EXTRACTS

Well now we have an organism. We have arrived at a point where the Holy Spirit is moving in us organically. I do not say that you get that in this chapter, for you do

not get the Spirit emphasized here, it is, a question of faith—you get that in 1 Corinthians—

“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body and have been all made to drink into one Spirit”. That is more vital, but I am speaking of what is initial, how we arrive at proper movement, conduct and manner, as each is among his brethren, on the principle of faith. We have thus arrived at the organism, and can say it is “one body in Christ”, and no other body in the world can say that. In each locality where Christians may be, as in Rome, no other body, the Senate or others, could claim such dignity, such a status, as to be one body in Christ. That status is respected in heaven. The heavenly intelligences understand what it is—“one body in.

Christ”. What dignity! The Holy Spirit is the power of it. Faith is the initial idea, and takes us out of the world, as having Light as to it. Romans is a question of light, and I am dealing now with light as governing us in a collective sense. No one can be in a body in this world, and understand what I am speaking of—one body in Christ. It is incompatible with any other organization or organism; so that the light is delivering. In Romans the armour is “the armour of light”. It is not as great as that in Ephesians; it is just the armour of light, and it applies to the saints as viewed in this collective way—that they are “one body in Christ”. It delivers us therefore from all other bodies whatever they may be; although they may be advantageous in a worldly respect, they have not the status of one body in Christ, and therefore a position in them is incompatible with the calling of the believer in Christ.

J. Taylor (Vol. 37, pp.164, 165)

One may say, There are several different companies, I do not know where to go. Well, the Lord says, “Go into the city”. There were other companies there, too, companies to whom he might have gone. He might have gone back to Jerusalem, there were sects

there; he belonged to the sect of the Pharisees—he might have gone to them; or he might change his mind and go to the Sadducees, or to the Libertines, but the Lord anticipated all that, and simply enjoins him to go into the city. He did not say, I will go before you and prepare the brethren to look after you, but that is what the Lord had in mind. You may say, Those people that meet down there—I do not know that there is much amongst them. It may be if we had known the few at Damascus we should have said there was not very much there!

The Lord had to correct Ananias about Saul. He says, Lord, why this man has come here to bind the saints! How ready we are to intimate that we know better than the Lord! One often sees that in trivial things, too. It may not occur to us that we are criticising the Lord, but it is the fact. Ananias thought he knew Saul of Tarsus better than the Lord did! Think of what we are capable of! And he was a good brother, too. The apostle Paul says later that he was a pious man, and well spoken of by the Jews there. But the Lord has in mind in sending Saul into the city that He would go before him and provide what he needed, provide guidance. Go into the city, He had said, and it will be told you what you must do.

J. Taylor (Vol. 45, pp.188, 189)

Then the forty days—“being seen by them during forty days”—being the full period of impressing, of instructing them with the idea of spirituality. That is where the great difficulty lies, the want of spirituality; not the want of facts and doctrine, but the want of spirituality, and that is why Acts gives us the forty days, as much as to say, there is ample instruction by example in what He did as to what spirituality signifies. These forty days are intended to teach us spirituality. There is in them the fact that the Lord may change His form—“he was manifested in another form”, Mark 16: 12.

J. Taylor (Vol. 42, p.508)

When Christ was down here He was entirely for God. Everything about Him was fragrant for God. There could be nothing so wonderful. There was a Man for God on earth, One with every feeling of a man with whom the Spirit could identify Himself. It is not that the Spirit produced the feelings, but they were all there: everything that was perfect and proper in man for God was there, and the. Spirit could come down to be identified with everything that was there, otherwise the Spirit must have remained in the Deity, and we could not have had the Spirit as the Spirit of Christ.

It is wonderful that we should have the Spirit, of Christ, so that Christ should be produced in us by the Spirit of Christ.

F. E. Raven (‘Letters’, p.308)

The true light of Christianity is displayed in the Lord; you cannot learn it elsewhere.

Therefore I can understand the apostle saying to the Philippian jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”; as much as to say to him, You get into the light of what is displayed in the Lord, and you will be saved, and your house. I think it is very beautiful to know that there is one point where you can fully learn what is in the heart of God toward man, and you see it displayed, not in weakness, but in glory, in power. There is no power to equal the power of the Lord Jesus Christ! Talk about power in this world, and what nations and man can do—it is not to be compared to the power of the Lord Jesus.

F. E. Raven (‘Letters’, p.309).

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