ADMINISTRATIVE AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
[p. 464] ADMINISTRATIVE AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
I have an exercise that what I have to say should convey the thought of our administrative relations on the one hand, and our family relations on the other. These two relations mark Christianity. The first, at the outset, took an official form, and it appears largely in the gospel of Matthew. The second appears in the gospel of John. I have selected these verses because they present to us the two apostles out of the twelve in whose ministry these thoughts are found respectively.
The Lord refers to these features in the order in which I have mentioned them, in the gospel of Matthew, at the time in which He called upon these two men to follow Him. You will recall how the Lord had dwelt at Capernaum, and as dwelling and preaching there, a “great light” had shone. John the baptist had preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh”, and after he was cast into prison, we are told that Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, and He saw two brothers casting a net into the sea. One of these two brothers was Simon. The Lord says to him and Andrew, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men”. He would make them something. The Lord has to do this for us, if we are to have part in the work, and in taking us up, He recognises what marked us at the time of His call. In fact God, in contemplating any one for service, looks a long way ahead. He not only imparts the spiritual gift, but prepares the vessel, not only his own education and environment, but in that of his antecedents. So that the apostle Paul says he “served God from his forefathers”. The service [p. 465] that he was to render was no afterthought. It was not because the twelve came short in any way, although that does appear; it was long premeditated. And so in taking up the vessel God had gone a long way back upstream. He had thought long before of the vessel and of the service, so that when Paul was taken up he was fitted, as one might say, providentially, for the service. But then he was also fitted spiritually for it. The service was to be such as was in keeping with the dispensation.
In taking up Peter, although we have nothing said about his family antecedents, we have it mentioned that he and Andrew were casting a net into the sea. They were acting together: they were performing their legitimate duty together. They were doing it rightly; what they were doing was legitimate and right, and the Lord calls them from that, saying, “I will make you fishers of men”. Whatever we are on the administrative side, we are made by Christ. And so, in Peter’s, and Andrew’s case, the Lord says, “I will make you fishers of men”. That is Matthew. In Mark 3: 14 we find that the Lord took the disciples with Him up into a mountain in order, it says, “that he might send them to preach”. Matthew, as one may say, brings in the administrator. Mark brings in the preacher. And so Peter on the day of Pentecost, true to the education of the Lord, stood up with the eleven. Acts 2 presents an administrative picture. I want to come on to chapter 3, but in chapter 2 it says he stood up with the eleven, that is to say, with those who were qualified by the Lord to take up that position. The position was the result of the teaching and making by Christ. Hence Peter is true to what Mark writes, even as he is to what Matthew writes, in the service he renders on the day of Pentecost. He stands up with the eleven here. He is a true Levite.
Sometimes it is assumed that the responsibility [p. 466] of preaching and teaching lies with the company, but it is a mistake. The responsibility lies with those who are fitted. There must be the Lord’s making and the teaching. “I will make you”, He says, “fishers of men”. And then He would have them with Him on the mount, in His company, that He might send them forth to preach. And in sending them forth to preach He gives them degrees, as I may say. Peter gets his, and James and John get theirs. That is to say, they receive from Christ on the mount a stamp which is to characterise them in their service. And so, as I said, Peter, who was to take the lead in the administrative side, stands up on the day of Pentecost and it is with the eleven. The eleven were all commissioned. In his address he brings David in. David, as you will remember, represents divine administration in the Old Testament. Hence, Matthew writes, “Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David”. As David’s Son, He is the One who is to administer divine bounty. That is what marked Pentecost — the administration of the bounty of heaven. It was a wonderful day in which God, at the request of the Lord Jesus in heaven, who had accomplished redemption, gave the Holy Spirit. Peter says, “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which ye behold and hear” (Acts 2: 33). Everything was divinely perfect. The preachers were there, and Peter stood up and announced the truth, bringing in David, and then pointing to the Son of David, bringing Him in as shedding forth the wonderful gift of the Spirit, which, as he says, “ye behold and hear”. It was a marvellous occasion.
Now I want to connect John with this, because Acts 3 and 4, are what I may call Peter and John chapters. I want to unfold if I can the divine thoughts that come to light in the association of [p. 467] Peter and John. After Acts 4 the chapters are more occupied with Peter; after chapter 9 we may say it is Paul, but chapters 3 and 4 are marked by the association of Peter and John, and what I want to say is this; that whilst we have in Peter the administrative side, we have in John the family side. And these are the two features, as I understand, that are to mark the dispensation to the end, the latter obtaining great prominence at the close. Peter had said to the Lord in regard of John, “What of this man?” The Lord says, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me”. The Lord, as it were, threw a veil in that way over John as regards the great service that he was to perform, and He would say, ‘Peter, you do your work!’ His was an administrative work that necessarily stood out at the outset. The lambs had to be fed, and the sheep had to be cared for and shepherded. Peter had his work clearly marked out for him, a very great work, but the Lord says, as to John, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee?” Here was a good word for the last days, when the question of the Lord’s will comes out, and that which He reserves for Himself, and one might say, He has reserved the best to the end. Indeed it is a feature with John. “Thou hast kept the best wine until now” — that is the first sign in John. It is worth while to have lived in the last days in that way. One would not in any way suggest that the best was not at the beginning, but there is, I suggest to you, something in this, that the first sign John gives us is, the good wine is kept to the last. And what is the good wine? What is it but the joy of spiritual family relationships? What can exceed family relationships and the affections suited to them in the way of blessing? They are abiding. What is administrative is for a certain end, and when the end is reached it terminates. The gifts pass [p. 468] away, but family relationships do not pass away, and John brings these in in his ministry.
His first ‘sign’ refers to the family. A wedding always brings into evidence natural relationships. It is a joyous time according to nature, but the wine was deficient. It is a wholesome lesson to learn, that the wine is deficient in nature at the best. So He brings in new wine, and it is kept to the last. But how is it brought in? Well, it says there were there six stone vessels. Stone endures; they were durable vessels, but they were empty. It is well to endure, to hold on, to maintain the profession, the outline of truth, but, beloved, that b itself is not enough; we must be filled. I am speaking now of John’s ministry. John is brought in with Peter; it is not what John does or says, it is not John’s ministry, it is John’s presence with Peter that is emphasised. John’s great service is not yet in evidence; he comes in at the end, he comes in with the best wine; and so it is introduced first of all in connection with the marriage at Cana. John leads up to a locality in which there is a family in chapter 11. That is the point he makes. It is, I think, a picture of the great result of the ministry of John, coming in at the close.
Well now, I go back for a moment to John’s call, so as to establish what I have said. The Lord, it says, passed on further, and he saw two other brothers. There were two sets of brothers; the first set Andrew and Peter, and the second James and John. The Lord calls them; but what were they doing? They were mending their nets with their father. They were family men, in other words. The Lord took up Andrew and Simon as fishermen, and He would make fishers of men out of them, but He takes up James and John as mending their nets with their father in the boat; they were with Zebedee. I would like you to get hold of that, because if you do you will understand John’s ministry. John is taken up as a young [p. 469] man who had regard for his father. He was evidently in the enjoyment, like Solomon, of a father’s affections. It is not that Zebedee was a very pronounced kind of man. It does not appear that his character or features, either as a man or as a father, stood out very strongly. Indeed it would rather appear that his wife took the lead in the house. It says of her that she was the mother of his children — it was well they had a mother. The fact that John develops the truth of the family would show that he had a mother, but it says, she was the mother of Zebedee’s children, it does not say she was his wife.
Now the qualities of the wife must necessarily precede that of the children in the house, if that house be right. A good wife will make a good mother in the ways of God. Zebedee’s sons were with him, we are told, so they evidently had regard for their father. The Lord takes us up according to what we are. You may think, and say, ‘What I am and my circumstances are accidental’. They are far from it. Do not ever assume that your circumstances are accidental; God has seen a long way back. Do you know, that as a believer, Christ loved you when He died two thousand years ago? This is what Paul said of himself in Galatians 2: 20. Do you think God has ignored all that has passed between that time and now? Far from it. The Lord has noticed everything in your antecedents. Hence Matthew says, “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob” — the administrative side comes down. Whereas in Luke, it is “of” so-and-so; the line goes right back. Thus, it is, I am persuaded, with every believer. We have little realisation of what we are under the eye of God. If God clothes the flower of the field, do you not think He remembers your forefathers? Certainly He does. He has looked down the line in His infinite foresight, and He has arranged every circumstance in my antecedents, my [p. 470] birth, my circumstances, until the time I was converted.
It was no accident therefore, that James and John were in the boat with Zebedee. They were there according to God; they were with their father. The Lord does not say He is going to make anything out of them, for sons are begotten. You see the idea of making a fisherman is one thing, but the other is offspring, it is the family thought. So that when you come to John, whom the Lord, as I said, reserves to bring in His “good wine” at the last, the wine of spiritual family relationships and enjoyment, he says in his epistle, “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God” (1 John 3: 1). In the very first chapter of his gospel he says, “he came to his own, and his own received him not”. He dismisses the earthly people almost at once, but “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be [take the place of] children of God, to those that believe on his name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God” (John 1: 12, 13). He brings the family in at once. That is what he has in view in his ministry; he would bring about here the family of God.
In Acts 3 we read that Peter and John went up to the temple together at the hour of prayer. That is how the work proceeded after the day of Pentecost. Luke, as you know, makes a great deal of prayer. Throughout Luke’s gospel you find it perhaps ten times marking the Lord. So here Peter and John go up at the hour of prayer, that is how matters began. And as they entered the temple, it says, a lame man was carried, “whom they placed every day at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, to ask alms of those who were going into the temple; who, seeing Peter and John about to enter into the temple, asked to receive alms. And Peter, looking steadfastly upon him with John, said, Look on us”. Here we have, one might say,
[p. 471] the administrative side and the family side presented together. Peter might have done all this himself, as a matter of personal service, but what is presented to us is the combination, Peter acting and speaking, and John with him. Now they are to be looked on. The apostle says, “Look on us”. They stood up together; they were in the precincts of the temple. You may say, What was there to see? Well, the Lord says to the people of John the baptist, “What went ye out to see?” They did not answer, but He answered Himself. Do we inquire what was here to be seen? The whole character of the dispensation was wrapped up in these two men. That is what it was in the mind of God; administration on the one side in the power of the Spirit, and family relationships on the other. The lame man could not see it, but that was there. Peter meets the need for the moment in saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaraean rise up and walk. And having taken hold of him by the right hand he raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”.
Now you can see what the administration meant. You may wonder why I am dwelling on this administrative side, inasmuch as there are no officials now. But is the thought to drop or to lapse? Far from it. If we have no officials what we should look for are moral features, that is, spiritual power. It is not what we hold; it is not the word, but the power; and power makes room for him who has it. It imparts a moral weight, so that the dispensation is maintained. It is essential that the features of administration should continue. We get the principles of it here, in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaraean. One who was despised and rejected of men, but He had power. “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaraean rise up and walk. And having taken hold of him by the right hand” — suggestive of the power that was there — “And leaping up he stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”. We have presented there the result of the administrative service that the Lord introduced. What it brings about, as I apprehend, is a comely, orderly state of things according to God now. Luke always keeps that in view; he brings in what is outwardly comely, becoming to the testimony, and that is exactly what results from this service of Peter. The man, it says, walked and leaped and praised God, and what is more he entered with the apostles into the temple. That was becoming at the moment.
Later it says of the man that he held Peter and John. I want you to note that — the idea of holding. The lame man who was healed held both Peter and John. As holding John he held to the family, we may say. God be praised that the thought of the brethren has come into evidence in such force. John has, so to say, rendered his service, and the Spirit of God through this has brought about a state of things in which family relationships are enjoyed. As I said, nothing can exceed the blessedness of spiritual family relationships and affections. These are available in a peculiar way at the present time, so that “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3: 14). But then, what of Peter? It says the man held Peter and John. It is a question of what we hold at the present time. I am speaking of what these two apostles represent. They represent the dispensation, as I remarked, and at the end what the Lord looks for is that we hold it; do not let any feature of it go. At the end we cling to the beginning. We hold them both; in holding John we hold Peter.
That brings other thoughts. If we are to hold Peter we must have respect for experience. If I [p. 473] hold John I have regard for life, for the enjoyment of spiritual relationships and affections, but if I hold Peter I must have regard for experience. Hence you find in the book of Revelation that the elders and the living creatures are seen together. The elders are round about the throne; there is administration. There are twenty-four of them. It refers to David again, as I remarked; twenty-four courses of priests were ordained under his regime. The twenty-four elders were seated round the throne, and then it says, the living creatures were in the midst of the throne. John brings in living creatures; he brings in life. But the living creatures must be regulated by experience if things are to be according to God. The danger now, if I may so venture to express it, is of youthful energy being unregulated by experience with God, for that is greatly needed. If there is anything I am exercised about, it is to have experience with God, to know God in His ways, so that my energy may be rightly directed and regulated, that it should be available under the control of experience; available to the Lord and to His people. Hence it says that when the four living creatures give glory to Him that sits upon the throne, the elders fall down and worship Him. That is, they wait, as one might say, for a result, when the energy of life is brought in entirely subservient to Him who sits on the throne; then the elders fall down and worship, and they give a reason for it. They say, “Thou art worthy, O our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy will they were, and they have been created” (Revelation 4: 11). They celebrate Him who sits upon the throne, and acknowledge that He is entitled to the homage of all; “for thy will they were, and have been created”.
I do urge as a closing word that we should hold Peter and John, like the man who got blessing through them at the outset.