THE UPPER ROOM
[p. 291] THE UPPER ROOM
Matthew 26:17 - 19; Mark 14:12 - 16; Luke 22:7 - 13; Acts 1:10 - 14
JT It is hoped, that what may come before us at this time may lead to a better understanding amongst us of the introduction of Christianity, especially as centring in the Lord’s supper. Mark and Luke have the subject of the upper room, and give it considerable prominence, as we have no doubt noticed. The Acts further makes it prominent (Luke writing the Acts), having in mind that the position of the disciples at the beginning, before the Holy Spirit came down, was in the upper room, showing that it was not connected with the temple, and that the bearing of it was upward, which indeed is the truth as to Christianity from the very outset to the present time. Then it is thought that it would be profitable to notice that Matthew does not mention the upper room; what he says instead is, “The Teacher says, My time is near, I will keep the passover in thy house with my disciples” (chapter 26:18). The Lord did not bring forward the thought of His ascension in Matthew, thus making way for His continual presence here amongst the saints in the assembly; whereas Mark and Luke, with the Acts, would indicate that, whilst not belittling what Matthew presents, there is access to heaven. So, although John does not mention the upper room, he does say, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you” John 14:18; but Matthew, as has been remarked, would suggest that the Lord remains here, as indeed Matthew says, quoting Him, “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” Matthew 28:20; and again, “For where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there [p. 292] am I in the midst of them” Matthew 18:20. So His continual presence is assured to us in Matthew to support us, whereas the other gospels make way for comings to us from heaven, according to the Lord’s pleasure.
AHS In Matthew 26:18 the footnote calls attention to the fact that the keeping is in the present tense, ‘I keep the passover in thy house with my disciples’.
JT Yes, quite so. The immediateness of it is stressed, and then the continuance with them, the Lord’s continuance with us.
JNG Does Matthew give us the thought of the public position in view of the presence of evil?
JT That is what I would say. The public position is in view, as has been said, as characterising Matthew in view of the presence of evil.
CPP Do the Lord’s words as to “my disciples” indicate our position in relation to the truth, and the public position?
JT The Lord is not doing anything without us, so to speak. The word is, “Go into the city unto such a one, and say to him. The Teacher says, My time is near, I will keep the passover in thy house with my disciples”, (Matthew 26:18); that is to say, the Lord would intimate in the gospels, that He is not doing anything without us, not that He is not doing anything, only that He is stressing that He would have us. In each case in the synoptic gospels He came with the twelve, as if they must be there, and now the Lord would not come into a hall like this by Himself. If it is a question of coming to earth, or having to do anything administratively, all is in the light of the assembly; He is doing it with us. There will be other movements, of course, presently, for God “has set a day in which he is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31); but now it is a [p. 293] question, of the assembly. What He is doing, He is doing in relation to the assembly.
RMY Would you say a little more as to the distinction between His permanent presence as in Matthew, and the visits from heaven that you spoke of in the other scriptures?
JT I would say that His position in general is here, because His disciples are here, and so according to John He came to where the disciples were. That is the outlook with Him now, but at the same time He is in heaven. Mark says He has gone into heaven, He is at the right hand of God, and that He is working with the disciples, with us, but He is in heaven. He has gone into heaven, we are told elsewhere, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him. So that the Lord is thus asserting His liberty to do as He pleases, as it were; He is not under control in that sense. What He sees His Father do, He does, but He is not under control by any power on earth or in heaven. He is in complete liberty.
WHG Do we need to apprehend, in regard of our local setting, that the Lord has a right in every locality to have things done His way?
JT That is what I would say. It is a question of what His will is, hence we look for guidance from Him. He is with us according to Matthew, but even if He be in heaven, He is with us, so we can be assured in our prayers, whatever happens, that the Lord is near. We have to distinguish between Him being near, and being just with us. We are assured that He is not at a distance from us, He is always near.
JE Has there not been an effort on the part of the enemy to divorce the position of Christ in heaven from the position of the saints here? The Lord will not tolerate any separation in this sense, will He? “I am with you alway” (Matthew 28:20) [p. 294] is the word.
JT Yes, the fact of the assembly being His body is a confirmation of that. According to Ephesians 1:23 the assembly is His body, so that it is inseparable from Him; it cannot be divorced from Him.
JWH Does ‘the Teacher’, which is stressed here, bear on the authority of His word to us as coming under it?
JT Just so, “The Teacher says”. So in John 1 those who followed John the baptist left him and followed Jesus, and Jesus saw them following and He asked them about their following, and they say, ‘Teacher, where abidest thou?’ He is a Teacher. At the end of John’s gospel Mary Magdalene calls Him “Rabboni”, meaning that He is her Teacher. She represents those who are characteristically disciples of Jesus. We do not recognise any other teacher. Of course, there are the schools needed for ordinary education, but as regards what is moral and spiritual we think of Him, we learn everything from Christ.
EAK Would there be an allusion here in the responsible setting, to the great thought of teaching that has marked the dispensation in relation to the Lord’s supper, as you are speaking of it now?
JT I would say that. No subject has had more attention, perhaps from the outset, but particularly of recent times, than the Lord’s supper, and particularly because it is the beginning, the initial feature of the service of God, which is very little understood. But the Lord is giving us to understand that His supper is initial as to the service of God, and from the time of the introduction of the Supper in the service until the end of it, it is from glory to glory, and hence the need of accurate teaching. So in Paul’s ministry he separated the disciples in Ephesus, reasoning in the school of Tyrannus, meaning that there was to be authoritative teaching, insistent [p. 295] teaching. That, I believe, is what the Lord is bringing before us; the need of teaching.
JE Did Paul himself personally get an impression as to authoritative teaching when the Lord said to him, “enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do”, (Acts 9:6)? Was the element of teaching there in the house of Damascus?
JT Quite so. “It shall be told thee”; it would not be optional. It is often thought to be optional, that we can come to hear ministry, or remain away, as we please, but it is not optional from the Lord’s standpoint. It is absolutely necessary that we should attend to teaching, that we should be taught. “Enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do”; (Acts 9:6) it was imperative.
LGL In Matthew 26:19 it says that “the disciples did as Jesus had directed them”. Would that be an important point in the matter of learning quickly?
JT Well, it is the point. The epistle to the Romans would indicate that obedience should be the first thought with us, the “obedience of faith among all the nations”, Romans 1:5. So here the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and so Paul, too, in 1 Corinthians 11:2, praises them that they had kept the directions. Things are not optional in Christianity, they are imperative. The divine mind is imperative to be looked into; so Berean features should be first with us; that is to say, looking into the Scriptures to see that whatever is said in ministry is right, whether these things are so.
GPP Would you say that Matthew sets us up in a moral position rightly in view of the upward movement that you referred to in Mark and Luke and the Acts?
JT I think so. “Lo, I am with you alway”, Matthew 28:20. So when the time for the Lord’s supper comes, we come together; but at the beginning [p. 296] it does not appear that they were regulated by one day in the week, or whether they broke bread every day; they may have; but under Paul’s administration clearly the first day of the week was the day for the breaking of bread. So that there is a time for it. Luke 22:14, says, “when the hour was come”; whatever hour is fixed, we are there, we are not late; we are ready for what we have come to do.
ACSP Have you in mind that the consciousness of the Lord being here “all the days” would elevate all our thoughts in regard to Christianity and what is proper to it?
JT Very good. He is here; we have already remarked on the suggestion that we get, “The Lord is near”, (Philippians 4:5). That would mean that for any special help needed He is available, He is nearby, He can be called upon. The fact that He is here, as Matthew presents Him, makes us superior to everything. Even if it be that we are attacked or persecuted, we go through it, because Philippians says, “unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake” Philippians 1:29. Moreover, it is said in Revelation in connection with the assembly at Smyrna, that they were to be killed. The Lord said they should be persecuted ten days, but then He said, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life Revelation 2:10”. There would be persecution unto death, but still the Lord was there; that is the point, that the Lord is near or present with us.
EAK Would the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, and the appearance of the fourth being like a Son of God, be in keeping with what you are saying?
JT Very good. Those three persecuted ones are mentioned thirteen times in Daniel 3, and Nebuchadnezzar looks and sees a fourth who he says is “like a son of God”, Daniel 3:25 showing that the Lord was there in the suffering.
JE There is also the Lord’s word to Paul, “Why dost thou persecute me?” (Acts 9:4).
JT Quite. The persecution was there, and it was persecution in the saints; that is to say, the Lord speaks of Himself as persecuted, but He was persecuted in the saints. Literally He was in heaven beyond the range of persecution, but the saints are not, they are here, and that is where the persecution proceeds.
JD Paul also could say, “the Lord stood with Me (2 Timothy 4:17)”.
JT Just so, “and gave me power, that through me the proclamation might be fully made”, (2 Timothy 4:17). That is what we can count on. We are not to forget, in sufferings, that the preaching must go on. Of course, the service of God likewise must go on, but the preaching must go on.
AGL Is it in that character that we come together to break bread, as suffering here?
JT The position is, that where we have the breaking of bread, in any city or town or village in the world, that city is “called spiritually Sodom an Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified”, (Revelation 11:8). That is a very solemn thing, that although we may not experience persecution all the time, underneath that is the attitude. So we may expect sufferings: “unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake”, (Philippians 1:29).
RHG Could you distinguish for us between the Lord being with us, and the Spirit being with us?
JT The Spirit is with us always, formally so; He remains with us. The Lord is with us in spirit; as Matthew would put it, He is with us always; yet He is not corporeally with us, for He has gone into heaven and He remains there, as Peter says, “whom [p. 298] heaven indeed must receive till the times of the restoring of all things”, (Acts 3:21). That is a fact; at the same time He is with us in spirit, and, in the early days at any rate, He came occasionally to the saints corporeally according to the epistle to the Corinthians and Acts 1.
RMY Is it in mind that the Supper particularly provides Him with an opportunity for special visits?
JT I would say that is the truth; the wording as to the Lord’s supper mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 indicates that. He says, “the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread, and having given thanks broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me” (or ‘for the calling of me to mind’), 1 Corinthians 11:23, 24. The inference is clear enough that when that happens the Lord would be there; that is, our minds are ready for Him. The Lord’s supper is a peculiar memorial He has left to affect us. Our minds are the first point in the memorial; it is ‘for the calling of me to mind’, and when our minds are free it is quite to be expected, I would say, that the Lord would come in; the memorial is to make our minds free for Him to come in.
Ques Would the eating of the passover help in relation to our minds?
JT Not in the sense in which we have it in Matthew 26, which was literal, but in the sense in which we have it in 1 Corinthians 5:7,8, “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed; so that let us celebrate the feast”, meaning we are ready for Him, so we renounce all other associations.
CHG The thought of preparation that enters into these three gospels would not quite apply to us as together, but before we are together to break bread?
JT Quite so. It is not now the passover literally,
it is the Lord’s supper for which, we come together; and so it is, as we said before, that Luke in writing Acts 20 says, “we being assembled to break bread”. Then we are told that Paul discoursed, and the bread was not broken for a considerable time; the discourse was prolonged, and when Eutychus fell, Paul went down and enfolded him in his arms and said, “his life is in him”, (Acts 20:10). Then they had the breaking of bread, and Paul, having long spoken till daybreak, went away. And they brought away the boy alive, and were no little comforted.
AM Would it be right to say that the passover emphasises the work of Christ, whereas the Supper emphasises Himself?
JT Quite so. The only thing there is, that it is a dead Christ that is before us; as we have often remarked, the blood is separate from the body, so that His actual death is there, but then He is there, it is He who is to be remembered, not the event of His death, but Himself.
GPP Does that thought of a dead Christ make room for what is historical at the beginning?
JT It does. It remains a solemn fact throughout the whole period of Christianity, and what is to be recalled is Christ who died. “This is my body, which is for you”, 1 Corinthians 11:24. That does not refer to the mystical body of Christ, the assembly, but refers to His own body which is for us, whatever use we may make of it, however we may appropriate it. There it is; it is for us in all that it would suggest to us.
JM How far would you speak of that in relation to the Supper?
JT I would speak of it for our souls to appropriate. John 6:55 quotes the Lord saying, “for my flesh is truly food and my blood is truly drink”. The idea is to appropriate it. Whether it be the bread or the cup, they are both for appropriation, and the appropriation of them tends to spirituality.
[p. 300] JM Does this scripture suggest assembly material which has been secured, which is trustworthy, and is capable of taking on what is connected with the upper room in the next two gospels?
JT Quite so. So that all that enters into these incidents is intended to dignify the introduction of Christianity and the continual participation in the Lord’s supper. All that is signified in the facts that are given in Mark and Luke, and in Matthew too, in the sense that He is with us; but in Mark and Luke there is the additional thought of the upper room which is not in Matthew. The upper room would point to the upward trend of the service of God beginning with the Lord’s supper. We have to learn to go up, hence Ephesians speaks of us being seated in the heavenlies, which is a matter to be taken in, to be appropriated in the service of God.
AHS Is that why the pitcher of water is introduced in Mark 14, as guiding the disciples to the man, the Lord also saying, “my guest-chamber”?
JT Quite so. “Go into the city”, He says in Mark. The disciples inquired as to the passover, as also in Matthew, but the facts in Mark 14 are, that they are told to go into the city, “and a man shall meet you carrying a pitcher of water”; not that they will meet him, but he will meet them, and where he enters in, they are to say to the goodman of the house, “The Teacher says, Where is my guest-chamber where I may eat the passover with my disciples? and he will shew you a large upper room furnished ready”. It is said in Luke as in Mark, “a large upper room furnished”, meaning that there is a suggestion of room for Christianity, for those who are Christians, for those who partake of the Lord’s supper; we are not cramped or limited.
JM Would you say a word as to why in Matthew and Mark the inquiry comes from the disciples in relation to the preparation, “Where wilt thou”?
JT [p. 301] I think it would show that they were interested. Luke says that the Lord sent Peter and John without reference to inquiry from them. The disciples were not indifferent, they were interested as to Him, where the preparations were to be made that He should eat the passover.
Ques Would the upper room suggest that we have elevation before us at the outset?
JT That is what I thought. You get it in the Acts, and you get it in Mark and Luke; as regards John we have already alluded to the fact that Mary Magdalene received the message from the Lord, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, (John 20:17). The idea of the ascension, too, was there in John.
RMY Does the fact that there are two emblems help in this matter of elevation? Does the cup take us further or higher than the loaf?
JT It does, I would think. It is where we get the memorial that the true meaning of both emblems is seen. Both emblems are mentioned in regard of the memorial, and I suppose it would be to strengthen the idea of testimony, that there is a dual thought. At Emmaus there was only the breaking of bread. Of course, there it was only in a believer’s house, and there is no mention of the cup. In 1 Corinthians 11:25 the memorial is mentioned in relation to the cup as it is in relation to the bread.
DJM Would you say a word as to the room being furnished?
JT God is helping the brethren in obtaining suitable rooms in which to meet publicly, to preach the gospel, and the like; but, even if there be not general comfort for people, there is the thought of furnishing, it might be extended to the idea of moral furnishing, moral conditions, not only physical conditions. The brother comes and lays the table, that is the physical side for which we give thanks to [p. 302] God, too, but then the moral conditions must be of greater consequence, so the furnishings would imply those, I would say.
JE Would Mark imply that the teaching Matthew gives us concerning the Supper should now take shape in persons, so that you have a man, an earthen vessel, who is evidently carrying the truth, and then the furnishings in the house?
JT Just so, and it is an earthen vessel, which would allude to humanity; it is a question of humanity according to God.
DJM Would “rejoicing and seeing your order” (Colossians 2:5), bear on the furnishings?
JT I would think so. It is a very beautiful passage, “rejoicing and seeing your order, and the firmness of your faith in Christ(Colossians 2:5)”. It is a glorious thing for heaven to look down at, the order that is proper in the service of God and the steadfastness that marked it at Colosse.
AGL Do you think that the furnishings were lacking in the upper room at Troas, and Paul had to furnish them in his long discourse?
JT Well, that is a question. I do not know that we can be sure as to what was lacking. There was something lacking in Eutychus anyway; he was sitting at the window-opening, as young people are often diverted in their minds and become defiled. But beyond that I should not like to say much, because it was said that there were many lights in the upper chamber. The idea of the “upper chamber” was carried on into the customs of the disciples after the Lord had gone into heaven.
GBS Does the thought of the mind come into the upper room? Is the mind regulated in the upper room, and then there is power to move upward?
JT Just so. It is said in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that “we have the mind of Christ” that is the [p. 303] thinking faculty, meaning that we are able to think as He does, and, of course, that brings us together in the one body. It is in the one body we have the thought of the mind. The saints have minds, and eventually they are of one mind. Philippians 2:2 would show that we think the same thing, as well as say the same thing, so that our minds are of one accord.
AED Does the reference to the word ‘large’ suggest that, whilst we may be actively engaged with one particular phase, we have the full scope of divine thoughts always before us?
JT Just so. The psalmist says, “He brought me forth into a large place”, Psalm 18:19. It is the largeness of the place morally, and we surely experience it as we come together in assembly, not simply in numbers but in the state of the saints. We have liberty of soul as we sit down together and proceed in the service of God, and, of course, generally; because, whilst 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians deal with the local assembly, yet Romans and the other epistles do not specifically deal with the local assembly, but with the general thought of the service of God in Christianity, and therefore if we look into Romans we are thinking of the general thought of God in the Lord’s supper and all else that relates to His service.
PL Would you say that this elevation is suggested in the house which Solomon built for Jehovah? “The lowest floor was five cubits broad, and the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad”, (1 Kings 6:6). Does that bear on the upward trend?
JT That is very good. The upward trend, therefore, affords needed accommodation, we are not limited above. The fact is we increase in liberty as we go higher, and so Paul said he had been taken up to the third heaven and he did not indicate that there was any limitation there.
PL “They go from strength to strength; each one will appear before God in Zion”, (Psalm 84:7).
JT Just so.
CPP Does that help us to move from a local position into what is general, as touching a spiritual realm including all the saints?
JT That is what I was thinking. We begin with brothers and sisters, and children it may be, although of course the children may not be in the truth, but if they are children and in the truth we begin there; but then we gradually advance upward, and the further we go the more liberty we have and hence we reach God, and what can be greater than God? It is infinitude. “That God may be all in all”, (1 Corinthians 15:28). That is to say, everyone is filled with God; that is really the idea of the service of God, “that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28)”.
Ques Is that what the Lord had in mind when He said, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes”, (John 14:2)?
JT Very good. That is an excellent passage to govern what we are saying. The higher we go, the greater the increase.
WCB Should a word from the Scriptures help us in the upward movements?
JT I think so. I often find it so for myself; one takes liberty to seek to give a word to the brethren at the breaking of bread, and as a rule I find liberty, and no doubt others do too. The Lord gives a touch to us as the word is ministered, and it is very appropriate that there should be that.
JM So that a word given on such an occasion would help the saints forward from where they are, would you say?
JT Very good. That is exactly what I was endeavouring to say. We are brought into a large place, but then it is an upper place, it is above; it is a heavenly place really; seated in the heavenlies,
[p. 305] according to Ephesians; that is not future simply, it is the present time, anticipative of the future.
BMY Do you consider any phase of the service more appropriate for the word than another?
JT I usually find liberty immediately after the breaking of bread. It should not be limited at all, because we may have a word in regard of the Father, and in regard of God Himself, but as a rule I think it is needed more in the early stage of the service.
EET Is there liberty to refer to what is enjoyed anticipatively in the service of God, or is it rather the present conscious enjoyment of the Father? Can we refer to what is anticipative in the Father’s house? For instance 83:1 -
‘O the wondrous joy of dwelling
In the Father’s house above!’
That is not addressed to a divine Person, it is referring anticipatively to something.
JT Quite so. It is a question of the Spirit, because we have to come to this, that everything lies in the Spirit in a subjective sense. Of course, there is “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27), too, but it is by the Spirit that all is effected subjectively. That is the great fact of Christianity; it is the day of the Spirit, so that we get heavenly thoughts. Although the Spirit is down here continuously, yet He is the Spirit, He is God Himself really, so we cannot limit Him. We may rise by the power of the Spirit to heavenly places; the Spirit effects this in us. He is the Spirit of sonship, and therefore would promote feelings of affection toward God and toward one another, but specially toward God.
AGL Would you say something as to hymns not addressed to divine Persons, yet engaging us with the divine realm?
JT J.N.D.’s hymns abound with references to the divine [p. 306] realm.
JNG Is that part of the way we take on the “glory to glory”?
JT Quite so. That is the great thing to have in mind, because we have the expression, “the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8), and “the Father of glory” (Ephesians 1:17), and “the God of glory”, (Acts 7:2). We have a great realm in those thoughts of glory. Hence the need of being ready for glory, for that is the idea, it is from one glory to another.
EAK Would you say a word as to what you have alluded to, from time to time, as to the presence of the Spirit with us in the service of God, and our dependence upon the Holy Spirit throughout the entire service?
JT It is a simple fact that we are dependent on the Holy Spirit. At the very beginning of the meeting when we sit down together, we are dependent upon the Spirit to be in a right attitude, and a right attitude of mind; and there are other phases as we proceed, the saints viewed as brethren; we are the Lord’s brethren, we are not simply brethren as such, but Christ’s brethren, and we are pervaded by the Spirit in that sense, the spirit proper to brethren. Then the Spirit of adoption refers to the Father, so we are dependent upon Him throughout the service, and as a matter of fact, dependent upon Him all the time, because we are to walk in the Spirit, “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit”, (Galatians 5:25).
JM Is there any allusion to the Spirit in the pitcher of water?
JT I suppose so, as a matter of refreshment, but it may also be a matter of cleansing, so it is a question of how water may be used. The Lord washed the disciples’ feet, we know, and it is just possible that that service happened after these events of which we have been speaking. So if it is a question of cleansing,
[p. 307] the water is for that; but then water is also for refreshment, we may speak of living water.
RHG Is there an allusion to the Spirit in the passage in Acts 1? They returned from the mount of Olives to the upper room.
JT Yes, there is. The Spirit had not yet come, but the brethren were there, they were not yet indwelt by the Spirit, of course, but at the same time they were born anew, and not only so, but they had been formed by the Lord’s own teaching. He had taught them, and what He taught was spirit and life. At the same time, the Spirit had not come, but they were instructed as to what to do, and they knew what to do, and so they went to the upper room instead of going to the temple. In Luke 24:53 it is said that they returned from Bethany, “and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God”, but it does not say that in Acts 1. So that it shows that Acts 1 has in mind Christianity, as it was intended to be here on earth as a testimony, and so they went to the upper room. Instead of going to the temple, they went to the upper room; and we are told who were there, the very names of the apostles are given, and that there were several women as well, and the Lord’s mother was there, showing that it was in principle the formation of the public assembly.
JM Would you say it is very important that we should be ready for this change of outlook? It is not now the temple, but the upper room, which is characteristic of Christianity.
JT Quite so, the change of outlook.