FELLOWSHIP AND SATISFACTION
[p. 51] FELLOWSHIP AND SATISFACTION
Mark 6: 30 - 44; Mark 8: 1 - 9
CAC My thought in suggesting these scriptures was that we might see that the fellowship which the Lord has set up in the desert is marked by complete satisfaction. I think it is an aspect of the fellowship that we do well to consider. The gathering together of the five thousand would seem to be morally connected with the ministry of the twelve. They had gone forth and had accomplished their service, and they came back to tell the Lord what they had done and taught, and the Lord withdrew them into a desert place to rest awhile; but it would appear that the mission of the twelve had the effect of gathering a great crowd together. It seems to me it is a picture of the result in this world of the testimony of the apostles. Their coming together gave occasion to the Lord to disclose what was in His own heart, and that is to have a company of persons in fellowship, for they were all caused to sit down and eat together, a figure of communion or fellowship in which everyone is marked by satisfaction. My impression is that it is a primary thought in connection with fellowship in the Lord’s mind that all those who participate in it should be marked by complete satisfaction. It is a great proposal! That is what is in the Lord’s heart and mind for all those who are drawn together by the power of His name as a result of the testimony of the apostles. I believe that is the impression that the Lord would give us this afternoon, that His thought is to introduce to our hearts elements of complete and divine satisfaction.
Bread is a figure of Christ as having come down from heaven in order to be satisfaction for human hearts, and in the crowd eating of it together there is also the thought of communion or fellowship, showing that the Lord’s intention is that there should be a multitude in the desert who so enter into what is come down from heaven in the person of Christ [p. 52] that they are restful and satisfied. I believe that satisfaction is really what marks the fellowship. It is a great thought in the heart of God.
Ques I suppose we arrive at this by recognising who the Lord is?
CAC Yes, and it seems to me that the converse is true; that is, that we learn who the Lord is, how great He is, by what He can do for us. If the Lord is great enough to set up a large company of persons in this desert world in complete satisfaction, and in communion with one another in that satisfaction, it is a great testimony to this world. It is not only the fellowship; it is the testimony. A company like that is the testimony here to the greatness of Christ. So that the Lord refers them to the miracle of the loaves (chapter 8: 17 - 21). He reminds them of the five loaves, of the seven loaves and of the abundance, the surplus that there was. It was only because their hearts were hardened that they did not at once perceive how great He was. I believe the Lord would put that impression upon our hearts today, that He is equal to everything. This is not just a matter of theory; it is for us individually and collectively to prove it to be a reality. There is not much testimony in our talk about being satisfied, if, after all, we are unsatisfied. Satisfaction is the result of getting the good of the Lord’s service.
Ques Would you consider that however small a company may be, there is no reason why they should not know the Lord in such sufficiency that all are satisfied?
CAC I think the Lord in causing them to sit down by hundreds and by fifties intimates to us His pleasure that His saints should sit down together in relatively small numbers.
The whole of the fellowship represented by the five thousand was under His eye, but He signified His pleasure that we should sit down in relatively small numbers, and then we should find Him acting in such a way that there is complete satisfaction for all.
Rem Some suggest that our readings [p. 53] are dry.
CAC That is a fine opportunity for them to be like Gideon’s fleece, full of the dew of heaven while all around is dry!
The incident of the five thousand brings out the weakness that exists on our side. The second feeding of the multitude is altogether different. It is a matter there of spiritual persons who are characterised by spiritual elements, but in chapter 6 it is a company of persons marked by conditions of weakness, as sheep having no shepherd; even the disciples have only five loaves. The number five in this connection evidently intimates a small supply. The disciples, you might say, were in despair; the resources available were so small (see Luke 9: 13). The Lord would give us the sense that things are small; I do not think we shall get His grace and power if we do not feel that things are small, but He would not leave us there. It is really a desert place. There are no resources to be found in the world to give satisfaction. Momentary gratification may be found there, but not satisfaction. In our own circle there may not appear to be much available, but the Lord would show us how unlimited is His power to multiply what is of Himself and to make it adequate for complete satisfaction. He would not leave us under a depressing sense that the resources are inadequate. The devil would like us to think that they are.
Ques What is the suggestion of the green grass?
CAC I think it intimates the favourable conditions which the Lord would provide for His people: for instance, I regard such a meeting as this as a manifestation of favourable conditions. We can come together in our own company unmolested, and can be in quietness. The normal conditions in which the saints come together are marked by what is favourable and what ministers to comfort. There is a difference between that and the circumstances in chapter 8, where there is no grass, and where they sat down on the ground. It needs spiritual persons to do that, and be happy.
Ques What are [p. 54] the barley loaves?
CAC It is mentioned in John 6 that the loaves were barley loaves, and I think that would carry with it the thought of resurrection. In a general way, bread signifies the Lord as having come down from heaven, bringing all that is of God and heaven’s grace near to us, so that it may be available for the satisfaction of our hearts. But then the additional thought of barley would carry things on to resurrection, that all that came down from heaven in the Person of the Lord Jesus has been carried through into resurrection. The whole of God’s faithful grace as witnessed in Christ is now carried through into eternal conditions. It is all secured in resurrection. So that the faithfulness of God, all that God delights to be for men, is set forth in Christ and is now carried into the permanent condition of resurrection.
Ques What is your thought about the elements of satisfaction?
CAC Well, what comes out of heaven has that character. The desert is a place where there is no satisfaction, and that is the character of the scene in which we are found outwardly. But then, God having brought in Christ, we have been singing with joy that He has engaged our hearts with Christ, and in doing that He has engaged us with that which has every element of satisfaction in it.
Rem The real testimony would be that satisfaction.
CAC That is the testimony. One of the primary and essential features of the testimony is the evidence that God is able to satisfy a people in this world without their needing a single particle of the world to contribute to it. That is a great testimony! Are we all set to go in to prove it?
‘Five’ speaks of such an apprehension of Christ as might be found in those who are small in stature. It is “a little boy” (John 6: 9) who had the five loaves. I do not think a little boy would ever have seven loaves. That makes it suit some of us very well, who feel that we are not very great in stature spiritually, and that we have a small and restricted apprehension of Christ. The apprehension of Christ is limited. I do not [p. 55] know how others feel, but that has often been pressed home on my spirit. But the Lord would use the very sense of our own smallness spiritually to cast us upon Himself, and He would show that all His grace and power is available to multiply the little apprehension of Him that we have, so that it shall become great enough to result in complete satisfaction for ourselves and for all those who are in the fellowship. The grace of the Lord in meeting small conditions comes out in chapter 6; His greatness in filling up spiritual conditions comes out in chapter 8. In chapter 6 it is His grace. His condescending gentleness and grace, in coming down to small and limited conditions and giving them such expansion that there is no lack. It is the testimony to His greatness that He can do it.
This is the character of the fellowship in which we are found in the desert. In all the circumstances of the world we are left to be witnesses of the greatness of Christ, because He has brought us a satisfaction in Himself that has made us independent of everything that is in the world. I do not think the fellowship means much if it is not a fellowship in divine satisfaction. Bread is for the sustainment of life, and life without satisfaction is far short of God’s thought of life. The element of satisfaction was evident at Pentecost, and it is a vital thing in the fellowship, though we often overlook it. We have such doctrinal ideas about fellowship. People talk and discuss it from all points of view, but we want to get to the vitality of the fellowship. Why are we heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder? Because we have been introduced into such a personal acquisition of Christ as the great expression of God’s faithfulness that we are satisfied, and we are separate from the world because we are satisfied without it. It is a marked contrast with what obtains in the world; even those who have desires after Christ produced by the ministry of the twelve are often as sheep having no shepherd. There is a crowd today who have been affected by the ministry of the apostles and have desires after Christ, but they are as sheep [p. 56] having no shepherd, and it is obvious to an onlooker that they have no satisfaction. In contrast to all that, the Lord is setting up a fellowship marked by satisfaction; it says, “They all ate and were satisfied”. Then He could trust them; He could dismiss them to go into their various spheres to bear witness to the wonderful character of the Person they had been in contact with.
Ques What about the two fishes?
CAC I think that the loaves represent what is available in Christ, but I do not know that fishes are ever typical of Christ. They are typical of the saints as taken out of the world for God. Fishes that can be eaten have been taken out of their natural element. They are fish out of water! That is exactly the right character for a saint to have. He has been taken completely out of his natural element, but he has been taken out of it to be for God. And these fish were undoubtedly cooked. The Lord would never have given people raw fish. They had come under the action of fire, which is most important if we are to be palatable. Everyone knows the difference between a raw fish and a cooked one, and the Lord uses cooked fish. When He made a dinner for them there was a fire of coals and fish laid thereon (John 21). The fish represent that element of the fellowship which has to do with the moral state of the saints, and that is as important in its place as the bread. Speaking in figure, we may say that if the two fishes had not been there the loaves would not have been available for the people. We cannot have the satisfaction of what is in Christ apart from certain moral conditions brought about in ourselves. The two fishes represent adequate testimony to that.
Ques Why is fish given to the Lord in Luke 24?
CAC The fish there is in a form that is palatable even to the risen Lord. He partook of it. But even there it is a partial thought; it is “part of a broiled fish”. The two small fishes show that the thought connected with the fishes is not a predominant one. Things are, so to speak, small on that side,
[p. 57] but they are real, small but real. And the Lord cannot dispense with that. However small it is it must be real. We do not read of “great” fishes until the millennium as typified in John 21.
The fishes which the Lord would make food for us are fishes that have been under the action of fire. When we were converted God took us out of the whole sphere in which we lived. In that sense we are fish out of water. And we should always remember that divine grace has taken us completely out of our former element. The same grace has brought us under a process of self-judgment which answers to the cooking of the fish, a process by which we learn to judge all that is of the flesh in ourselves, and that is an essential feature of the fellowship of the assembly. The bread without the fishes would not constitute a fellowship that is according to God, and I should dread an increased ministry of Christ if it were not accompanied by intense separation from the world and deepened self-judgment. It would ever have these accompaniments according to God. We do not want to make exceedingly prominent, in the testimony, the separation of the saints and their self-judgment, but if it is not there there is nothing. The ministry would be ineffective if not accompanied by separation and self-judgment. It would nullify all that is in the loaves if we had not the fishes. One reason why many believers are not satisfied is that they have not taken the place of being fish out of water. They have not taken the place of having done with all the conditions of their former lives.
Ques Do you mean that we must be taken out of the world, and then sent back into it?
CAC It comes to that ultimately. But the fishes are seen here as representing an essential feature of the satisfaction that pertains to the fellowship. The real reason why there is not more satisfaction is that there it not a clean cut from the world. Moses left Egypt. The Spirit of God has told us that by faith he forsook Egypt. The whole thing was a [p. 58] judged system to him, and he forsook it; there was a definite moment in his history when he forsook Egypt.
Ques Is there such a thing as collective self-judgment?
CAC There is such a thing as assembly repentance; the apostle was seeking to bring it about at Corinth; those exercises belong to us collectively as well as individually. The object before the apostle in writing to the Corinthians was that the company should be marked by self-judgment so that they might be a new lump as unleavened. They actually were that in the thought of God, but He would have it to be practically so.
Self-judgment is infectious if taken up before God. If one judges what is wrong, it is a help to others. In the fellowship we find no influences at work but what are of God. Whether it be self-judgment or appreciation of Christ, we find them in our brethren, and thus they are promoted in ourselves. These things are most important if the fellowship and the testimony are to be a reality. We do not want anything in the fellowship that savours of current religion.
It is important for us to link together the thought of the five loaves and the seven and the one. We read about one loaf in chapter 8. The one loaf is figurative of Christ in His exclusive power. So that there is no room for the leaven of the Pharisees, which is the religious side, or the leaven of Herod, which is the worldly side, or the infidel element of the Sadducees. If we have Christ as the one loaf He is exclusive of all those elements. Having learned what He can be as the five loaves and the seven prepares us to understand His divine pre-eminent exclusiveness as the one loaf. He shuts out all other elements and the ground is cleared for assembly formation.
Ques How is collective self-judgment brought about?
CAC I think that collective self-judgment is sought to be brought about by the Lord’s appeal to the assemblies in Revelation 2 and 3. He appeals to the assemblies as represented by the angels, and in five of His addresses there is a [p. 59] distinct call to assembly repentance. As we know, the assembly as such never repented and therefore it becomes the responsibility of the individual to do what the assembly will not do. The overcomer is marked by repentance and by the appreciation of Christ, and therefore he rises superior to all the influences that have called for the Lord’s rebuke. I think assembly repentance is of the greatest importance where there is need for it. I believe that there is often need for it. If saints profess to be walking in the light of the assembly and they do things in a way that the Lord does not approve, there will be no restoration for them unless they repent. The Lord will not let anything pass. If we are near the Lord in any measure He will not let things pass. He allows many things to pass in the current religious world, but He will not allow things to pass with those who are nearer to Him. I have known occasions when saints have had to judge actions that took place twenty or thirty years ago. Saints will never be right as to assembly character unless they judge what the Lord does not approve. If we have done what is wrong, it must be judged.
Ques What is the difference between giving thanks and blessing?
CAC In connection with the five loaves it is the Lord’s coming in grace to magnify and to multiply what is very weak and feeble on our side; He comes in in grace; He comes in, so to speak, on God’s part, in His grace to multiply any little that we have that is of Christ. My comfort is that if I have a little bit that is of Christ He can multiply it. If we have a little bit of Christ and put that in His hand He can multiply it so that the whole fellowship is benefited. That is connected with blessing.
In connection with the seven loaves He gave thanks. That is headship. There are conditions which allow the Lord to take His place in headship, and wherever those conditions are found He will do it. The Lord loves to take His place as Head, but it requires spiritual conditions. In chapter 8 there [p. 60] are no conditions of weakness. All the conditions are marked by spirituality. There is no crowd like sheep having no shepherd. They were three days in the company of Christ, a spiritual company. None but a spiritual company could be held in the company of Christ for three days without expressing a single desire for anything natural. Amongst such a company as that the Lord can suggest. Everything is suggested by the Lord in chapter 8. The need is suggested by the disciples in chapter 6 and in lordship He meets it, but in chapter 8 the suggesting is all from the Lord. Chapter 8 links with Colossians, and therefore you have elements now that are universal in character. There is no sitting down in companies; the whole four thousand is in view. Four is the number of universality. All that is spiritual is universal in character.
Ques Why does the Lord bless the fishes in chapter 8?
CAC Because when we think of our side there is always the need for His blessing. But His giving thanks for the loaves confirms the thought that headship is in view here. If we have known what it was to be with Him for three days that would carry us to resurrection. And amongst saints who are risen with Him He takes a place on our side in headship. The Lord can take His place along with spiritual persons, and voice their thanksgiving. This brings us in picture — a spiritual picture — to the saints viewed as risen with Christ: Colossian ground. Three days speak of resurrection. When we come to that ground we are universal in our affections, so that as regards the Colossians and Ephesians, Paul thanks God because he has heard of their love to all the saints. Love cannot be limited to what is local.
In chapter 7 the Lord exposes what is in the heart of man. Then a poor Gentile comes up having learned the blessed character of what is in the heart of God, and then we have the Lord doing all things well; He makes the deaf to hear and the speechless to speak. It is on that line that spirituality is reached, and we see, in figure, a company marked by [p. 61] spiritual features in chapter 8. 1 hope we covet to walk together as having spiritual features, so that we may have seven loaves.
Ques What are spiritual features?
CAC I think they are such features as Paul and Epaphras laboured to bring about in Colosse. They laboured and agonised that the gentile saints should be marked by spiritual features, that they should stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. A spiritual person is one who has nothing less before him than the whole precious thought of God in connection with Christ and the assembly.
When we come to the spiritual sphere we get outside what is local, just as we do in the morning meeting. We are local up to the time of the breaking of bread, but then if we pass on to give Christ His place as Head we are outside locality and time in the universal and eternal sphere of spiritual privilege.
Ques What about their being dismissed?
CAC The dismissal intimates that permanent conditions are not yet reached. All the satisfaction and the moral conditions which we have been speaking of are provisional. We take up things locally in the light of what is universal. It would not be right to do anything here in N. that it would not be right to do anywhere else. But when we get into the true spiritual privilege of the assembly we get outside what is local, and we think of the whole company of saints as in the mind of God, united together as one body and increasing with the increase of God. Every member is nourished and ministered to, by what comes from the Head, showing how great Christ is: He is great enough to do that. Many true saints may not understand it, but the point is, do I understand it? Is Christ in my estimation great enough to fill with satisfaction the whole company of saints upon earth?
The satisfaction in chapter 6 stands in relation to all the need of our hearts. We have certain needs, and they are all met in gracious power; but the satisfaction of chapter 8 is [p. 62] connected with the fruition of all that is in the heart and mind of God. All is from Christ’s side; He makes suggestions, and as spiritual persons we look for satisfaction in what is of Him; we are not dependent upon green grass. As fed under the headship of Christ we are independent of favourable conditions here. The Lord would use all the testing exercises that come upon us as we walk together to intensify our appreciation of what is spiritual. The hard ground often ministers more to spirituality than the green grass. If He calls us to go through conflict and exercise, the bearing of burdens and the enduring of sorrow, that is lying on the hard ground. And the Lord may make the hard ground much more blessed for us than the green grass. He can use even that to cast our hearts back upon Himself, upon the heart of God and upon all that is spiritual. Thus we may have profound satisfaction even though we are lying on the ground.
The surplus gathered up in the baskets indicates that the thought of satisfaction is not to terminate with the present assembly period. Enough will be left over to be administered in a wider sphere in a coming day. The twelve baskets of chapter 6 speak of this, while the seven larger baskets of chapter 8 suggest that there will be not only completeness in administration so that every need is met, but the spiritual perfection and fulness of God’s thoughts as secured in Christ will be the satisfaction of those who know Him. But no new elements of satisfaction will be added to those which are available now. This brings out in a wonderful way the wealth of resources which is provided for our satisfaction at the present time. It is good to think of the christian fellowship in this blessed feature of it, that it is a participation in common in that which is wholly of God, and which affords complete satisfaction. May we know more what it is to have the good of it.