THE DIVINE FAMILY
[p. 310] THE DIVINE FAMILY
John 1:11 - 13; Proverbs 4:1 - 9
JT I thought this passage in John would bring the subject of the counsels of God before us in a concise way as they are in view in this gospel — these verses being a sort of epitome of what John has to unfold. He reaches the family thought immediately. It will be observed that he places the right of being the children of God on the ground of our reception of Christ and our believing on His name. We are not exactly regarded as born into the family; the question of birth comes in as fitting us for the position, but the position itself is on the ground of the reception of Christ.
The passage in Proverbs came into my mind because I think that book has a great place in the education of the family. As we shall see, the right to be the children of God is necessarily come to, under the tuition of the Lord. I think that the Son of the Father’s love, into whose kingdom we are thus brought, is typified in Solomon. There is an intimate relation between the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love and the family; the one, I think, merges into the other, but the tuition is of relatively equal importance with the position. If we are to have the right to be God’s children, a right which He gives us, we must come under the tuition of the Lord, not exactly as the Lord, but as the Son of the Father’s love. There is authority in the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love, but it is hardly the authority of the kingdom, it is the rule of the Son. Hence Proverbs, in the early chapters particularly, abounds with parental references and terms, for, whilst He is the Son of the Father’s love, yet He takes up a parental place towards us: we come under [p. 311] His rule in that way. The citation in Hebrews 12:5, “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord”, being from Proverbs 3, shows that He has a parental rule over the family. Solomon, I think, typifies the Lord as seen in John 1. The apostle says, “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. John 1:14. That was how He was contemplated, and in that position, I think, He rules the family. So Proverbs becomes of great importance to us, particularly as young believers, if we are to be in the family of God rightly, and are to adorn it. “Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the teaching of thy mother; for they shall be a garland of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck”. Proverbs 1:8.
SJBC I suppose in Hebrews, when quoting, “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord”, Hebrews 12:5, the writer says, “the Lord” because it is a quotation, for the whole context shows that he is speaking of a father’s discipline of his children.
JT Yes, “Who is the son that the father chastens not?” Hebrews 12:7. Solomon comes in in Proverbs as one who himself was a son unto his father; verse 3 should read, “For I was a son unto my father”. The Lord was contemplated as having the glory of an only-begotten with a father. He was with Him; so that His rule becomes of peculiar effectiveness. It is a rule of affection, having in view that the family should be rightly formed so as to grace the house.
Ques In that way, do you view the Lord as having first been in that position in relation to the Father, and then instructing us in it?
JT That is what comes out. He was a Son to His Father, but in speaking to us He does not do so as one of the family, He is not in that position exactly, it is rather that He is representative, hence the repeated expression here, “my son”; He does not speak to us as brethren, but as unto sons.
[p. 312] Ques On the mount of transfiguration it was said, “This is my beloved Son ... hear him”. Matthew 17:5. Is that the thought of the instruction?
JT Quite; only that would have reference to all the communications of God, involving the tabernacle, the unfolding of His thoughts, whereas when the Lord speaks in a parental way He has the family in view, which is somewhat more limited and a different line.
SJBC Are you on the line of sons of the kingdom? I mean, “sons and daughters”. 2 Corinthians 6:18. It is not sonship in its full sense as brought out in Ephesians.
JT No. We have to distinguish when we come to further inquiry as to the difference between sons and children, but John deals with the family in a very general way. He does not develop the heavenly side, what we are towards God, though he does touch it; but that is Paul’s line. John has in view the family as here in whom the Father’s traits are seen, and to that end I think Proverbs is of immense importance as bringing us under the direct rule of the Son of the Father’s love.
One has remarked on the way in which the book of Genesis deals with the subject so that the stream, so to speak, of generation should be kept pure. Abraham was called upon to come out from his country, and kindred, and father’s house. In him God intended to begin the great parental line; so much is made of the birth of Isaac, the weaning of Isaac, and the intimate and affectionate relations between him and Abraham, his father. So when Isaac was received back from the dead in figure, we read that it was told Abraham that Rebekah was on the scene, descended directly from his own parentage. He had it as a matter of light through communication, and later he acts upon this light in sending out his servant to seek her as a wife for Isaac. He is concerned that the stream should be kept, as it were,
[p. 313] pure, that the family should be unmixed. That is a great principle, I think, in approaching this subject, because the people of God are so affected by admixtures.
AMH Is that why it is emphasised here in John that the children of God have been born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God?
JT That is what I thought, according to the principle laid down in Genesis 1:12; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:25 “after its kind”. God abhors admixtures. Later Rebekah lamented, when conferring with Isaac, that the daughters of Heth were such a trial to her; they were typical of the strange elements brought in amongst the people of God. Unconverted people, unspiritual people, finding a place among the people of God cause grief of heart; hence the desire of Isaac and Rebekah that Jacob should go to her kindred.
Ques When you say, “finding a place”, do you mean in association, companionship — that kind of thing?
JT Yes, I think we know something about that. Rebekah protested that life was not worth living with those daughters of Heth in the house. Jacob himself brought great disaster into his house by world — bordering at Shechem. We find influences such as Bilhah and Zilpah in the family of Jacob. Joseph was keeping the sheep with the sons of the two handmaids, we are told in Genesis 37:2, and “Joseph brought to his father an evil report of them”. I refer to that as illustrative of what I have been remarking as to the allowance of foreign elements in relation to the people of God. They are borne with, but the results are inevitable. These sons of the handmaids, labouring, as they undoubtedly were, at a disadvantage through their mothers, were marked by evil discourse, and Joseph felt it. Joseph is typically Christ as the one who adjusts family relations, and he comes into evidence in this way as [p. 314] discerning the evil discourse of these sons of the handmaids.
Ques What is the antidote to all this for us?
JT Well, the avoidance of world — bordering and worldly associations. The statement here that they were born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”, John 1:13 is God’s notice given at the very outset that there is to be no mixture in His family; I do not say that there could be this strictly, but in a public way there can be. Those who have the place of God’s children may find these strange corrupting elements among them.
Rem I suppose the family of God as such is self-supporting, self-sustaining, and complete in itself. You need not go outside of it.
JT Quite. We may be assured that God has provided everything for us, but yet I think the book of Genesis has a loud voice for us as to the responsibilities of those who are parents, and as to those who should exercise parental influence among the saints.
Ques Do you not think the word to Eli is solemn in connection with that, that all of his house should die in the flower of their age because of their sin?
JT Yes. We come then into the position of being children of God by receiving Christ; there was no admixture in Him. What had come to pass was this: He was here, as it says, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. John 1:14. He was contemplated as an only one with a father, and He was definitely received.
Ques Does Paul view the family of God in Philippians’ in the same way as John when he speaks of the “children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation ... holding forth the word of life”? Philippians 2:15 I think so. Paul views them there as the children of God set here as lights; John is occupied with their dignity, and their right to take that place,
[p. 315] and we are told that as being in that position they were born of God. Man had nothing to do with it.
Ques Do you think it is possible for one to be in the enjoyment of family relationships of this kind if they are bordering on the world?
JT Well, it is remarkable how we seem to carry the spiritual and the natural together at times, how we are able to hold on to what is natural, to the natural birth and all that may go with it. One often notices that, and we know what the flesh is, whereas the principle with the great parent was, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house”. Genesis 12:1. That is the principle that underlies parentage according to God, the family of God; so as we forget our own people and our father’s house, we begin to take on a beauty that He appreciates, “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty”, and then it goes on to say, “for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him”. Psalm 45:11. You say, Well, I have come in on the ground of grace; I am called upon to “hearken, O daughter”, and addressed as being in the family at the outset; I am a daughter and treated on the principle of grace, called upon to forget my people and my father’s house, as if it were optional. But it is not optional, for the next thing is, “He is thy Lord”. There is nothing optional with the Lord. If He address you on family lines, and indicate that He sees beauty in you as you abandon natural family lines, yet He immediately gives you to understand that “He is thy Lord”, and there is nothing optional now; you have to say to Him about everything.
Ques I was wondering where David’s kingdom comes in in connection with this; is it a parallel exercise?
JT I think that would be the kingdom as we usually refer to it: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”. Romans 10:9. And then, too, we are baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. I think we come definitely into the kingdom for protection, for rule, for subjection. That is the side of the kingdom as seen in David. You get the Solomonic side in Colossians and the Davidic side in Romans. In Colossians He is the Son of the Father’s love, and we have been translated into His kingdom; and that supposes the will being subdued, but the thought of authority is carried forward.
Ques Authority connected with instruction?
JT Yes; it is the authority that a parent has. A man rules in his house, but he rules in affection; but nevertheless absolute rule is there. And so, even to the bride, as contemplated in Psalm 45, it is said, “He is thy Lord”.
NL Is it not really a question of righteousness?
JT Quite. It is worked out in John’s epistle.
NL “If ye know that he is righteous”. 1 John 2:29. It is in the psalm, the One who “loved righteousness”. Psalm 45:7.
JT Yes; the bride is to take on His character. One is particularly concerned about the strange elements that God serves notice must not be admitted, named in this passage: the will of the flesh, and the will of man, have no place. But it goes on to say in Psalm 45:12, “The daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift”, that is, having come to the recognition of the Lord and that His will is imperative, and that there is nothing optional, and you worship Him, and He commands the soul definitely, then you come into the region of gift. We get the principle of forgetting things in Joseph; he said, “God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house”. Genesis 45:51. Then we have opened up in the psalm what we come into in the region of gift and clothing — family clothing. It says, “the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour. The king’s daughter is all glorious [p. 317] within: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework ... instead of thy fathers shall be thy children”. Psalm 45:12 - 14. All this, I think, is an incentive to young people to take up the relationships of the family of God, an incentive to abandon all that clings to us after the flesh, that we may see that we are brought into these spiritual relationships leading up to the greatest possible dignity — to be the companions of Christ within. You will notice that the passage really begins with the position of the queen at His right hand in gold of Ophir Psalm 45:9; that is the light of God for us, but the remainder of the psalm is to lead us up to it.
Ques Would the thought of dignity in our souls help us on this line?
JT I think it is a great thing to see the mind of God in the abstract. The king is described in the early part of the psalm, but he is described by one who loves him. Then the queen is said to be on his right hand. That is the mind of God; but who is going to be the queen? That is then set before us. It is like the latter glory of the house. John sees the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down, but who is going to form that city? When we realise that we are to form that city, then we cast off all natural relationships, our face is set in that direction, and that is what God is doing now, I think, leading us up to see the dignity that is in the mind of God for us, and that nothing of nature enters into that. The abnegation of natural relationships would refer exclusively to what is spiritual and of God; we come into these in carrying out the will of God. It is a question of laying hold of the spiritual family and of the fact that we cannot live in the natural and in the spiritual; it is one or the other. We come into the natural to carry out the will of God, not to live in it.
SJBC Do you not think that many have got off the path through being swayed [p. 318] by natural relationships? None of us is exactly free from this danger.
JT We want to see that the spiritual family has all in it that is necessary for the enjoyment of those who form it, and dignity at the end. The queen is the divine thought, the companion of the King. I am being prepared for that, and the essentials are, “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him”. Psalm 45:10,11.
Ques How do you distinguish between the family thought in the Psalms and in Proverbs?
JT The Psalms usually work things out from the side of experience; Proverbs works things out from the side of spiritual affections and authority in the family. The family has a head.
JJ Would those things you mention in John be the particular danger of the Colossians: the will of the flesh and the will of man?
JT Yes. The kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love is the protection against these things. The first great thing is to apprehend Christ as the Son of the Father’s love; we are attracted to a family over which He is. It does not say the Father has translated us into His own kingdom, but “into the kingdom of the Son of his love” Colossians 1:13; obviously that there might be that training under Christ which fits us for the family. It is receiving the Lord which gives us title to this family.
Ques Do you mean it is as receiving the Lord in that way as the Son of the Father’s love?
JT Yes, it involves that. John presents Him as knowing Him in that way; His own rejected Him, but those who received Him came into this.
Ques Do you think it would help us to see that in Hebrews 12, which you have already mentioned, God conducts Himself towards us as towards [p. 319] sons?
JT I think it would; that is where discipline comes in.
Ques Hebrews also speaks of Christ as Son over God’s house. Is that the parental thought too?
JT Yes. It is an entire mistake to assume that He is in the house as our elder brother, or that He regards us as brethren in that connection. In the house He is in the position of a parent; so that “if ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him”. 1 John 2:29. Now that involves Christ; it is not only that it is God in the absolute, but it involves Christ. It is through Christ that the divine features have come to light on earth, righteousness and love; it is through Him we come into these things. It is a matter of great importance to understand the parental position of Christ as seen in the gospels.
Ques I think you said that He was amongst His disciples as Joseph was amongst his brethren. Is that so?
JT Well, but as parent He is not exactly on that level: He addresses us as sons.
Ques Do you get it in chapter 13 of this gospel: “Ye call me the teacher and the Lord”? John 13:13.
JT Yes, and then you have the expression, “children” (verse 33). It is in Him that God has come out. We could not be born of God except as apprehended through Christ. There is no denying that there is a sovereign work involved in being born of God, but there is also the thought of taking on the divine features.
Ques Does that come out in the end of that psalm from which you quoted, “I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever”? Psalm 45:17.
JT Quite. The Lord was here in the place of God, and He could say, “He that has seen me has seen the Father”. John 14:9. The revelation is through Him,
[p. 320] and, in being born of Him, we take on the divine traits; “everyone who practises righteousness is begotten of him”. 1 John 2:29.
Ques Do you mean that it is in the Son, in Christ, we come to know what the features of the Father are?
JT Yes.
Rem So it is not merely that we come under the direct tuition of the Father as such, but it is the tuition of the Son.
JT The tuition is through the Son. The quotation in Hebrews 12, I think, shows that the discipline is through the Son. The book of Proverbs gives the rule, the tuition, the instruction that we receive through the Son of the Father’s love. All the discipline comes in that way, I think.
Ques What are you referring to in Hebrews 12?
JT “Ye have quite forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when reproved by him”. Hebrews 12:5. That all comes out through Christ. It is what we come into as in the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love, I should say.
Ques Then in John’s gospel you think the Lord was setting before His disciples the Father, as He said, “If ye had known me, ye would have known also my Father”? John 14:7.
JT Yes.
Ques Does not the Proverbs issue in the King and His consort?
JT Yes; in the last chapter we have the King and the virtuous woman. We have to do with the Lord. Things may seem to be permitted, and we may go on with the spiritual on the one hand, and the natural on the other, but the Lord has to say to all that, for “He is thy Lord”; we cannot get away from it. He will come in sooner or later because He will have things according to Himself. There must be the relinquishment of the natural. If we are going [p. 321] to live in the natural, then we have to do with the Lord. He is our Lord.
Rem To know our origin as being born of God should have great place with us.
JT Yes; that is what you get in this passage in John: “Who are born ... of God”. The other things are all refused at the outset.
SJBC You were saying just now that it is not exactly our being born into the family, but would not being born of God imply that, and that then we have right and title to take the place of children? I thought children were always connected with nature, not position so much.
JT If you say you are born into the family, you leave out the moral side; God works through that. If coming into the family is on the ground of the reception of Christ and believing on His name, then you have the moral issue. How did you come to receive Christ? There must have been some moral process that led you to do that. New birth does not put you into the family; coming into the family involves a moral process. God always works on those lines. It is that which makes the fibre whereby in later days you learn to refuse the will of the flesh and the will of man. How did you come to receive Christ? Did you see anything of the flesh, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man in Him? No, you did not. Then there must have been a moral process. If you have received Him, it means that you have learned to abandon the will of the flesh and the will of man.
Ques Would you say receiving of His fulness is consequent upon receiving Christ?
JT It goes with it; but receiving Christ means that you have decided the matter. He has been presented to you in testimony, and you have decided, you are going to accept what He presents. There is [p. 322] not only the reception of Him, but believing on His name and what that involves.
Ques Do you connect intelligence with it?
JT Yes. There has been no suggestion of the flesh, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man in Him. Then how did I receive Him? I received Him through a moral process in the soul. I have come to prefer Him to the will of the flesh and the will of man. “He was in the world, and the world had its being through him, and the world knew him not”. That speaks of what awful darkness exists in the world. It is the world, too, which He made. The Creator was in it, but they did not recognise Him. They “knew him not”. They did not recognise the features of the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, and yet He “dwelt among us”. Then He came unto His own (those who had a special relation to Him as Messiah) “and his own received him not”. Then it is put in the way of contrast, “But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”.
Ques Is it not important to see that this does not come in in the synoptic gospels, but in the gospel where the sovereign work of God comes out, and they are born of God in order to receive Christ?
JT Yes, that underlies it. They would never have arrived at the discernment of His features without that; but there is the discernment, they received Him and believed in His name.
FWJ He would be the source of all light. They had no light apart from Him.
Ques How do you understand the passage, “He who receives whomsoever I shall send receives me; and he that receives me receives him who has sent me”? John 13:20.
JT That is on the same line; it is the principle of representation. We get the principle of representation at the outset in Scripture. Image comes before likeness. God said, “Let us make man in our image after our likeness”, Genesis 1:26, but after sin came into the world, likeness must be seen before representation; hence in Genesis 5:3 we read, “Adam begot a son in his likeness, after his image”. After sin comes in we must have likeness first, because likeness is a moral feature. Before that statement is made, we read that men began to call on the name of the Lord; and it agrees with what we are speaking of, that in Christ here we have the likeness of God absolutely; it was God Himself, but there was likeness in the moral features, and hence the representation. Then the reception of one who is sent by Christ is the reception of Him, because there is likeness there.
Ques Would “whomsoever I shall send” John 13:20 involve too the Holy Spirit?
JT I think He is referring to what He had in mind in the teaching. He sends them out at the end. He breathes upon them and says, “As the Father sent me forth, I also send you”. John 20:21. They would be representative, because of having His Spirit; they would be like Him.
Ques Was not that representation true of the Colossians? It was said to them that they had received Christ Jesus the Lord, and His features were seen in them; they were to walk in Him.
JT Yes.
AMH Do you come back in that way in Colossians to the thought of the image of the invisible God?
JT I think that is what is set out; the epistle begins with that. The thought is to bring us into correspondence with Him in Colossians.
Ques What is your thought as to believing in His name?
JT That refers to the renown that He acquired “These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”. John 20:31. The name involves, I think, His absence now. John wrote this long after Christ went to heaven. His name had acquired a place and the saints were here in it — they believed in His name.
Ques In view of what you have said, why does Solomon emphasise so much the necessity of being formed in wisdom?
JT Because I think God intends to set out His wisdom in His family: that is where the wisdom of God shines. The apostle says, “We speak wisdom among the perfect ... God’s wisdom in a mystery ... which none of the princes of this age knew, (for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory)”. 1 Corinthians 2:6. The wisdom of God was, as he says “predetermined before the ages”, (1 Corinthians 2:7) hidden wisdom for our glory; hence the immense importance of the saints coming into divine wisdom. “Wisdom is the principal thing”, Solomon says. Solomon was typical of Christ; he was a son unto his father, and tender, and an only one in the sight of his mother. I think he was the most extraordinary babe we read of in the Old Testament. He is called Solomon, and it is said Jehovah loved him; in fact, Jehovah had in His mind to make him His own son. Well now, as Solomon enters on his rule, he says to God, I do not know how to go out or to come in. There is the beginning of what we get here, because if we are in the family, the thing is to know how to go out and to come in. The Lord Jesus went out and came in amongst them from the time of John’s baptism until He was received up, and Solomon says, I do not know how to do that. The Lord Jesus knew how to do that. He knew how to take a place in a family, how to be housefather, how to touch their hearts in family dignity. So God says to Solomon, I will give you what you have asked for. I will give you other things, but I will give you that, and the first great test of Solomon’s wisdom was the maternal feature. Can he determine who is the mother of the child? That is where wisdom is tested as to whether we can determine the parentage — whose the child is. One can easily tell where children are brought up under the nurture of the assembly.
Ques Is that what the apostle brought before the Galatians to discern their true character?
JT Yes. The true mother of the child loved the child. Solomon said, “Bring me a sword”. 1 Kings 3:24. The one woman lay on her child; she was not a true mother. It is a poor mother that lies on her child at night. The other one had the child in her bosom, and the false mother took the living child out of her bosom; the bosom was where the child belonged, and Solomon brought to light immediately by the suggestion of the sword who the mother was. That is where the wisdom of God shines. We can tell where the instincts of Christ are from the maternal side, for there is the maternal side amongst us as well as the paternal side. Paul says he brought up the Thessalonians as a “nurse would cherish her own children”. 1 Thessalonians 2:7. He would not lie on one of the children! He says, Ye are beloved by God. The Thessalonians were to God exactly what Solomon was; they were beloved of God. Paul had the maternal feeling and care for the Thessalonians. You could have easily told by visiting Thessalonica what kind of a mother they had.
AMH Do you think the sword would suggest the Lord’s ways in dealing with us to bring to light what the true generation is?
JT I think that is what comes out very often in the crises amongst us. You can soon tell where the mother is. I have known brethren who said they would do this or that even though their action divided the saints of God, and I think such are like this woman who would have the child divided. That [p. 326] is a terrible spirit to be found amongst the people of God; the true maternal spirit says, No, keep the brethren together, we want them all. It is a wonderful thing to see how in a maternal way brethren are to be kept together, in the truth of course, but to divide wantonly is of the devil.