THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY (1)
THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY (1)
JT My thought was that we might see in these chapters 11 to 20, what corresponds with the movements of the ark, as having the passage of the Jordan in view. The ark had moved from the outset (after it had been constructed) in leading the way in the wilderness, and in finding resting places for the people. It had moved to indicate the way for the people through the wilderness, as we learn from Numbers 10. But as we are brought to the end of the journey towards the passage of the Jordan there are peculiar stipulations; particularly that the people were to follow about 2,000 cubits behind. They remained three days at the Jordan before passing over, preparing victuals and sanctifying themselves. It was said, “For ye have not passed this way heretofore”. Joshua 3:4. It was on my mind that the consideration of the later chapters in John’s gospel with that in view would enable us to follow the movements of the Lord as actuated by love for His people, so that we might be brought into correspondence with Him as following at a distance of 2,000 cubits behind; for the instruction that He gives had in view that the disciples should be brought into correspondence with Him. It is only thus that the glory is a known thing amongst us, and shines amongst us. There is really no testimony according to God apart from that — the shining of the glory. We cannot but be impressed with the prominence given to glory in this connection. The Person who was about to move was Himself glorious, and the movements, and all that accompanied the movements, involved the shining out of His glory.
[p. 2] In chapter 10 we see that His service to the nation is ended. He is definitely rejected, not only by the leaders of the people but by the Jews. You will observe the recurrence of the word “Jews” in chapter 10. The Jews surrounded Him in Solomon’s porch; they had taken definite account of what He was amongst them and what He had done; then they challenged Him, and He meets their challenge by calling attention to His works and what He was amongst them, with the result that they took up stones to stone Him. The Jews as such thus committed themselves to His definite rejection, so at the close of that chapter He goes over the Jordan to the place where John baptised at the first and abode there — not yet with His disciples, as He did later (John 11:54), but He abode there; He is alone. It is from that point that He proposes to go back into Judaea, which had already declared itself in murderous opposition, so that He is now definitely facing death. Jerusalem and Judaea were to be the scene of it, and hence this movement has a known murderous hostility in view. He is going to meet death, but He is not here entering as a victim. He is entering it by way of challenge. He is not the Victim here at all; chapter 10 shows that He is free. He says, “I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again”. John 10:17. He had received this commandment of His Father. It was a movement of His own, a movement involving His meeting death and His disposing of it. But in moving to meet death to dispose of it, what comes up first is a loved one. He says, “Let us go to him”. He thinks of the saints. He goes in His personal dignity and power, for the point was that God should be glorified, and that the Son of God should be glorified. He was entering the domain of death. He does it of Himself,
[p. 3] but in doing it He has the loved one first before Him.
HD'AC It is really a divine Person walking through death.
EM Do you connect every movement with the outshining of His glory?
JT That is what is in view.
LM You said that it was not the victim side so much here.
JT The ark going into Jordan does not present the victim. It is not a type of the victim, but of the power of God and the glory of God. John presents a divine Person dealing with death, and that is not the thought of a victim, and hence it is —”What ailed thee, O sea, that thou fleddest, and thou Jordan that thou wast driven back?” Psalm 114:5. It is the presence of the Lord as the power of God. Chapter 10 shows that all that power is available for the sheep; that power is supreme right through. “No one shall seize them out of my hand”. John 10:28. But now, there is one in death; that is what we get in this chapter. There was a certain man sick, Lazarus of Bethany. Death was about to lay claim to this loved one, and hence the Lord enters the field to overthrow this power. We get His feelings in regard of death in John more than we get elsewhere.
PL He groans in spirit at the grave.
JT Yes. ‘Groan’ is a strong word; it is He is deeply moved. The words “deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled”, might be rendered, “He groaned and shuddered”.
JMcI You were saying that they had not gone that way before. Is that the thought here also?
JT They had not gone this way. Peter said to the Lord, “Why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thee”. That was a mistake. He would do it later; but he could not do it then. We all have to learn what the 2,000 cubits mean. Thomas also says here — “Let us also go that we may die with him”. The Lord says nothing about that, but it is quite obvious from what comes out later about Thomas that he was not prepared for it.
Ques Is Lazarus a sample case of one who is relieved to follow Him?
JT Well, Lazarus was in death himself. I think it is as knowing Christ risen — knowing the truth of Colossians — that we follow. Lazarus is let go; as risen, he represents the liberty and dignity of the saints viewed as risen.
Ques. Is that headship?
JT It is more that you see you are risen with Christ. “In which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, Colossians. 2:12. It is in the light of that that you accept death.
FW What is your thought as to the three days in which they were to prepare victuals at this point?
JT I think it indicates an exercise befitting this great movement. You need support for it; you need food for it. They were also to hallow themselves.
HEF Do you mean that the considering of the Lord in His movements in these chapters would prepare us for following; hence the thought of following in chapter 12?
JT That is what they are intended for.
HEF So that Peter does follow Him at the end.
JT Quite.
AN Where would you put this chapter in the epistles?
JT It really comes in with the first chapter of Romans. He is “marked out Son of God in power ... by resurrection of the dead”. Romans 1:4.
AN I thought that you had in your mind “risen with Christ”, and that you connected it with Colossians.
JT I was going to say that the germ of it is introduced in the gospel. The gospel is the power of [p. 5] God; it involves the power of God; God’s Son marked out in power by resurrection of the dead. The gospel is concerning His Son, and it brings into the soul the knowledge of God — the knowledge of God in power; but the Son is the power of God, and so the gospel is about Him. In the working out of the details in Romans there must be righteousness as a basis, but nevertheless it is the gospel of God concerning His Son, which, as received into the soul, carries with it the germ of all that follows; so that in Colossians one has come to it — “in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, Colossians 2:12. It is a faith position, and it is only in the light of the power of God seen thus that we can undertake to follow.
JMcI I suppose it would be spirit-wise in Colossians 1 But here it seems spirit, soul, and body.
JT It is faith in Colossians, faith in the working of God. We are not raised literally; it is a question of the light we have got. It is in the faith of the operation of God that one follows. We have to remain 2,000 cubits behind, but we see what has happened. As the priests’ feet touched the waters they receded — they disappeared; that is what Colossians means. It is not what is done in me; it is what Christ has effected in His death. Risen with Christ is a question of faith — what God has effected.
EM Would you say it is not only what He was going to effect, but His feelings in presence of the death of a loved one?
JT That is it. He is going to deal with something that affects the saints in this dreadful way.
PL Do you get the follower in the glory way in Paul, when he says, “I rejoice in sufferings for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the assembly”? Colossians 1:24. He is following [p. 6] behind.
JT Quite. I think these chapters give us what you might call the dying of Jesus; but it is the Son of God. Paul desired to bear about in his body the dying of Jesus. This chapter begins the movement which involved His death. It is not the death of Jesus, but the dying of Jesus. He is going to die, and it is how. With what feelings! With what sympathies! With what considerations!
JM Is it not His movements in that way that attract the affections of the saints?
JT That is so. We are taught how to move here. The saints are before us. He says, “Let us go to him”. Whatever stands between us and Him has to be removed. Death in this instance stood between the Lord and the loved one, but He does not say, Let us go to the tomb; but, “Let us go to him”. That is the exercise. Can you meet that? The Son of God met it. The question, therefore, is what power one has with regard to the saints.
JF Do you apply the dying of Jesus to the whole journey when He set His face as a flint to go to Jerusalem?
JT Quite. That is what I understand. It is not His death, but the dying. We read in the next chapter of His being lifted up, signifying by what death He was about to die; and then it is said of Peter “by what death he should glorify God”, John 21: 19. But in regard of Lazarus He says, “Let us go to him”.
HD'AC He would reach the dead — His loved ones — and to reach them He Himself must go through death. Is that your thought?
JT Quite. Whatever lay between Him and a loved one must go. There was a serious barrier. Abraham said to the rich man, “between us and you a great chasm is fixed”. Luke 16:26. That was impassable. The Lord arrived here at the tomb and He groaned. The thing was not ordinary. He measured divinely what [p. 7] He had to deal with. What lay between Him and Lazarus was not impassable to Him.
AG As being the One who was superior to death, in what way did He become subject to death?
JT By laying down His life. He had to lay it down. But to what do you refer when you say subject?
AG When He Himself died.
JT It is “obedient unto death”; but He lay dead three days; the pangs of death were loosed, for He could not be holden of death, but He died.
AG “As the Father hath given me commandment, even so I do”.
JT Yes, it was in the pathway of obedience. No one took His life from Him. Here you have the Son of God, and as such He is superior to every barrier. But He is going to meet death, and He knows what death meant. The groan here signifies His estimate of it. It lay between Him and Lazarus.
EJMcB Do you understand by that that death would have closed up the loved ones for ever?
JT It would.
EJMcB They could never have come to Him.
JT David says in reference to the death of his child, “I shall go to him; he will not return to me” 2 Samuel 12:23. But then the Lord in saying “Let us go to him” meant that whatever stood in the way must go. He was going to remove what lay between Him and Lazarus.
EJMcB So that as one understands the purport of this education we should be able to get near to one another whatever the barrier may be.
JT I think that is the desire one would have here.
AN The outstanding point would be that it is the assembly that is the objective. Whatever stands in the way to hinder our reaching the assembly the Lord removes it by His [p. 8] power.
JT Exactly; here it is those who form the assembly. Then if you want to reach a brother, you want to go to him and the question is what power have you? John’s ministry is intended to bring in power into our souls, so that we move towards Christ and then towards the saints.
Rem In that respect there will be power to stay away as well as power to go.
JT You see the deliberation here. Jesus stays two days in the place where He was. Everything is measured in John. It is remarkable the reference to the measure of time.
RB Is your thought that we have power, as we see what the ark has accomplished 2,000 cubits ahead?
JT Paul said to the Corinthians, Christ lives by the power of God; and then he adds, “we shall live with him by God’s power towards you” 2 Corinthians 13:4; you will know He lives in me to you in that way. He was dealing with them in power. They would know that. His letter had in view to reach them. “I have power”, he said, “when your obedience is fulfilled, to deal with those who are disobedient”; “and having in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience shall have been fulfilled”. 2 Corinthians 10:6.
PL “Ye are in our hearts to die and live with you”. 2 Corinthians 7:3. Is that glory?
JT That is glory; exactly.
PL And Paul travailed, he agonised, for the Colossians. Would that be to get to them, removing everything that separated him from them?
JT That is the principle. The Lord goes in the dignity of being the Son; there is nothing to hinder Him going. It is His own determination. He is free, but He remained two days in the place where He was. He knew Lazarus was sick. He now says, “He is asleep, and I go to awake him out of sleep”. Then He says, “But let us go to him”. The movement is one of glory — a movement of love.
PB Is it not important that the Lord says, “Let us go to him” before they had to move?
JT Yes.
HD'AC Why does it say, Let us go to him? Why is it not the singular number?
JT I think the Lord would bring us into it. It is a family matter.
RG Does this action on the part of the Lord involve His death?
JT It does. He says, I am the resurrection. I am.
RG What is in my mind is that He had power to remove death in the case of this loved one before He actually removed it before God for us. How does that come in?
JT I think that is what is referred to in Romans 1, “by resurrection of the dead”. I think the dead there is plural. It is not simply His own resurrection; it is the resurrection of others. He is declared to be the Son of God — that is the great testimony that comes out in this movement. He is declared to be the Son of God with power by resurrection of the dead.
RG That is a proof that He was the Son of God. Do all the miracles He wrought for the deliverance of man anticipate His death?
JT Well, they would have no meaning were it not that He was going to dispose of the whole question of righteousness, and that involved His death. But then there is the testimony clearly set out in this chapter as to His Person by the resurrection of Lazarus. Hence later God says, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again”.
Ques Are things in relation to the glory of God carried out by the Son of God?
[p. 10] JT Quite.
PL Would you get in the ark the power in which He deals with death, and then in the priests carrying it those sensibilities of love which He would form in our hearts?
JT I think the priests carrying it would represent the holiness in which the Lord definitely acted in going into death. As it says, “according to the Spirit of holiness”.
WSL Have you any thought as to why the Lord allowed death to supervene before He moved?
JT Is it not to bring out that He intended to become endeared to this family? He intended to have a place with them that He never had had before. It is a wonderful result. They knew Him in a new way. “Did I not say to thee that if thou shouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God?” It is a movement in which the glory was manifested. It is a wonderful scene in Bethany, as one might say, “filled with the glory”. Numbers 14: 21.
WSL Did He have in view chapter 12?
JT Yes; He had that in view. He came to Bethany. Chapter 11 begins with the wonderful result that had been reached. It says, “It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick”. That was the result He had in view.
WCG Would chapter 12 bring in Colossians?
JT I think it does. The Lord had that end before Him.
WSL The opening of chapter 12 is a scene of glory, and every movement that led up to it manifests His glory.
JT If the glory is not seen in our circumstances, what is there? We are either filled with ourselves or with Christ. They made Him a supper, but He came there before they made the supper. He was [p. 11] before them.
HEF Why does it say that “Jesus six days before the passover”?
JT He was on the way. These chapters indicate the way, hence His feet are anointed. His feet are carrying Him but it was six days before that that He had this refreshment. Mary’s action is the result of chapter 11. He was refreshed; as it says in Psalm 110:7, “He shall drink of the brook in the way”. He was on the way to death, and Mary understood from the previous experience where He was going. She had discernment by spiritual intelligence that He was going to die. That was the way He was on.
JJ Would the fact that Mary sat still in the house indicate that she understood the 2,000 cubits?
JT I think so. You see a certain spiritual state in her that is not in Martha. She stands out in that way. In chapter 11 she sat still in the house; then she gets the message, “The master has come and calleth for thee”. He knows what is in Mary’s soul.
It is the personal touches you get here. “He calleth for thee”. And then she has the favour of walking with Him to the sepulchre. He remained where Martha met Him until Mary came. Martha did not lead Him to enquire for the grave.
JBC Would the character of John 11 suggest the constraining love of Christ. I had in mind what you referred to earlier in regard to the way that every previous movement may be on the line of knowing Him after the flesh. While the thing they saw in Him was divine, still the Lord’s position has to be changed. It is power but in such fashion and expression of His feelings that it becomes the constraining love of Christ.
JT Just so. I think it is most affecting to take account of the Lord’s own feelings. It was an immense thing for them that He could raise Lazarus [p. 12] from the dead, but that they should know what His, feelings were in the act is most affecting.
PB The Lord would lead them into the way of love Yes. We ought to see that it is the way of love. Paul says, “Yet show I unto you a way of more surpassing excellence”, 1 Corinthians 12:31 and this chapter I think outlines it. We have the Son of God dealing with this awful thing and dealing with it feelingly, knowing what it involved Would His tears be a manifestation of His love? It says, “Behold, how he loved him”.
JT “Jesus wept”. He is affected by the scene. “Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews, who came with her weeping, was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye put him? They say to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept”. That stands out in its own majesty. It is the Son of God, but nevertheless a real Man here with human feelings and sympathies. He saw her weeping, and saw the Jews weeping, and He was not indifferent to that. But then He took account of the occasion of all this and contemplated what it meant for Himself. He was deeply moved and He groaned.
HD'AC The glory of His Person did not mitigate His suffering, would you say?
JT Quite.
EP The Lord expresses in this chapter the very soul of heaven in connection with a scene of death.
AN There would be two spiritual steps; on the one hand you might be acquainted with the power of Christ, which brings deliverance, but on the other hand if there be not the knowledge of what it cost Him and His feelings in connection with it, the affection, might he defective.
JT I think if there is anything the grace of Christ will produce in us it is right feelings and [p. 13] sympathies. There are sympathies for those in sorrow and for those in joy; “rejoice with those that rejoice, weep with those that weep”. Romans 12:15. We are so little accustomed to spiritual emotions, emotions such as we see here. He was “deeply moved”.
JJ Would you say Mary was in sympathy with Him?
JT I think there was a link there that was special. She was the one He had specially in mind, because the passage begins with, “It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair”. This is what He had specially at heart.
Rem Holy affections moved the Lord at the death of Lazarus.
Rem Would you say that when the Lord dies as the Victim, the result is that the waters become a wall on the right hand and on the left, but when it is to set a loved one free there is no water at all; it is annulled? The latter is what we have here.
JT Quite. That is what is in view here. So that the passage of the Jordan means that one is set free. There are no more barriers. “Loose him and let him go”. I think it is characteristic of John that the man can be trusted. He is not delivered back to his mother — he is let go; he is free. Death has dominion over him no longer.
EP Is all this education that we might be free from natural emotions like Martha, and get spiritual emotions like Mary?
JT That is the thing. I have no doubt she began to acquire the precious ointment here; she began to fill the box from this point.
WSL You spoke of the sympathies that came out in the Lord in entering the scene of death and touching it. Is there any connection between that and the feet of the priests touching the water?
JT Yes, but I do not know that the priests [p. 14] carrying the ark signifies anything beyond the holiness which characterised Christ in going into death. The Levites carried the ark, but in Joshua they are called priests, “the priests the Levites”.
AG Was the grief of Mary the prospect of the loss of her brother? I was thinking of how it might affect us in relation to a brother.
JT She had lost him.
HD'AC What about the loud voice? “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth”.
JT I think it denotes the power that He had as the Son. You have it referred to in chapter 5, “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God”. John 5:25.
HD'AC Is it the power of love — very penetrating?
JBC-l Is it in your mind that the feelings of the Lord are opened out in John’s gospel in this peculiar way? They are spread out over certain incidents. If we think of Him as the Victim, His feelings would be concentrated, but in John’s gospel we get the expression of them in various incidents. Would that bear out what you are saying as to the various exercises in which the question of His power is raised?
JT Yes, there is a peculiar fulness and finality in this gospel, and the place the saints have in His heart is prominent in John.
JJ What about the corrupt state that had actually come in?
JT You mean as to what Martha said. Christ has brought to light life and incorruptibility. It was true that Lazarus was dead and that it had gone beyond the third day. Corruption no doubt had set in, but the Son of God had power to take him out of that state. The Lord had said, “Thy brother shall rise again”. The family was composed of two sisters and one brother. There is no head in that family; the parents are not in evidence — gone, I suppose.
[p. 15] And now the brother had gone, so that the desolation, as you might say, is complete. The Lord took account of that and said, “Thy brother shall rise again”. The circle is set up again in the brother, so that He comes to Bethany in relation to him. “Jesus, therefore, six days before the passover came to Bethany, where was the dead man Lazarus whom Jesus raised from among the dead”. John 12:1. That is to say, the Lord recognises a circle of three — one brother and two sisters.
RB Why do you think the Lord spoke of Lazarus as “our friend”?
JT It was the place he had with the Lord. I suppose the Lord was accustomed to open up His heart to them there. In His visits He would open up His mind to that circle in Bethany. It is an immense thing to have a friend in a spiritual way.
RB I wondered if he had some special place of trustworthiness with the Lord, and on that account he was specially dear.
JMcI Do we not all come under that head in John? “I call you not servants, but friends”.
JT You have the circle set out with the brother, and with a brother risen from the dead. It is, I think, how John indicates the way of recovery.
JF Were you connecting on our part the bearing about the dying of Jesus with the manifestation of the glory?
JT Yes; you are brought into correspondence with that. Paul was aiming at that.
PL Is this glory “increasing with the increase of God”?
JT Quite.
JH Is this in accordance with 2 Timothy where He has brought life and incorruptibility to light?
JT Quite. That refers to His own death; that is what is in view there, and the result is that life and incorruptibility are brought to light.