READINGS ON COLOSSIANS (4)
READINGS ON COLOSSIANS (4)
FER From the twentieth verse of chapter 2 you come to the hortatory part. It is no longer the doctrinal part.
JSA That is to say, the exhortations.
FER Yes.
JSA I suppose in this, as in all similar cases, the character of them is based on the presentation of things we have had doctrinally.
FER I think so. It is all based on the way in which Christ is presented. That is the foundation of all that comes out in the epistle really. He is the centre and the Head and the One in whom reconciliation is brought to pass, and therefore Christ is the great point of interest to us.
JP Would you not say the way Christ is presented to the Colossians involves the two facts of His death and resurrection?
FER Yes; because it is only on the ground of resurrection that things could be brought into divine complacency. I do not think people apprehend that enough. It is impossible for God to have complacency in a scene that is dominated by death, because death is the judgement of God.
JP Hence death in that sense is the very opposite of what God is, the living God.
FER Yes; and you cannot connect the thought of a living God with a dead world. A living God involves the thought of resurrection. Hence it is you must have Christ risen, because really nothing could be established in connection with Christ after the flesh. He was not under death, but everything else was under death. He abode alone except He fall into the ground and die. Nothing [p. 315] could be established on the ground of death, it can only be in resurrection.
JP That was really the point in Peter’s confession of the Lord, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”.
FER And then comes in another point; you must have One in whom resurrection is inherent, because resurrection must be brought in morally, and is not simply a question of divine power. God will raise the wicked and judge them, but resurrection cannot be brought in that way for blessing. It must come in morally and be inherent. It must be inherent in the One who could accomplish redemption. That is a moral necessity, because the first way in which resurrection comes before us is in the power of God to raise the dead to judgement; but that is not resurrection coming in morally. It comes in simply then as an act of divine power.
JP It was not, as you were saying, possible for Christ to be holden of death.
FER No; that is brought out in Psalm 16. It presents Christ here in the perfection of a Man, but resurrection is inherent. That is, a Man has come in who of necessity goes to the right hand of God. “At thy right hand”. That brings in resurrection and everything established on that ground, and death has no power there. Death has no right nor authority there.
GWH Is He not spoken of as the resurrection and the life?
FER That is the strongest expression you could get.
CA I suppose it was because of who He was that He was the resurrection and the life.
JP And He is testified to in the eleventh chapter of John’s gospel as the Son of God.
FER The Lord Jesus says, “whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”.
JSA I think what you have said is very important, because I rather think we have been in the habit of looking at resurrection simply as the exercise of arbitrary [p. 316] power. Looked at morally it comes in as the necessary consequence of God’s intervention by Christ.
FER Exactly. He comes in as the One in whom resurrection is inherent, and the consequence is, He comes out as the beginning and centre of the whole divine system.
JSA It is connected necessarily with resurrection.
FER Death becomes the source of everything in that way. “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness”. The answer to Samson’s riddle is found in it.
GWH You were saying every epistle takes its character from the way in which Christ is presented. In this epistle He is presented as Head. When the final system is introduced here, Christ is the centre.
JSA Would you not say in a sense He was the Head here personally, but He could not take that place till He had accomplished redemption?
FER Yes. The word “head” is a relative term, and the relation could only exist on the ground of resurrection.
GWH It presupposes those to whom He would be Head.
FER It is a relative term like the head of a senate or any existing order or company.
EW The head is a real necessity.
FER It is necessary for order. You could not have order without a head. You have a head in the United States in the President. He is the head. He is not exactly a lord. They would reject the idea of monarchy here, but the President is more of a head than a lord.
JP So that when you come to this part of the epistle the exhortations take character from the way in which Christ is presented.
FER I think it is a point of very great interest to us that Christ is at the right hand of God. It is to us very much like what Jerusalem was to Daniel; to a Jew in Babylon, Jerusalem was the point of interest. They were [p. 317] outside of Jerusalem, it was in the hands of the gentiles, and yet Jerusalem was the point of interest to them. That is found in the case of Daniel. He opened his windows towards Jerusalem. Well, it is not Jerusalem to us, it is the right hand of God that is of interest to us. “Seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God”. That is the point of interest. Christ is the Head. Reconciliation is to be accomplished in Him, not elsewhere, and He for the moment is sitting at the right hand of God, and that properly carries the interest of our hearts to the right hand of God. Therefore you can lay down your newspapers, because you do not want the news of the day. Nothing is going to come out of the workings of man down here. They will not produce anything but sin and confusion.
JP The point, as you say, is really the right hand of God, and everything will come forth from there.
FER Quite so, because the point of reconciliation is there.
JSA I think Mr. Stoney used to say, Till He moves there will be no real change here, although men may do this, that, and the other.
FER No. “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool”.
JSA The believer is looked at here as having died with Christ from the rudiments of the world and as being risen with Christ, but not actually gone to where Christ is. In Ephesians he is carried further on.
CA I suppose that the consciousness of Christ being at the right hand of God is to have its effect upon us down here.
FER That is the interest of the mind. We are greatly affected by where our minds are, by what our minds are living in. It affects and controls people.
JP So that is the literal rendering here, “Have your mind on things that are above”.
CA I suppose the mind is what [p. 318] really forms the christian.
FER I think so.
JHC The mind can be controlled in a measure toward these things.
FER You get the exhortation, “have your mind on things that are above”. It is all founded on the fact of your being risen with Christ.
GWH So the third chapter really follows the second morally. In the detail you get the death and resurrection.
FER The exhortation at the beginning of the third chapter follows faith. You are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God who raised Him from the dead. If you are in the faith of the operation of God that raised Him from the dead, the mind follows that. It all depends on faith. Resurrection is brought in as following on baptism. It is the legitimate sequence of baptism. You are buried and risen, that is the truth in regard to baptism. But then you baptise a great many of whom it would not be true they were risen, that is, where there is no faith. For instance, you baptise children, but you do not look for faith on the part of children, though the proper sequence of baptism is undoubtedly resurrection. Not only are you buried with Him but you are risen with Him through faith. Faith must be there.
JSA You do not properly know Christ unless you know where He is.
FER No. I think it is a great expression in the second chapter, “through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead”. We want to know what the resurrection of Christ implies.
CA I think what you said just now is important, the moral aspect of it.
FER Yes; you want to see what it implies. It is through the faith of the working or operation of God that raised Him from the dead. What did God mean by that operation? It implied a great deal more than the personal resurrection of Christ, because as regards Christ He could not be holden of death. It implied a universal resurrection. Resurrection of everything. Everything [p. 319] shall be taken out of the power and influence of death. The complete introduction of God was implied by that, “then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory”.
JP The point of the statement is, that we are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God.
FER Yes.
CA Reconciliation comes in on that ground.
FER It could not come in on any other ground, because it is impossible that God could have complacency in a scene that is dominated by death, because death is really His judgement, therefore in that way God was shut out from the scene, and hence all must be put on the ground of resurrection if God would have complacency. But the resurrection of Christ involves the resurrection of everything, and therefore the apostle immediately adds, “wherein also ye are risen”. You are on that ground. Well, now, you get the working out of it in this chapter. Christ at the right hand of God is the point of interest, because He is the point of reconciliation, and His being risen involves the resurrection of everything. That is, the resurrection of the entire heavenly company. They are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection. Their resurrection is involved, but also the resurrection of Israel, and the resurrection of the nations. Everything is involved in the resurrection of Christ.
CA It is perfectly plain that everything for God hinges on resurrection.
FER Quite so.
JP We could not take the ground of being risen together with Christ, only through the faith of the operation of God.
FER No. You could not understand it. It would have no meaning.
JP I was thinking too in connection with what you said to the apostle’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15: I do not understand there was the denial of Christ’s resurrection, but there was the denial of resurrection, and so [p. 320] when he meets it he begins to meet it by saying, If there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not raised, but if Christ is raised it carries everything with it.
FER The fact is if He is gone down into death to accomplish redemption, it really involves the resurrection of everything.
JHC Did you say that everything was involved in resurrection, because the Head of every circle was raised?
FER I think it is a question of the operation of God — the working of God. “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory”. The power is with God.
JSA And his prayer for the Ephesians is that they might understand the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, which He wrought in Christ when he raised Him from the dead.
FER Quite so.
EW Would you say the power of God is manifested before the world in the raising of Christ?
FER Not exactly before the world, but the power of God has become manifest. Resurrection was not exactly before the world; death was before the world. Resurrection manifested the power of God.
GWH Yet it was in the face of every possible opposition on the part of the world.
FER Quite so. I think the death of Christ was a public testimony; the resurrection of Christ required witnesses. The disciples were ordained to be witnesses of His resurrection, but not witnesses exactly of His death, because the death of Christ was in a kind of way public. It was a testimony.
JSA Chosen witnesses.
FER “Must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection”, Acts 1: 22.
EW In the Acts of the Apostles when they went forth to preach Jesus crucified, that did not bring out the opposition, but when they said ‘risen’, then the opposition came [p. 321] out.
CA I suppose the enemy did not want any such report as that about the Lord.
FER Oh no! They had put Christ to death and they wanted Him to remain there.
GWH The argument in 1 Corinthians 15 is that if Christ be not risen we are found false witnesses.
FER Exactly. If there were no such thing as resurrection Christ would not be risen, but you may go a point further, and say if there were no resurrection Christ would not have died. There was no meaning in His dying if there were no such thing as resurrection, and if there were no such truth as resurrection Christ would not have risen. However, Christ is risen. He says, “I am the resurrection” and He must rise, and there is the fact that He is risen, and on the other hand if there were no resurrection He would not be risen, because He would not have gone into death.
JSA Here is the passage I was thinking of; “Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God”.
FER Exactly. But his death was public, and the resurrection needed witnesses, and God gave witnesses, and they were witnesses, and the Holy Spirit is a witness. So the apostle recapitulates all the witness in 1 Corinthians 15. He gives you the various witnesses of the resurrection to substantiate the fact of it according to man.
GLA What is the meaning of the third verse, the life being hid?
FER That is connected with baptism. Our life has not yet become manifest. There is not much difference, except morally, between a christian before and after his conversion because his life is concealed.
CA And I suppose the christian’s life is really Christ.
FER Yes. “Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord”. Christ is the sustenance of life. But then our life is hid with Christ in God. We live in [p. 322] God now. We do not live publicly in the world except in what we call natural life. The apostle speaks in Galatians, “in that I now live in flesh”. You live in flesh still. Not “in the flesh”, but “in flesh”. Every one of us lives in flesh. Things are not changed in that respect. Our life morally is hid with Christ in God.
GLA At present He is hid.
FER And our life is hid. When our life is manifested we shall be manifested with Him in glory. When Christ becomes public we become public. But Christ is our life. It is a great thing when Christ is the life of the soul. Life is what we live in and Christ is that.
CA Hence if our life is there you may say that our affections should be there.
FER I think it could not be otherwise. If Christ is my life I am concerned for everything that is of Christ and for Christ down here. I live in Christ.
CA Then you could say the saints have the first place.
FER Take Paul; he says, “I, through law, have died to law, that I may live to God. I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me”, Christ was his life.
GBM Would you say the third verse in a way supports the exhortation of the first two verses; that there is every reason for our interest being at the right hand of God?
FER I think so. It gives you not simply the platform — the first two verses give you that — but the third verse is the filling out. It is the substance. You are dead and your life is hid. The life is the substance.
GBM And you connect that thought with what you had last night, how far does Christ influence your mind?
FER I think so. “Whoso findeth me findeth life”. People live in all sorts of things. Many live simply in their family, and the life of a vast number more is their business or profession, or it may be in pleasure or reading. That is where the life of people is. The point is,
[p. 323] Christ is our life, and if He is our life we live in Him. “Whoso findeth me findeth life”.
CA The Lord could say, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven”.
FER Exactly. “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me”. Christ is the expression of all the grace that heaven could devise. Take that in. It is a great thought.
GWH And in Christ it is available for man’s appropriation.
FER Quite so. “As the living Father has sent me, and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. “Because I live, ye shall live also”. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. We are in Him and “Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord”.
JHC That verse in John 1, “In him was life”. That means He is the source of life.
FER Morally. Life was there, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.
JSA I think the point you made a while ago is a very interesting one. The death of Christ was a public act that the world could see, but the resurrection was not; so the coming of the Holy Spirit is not, and practically all that is distinctively christianity is hid from the eyes of the world, except the moral effects in those who believe in Him; and till Christ appears again there will be no public thing which the world can take cognisance of.
FER I think all the ministry of the Lord Jesus here upon earth really had a testimony to man, and the death of Christ was in the presence of men, and therefore was a testimony, but beyond that I think things have a different character. The resurrection was a witness, but a witness to those pre-ordained of God. What is done in this scene belongs to this scene, but what is done beyond death does not properly belong to this world. I have often thought of the fact that in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the [p. 324] English Church, the resurrection of Christ and the ascension of Christ are all celebrated on certain days, and the coming of the Spirit too. First there is Good Friday, then Easter Day, and then Ascension Day, which is forty days afterwards, and Whit Sunday, which is fifty days afterwards. I can understand them commemorating everything up to the death of Christ, because it belongs to the history of this world; but resurrection and ascension and the coming of the Spirit do not belong to this world at all, and to commemorate them by days in the course of this world is really most unmeaning. It is connecting things which do not belong to this world with the course of this world. It is senseless. The resurrection of Christ is to draw people out of this world.
JP If they really understood the resurrection of Christ in regard of all men, they would not be celebrating it, because the assurance of it on the part of men is, that He has appointed a day when He will judge the habitable world by that Man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead.
JSA And the coming of the Holy Spirit in like manner is a conviction of the world’s sin.
FER Exactly.
JSA I think it is not unimportant to seize that, because it gives a sense of the true character of christianity as being apart from the world.
EW And that it is connected with another scene altogether.
FER Yes. “Through the faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead”. It is the beginning of divine operations.
JP So in chapter 1 He is the beginning.
FER You get the same in Israel. The passover was to be the first of months, but the passover involved the resurrection, that is, the smiting of the Red Sea. I have always thought that the smiting of the Red Sea was really [p. 325] the completion of the blood in Egypt. The one was the fulness of the other; so too crossing the Jordan is the completion of the brazen serpent. I think the brazen serpent involved the crossing of the Jordan, just as the blood in Egypt involved the smiting of the Red Sea.
JP I think it is easy to see that the way in which we come to the antitype is the death and resurrection of Christ.
FER Quite so. The death of Christ involves the resurrection of Christ; and redemption for man is really involved in the death of Christ, with all its results in resurrection.
JP Hence the one is never preached without the other.
CA In Revelation the Lord says, I am “the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God”.
FER Yes; that is Christ risen. He is the beginning of the creation of God, because all the creation of God really comes out of death.
CA So apart from the resurrection there is nothing for God.
FER There cannot be, because otherwise everything is dominated by death. There is nothing down here which is not dominated by death. The very ground you tread upon is to a very large extent the fruit of death. Man was made out of the dust and to the dust he returns. It is all death down here, and a scene dominated by death can never be pleasing to God. God cannot have complacency in that. The point with God is to establish everything on the footing of resurrection, and that is involved in the resurrection of Christ.
GWH I suppose if the truth of all these things gets hold of one, the moral effect will be you will seek the things above, and your life will be hid with Christ.
FER I think so. You realise that.
GWH So you really have no part in this scene at all.
FER Yes; that is the effect. You do not live in the [p. 326] things of this scene, though you did once. There was a time when every interest of mine was bound up with this world in the particular way that really made life. But they are not my life. Nothing in this world is my life. Christ is my life.
GWH So you live because He lives.
FER And the practical result is that I am of no account in the world, because my life is hid with Him, and if He is hid I am hid here. You do not expect to find a christian coming out into distinction in the world because our life is hid. But when Christ is manifested it will be another matter entirely. Then we shall appear with Him in glory and be no longer hid. Then it will be that you will come out.
GWH And you are content to be hid till the time of manifestation.
FER I think it is wise for a christian to accept it, not to want to be conspicuous, but to be content to be obscure. Obscurity becomes us here.
GWH ‘Unknown, unhonoured and unsung’.
FER That is what the apostle said of himself: “Unknown”.
ECE The fact is, if a man is manifest it makes him part of this system.
FER I think so. But it is astonishing how the desire to be manifest here in some way or other clings to people. They are not ready to be extinguished. People do not like extinction. If they only persecute, many people would be almost pleased, because they do not like to be extinguished.
JP There is a great difference between these two little prefixes, extinguished and distinguished.
FER Very marked.
JP I think it is remarkable how it does cling to us, and I will tell you we are mighty slow to give it all up. We will often turn a meeting into a little circle where one can be distinguished.
ECE You lay a great stress on resurrection being a [p. 327] sequence. It is just as well to remember that death is the prelude.
JSA But resurrection is not strictly the sequence of death in itself.
FER It is the consequence of Christ. It is necessity in Christ.
JP It really involves the truth of His Person.
FER Yes; the truth of His Person involves resurrection. That is perhaps the better way of putting it.
JA He is so high on the right hand of God that as we know Him there, we can afford to be small in our own eyes.
GWH I suppose the Corinthians had a wrong idea of things altogether; they were reigning as kings.
FER Exactly. They were conspicuous, and using the gifts Christ had given them to make them conspicuous. Like a preacher using his gift to make himself conspicuous. A man getting a name and renown in the world and building a temple by means of the gift God has given him. There are people of that kind in this country, and there are people of that kind in England. They may be gifted men and they have used the gift which God gave them.
JHC Would you not say that the evangelist is for the outside world, and if he has great gifts in that line it does give him a reputation in that way.
FER I think he has to take a great deal of care that he does not use what I might call his histrionic powers. The apostles were not histrionic, and they were certainly as gifted as the modern preachers. I think the great thing in preaching is to keep out anything histrionic, that is, anything which tends to affect man as man. That ought to be kept studiously out.
EW Do you mean to man naturally?
FER Yes; to his imagination and the sensitive part of man. Anything that appeals to the nervous and imaginative part of man should [p. 328] be kept out carefully.
EW For instance, the relation of pathetic stories.
FER Take orators; everything depends on their being able to move people. An orator would not be a successful person if he could not do that.
JSA He brings down the house.
FER But that ought not to be brought into divine things.
CA I suppose no matter how great a preacher can be, it is only the Spirit of God who can affect people.
FER But there are certain things I think the preacher has no business to touch. It is “by manifestation of the truth”, not by resorting to carnal weapons: “commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God”.
JP We get the thought in the first part of 1 Corinthians 2. The apostle had a sense of the responsibility of preaching. It was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom.
ECE The object would be deliverance, and the truth would set them free.
GWH Paul says to the Corinthians, “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord”.
JSA I think the Spirit of God acts on the conscience, and if the emotional part of man is set in motion, it sometimes hinders the work in the conscience.
CHK That is why some can count the converts by the thousand, and a few months afterwards they may not be able to count them by dozens.
FER People converted in that way after a time become very flat. They have been converted in a heated atmosphere. It is a dangerous thing to be converted in a heated atmosphere, because they have to live in a heated atmosphere, and when the atmosphere cools down they are excessively flat.
GBM Would you say then we are not to preach to the natural man?
FER You preach to men, but not to the emotional part but to the moral part of man’s being — to man’s [p. 329] mind and conscience and heart; not to the sensitive, emotional, nervous part of man.
JHC Would you say that answers to what the Lord said, that they loved the praise of men, and they would have their reward?
FER I would not go so far as that, because many of these men, such as Spurgeon and Moody, I would not doubt were gifted men, only I think they dropped below their proper measure. When men become a power in the world, it is a proof they have not left the world.
CHK I presume if they were really preaching the gospel of the Christ of God they would get the scorn, and not the smiles of the world.
FER Evidently with them there was a kind of accommodation.
GWH I suppose the great thing for a man, whether a preacher or not, is to be always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
FER You could not get anything better than this, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God”. At all events it was applicable to the apostle. It expressed the apostle.
GBM That sense of having died would save the preacher from developing around himself large institutions, like orphan homes or charities, and it would prove that he was connected with the world if he did so.
FER Christianity does not go on those lines. These things have come in by christianity, but at the beginning christianity did not go on those lines.
CHK Will you explain, “Bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus?”
FER The dying of the Lord Jesus really becomes the test of everything to you.
CA Do you not get that thought in this chapter?
FER I think that is the practical effect of it. You bear about in your body the dying of the Lord Jesus. If we talk about Christ being our life, [p. 330] He is going to be the life of another universe. People forget that He is our life, and He is going to be the life of the universe — the great living principle that will pervade the universe.
JP He will fill all things.
GWH Do you get the truth of the christian circle stated in this chapter?
FER I think so. Everything is set in movement by the Head, so to speak, in the circle. The impulse is given by the Head. That is the idea of this chapter.
JSA You forgive as Christ has forgiven, and you have the peace of Christ and the word of Christ. Everything characteristic of Christ comes out.
FER The impulse is given by the Head, and in that way the whole of the christian circle is affected by it.
CA Would that be bringing order out of disorder?
FER Yes. There is nothing but order in the chapter. Peace and wisdom and grace.
JSA But it is only for the moment limited to the christian circle. It will be by-and-by in the universe.
EW The last clause of verse 11, “Christ is everything and in all”.
CA Does that go outside of the church?
FER It does not go outside of Christ, outside of the new man. It is descriptive of the new man.
CA I suppose the whole universe will take character from Him.
FER I believe so.
GWH One can say, Where will you find such a company? but the thing is to be in the power of it oneself.
FER But I think there was such a company at the beginning. It is a very beautiful chapter in that way. To contemplate that the circle has been actually established on earth and regulated by the principles that come out in the chapter.
CA I would like that you would give us a summary of what we have had before us in the three chapters.
FER Chapter 1, brings in the thought of the Head, and reconciliation in the Head. Chapter 2, brings out our association with the Head. You are circumcised and [p. 331] buried, but then you are risen with Him and quickened together with Him. It is all association with the Head in chapter 2. Then in chapter 3 you get the grace of Christ coming out in this world, in the christian circle, because the Head is in heaven and we are down here, but then the grace of Christ comes out in this world in associations. So chapter 3 is really the reproduction of Christ in the christian circle. That is the great point of that chapter.
GWH That is the administration that you have spoken of.
FER Yes; it all follows from the fact of our association with Christ, on the ground of resurrection. Not only risen with Him, but there is another point which we did not touch on in chapter 2, you are quickened together with Him.
JP In spite of all that has come in, the circle is still here, is it not?
FER I believe so.
JP I often think that in these meetings there is the disposition to have undue regard in a certain way to what has come in. One fears that it weakens in ourselves the sense of the possibilities and privileges that still remain and are open to us just as much as ever.
FER I think so. I do not think that anything that is essential has abated. We have everything here in the power of the Spirit. Christ is already at the right hand of God and we are brought into association with Him, and that has not altered. The power down here has not abated. It is still possible that there should be love in the Spirit.
Then anybody ought to be able to appreciate the great good that comes out in the exhortations and admonitions in chapter 3, where all the distinctions of flesh disappear in the new man. It is a very great thing to rise above the distinctions of the flesh in the power of divine love. When Christ was here upon earth, what were the distinctions of flesh to Him? What did He concern Himself about the [p. 332] distinctions of flesh? What difference did distinctions of flesh make to Him? What distinction between the black and the white man; He had no prejudice regarding men. If you look at these things in the light of Christ they can have no place at all; that is as evident as it can be. “There is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is everything, and in all”. Then you get all the grace of Christ referred to, “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any should have a complaint against any: even as the Christ has forgiven you, so also do ye. And to all these add love, which is the bond of perfectness”. Beautiful exhortations! Put on love, “and let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful”. Then “Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God”.
JP You are really brought up to a climax of divine joy.
FER It is exceedingly beautiful, and the most striking contrast to the giddiness and frivolity and levity which mark the world.
JSA And then you come out from that to discharge the individual relations that you have in this world, in the light of these things.
CA And I suppose you come out in power.
FER Exactly.
GBM Reference has been made to being affected by what has come in. Would you not say there is great encouragement by looking at the positive side of where Christ is at the present? We speak of Him being in rejection, but the positive side is resurrection.
FER But the great thing for those who are enlightened and exercised about these things is to withdraw within the limits of the Spirit down here. I have no doubt there are certain limits of the Spirit of God, and the thing is to withdraw within the limits of the Spirit.
[p. 333] I have no doubt the Spirit is extremely exclusive. They condemn exclusiveness, but the Spirit of God is extremely exclusive, because the Spirit of God will not admit anything whatever of the flesh, and therefore the Spirit is extremely exclusive, and the things of the world and flesh must not intrude within the region of the Spirit. We must come away from the flesh and the world. You first have to withdraw from what is not of the Spirit, and then you live in the Spirit.
JSA It is only in that you can maintain the unity of the Spirit.
FER Many people speak about our being exclusive, but really there is no one so exclusive as the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God will be exclusive. We must remember that, in regard to those fellow christians with whom we do not walk. We do not exclude fellow christians, but we seek to exclude things in which they are entangled, and principles which are contrary to the Spirit.
JHC You would keep your heart open toward them personally?
FER Certainly.