MALACHI 2 (NOTES OF A READING)
MALACHI 2 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC The great gain of Scripture, as we have been noticing, is that we get in any part of it principles of present application, because there is a uniformity in the ways of God, so that what is true at one period is also true at another.
Ques With regard to the pure oblation in chapter 1: 11, would it be found at the present time in the assembly of God’s people?
CAC Yes. No doubt it looks on to the coming time, but it is clearly anticipated in the assembly. It would apply to the local assemblies, do you not think? These things that come out here, come home to us; the prayer meeting — the time of incense; the morning meeting — pure oblation; and the ministry meeting in chapter 2.
Ques Would you explain how it comes in chapter 2?
CAC I meant the whole principle of ministry as committed to Levi, a ministry on God’s part to His people. It says, “The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and at his mouth they seek the law; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts”. It shows that God had in mind, and still has in mind, to have a ministry that will instruct and help His people.
Rem There is the word of the Lord’s commandment.
CAC It is a kind of fixed principle in the mind of God. Their prayer is to be continued. Incense is connected with prayer in the psalm, as we all know. The oblation would be ministry to God such as should be and is found when the saints come together in assembly. We come together to minister to divine Persons.
Ques To worship in spirit and truth — would that be a pure offering?
CAC I thought so. This service had failed in Israel and it has failed in the assembly, looking at it as a public body on the earth, but God has been and is working, that it might continue in an acceptable way. So incense goes up in prayers that are delightful to God.
Ques Why are the priests addressed?
CAC I suppose the breakdown is more serious with them than with anyone else. The nearer to God the place, the more serious it is if God’s service is not carried out. He has a thought of putting the service right so as to get what he is seeking. “My name shall be great among the nations”.
Rem In chapter 1: 6 God charges them with having despised that Name. “Priests, that despise my name”.
CAC Well, we can see how little God’s name is revered, speaking generally today; it is hardly known!
Ques You apply priests to the saints as serving God in the intimacy of priests?
CAC Yes, and that God’s name should be known, as made known.
Ques Is this just prior to the coming of the Lord?
CAC Yes, only just a brief interval is left for God to secure what He has been seeking for nearly two thousand years. He has been seeking worshippers for the Father. His name as revealed is very little known. He has attracted His saints’ attention to the gospel of John for many years, God’s name occurs [p. 571] there many times.
Rem An indication that we are near the close.
CAC So, it is wonderful to see God can be served exactly as He pleased. A pure oblation is something without any blemish.
Rem The coming millennial glory will not be so great as what is before the saints now. They can be raised to the greatest thoughts of God now.
CAC In the millennium there will not be the capacity to worship as there is now, there will not be the spirit of sonship. Their relations with God will be those of an earthly people. Is that not so? The great point now is that God has secured by His calling a heavenly people who know God as the Father in relation to what is heavenly. Notes of praise rise from the assembly higher than will rise in the millennium.
Rem In Philippians we get those “who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”.
CAC That is very wonderful, so the Spirit supports us as we take in the revelation that came out by the Son, and we can speak to God worthily as those who take in the great thoughts of God.
The worship of christendom is at a distance and is in darkness. The Father is not known, the heavenly position is not known, so that it is not a pure oblation, but carried on more in the character of sinners. God has come out in the full blessedness of His nature, and there is nothing to be added. As Father He gives His saints a place before Him that corresponds to that revelation, and as we enter into it we can offer a pure oblation.
Ques Is it seen in Levi, “Jehovah ... let the work of his hands please thee” (Deuteronomy 33: 11)?
CAC Very beautifully. Levi has a twofold service; Godward in the incense and offering, and manward in instructing the people. If there is any sense of imperfection with us we cannot worship.
Rem Levi fulfilled the conditions to secure this [p. 572] place.
CAC Yes, he broke from all natural ties-from everything he was naturally. He knew not his father, his brethren or his own children. He broke loose entirely from what was natural, so had this great place of service. In this last book of the Old Testament God goes back to it. ‘That is my ideal, I want that amongst my people’. It means now to be faithful to the light that has come to us from God.
The fact that the Lord spoke of worshipping in spirit and truth shows that the worshippers have entered another region altogether. There is not a shade on the revelation of the Father. We contemplate the One who is in the bosom of the Father, who has been in such blessed nearness that He reflects all in Him, and God is declared. God has found a way of setting aside all that we are in the flesh, so there is not a flaw, the worship is perfect. It is not a question of what I am as an individual. He has called me into absolute perfection and if I do not see that, I shall never worship. The service of praise is all occupied with Christ, it is all Christ. That is a pure oblation. Rejoicing in Christ Jesus and having no confidence in the flesh — it is one of the most concise statements of what christianity is. So that to study the gospel of John in connection with the Father’s name would make us worshippers. It would make us all worshippers if we went through the gospel of John on the knees of our hearts.
Rem The question of condition in His people is raised and has to be judged (verse 14).
CAC Yes, we have to be faithful to the divinely created relations in which God has set us, we must be faithful to those conditions — that is what it means, all that He has to say as to the wife of Judah’s youth — conditions established by God at the beginning of the dispensation. The wife of youth is put away and there is a strange god. So we should be faithful to the relations established at the beginning of the dispensation. “And hath married the daughter of a strange god”, so faithfulness now lies in preserving fidelity to those relations.
Rem It is the question Paul raised in Corinthians when he said, “I have espoused you unto one man”, in pure affection.
CAC Yes, and as in right relations among the brethren which have been divinely established, whether we have been faithful or not, whether as in the body or as living stones as in the assembly — all established relations as set up at the beginning. And we must not put away the wife of our youth; it is what christendom has done. The wife of the covenant clearly refers to relations that God has established. It would help Christians immensely if they recognised that certain relationships have been established by God on earth, and every Christian is responsible to recognise them.
The assembly has a certain character impressed on it at the beginning; Christians had nothing to do with the setting up, with the character of the dispensation. The epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians lay down the character of the dispensation, and we have to be faithful to it, or we are putting away the wife of our youth. What we had at the beginning is the wife of our youth, and our responsible history and affections are to remain indelibly attached to it. Approach is set out in Hebrews, and our heavenly position, and you are to be faithful to it. God says, ‘I will not have it put away’. We always need to be reminded of these things, even when we do know them. These Old Testament scriptures bring out in a striking way these great principles. If a man puts away his wife, he has changed his mind. So Paul had to say to the Galatians, “Who has bewitched you?” They had put away all the beautiful grace of God ministered to them and married the daughter of a strange god.
That is our great business in life, to learn what God set up at the beginning, and it is what our most intense affections ought to be bound up with — those conditions that God set up at the beginning. They are worthy of all my love.
It takes in a very wide range of things. What held His people’s affections at the beginning, God intends should hold them at the end. If not, we have done a dreadful thing. The [p. 574] man is addressed here as responsible, as God deals with the responsible side. The feminine side refers to state. Here it is the male side, the responsible side is guilty. It all goes together of course, for if I give up these conditions in a practical sense, my state must be wrong.
Rem Then I lose my happiness and shall not “Have joy with the wife of my youth”.
CAC That is very good indeed, I think that is what God intends us to learn. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears and weeping and crying out; that is religious sentiment, which is positively nauseous to God when found in people who have moved away from His original thoughts. God says then, ‘I do not want your feelings and tears, I want to see you clinging fast to original conditions — that will please Me’. All go together, the incense, the oblation and ministry, and faithfulness to established relations. They will all come into evidence. As to the prayers, there are some beautiful models given us of how to pray. It would be good to read the prayers of Paul before coming to the prayer meeting.
Ques Why is she said to be “Thy companion”?
CAC It means that all is to be kept by our side, near to us. It is God’s design that there should be a seed of God. There will be a product if we hold fast to what is from the beginning. The covenant was for Israel, with us the wife of our youth covers the whole system of blessing brought in by Christ.
Rem It says, “The remnant of the Spirit was his”.
CAC I think that is to remind us that the Spirit remains faithful to the original relation and goes right through with it, even if departed from. So the Spirit takes on a remnant character. The Spirit is going on with it whatever everybody else does, He is going through with the character of the dispensation. He is the Spirit of truth. He is never going to give up any precious thought of God, never going to deviate from what was set up at the beginning. And the ministry is never to deviate, “The law of truth was in his mouth ... for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts”.
It is God’s order of ministry, and it never deviates from the truth. What God feels most is our getting away from the affectionate conditions at the beginning. He feels it more than anything. Christendom has done this, and He will not accept any offering from people in a legal or carnal state. All these conditions are established in holiness; God has called us in holiness, and if we have got away from that character, we have got away from the character of the dispensation, away from holiness, away from grace and love; and all moral breakdown springs from getting away from grace and love.