond the heavens. The heavens are for height. For the creature, heaven would be the acme of height.
JS In Ephesians He ascended far above all heavens.
RWS “Separated from sinners”. What does that mean?
JT That means what He was in a moral sense down here, that is apart from sin. He passes to higher than the heavens.
RWS I thought of Luke’s presentation of Him, and then this verse, and wondered how it worked.
JT Well, it is morally — the tabernacle is a type of Christ in the wilderness, the means of excluding evil.
CAM It is remarkable — the expression “higher than the heavens”. The One who was in that uncreated sphere came into a measurement condition. Had He not come down, nothing would ever have gone up. It seems to magnify all this theme of measurement.
JT Quite so. How He measured everything! Now He is in His own creation in a moral way. He is infinitely apart from sinners. Every person He came in contact with — what came out! How He judged So that the whole thing is weighed and measured according to God. It is to bring out His Person. Separated from sinners is what He is down here. As a Man He had to do with sinners. But there was infinite distance between Him and sinners. Still He eats with them. “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them”. That was true, but He was infinitely apart from them as sinners. He came to seek and save them. “Higher than the heavens” is an allusion to His personal greatness.
JS “That he might fill all things” in Ephesians.
JT Yes. He “set himself down”. It is His own action. So that our souls may be filled with the greatness of this Person.
Rem In entering the uncreated sphere, does He enter that as Man?
JT I think so.
Rem Do you think that in Luke 7 the idea of measurement comes in there? “Her sins, which are many” — He has them all measured.
JT Quite so. You get the idea of measurement right through. Everything is weighed.
Rem “Out of whom went seven devils”.
JT You get it right through the gospels. We have not touched the subject at all because it is so immense. It brings us into priesthood. Peter brings us into it — “a holy priesthood”, he says, “to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”. We become part of the system. And our prayers are that we are part of the system, as already benefiting from the system. The word translated ‘advocate’ is used five times. It is translated ‘advocate’ here, and ‘Comforter’ in John’s gospel. It is used four times in John’s gospel and once here. It is touched on in chapter 14 where the Lord is going to die. He brings in this appellation of the Spirit. He says, “another Comforter”, meaning that He was one down here. While He was among them, He served, now He is going away, and there was to be Another here. We are not going to lose His patronship. The Holy Spirit takes care of that. The Spirit of God is looking after matters, He maintains us here. He looks after us in a meeting like this. He puts it [p. 122] all together, and makes it all profitable. He is in charge of the matter. He is alongside of us, and looks after the assembly as anyone might look after an expedition. The Holy Spirit is here looking after matters. We could not have the testimony without His patronship. But the Lord is up there. If anyone sin, we have One up there. It is the maintenance of the dispensation. The priest refers to God, but the patron is with the Father, to maintain the dispensation. Whatever happens to any one of us, the Lord looks after it altogether. Even before it happens, He knows about it.
ANW Why does it come into view with regard to sin?
JT Well, it is because the thing is so urgent. Many are overwhelmed if anything happens, and do worse. The power of sin is terrible. Satan would make you do more. Peter denied the Lord, but he did more. He denied Him with oaths and curses. But the Lord said, before anything happened, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”.
RWS What does He do with the Father?
JT Oh, it is a wonderful way divine Persons have of conversing with one another about matters. The Lord spoke to the Father here. Has it ever occurred to you that They converse about you?
RWS No. That never occurred to me.
JT Well, They do. The Lord speaks to the Father here about the saints. They occupy the whole prayer in John 17. “The men which thou gavest me out of the world”. About that young man that sinned. What is to be done about this? The Lord can always point to Himself. The One who is there on our behalf is the provision for our sins. He says to God, ‘You know what I have done’. That is the moral right He has. He can tell God about that.
ANW And in that regard He is the righteous.
JT Quite so. God is bound to respect that. [p. 123] The Lord has finished the work of redemption for the whole world.
McC What you said regarding Peter — while he was cursing you would say, ‘I do not see any faith in such blasphemy’. But there was faith.
JT It is the best illustration I know about advocacy. The Lord says, “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat”. Satan despised them, and to the universe they were nothing at all. But “I have prayed for thee”. And when the time came the cock crew.
-McC. The “you” is plural.
JT Yes. But the “thee” is singular. And the Lord says, “I have prayed for thee”. The cock crew and He looked at Peter. And Peter wept bitterly.
AFM You have put a new thought on the sifting of Satan. I always thought the wheat was valuable.
JT What Satan thought was that there was nothing there. I do not think that Satan had in his mind there should be any wheat at all.
Ques Was the look a priestly look?
JT I suppose advocacy was part of the priesthood. The prayer preceded and now He looked. It shows the kind of thing advocacy is. He does not say anything, He looked.
CAM Yes. I can see the urgency in taking care of the thing. If nothing is done, the next thing will be worse. This matter of Satan is a very interesting thing.
JT The book of Job is the opening up of all this. The sons of God were together and Satan would ridicule the thing. ‘They are not any different. You let me at them’.
CAM The whole situation was changed. So that the Advocate above in addition to the Holy Spirit here below seems to be necessary to the extent that Satan is still there.
JT [p. 124] He is the accuser of the brethren yet. It brings out the wonderful economy that there is. An Advocate up there, and one down here; John brings out four times over that there is an Advocate.
AFM So that there is no reason, if we are overwhelmed, to remain overwhelmed.
JT If Peter had been left alone, he may have murdered somebody.
CAM He would have to be put out of fellowship.
JT Quite so.
Rem We need the priest with the discerning eye.
JT Vigilance is another thing. The idea of vigilance attaches to Christ.
ANW I was thinking of the evidence of faith seen in that Peter caught the Lord’s look.
JT Quite so. A child, if he has done something wrong, does not like to meet your eye. But Peter did not evade that.
JS Was it as a merciful High Priest He appears to Simon?
JT That is to bring out the character of the dispensation. That is what they were saying at Jerusalem. “The Lord is indeed risen, and has appeared to Simon”, that great sinner.
Ques Is that the time He appeared to Simon in John 21?
JT John 21 is later. The apostle Paul gives the order. He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, and after that was seen of above five hundred brethren at once. The saints seemed to know the meaning of that. He is a great sinner, but the Lord is the Advocate. He appeared to that man.
Rem He went out from the presence of the Lord weeping. That would be some evidence of faith?
JT Well, the work of recovery had begun.
Rem The leprosy is all out.
JT Yes. It took a long time.
[p. 125] CAM It is interesting that Peter seems to be representative in that way.
JT Yes.
JS In Luke 24 the appearing to Simon is the subject of the conversation.
JT It is really the gospel; the appearing to Simon and the breaking of bread. “He was made known to them in the breaking of bread”.
RWS I wanted to ask, could I exhaust His advocacy by sinning again and again? It says, “if any man sin”, not ‘when a man sin’.
JT “If any man sin” — but John says before that that I am not giving you any licence to sin in what I am going to say. “My children, these things I write to you in order that ye may not sin; and if any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2: 1, 2. You talk about advocacy, and a person might take licence. Well, you might be lost anyway. John says, ‘My children, I am writing now to you things that are needful, but it is that you should not sin’. There is no licence at all.
McC Should I “continue in sin that grace may abound?”
JT Quite so. It is a terrible thing to say that.
If I continue in sin, what does that prove? If a man is filthy, let him be filthy still.
CAM That seems to take the thing outside of the range of the present.
JT Yes. John says,”There is a sin unto death”. Now, he says, I do not say that you should pray for that. We have to understand that.
CAM I can see that there is something outside of the dispensation.
JT Yes. We have to be discerning about the government of God.
Ques Why did the Lord speak as He did to Pilate, “he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin”?
JT Well, it shows that there is perfect fairness. Satan will get the worst; then the beast, and the false prophet. God is perfectly fair. They will not all share the same judgment.
JS So that the beast and the false prophet are cast alive into the lake of fire.
JT All these things are to be observed. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” “He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin”. He was not exonerating Pilate.
Rem And so He gave Lot an opportunity for all his children. As Judge of all the earth, He exposed their position there.
JT Abraham was thinking of Lot all the time.
He did not have anything but a righteous person in mind, ten righteous persons.
CAM He was judging all the earth. The Lord showed Pilate that He was, too. Pilate thought he was judging, but the truth was the Lord was judging Pilate.
JT The whole scene comes under judgment at the cross. And the remarkable thing there is that three persons come up from the enemy’s camp and justify Jesus: the thief, Pilate’s wife, and the centurion.