THE LORD'S SUPPER (2)
THE LORD’S SUPPER (2)
JT The eleventh chapter of the first epistle to Corinth was read last Lord’s day, but we were unable to enlarge on the subject then. We think it better to go on to the second letter now to pursue our subject, that is, the Lord’s supper, because the second letter is more substantial, more complete, so that it is thought we shall be able to open up the subject a little more fully. What has been remarked is of the very first importance as to the subject, because the first letter is almost entirely corrective. The second letter affords more substance and spiritual enlargement, as I hope we shall see as we proceed. The apostle had experienced much suffering and persecution before the second letter was written. He had come nigh to death, he said, but God had effected deliverance for him, and so he is now free to touch on the very fundamentals of the first epistle. The first epistle to the Corinthians is one of the most important in the whole New Testament in view of the service of God, because it is devoted in the main to that subject, but the apostle in the first epistle has almost immediately to reprove them, to enter on a course of reproof. And it may be that we all need reproof as to the principles governing the Lord’s supper. The Lord’s supper is celebrated nominally in perhaps a hundred ways among the sects, so-called, so that it is all the more important that we should look into it carefully, and see what the bearing of it is as seen in the second letter.
PRP What did you have in mind in referring to the sufferings of the apostle?
JT Well, they are alluded to in the first chapter of this epistle. He said, “We do not wish you to be [p. 169] ignorant, brethren, as to our tribulation which happened to us in Asia, that we were excessively pressed beyond our power, so as to despair even of living. But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who has delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver; in whom we confide that he will also yet deliver” (2 Corinthians 1:8 - 10). That is what is alluded to, so that undoubtedly the apostle needed the discipline involved; not that it is seemly for us to speak of his being disciplined, but undoubtedly God foresaw the need of opening up the subject of the Lord’s supper more fully, and He allowed His servant to go through this discipline, so as to be competent inwardly to take the thing up as he does in these chapters.
PRP Is there a suggestion in this that to enter into Christianity substantially requires suffering?
JT Well, it seems so. “Unto you it is given”, we are told in Philippians 1:29, “not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake”. Paul speaks of filling up that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh for His body’s sake. And there are many similar passages from which we see that sufferings are essential to our being competent (even the apostles being competent) to deal with the greatness of the truth in its fulness.
ENJ So that verses 5 and 6 of our chapter would have that in view, “not that we are competent of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our competency is of God; who has also made us competent, as ministers of the new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit”, and so on.
JT Well, that just bears out what has been said, that sufferings are needed for us if we are to enter fully into the truth, and if we are to open it up to one another.
[p. 170] PAH So that as to ourselves, it is needful for us to understand something of suffering to really appreciate the Supper. That is, the Supper is taken in suffering conditions.
JT That is why it has been thought well of late to call attention to the fact that the calling of the Lord to mind as indicated in the first letter, is not simply that He is absent from this world, but that He is actually in spirit, at least in mind and in thought, in the place of suffering; because I think at times it has been thought that the calling of the Lord to mind is just that He is away, He has gone into heaven. But I do not think that the Lord really, as it were, needs to be sympathised with, if I may use that word, but rather that He is actually here in spirit. I use the word ‘in spirit’ so as to make clear that the Lord is in heaven literally, but He is here in spirit, that is, with His people. When the time of calling Him to mind arrives on the first day of the week, there is opportunity to be reminded that He too Himself is still in the place of suffering; and that is illustrated in the fact that when the apostle Paul was converted, the Lord said to him, “Why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4) Now the Lord is in heaven literally, but He speaks of Himself as in the place of suffering, and that Paul was causing the suffering. The Lord was not literally persecuted by Paul at that time, but He was in spirit with the brethren in their sufferings. Paul at that time, or immediately before it, was the outstanding instrument of the devil to persecute the saints, dragging men and women before tribunals, and so forth, as we learn in Acts 9. So that the Lord in spirit is in the sufferings when He asks us to call Him to mind.
CGMcC So that “Why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4) is a present thought?
JT Quite so.
RCMcC Calling Him to mind is not historical [p. 171] is it, but rather the activity amongst the saints as moving together in love?
JT Quite so. So that when we come to partake of the Lord’s supper, whether it is in a city, a town, or even a village, we have to bear in mind that that village is essentially, if not openly, opposed to Christ. The idea of sufferings is alluded to in the book of Revelation, “Where also their Lord was crucified”, Revelation 11:8. That refers to the cities of this world. So that it would be an entire mistake to assume that the Lord is in honour in this world.
ENJ Is the suggestion in Matthew 26 that they sang a hymn and went out to the mount of Olives, a connection between the public setting of the Supper and the commencement of the service of God?
JT Well, that requires a little more opening up. We should all understand what is in mind on your part.
ENJ I am thinking of the hostile state of things that we have been speaking about, in any village or city where the Lord’s supper may be partaken of, but as we do come together in that way, have we not then the holy privilege of entering into the service of God in a united way? There is the going out, and going up to the mount of Olives. Physically we do not move from the room, but it is a spiritual upward movement to a higher side of things.
JT Yes, that is very good to have before us, that we do not move from the room, there is no such thought; but there is such a thought as the saints being spiritual, and even going to the extent of ecstasy, although one would hesitate to say that it could be proved that there is such experience now; but at the beginning there was, and we are entitled to treat of the dispensation as a whole, and if anything happened at the beginning, or the middle, it belonged to the dispensation, and so may be treated thus. Hence, to illustrate, in the beginning of the [p. 172] dispensation as seen in Acts, the Lord appeared to His own in a corporeal sense; He was here for forty days before He went to heaven, after He rose; and in the book of Acts He is regarded, and in the first epistle to the Corinthians too, as appearing in a corporeal sense to His own. Therefore it is quite intelligible and right to say that He is to be apprehended in a corporeal sense, even although it might only be at the beginning, and not even in the times of the Reformation, nor even now, but yet the fact remains that the Lord appeared to His own in a corporeal sense. I think that is of importance to keep in mind, that the dispensation has to be taken account of in the whole matter; even if the corporeal thought be eliminated now, at any rate He appears spiritually as John 14 would teach. He said, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you John 14:18”. So that He comes to us at least in a spiritual sense, and is to be apprehended thus.
PAH And are we able to look upon the glory of the Lord? That is, we are not looking upon His sufferings, but His glory, and that would help in the transference in our spirits and minds from the scene of suffering to that which is beyond it.
JT Exactly, and surely it is in keeping with the dispensation, and God is entitled, so to speak, to bring it before us, that the Lord Jesus, although He is actually and literally in heaven, yet as a divine Person, can come and go as He pleases. For instance He comes for us: “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first”, (1 Thessalonians 4:16). That is the Lord’s own action. It is not the Spirit’s action, it is His own action, and we cannot say that He is sent to do it. It implies that He is at all times at liberty to have access to His brethren, to the assembly.
RP Is the public aspect of the Supper associated with the thought of the Lord’s coming? It is “till he come”, whereas the inward and spiritual side opens the way now for a spiritual manifestation of Christ to His own. And is not that dependent upon the truth brought out by Paul? He did not know Christ here on earth. It is purely from heaven, is it not?
JT He said, “Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). He saw Him. We know historically that he did at different places; and the Lord is asserting in all that, that He has rights, and that we must not question them. So in coming back to our chapter, that is to stress the substantiality of it, and what is in the second letter, particularly what is stressed in the third chapter we have read, because it leads up to the thought of our being changed, that we are capable of being changed. Even the Lord Himself takes the ground of capability of being changed. What I am saying may be just an open question in the minds of many that are listening to it, and therefore one would be thankful if the brethren would say what they think, because it is very important we should have these things before us now as we are drawing near to the end, and the Lord is about to come, and we should be ready for His coming.
PAH Does a change in the Lord as in relation to the service of God imply a change in us correspondingly?
JT Well, when I say a change in the Lord, I mean He is at liberty to appear in another form, as Mark says, “He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country”, Mark 16:12. And then John tells us that the Lord is seen in judicial garb, as mentioned in the first chapter of the book of Revelation. The assembly is mentioned before He is mentioned. That is to say the assembly is seen, and the Lord in the midst of it.
[p. 174] So that it is a question of the Lord having the right to appear according to what He wishes, and that the assembly should be free too, that the Lord should be free to call attention to the assembly, even before He is seen there.
JAA When it says, “Ye are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read of all men”, is that what is substantially in the Corinthian saints now that is capable of change?
JT I think what the apostle means is that the Corinthians were his letter, and that it was known and read of all men. That is to say, Paul implies that he spoke constantly about the Corinthians, and that they were his letter, because he could speak of them so freely. He was full of the thought of the Corinthian saints. It was a great work, one of his greatest. The Lord spoke to him, “Fear not, ... I am with thee, ... I have much people in this city (Acts 18:10)”. And I believe Paul valued the Corinthian epistle, because the Lord had much people there, and it afforded him an opportunity to bring out the various thoughts of the assembly in speaking and writing to them.
RP So he makes much of his ministry in the second epistle, in relation to the saints who will take on the ministry.
JT Yes, he makes much of them. That is the reason why he begins speaking of them. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions, and God of all encouragement; who encourages us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to encourage those who are in any tribulation whatever, through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged of God”, 2 Corinthians 1: 3,4. Then he speaks about the yea and the amen of God’s promises being in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who had been preached by him and those with him. Then in the second chapter he says, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and makes manifest the odour of his knowledge through us in every place. For we are a sweet odour of Christ to God, in the saved and in those that perish: to the one an odour from death unto death, but to the others an odour from life unto life” (2 Corinthians 2:14 - 16). That is what I was thinking of. That the odour was in Paul, but then he links them up with him, and speaks approvingly of them in the later chapters. One is hardly able to go into the details, there is not time, but I think it is important to have these things before us, in order that we may have the Lord’s supper rightly before us, and see how the second letter opens up the thing substantially, so that we should now have it substantially as we partake of it.
WJB Does the reference to “looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face”, indicate the fact that the truth is opened to us so that we are at home in His presence?
JT I was thinking we would come to that, because it is really the crux of the whole matter, this third chapter. That is what he finishes with: “But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed [p. 182] according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. That is to say the Lord is here as a Spirit, the Lord is called a Spirit, and He is transforming us in that capacity. It is a question of the Lord’s authority and power in bringing about the transformation, so as to have the truth of the Lord’s supper substantially amongst us.
JM Is this to stimulate our hearts so as to enable us to move forward in all that which is so transcending? The ministry of condemnation was introduced with glory, but this ministry subsists in [p. 176] glory.
JT Yes, the first ministration, of glory, of course, is alluded to in the book of Exodus, but the apostle is showing here that the real thing is now what he had. It was a question of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Himself is viewed as a Spirit. He is called “the Lord the Spirit”, and He does the transforming. It has often been referred to as a metamorphosis, a real transformation, a change in the state of the saints through this ministry.
JMcN Is it the idea of our being transformed as we behold the Lord in His movement from glory to glory in the service?
JT That is right; that is what I understand, and that is the reason why I have endeavoured to bring out that it is a real matter, it is a real change that comes about in the saints.
PAH Would Mary illustrate this, in that she turned round? The Lord was indicating an ascending line, and a change in Him in a sense is reflected in Mary, she turned right round. There was a change in her.
JT Very good. When He called her “Mary”.
CGMcC Would you help us with regard to the first few words in that verse: “We all”? What is covered by that?
JT That is to say the application of the truth here is universal. Although he is speaking directly to the Corinthians, the application of the truth is universal, and it ought to work out in our first days, that is, the beginning of every week, as the Lord’s supper is celebrated; it is a question of whether we are ready for the change.
WJB The veil being upon our hearts would hinder us entering into these things. “When Moses is read”, it says, “the veil lies upon their heart”. We need that veil to be removed to come into the light of things.
JT That is, we need to come into 1 Corinthians [p. 177] instead of remaining in Exodus. We have to learn to be in the anti-typical part of Scripture, to deal with Scripture anti-typically, and so pass on from Exodus, or whatever it be that is involved, to the actual thing which the apostle Paul is ministering.
ENJ This expression in verse 18, “are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”, there is no limit to that?
JT That is what I would say. There is no limit from glory to glory; therefore we begin with the Lord’s supper. We come together, we leave our houses and come together; and the first thought in our minds would be to get into touch with one another, because we need to be changed, and if we are to be changed, to be ready for the change, that is, changeable. The Lord Himself takes that ground, and so the thought is that we are to learn to be capable of change, because we shall be, when He comes for us; and now the thing is to learn to be capable of change in a moral sense, and thus fit for the assembly, and the assembly service.
RP That is what we see in Stephen. There was a change with him.
JT Very good; I am sure it is intended for that. I was thinking of the two men that are mentioned, Stephen and Philip. How ready they were, after their appointment to the deaconship, for greater things, for purchasing to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith! They were ready for that.
RP Do we see in Paul things worked out in a substantial way? The thing was found in expression in himself.
JT He evidently made much of the Corinthians. He would say, ‘I would like you to understand the wonderful work that is going on in Corinth’. One is sometimes mindful to say the same thing as to the wonderful work going on here in Australia. Not that [p. 178] one would occupy the saints with themselves, but it is right to take account of what God is doing. We will presently be saying, “What hath God wrought!” But what is He doing? What is the character of His work? There is a wonderful work here, only the enemy is endeavouring to spoil it, but the Lord is endeavouring to help us to overcome by suffering.
RP Your suggestion is that Paul felt death was rolled in on him. He said, “We ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who has delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver”, (2 Corinthians 1: 9,10).
JT Just so, and that we might be able to encourage those who are in any tribulation whatever. He had gone through things, and he would be able to encourage any here in suffering.
AM Is the reference to the Spirit quickening important? Do we perhaps overlook His service, and not make room for it sufficiently? I am inquiring as to how all of us might move into this more intelligently, and make room for the service of the Spirit in this quickening way, which obviously involves a change, does it not?
JT It does. So if we look at the chapter again we shall see. Verse 5, “Our competency is of God; who has also made us competent, as ministers of the new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens”. You mean that? The quickening power of the Spirit is current all the time in order to complete the assembly.
RGW Whilst there is a special opportunity for this on the Lord’s day, is this a matter that goes on continually as we come into the condition of soul for it?
JT Well, I would think so, but the first day of the week is so important. The idea of time, too, comes up now at this point. We have the idea of [p. 179] time. God Himself made time, and He made it for Himself, and was content to stop at seven. He made the first day, the second day, and so forth, up to the seventh. Then we have later the idea of weeks, and the idea of weeks introduces the thought of the assembly. I believe the assembly is worked out in weeks. As regards Israel it was more the new moons, or the months; whereas now the thought is weeks, and hence the first day of the week is of prime importance. Then the second day of the week is the prayer meeting, and so forth. We can easily see how the Spirit of God is working on the principle of time, and affording us time, because we need it. We cannot always be working with our hands, we need rest, and we need to take our sabbaths, and so the idea of sabbath keeping is very largely seen in the history of Israel. More than one-fourth of their time was devoted to sabbath keeping, and that, in the spiritual sense, is so needful now; that we might be able to enter into assembly service, and rise up to the thought of Ephesian change, being raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. That is the thing that should be always before us, the idea of going from glory to glory, and rising all the time.
JM So would you say that this chapter is to draw attention to the greatness of the present moment, that everything that went before is now exceeded, and we are touching that which is marked by surpassing glory?
JT Exactly. It is not a question of time only, but a question of persons, of course. We have Moses, and David, and the prophets, in the Old Testament; but as regards persons we have come to the greatest time, the Lord Himself, of course, being unique and outside of it all, but as to persons, it is a time of great persons; and Paul was pre-eminently characteristic in this sense, there was none like [p. 180] him.
JM Has it in view the thought of persons being changed from glory to glory?
JT That is the idea. You get it in Paul, and you get it in John, and of the Lord Himself it is said that He was transfigured, and His countenance changed. Peter went up to the house-top to pray, and an ecstasy came upon him. Well, these things are written to us to show what the dispensation involves, so that we might have some little thought of it.
CGMcC The Lord says to the woman, “The Father seeks such as his worshippers”, (John 4:23). Is that the thought?
JT That is it. Of course, worship itself does not need change, it is an attitude. But what we are talking about, the actual change that is possible even with the saints, and that the Lord Himself comes into actual change, is of great importance to have in our minds. And so as to Peter, according to the Acts he went up to pray. That is what he went to do, but an ecstasy came upon him as he prayed. Well, why should that be? Is it not to show us the greatness of the dispensation?
PAH Referring to the thought of change as bearing on the service of God, there is a certain glory connected with the apprehension of what we are as kindred to Christ, and what the assembly is in relation to Christ, and then as to sonship. All that involves the taking on of change.
JT Some day it is going to be real. We talk about the Lord’s coming, and it is going to be real some day, it must not always be a thing in the future. There must be some expectation of it actually happening.
BGW When you speak of Paul in regard to change, are you referring to his going to the third heaven?
JT There is an illustration of it. He said ‘I do not know whether I was in the body or out of the body’. That is a remarkable thing. Then he adds, “God knows”. Well, putting all these things together, the question is whether we are real in our expectations as to the Lord’s coming, and are ready to be changed at any moment, and whether we are aiming at the change in the service of God that is open to us on every first day of the week.
PAH Our experiences on the Lord’s day morning would be in view of preparing us for the actual change.
JT I think that is the idea. The Lord is saying, ‘I am making you ready’. We have that principle in the very opening of the subject of the Lord’s supper. Peter and John were to go and make things ready.
RCMcC So in the practical side of it, should we be ready at any particular meeting to move together, that we might be ready to be changed together with our brethren?
JT Therefore, it is a question of the whole of the saints on earth; that is the full thought that belongs to our position, and that we are all going together. We are all going up together, and that is sure to come. It is not to be merely talked of for ever and ever, but it is sure to come, and the Lord is aiming at our being ready for it.
ENJ In connection with this matter of being ready for change, I would suggest that in Abigail there was no hesitancy. She did not in any way hesitate when David sent for her and communed with her to take her to be his wife.
JT She was ready. That is very good, and so was Rebecca; she said, “I will go”.
WLW Do upper room conditions afford opportunity for the experience of change? “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord”, (John 20:20). Is that what we have substantially here, “The Lord is the Spirit”, and “we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”? There is liberty. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. The saints are in liberty from that moment onwards.
JT Very good. One wonders as to how much we are taking in of what we are talking about. The Lord’s promise is a certainty, and it is going to happen. We are not going to be talking about it for ever and ever. The thing is to happen, and the Lord means that we are to expect it to happen, and be ready for it.
RP
‘E’en now we taste the love,
And know the mighty power,
By which we’ll rise to realms above
When waiting time is o’er’. (225:4)
JT Very good. Paul is the example of all these things, as Moses was the example God used to make everything ready in view of His service. Everything was made ready, according to Exodus. When the time came everything was ready, and even Moses himself was not equal to the thing that was in the mind of God (Exodus 40:35).
JM So the apostle says in verse 12, “Having therefore such hope, we use much boldness”. Would that connect with the apostle so boldly and in liberty saying, “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face”, and would we get in principle there the transformation?
JT It is in the present tense. “We all” is emphatic. It is a universal thought. Of course, we may say he is speaking to the Corinthians, but by extension it is a universal thought. “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. It says we are transformed.
RP Will you help us with regard to the remark,
“The Lord the Spirit”? Is the Lord functioning in that capacity?
JT That is just what I mean. The Lord is here seen as the Spirit. He is in authority, He is not giving that up, but He is seen as a Spirit, showing how divine Persons can act freely and quickly according to Their pleasure.
RGW It says, “Looking on the glory of the Lord”; not on the Lord, but on the glory of the Lord. What does that convey to us?
JT It is a question, I would think, of the Lord in this capacity; what glory He has in dealing with His people, how He can transform them. It is a question of what He is capable of in His love for His people, to change them at once from glory to glory.
RP Paul makes a point that his ministry was the result of being in living touch with Christ in glory and taking on glory.
JT Quite so.
WLW Were Moses and Aaron and the seventy elders, in type prepared for change when they went up to the mountain and saw God? Change takes place, and it says, “they saw God, and ate and drank”, (Exodus 24:11). They were in accord with the position. They saw the God of Israel.
JT Quite so; that is to say they remained as men and saw God. The whole position was glorious, but they retained their human position and state. They were not changed so far as I see, but they saw the God of Israel.
CGMcC Would you help us as to the words “according to the same image”?
JT I think it means that we are all made alike. I suppose that is the way it will be in the glory. Christ will be the firstborn among many brethren.
ENJ I suppose there is but one pattern before God, and that is Christ. All must be conformed to that same [p. 184] image.
JT That is what I was endeavouring to say about Moses. He had the pattern, not patterns. What is to be effected is one idea, and so here it is all one idea. It is a question of sameness. We are all transformed into the same image, but it is from glory to glory. It is incessant.
CGMcC Being transformed into the same image involves the thought of countenance. I was thinking of the Song of Songs, where the Lord says, “Let me see thy countenance (Song of Songs 2:14)”. Would He see a change in countenance?
JT Very good. You get it in the second book of Psalms, the health of God’s countenance; that is to say God’s countenance implies health to us, and then our countenance, the health of my countenance (Psalm 42:5,11). Health is the idea there, and here is a similar thought, that is to say, it is freshness, so that we do not need to be stale or old-looking. We retain our freshness at all times.
PRP Does all this begin with the acceptance of the wilderness position?
JT You mean the acceptance of the wilderness position is implied in the letters to the Corinthians?
PRP I was thinking of what was referred to earlier as to the Lord taking account of the sufferings of His people. Is it as we accept that position that the Lord can take us on?
JT Quite. We accept the wilderness, but He is intimating to us that we are going to the land. And so He says He has spied out the land for us (Ezekiel 20:6). Moses saw it at a distance, and then they were going there; hence, as they go across the Jordan, they have the old corn of the land; that is to say, it is reached in fulness because the land had yielded the year before. There was plenty.