THE HEAVENLY CHARACTER OF THE TESTIMONY

Numbers 15: 37–41; Luke 2: 8–14, 25–32; Acts 5: 19, 20, 41, 42; 1 Corinthians 1: 1–3; Colossians 3: 9–15

CKR I wondered if we could enquire together into the testimony and the need to see that the characteristic feature of it is that it is heavenly. I have been drawn to this passage and if I may I will refer to the footnote (a), referring to the word “tassel” as “fringes’, or ‘a flower’, i.e. to attract attention’. You can see from the passage in Numbers 15 that this is God’s instruction to the children of Israel that they themselves were to add the tassel and then the lace of blue. Footnote (a) makes it clear that the purpose is to attract attention. The tassel was clearly for the divine eye as it was to be a divine delight; and also the impression comes through that the children of Israel were to see that it was to remind them of this divine direction. Blue speaks of what is heavenly. I want to trace this through our enquiry for I think we can find certain continuation of the features of the tassel, the blue, coming out in the scriptures that we have read. We need to realise, as in the testimony, that it is not a testimony to failure; the testimony is what God will yet display in a day to come and this will be heavenly. It may lift our minds and our affections to contemplate a little on what it means, that as the Lord Jesus is the heavenly One, so also the saints in testimony bring out the characteristic features of that blessed Man. I thought we should start with Christ in Luke 2 to see that everything for God in the testimony was embodied in the incarnation of Jesus. We see clearly that the divine eye was on that manger and the angel of the Lord comes forward and there is a divine communication pointing to the fact that Jehovah’s Christ was born in Bethlehem’s manger—the heavenly One in manhood. Then you come to Simeon, he embraces the Babe, “the Lord’s Christ”. I would suggest that the tassel and lace of blue was very evident in Simeon at this point, and that was a delight to heaven. You have the angel at the beginning of Luke 2 and you have the temple; in Acts 5 also you have the angel and the temple, and you get the words of this life. I think we might see that at the beginning of the dispensation, against a background of suffering, there were vessels that would go forward to speak “all the words of this life” in power. I suggest they exhibited the tassels with the lace of blue in their garments. It was a different character of life and speaking that was to characterise Jerusalem. So they are happy to be dishonoured for the name of Jesus. And then as the testimony goes on I suggest we enquire a little about a locality, Corinth, to see the way things are opening up; it ought to be indicative of how believers are gathered together. There was the Jewish synagogue and the heathen temple, but there was also a company described as the assembly of God in that place, made up of those who are called saints. That is the saints with this tassel and lace of blue. There needs to be something that distinguishes the walk of believers and makes them different from everything around religiously, and one characteristic of that clearly will be to demonstrate that the heavenly blue is in evidence. Mr Coates says it is very often the red rag of self-consideration that replaces in my life where I should be exhibiting the true heavenly character of the blue.

Let the young people and us all remember the colour—blue. It is on every corner of this garment, every way which this person went the lace of blue, the tassel, was there. It was not something you take off on Sunday night and then pick up next Sunday morning. There is something characteristically there all the time. So I thought we should close with Colossians.

It is like opening the doors of the locality and having a look inside; here is the demonstration of the features of the new man, and this is surely the continuation of the features of Christ against the background of failure and corruption. We are perhaps going to cover a good range of truth, but I do think the Lord may impress upon us that the testimony is heavenly.

DTP I think it is very good what you have laid out for us, the consideration is needful for us because really our calling is heavenly. We are reminded in Scripture so often about the heavenly blue. There it is, it shines in its glory. We move about in this scene and if you tend to look down what do you see? Here it is, the heavenly blue, on the borders of the garments, and too something that is attractive in display to us.

CKR I think we need to ponder this a little. As we sang in our hymn, the Holy Spirit is to lead and guide a heavenly people home. We are gathered together through God’s mercy, conversing over the Scriptures, and talking about things which are to do with another scene, and in certain respects have their origin from there, but then the testimony is here on earth. God, one day, is going to display it in glory, and what God is going to display is Christ.

RT In the tabernacle there was a good deal of blue; it was in the curtains and in the coverings. Would this tassel be a connection with that?

CKR Yes, I think it is that the fabric and the layout has been according to the pattern, bringing out its beauty to God. There are a lot of colours in the tabernacle in the greatness and glory of all that it speaks of, but the children of Israel had to put this tassel on with the lace of blue. They had to do it. The divine direction is because they were to appreciate what they had done. This is the setting but then every one of us ought to be in it according to this character.

RT Our testimony has a strong link with our connection to what is inside.

CKR Absolutely. You go from the inside out, and from what you have gathered inside you then come out in testimony. I do not want to linger on the first scripture but just to carry it in our consideration, carry the thought of the tassel into these other scriptures. There is something very beautiful about it, it is an ornamental bit specifically added. We need to see first of all, the perfection of what is heavenly in Jesus, in manhood. And so you think of the fact that the testimony is embodied in Christ, and here we get the account in Luke 2 of the incarnation and birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

JDG In Numbers here there is a delivering power. In verse 39 it says, “that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of Jehovah, and do them; and that ye seek not after the lusts of your own heart and your own eyes”. It seems to be a delivering power, this positive presentation of what speaks of the heavenly Man.

CKR Yes, I think that is the influence. Hebrews 11 also comes to mind as we are speaking. They show clearly, “they seek a better, that is, a heavenly” (Hebrews 11: 16).

JDG In line with John’s address to his children, deliverance from the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

CKR Exactly, all these things are there. You see the benefit and glory of being occupied with Jesus. We need an influence and a focus in order to make us go in for what is heavenly. That is one side and the other side is it ought to be in evidence. A different character of spirit and life and demeanour will take its character after the Lord Jesus who is the heavenly One.

RG It appears that there is breakdown just before this is introduced and there is breakdown just after it. Do you think that it is in the midst of breakdown that the heavenly man can shine at his brightest as we carry through the instructions on how to deal with the breakdown?

CKR The divine answer to the breakdown is that God desires to see what is for His own pleasure represented on the earth in what is heavenly. I think that would bring out that there is a need constantly to raise the level, to maintain the dignity that belongs to the testimony of God, because the testimony is Christ.

WMP It says “good pleasure in men”.

CKR It is helpful to see that this is the divine word. I thought that we would see in the first part of Luke 2 that this is the divine communication regarding what was transpiring. The word comes, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”. You can see now because of Christ coming in and the greatness and glory of everything being for God, and also now for men in the Lord Jesus Christ in manhood, that “good pleasure in men” was going to be secured. Is that right?

WMP It was there in one Man, was it not, supremely? The divine thought as you say is given that it is to be extended, and your thought today is that it may be extended in ourselves.

CKR I think it is to be extended and maintained because clearly the enemy would be set against this totally.

MC Would it also depend on the Spirit helping us to draw from what is above in that way?

CKR Yes, we need the Spirit.

MC I was thinking of the resources that are made available to us from the heavenly point of view, and how much we really need the Spirit to help us to get the gain of that, do you think?

CKR Yes, I think we will particularly see that in Acts because the Spirit has come down from a glorified Christ after all His work has been completed on the earth. Christ is glorified and the Spirit is now indwelling persons who are coming out in the features really of a suffering Christ, but yet in triumph and in the demonstration and exhibition of another spirit altogether.

NJH As we are formed after what is heavenly, it becomes testimony?

CKR I think the divine intent is that there is something formed so that the new man is formed. The divine eye was clearly on the manger. The whole focus at this point in time was on what had happened. What a matter to contemplate how it says, “an angel of the Lord was there by them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them”, and then the clear communication comes to them, “ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host”. Everything for God was here in testimony now in Christ.

RT Everything here had descended. Is that a feature of the testimony, it has all come from another source?

CKR Exactly—the descent. I suppose it would be true to say at this point that the Lord had emptied Himself, “who did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men”, Philippians 2: 6, 7. He came into this condition, but He never ceased to be what He was by what He became. The religious place in Jerusalem had no place for Him, and so it is in Bethlehem’s manger, the lowly position. This is where the testimony in Christ commenced, and souls are being directed to go to the spot and see that a Saviour has been born “who is Christ the Lord”.

DTP There is a tremendous demonstration of divine power here which is most affecting, and it is all in view of leading on to what He is demonstrating in Himself, but behind it all lies the power of God.

CKR Quite so—divine power, divine authority and the angel of the Lord. The whole setting is pregnant with divine feeling, with divine authority and divine glory. What is the object of this scene? The incarnation, a divine Person, came into manhood.

NJH It says the angels returned into heaven. The shepherds’ view was now filled with what was heavenly. Their attention was drawn to what was here on earth, was it not?

CKR That is right. There was no need for the Lord Jesus to attach a tassel; He was that. In Himself He was absolutely from heaven and totally exhibiting every grace of God for man, in manhood in perfection, the heavenly One.

GCMcK There is remarkable humility is there not in the whole matter? It is heaven come down, but I wondered if that would be a feature that we could take on too, in the testimony now?

CKR I just would like us to be able to carry over some of these suggestions to help us all together. My desire is that through this reading ever one of us might desire to be in the testimony, but to realise we ought to be in it exhibiting heavenly features.

JSp The manna was small, but it changed the whole face of the wilderness.

CKR It is beautiful to see that, in the whole incoming of Jesus. Luke is used of the Holy Spirit to bring out more detail of the incarnation than the other gospel writers. His gospel brings out the sympathy and the authority and the grace, and the Babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger. Here was humility but not weakness. The representation of what is heavenly is not weakness. It is power and glory and divine authority.

GBG In verse 16 it is “the babe”; that is Christ personally but in verse 12 it is “a babe”. Is the force of that verse what the brethren are saying, it is what is here in outward smallness?

CKR That is right. He was distinct in every sense. They were beginning to be educated. What an experience it was for the shepherds to be brought to have a look at something that had never happened before, and here there is everything for God, “a Saviour has been born to you in David’s city, who is Christ the Lord”. God’s testimony was going to be here in Christ and was going to open out for three and a half years of perfect life in public service in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the glory of the moral features as this Babe grew on.

JTB(Ed) Was this Bethlehem Judah not a hallowed area able to receive such a manifestation, “And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, little to be among the thousands of Judah”, Micah 5: 2? It is the greatness of the Person in a heavenly area on earth able to accommodate such a manifestation. The mighty men who broke through to the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is in the gate, were appreciative of this area, and it would look forward to the incoming of Christ, the heavenly Man?

CKR Yes, I think that is good. God’s eye was on this spot, right down through the whole period. Something was going to transpire in Bethlehem that had never transpired anywhere else as God comes in in Christ in manhood.

‘We see the Godhead glory

Shine through that human veil’. (Hymn 188)

JM There was no room in the inn but there was room in the manger. The reason there was room in the manger was because there were persons who were filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

CKR There was sympathy there, but the fact that there was no room in the inn did not deter divine direction, did not deter divine guidance to be given through the angel of the Lord to the shepherds to go to this spot and to find this Babe, and the divine communication was that a Saviour has been born.

JM It was like a prepared place by persons who were filled with the Spirit of God.

CKR Quite so, they were prepared of God for this purpose.

RG I was going to ask if we should be affected by the fact that there is the heavenly host here praising? It would almost appear as if this heavenly host had been silent down through the ages, and now the moment had come when they could not refrain from raising their voices in adoring worship.

CKR I think that is affecting, linking on with what was said earlier about “good pleasure in men”. It is affecting that at the close of Luke’s gospel we have a praising company. Good pleasure is secured in men, a praising company, marked by the tassels and everything there of that character. They are praising and blessing God.

DTP You get the heavenly viewpoint in David’s city. The thought goes through. God’s heart is expressed throughout all the previous dispensation but here now is Christ the Lord!

CKR Most of us have probably been in the commercial world all the week. Let us spend a little time talking of what is heavenly, what is of a different character altogether, because the testimony is not taking its character from the world or from financial markets or anything of that nature. The testimony takes its source and derivation from a glorified Christ.

If I become more accustomed to what is heavenly and to understand it a little more, I am sure it will help me as we were saying in Numbers 15 not to go whoring after things of this world.

The angel of the Lord in chapter 2 in the first part, and now we come to the temple and Simeon. What a picture this is, a priestly man who comes into the temple in the power of the Spirit and “as the parents brought in the child Jesus that they might do for him according to the custom of the law”. You get the impression that Simeon took the initiative. It says, “he received him into his arms”. This was an opportunity not to be missed and he takes the Child in his arms, “he received him into his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace”. He had seen and embraced the Lord’s Christ.

JS I wondered if the heavenly host represents what men are intended to come into, they had an appreciation of Christ; but then you see the beginning of men coming into it in Simeon, a man who had such liberty with the Spirit.

CKR He almost becomes a pattern for what is characteristic of men who can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and able to embrace everything that relates to Jehovah’s Christ. How fine just to contemplate that. Think of Simeon, the tassels and the lace of blue were evident in this man. He is embracing the Lord’s Christ as we should now embrace the greatness and glory of everything that centres in God’s beloved Son.

JM Is he in line with heaven?

CKR Yes, he is a man who is in sympathy with what God is doing.

JM I was thinking of the scripture in regard to the Lord Jesus, “whom heaven indeed must receive” (Acts 3: 21), and here “he received him into his arms”.

CKR Think of how great this was for Simeon, a man who was accustomed to a religious background. Think of what he was holding, beloved brethren, think of the greatness and glory of a man able by the power of the Spirit to embrace everything that is in God’s Christ. This is the substance of the testimony.

WMP Are you suggesting that it involves our affections as well as our intelligence? Clearly there is great intelligence with Simeon, but you seem to be stressing the way that his affections entered into this matter here.

CKR I think it is the way it is put that “he received him into his arms”. There is a beautiful simplicity about that. For the moment Simeon’s entire occupation would be that Babe which was in his arms.

RT It seems to have a very strong background. He was “just and pious” and “it was divine communicated to him by the Holy Spirit”. It seems a secret line of things but it expresses itself in him as he has the Child in his arms.

CKR So there is sympathy, the man can be trusted, a man who had the capacity spiritually and who was formed of God, prepared of God, like the shepherds being prepared.

This man was prepared by God for this moment to embrace everything that was related to Jehovah’s Christ.

DTP How striking is the Spirit’s activity with Simeon in guiding him and helping him as he embraces Christ. There were full things in his heart which related to God and it is based on what was just and pious in his life.

CKR It is gathering together, so the testimony is to Christ as everything for God was being brought out by Him.

RG Is this the introduction to the glad tidings of the glory? We think about grace in relation to Luke and his gospel, but it would be a poor thing if all of us here remained at the glad tidings of grace. The Spirit is introducing the One who is in glory, changing us from glory to glory, and He is leading on to the apostles’ great revelation of the Man in the glory. That is who you want us to be attached to, is that right?

CKR Yes, that is right. Before we consider the testimony in the day in which we are, perhaps we could just get an impression that the testimony is Christ. Everything for God has been secured and brought out on earth for the divine pleasure. Well might it be said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight: hear him”, Matthew 17: 5. Here is a sympathetic environment in Simeon, one who is able to carry this and to take it and to embrace it. We all need to embrace the glory of the fact that Christ has secured everything for God.

JS Do you think that will be displayed when He heads up all things in the Christ?

That would help us to appreciate that there is to be a testimony to that in men at the present time.

CKR Absolutely. Maybe we could move on to Acts; between Luke 2 and Acts 5 you have to reflect for a moment on the whole life of Jesus, the sufferings of Jesus, His work of redemption accomplished, His burial, His resurrection, the forty days, and His reception into glory. Following that you have the coming of the Holy Spirit and what came to light in this early part of the Christian testimony. I thought we might ponder for a moment on “the words of this life”. Again you have the angel of the Lord and where they are going to speak is in the temple. You think of the divine work of these men as they go into the temple and speak “the words of this life”. These men evidenced the tassel and the lace of blue.

NJH The angelic beings must recognise that this testimony lies in men.

CKR Yes, I think that is very good to point that out. I had wondered about that because angels are never redeemed; men are redeemed. There is an urgency I think with the angel here and power to bring the men out of prison. The angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, and leading them out, said, “Go ye and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life”. There is heavenly power and vitality in the power of the Spirit in these men. I think they exemplify the tassels of blue, the heavenly testimony was now here in people.

AMB It says in the previous chapter that “they wondered; and they recognised them that they were with Jesus” (Acts 4: 13), so that there were features of that blessed One seen in the disciples.

CKR Yes, that is right. It has to be that way because they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They were proving the resource which came from another sphere and were showing some features that were being brought out in testimony in suffering and in glory.

JTB(Gr) Were they really bearing the image of the heavenly One? I was thinking of your earlier remarks “such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones” (1 Corinthians 15: 48), bearing the testimony, but the apostle also goes on to say as we have borne the image of the one made of dust” and we have done so as we know, “we shall bear also the image of the heavenly one”. That involves the fulness of the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ.

CKR Quite so, because as I understand it, everything went to glory in Christ and has come back here in the power of the Holy Spirit, so there is the resource here in the testimony.

In case we think of the testimony as being totally in breakdown and failure and weakness, let us see that there is a glorious testimony, a heavenly testimony here in the Spirit, which will be here until the rapture. The Holy Spirit is seeking His way with every one of us to develop and form us after Christ.

RT It is right that you say that God has raised up Jesus, He has made Him a Leader and Saviour, and then it says “we are his witnesses of these things” (Acts 5: 32), and the Holy Spirit bears witness too.

CKR That is right, so he also says, “God must be obeyed rather than men”, Acts 5: 29. Think of the authority of this. This is also part of the triumph of what is the heavenly testimony.

JSp There has been an answer in some way in the recovery of the truth. The position looked pretty hopeless, but God in His ways and His power has intervened to bring a revival of the great heavenly line of things, do you think?

CKR I think that is good. We must see that there is a heavenly testimony still here. The failure I may see all around me, disappointments, and everything of that nature but there is a power and glory attached to the testimony as related to its source in heaven.

RT After this the Lord says, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?”, Acts 9: 4.

CKR Exactly. There is something being formed here.

JDG I wondered whether the words of this life were expressed in the sense of their own testimony, the comings and goings, their manner of life.

CKR That is exactly why I read this scripture. It is not the preachings that are talked about but “the words of this life”. There was a character of life in these persons in Jerusalem in this area that was different from what was around. The gospel was preached in the guiltiest of cities to the guiltiest of persons, but now there is evidence there of another character of life in victory and vitality, in testimony. I think these souls who were there would be a delight to heaven. I think heaven’s eye would be on that temple at this point where they go into that sphere, telling forth and exhibiting the victory of this life. The tassels of blue were very evident!

RJC They show that the testimony is the continuation of Christ in life and character.

CKR That just sums it up, the continuation of Christ in life and character. How wonderful that is. Some say, everything is lost; no, it is not. It is definitely not lost. The glory of the day is yet to come when it will show what has been secured in testimony, and every brother and sister here can take encouragement that you have a little part, and I do not mean little in the sense of inferiority, but a privileged part, to have some little part in such a testimony. Let us all be exercised to display the features of the heavenly Man down here.

DAS Paul saw it in the Philippian saints “among whom ye appear as lights in the world”, Philippians 2: 15. It is heavenly bodies really. He had an appreciation of that assembly, had he not?

CKR Paul had been against the testimony but divine glory shone on him and affected him and he saw the whole thing for ever in a totally different light. The enemy is dead set that we consider the testimony to be something that is meagre, something that is muddled, something that is unclear, but the testimony is Christ in the greatness and glory of the fact that the Man glorified is being continued and developed in the souls and lives of believers like ourselves down here.

MC It is very striking that in verse 39 when Gamaliel speaks he says, “ye will not be able to put them down, lest ye be found also fighters against God”, showing the power of that testimony. Is that not a great encouragement to us?

CKR Yes, the name of the Lord is as a strong tower. I think we are seeing that, the need for confession perhaps is needed more than ever; with our mouths confessing Jesus as Lord, but also confessing in our lives by showing that we are seeking a better, that is, a heavenly.

JAB Is it important to realise that every one of us in this room who has a link with Jesus has a heavenly calling, and there is not any other kind of calling. It is not just the most spiritual who have a heavenly calling, but Christianity is heavenly, and if we do not have that we have nothing. Would you go as far as to say that?

CKR Absolutely.

JAB You cannot have just an earthly Christianity. We see it is all around and it is just a hollow shell, is it not?

CKR There is no such thing as an earthly Christianity. The true Christianity is the only Christianity, and it is a heavenly Christianity because its centre and source is a glorified Man in heaven; and the Holy Spirit has come from that environment to indwell believers and He is still indwelling souls that there might be a true representation of that down here.

JAB So that the flow that energises the believer down here has its source in the Lord Jesus where He is, and that really is the nub of what you are bringing before us. The testimony is simply what someone sees when I am in living contact with my Saviour. It is as simple as that at one level, is it not?

CKR That is right. We also need to remember that the testimony is what God sees. I think we need to realise that as well, the testimony down here is God looking down and seeing our lives as we go about our matters. God is looking with great delight as He sees the evidence of the blue corning through. There is a testimony in that.

RG Mr Raven said that some people think that the testimony is going to the meeting, but there is no testimony in going to the meeting if you are just a meeting-goer. The testimony is in features of Christ shining in the persons who are going to the meetings or going wherever, do you think?

CKR Exactly. We can so easily get affected by so many disappointments and failures, and by all sorts of worries and anxieties. Let us just assert for a moment the power and triumph and victory of the testimony of the Christ in the days in which we are.

GCMcK I suppose the tassels come down very near the ground, the bottom of the garment; so it must come down, even as to how the believer handles material matters, our money, household arrangements, the most practical matters. It is that kind of thing, that is very powerful and people notice.

CKR Absolutely, and that is why I think the coming together of that in a collective sense, even in a broken day, is the assembly of God in a place. The Lord had told Paul that He had much people in this city. Paul was in Corinth for eighteen months. The training and the teaching had all gone on, and while I have suggested these first three verses, in one sense you take in the whole scope of what was opened up. There are many practical matters bearing on the life of the believer that come out in this epistle leading up towards the preciousness of the Lord’s supper being placed in the assembly, if we could just get a sense of the dignity of being through divine grace preserved in a company of believers where this truth is maintained and the desire exists to maintain it.

TCM What you referred to in Acts 18 the word from the Lord is, “speak and be not silent”. It was the same as was given to them in the temple.

CKR It was as if there was the assertion of divine authority and divine glory pointing towards something, a clear indication that shows that the divine eye is on the testimony. I believe it is right to say that the divine eye has never been off the testimony through the whole dispensation, for the Holy Spirit has been here. Think of the divine interest in the lives and exercises of every person who has been on the earth, who has been indwelt by the Spirit, since the beginning of the dispensation and will be until the rapture.

RT “Sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints”. Does that give us a sense of the dignity that God has placed upon us to encourage us to walk in it?

CKR Paul is looking at this company and this is the way he addresses them. In one sense, “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours”, is the heavenly blue. What a description of the testimony, what a description of a local company. We are privileged through divine grace to be preserved with some impression of the value of the local company, not that we claim to be the assembly of God in a place; but I do not think there can be any difficulty in stressing the need for representation of this heavenly character in Kirkcaldy or in Glasgow or in Grangemouth or in any locality represented here. Is there some sense of a distinguishing feature? As has been pointed out before you have the Jewish synagogue in Corinth, and you have the heathen temple, and we can add on to it, you have the mosques, you have the chapels, you have the churches. Is there, beloved brethren, the desire to maintain a separate heavenly testimony, in the day in which we are, that will distinguish what meets with the divine glory and with divine approval?

JS Do you think the Corinthians being referred to as “called saints” would impress upon us the greatness of how believers have been set apart, and that we are part of such a company where Christ is to be expressed?

CKR The Holy Spirit perhaps would just pause and let us reflect on that, that it might reach into our affections and into our being. You say, I just come along to the meetings and that is that. Now have these things sunk in? This is the testimony in a place. There ought to be a testimony where there is some expression of the words of this life coming out in vitality and power and demonstration.

RT Is it because this had not laid hold on them that Paul had to say, “Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God?”, 1 Corinthians 3: 16?

CKR I wondered about that. In this epistle you get the temple again as the place for divine light, and where divine communications come, and where everything reflects the fact that the link is with a living God, a living Christ, and the greatness and glory of proving the experience of the living service of the Holy Spirit; “ye are the living God’s temple” (2 Corinthians 6: 16), he says.

JM You have referred to the word ‘earthly’. I was thinking of how Paul speaks very strongly against those “who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3: 19), as being enemies of the cross of Christ. Then he goes on to speak about our commonwealth which has its existence in the heavens.

CKR They are enemies of the cross of Christ who mind earthly things. That is a test for us all, worldly things and earthly things. May we prefer heavenly things.

JDG “Called saints” is the divine viewpoint, but the exercise is for me to see that I am in accord with it.

CKR That is right; these are good exercises. The Lord would, in His love and in His grace, speak to us all from that point of view that we might be more appreciative of what it is to be in God’s heavenly testimony.

JDG But not of the world, that is really what it is. We are sanctified and set apart from the world.

CKR The Lord Jesus said “they are not of the world, as I am not of the world”, John 17: 14. He says, “I sanctify myself for them”, John 17: 18. He has His own in mind looking down the dispensation.

MC Would it help us to consider that God has taken us up through divine grace to bring us into such a company as belonging to the assembly, and also we have the light of the assembly in order to work that out.

CKR I think that is the case.

RG The prison in Philippi would become a veritable temple with Paul and Silas praising God and singing. The temple of God is not necessarily a place of four walls, is it? We can get rather materialistic in our thoughts. 1 am thinking about the younger people, I am trying to help, because you might think that the meeting room is the temple, and that is what we speak about when we speak about the temple of God, but it is not. The temple of God is composed of persons, and wherever they are and are walking in the light of what

you are bringing before us then there is an area for God to be satisfied in the praises that emanates from persons who live in it.

CKR Exactly, so the testimony is in persons. As the glory of it affects our gatherings, we prove the blessing of divine light. Now in Colossians 3, we have a look inside and there you begin to see as you look round an interesting truth which comes up. There you have the truth of the new man. You put off the old man and you put on the new man. Again for the younger ones, the new man is collective, as no individual is or can be the new man; but we should desire to exhibit features of the new man which is the continuation of the features of Christ against a background of corruption. Paul is saying to them here, that really what goes on inside the meeting-room as the brethren are together, ought to be characterised by these heavenly features. The new man is a heavenly representation of Christ formed collectively in the souls and lives of individuals. So there is behaviour that characterised the old man and there should not be any evidence of that at all. We do want to see more evidence of the features of the new man and this is for the divine pleasure and for the divine testimony.

DTP Does Paul demonstrate that as he speaks of his conversion in Acts 22? The words from Ananias were that he should be baptised and washed from his sins. Now that clears the ground, so that you go on from there, you do not go back to what was before, and Paul never did.

CKR Quite so, and these are the features that are coming out; “renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him; wherein there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision”. I have thought about it in Luke 2; Simeon came through as an individual to see that everything was in Jehovah’s Christ. In the new man you are coming through to see that “Christ is everything, and in all”.

GCMcK The chapter begins with Christ above, “your life is hid with the Christ in God” and “have your mind on the things that are above” (Colossians 3: 2, 3), and then we get this down here, something formed in the saints. You can see the order in it, can you not? The affections are taken up fully with Christ.

CKR That is right and the exercises of circumcision and baptism in the previous chapter all help to sever me from the first order altogether and help me to put off the old man. All these things, “wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, vile language out of your mouth”, are not befitting to the company of saints in the testimony of God but there are features of Christ that are.

NJH In Ephesians the new man is created according to God but here it is “according to the image of him that has created him”. It is as if the characteristics are to be so real to be displayed.

CKR In Colossians it is fresh and new, how the new man is described here. There is something young and fresh and beautiful about this coming into demonstration. I am sure we all warm to each other when there is a demonstration of these kinds of features, bonding features, assembly features that are developing as there is a heavenly testimony. So an unbeliever coming in would get some sense that God is amongst us; where there is a demonstration of such features, they are the features of the new man. The new man is down here. It is the development and formation of the heavenly features of Christ wrought out in the saints.

DTP They are all beautiful features of grace, not anything spectacular, but beautiful features of grace that come into expression in one who is seeking to walk in faithfulness here.

CKR Quite so. There is a fine touch as to the elect of God. You think of the Lord Jesus as “mine elect” (Isaiah 42: 1) and now you think of God looking down on the testimony, heavenly testimony, and it says, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God”. Think of heaven’s delight in all this. Heaven has no delight in the features of the old man because the old man was finished in the cross of Christ. By contrast the features of the new man; what a testimony there is in the heavenly graces of Christ brought out in companies of brothers and sisters gathering together, desiring not to walk according to the world, and not to mind earthly things, but to be here with this one occupation of being here in a heavenly testimony for Jesus.

JM Could you help us as to, “Christ is everything, and in all”?

CKR Well I think it speaks for itself. You try to define it but who could? “Christ is everything”. It is a triumph for God that there are believers still down here. This is Paul’s ministry; this represents Paul’s desires for the saints in Colosse that they move away from anything of that, either Greek or Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman. The classes of society are all done away with when you come amongst this company. What is the binding feature? It is “Christ is everything, and in all”.

JM He was everything to God. You feel how fitting it is that He should be everything to us.

CKR Quite so, and the divine intent is that it be so. We did not read Revelation 21 but I suppose the conclusion of all this is the holy city which has the glory of God.

Reading at Kirkcaldy
5 November 2005

KEY TO INITIALS

A. M. Brown

G. B. Grant

D. T. Pye

J. A. Brown

J. D. Gray

C. K. Robinson

J. T. Brown (Ed.)

N. J. Henry

J. Spinks

J. T. Brown (Gr.)

G. C. McKay

D. A. Steven

R. J. Campbell

J. Marshall

J. Strachan

M. Cowan

T. C. Munro

R. Taylor

R. Gardiner

W. Patterson