A TIME OF FEASTING
[p. 37] A TIME OF FEASTING
Mark 2: 18 - 22 helps to the understanding of chapter 14: 25. The disciples were “the sons of the bridechamber”, and they had the Bridegroom with them. There was a festive character about the association in which they were together. It is striking that the Lord is never called the Bridegroom in the epistles, although repeatedly so in the gospels. The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting: they were not festive. Their reasons for fasting might have been very different — John’s disciples fasting in genuine repentance, and the Pharisees’ disciples fasting in self-righteousness, but neither were happy. They did not realise what a wonderful moment it was — that the Bridegroom was there! He came to call sinners, not in this chapter to repentance, but to the joy of what was in Himself. It was the time of Israel’s opportunity. Everything was brought to them in the favour of God, healing of bodies, healing of souls, deliverance from every oppression of the devil, from every burden of conscience; God was made known amongst them in the plenitude of His goodness; every promise was available for them in His anointed One. Every joy that God could bring in for His people was there: “Thou shalt be called, My delight is in her, and thy land, Married; ... with the joy of the bridegroom over the bride, shall thy God rejoice over thee” (Isaiah 62: 4, 5). The prophet had spoken of “a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined” (Isaiah 25: 6). It was all there, as to the substance of it, in the Bridegroom. He was God’s salvation, Jehovah’s servant, the righteousness, the adornment of His people. The Lord was consciously all that in the midst of Israel: life for them, joy for them, peace for them. And in His account the disciples were “sons of the bridechamber”.
[p. 38] They were in the midst of Israel understanding what was there in Him: how could they fast? The Lord had joy in being with them in that blessed character. It was what He was on God’s part in fulness of blessing, whatever men might be. He drank of the divine joy of it, and His disciples shared with Him as sons of the bridechamber. They would have desired Israel to receive Him, but, alas, the bride was not ready. I think the Lord would have us to understand what a joy He had in being with His own, and in the midst of Israel, as the full blessing of God. It was a time that terminated, but it had its own sweetness and delight for Him and for them. He drank, in that sense, of the fruit of the vine until it became manifest that that character of things must end. But it is a blessed association in which He and they were found those three and a half years. We lose a good deal if we do not take account of it. How blessed that He should be here, able to say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4: 18, 19). When John sent to know whether He was really the Bridegroom, as we might say, He said, “Go, bring back word to John of what ye have seen and heard: that blind see, lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, dead are raised, poor are evangelised” (Luke 7: 22). The twelve were sent out with power and authority over all demons and to heal diseases. They took part in the ministry as in feeding the multitude. Then the seventy go “two and two before his face into every city and place where he himself was about to come” (Luke 10: 1). They healed the sick, the demons were subject. The disciples were eye-witnesses of and attendants on the Word. They formed His retinue throughout that blessed triumphal progress, for such it really was, and we must not allow His rejection to obscure the glorious character of what was seen in Him. The eyes were blessed which saw the things they saw. Many prophets and kings had [p. 39] desired to see them but did not see them. What was more than Solomon was there.
The disciples are seen here as the sons of the bridechamber. That is, they are in communion with the Bridegroom as to all His thoughts in relation to the bride. The bride does not appear in the gospels, though John the baptist says the Bridegroom has her. She is hidden from view. John is the friend of the Bridegroom; the disciples are sons of the bridechamber. The kingdom of the heavens is made like to ten virgins who go forth to meet the Bridegroom. Jehovah was there as the Bridegroom, ready, as it were, to enter into marital relations with Israel. His Anointed was there to woo and win her, but she does not come into view. The Bridegroom has been manifested, but Israel as the bride has not yet appeared. I think that is why the bride is, as it were, hidden in the gospels; we never see her, but we do see those, like John, who are in sympathy with the Bridegroom and who share His thoughts and service with regard to her as sons of the bridechamber. And there are those who in virgin character go forth to meet Him to go in with Him to the marriage. But we do not see the bride.
In the epistles we get the saints espoused to one Man, to be presented a chaste virgin to Christ. They have become dead to the law to be to Another. The assembly is in the place of the wife to Christ (Ephesians 5). John alone of all the inspired writers brings the assembly into view as the bride, the Lamb’s wife. This is the holy city in the millennial age, and in the eternal state she is seen “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21: 2). She has a voice now as saying with the Spirit, “Come”. But the Bridegroom is not mentioned under that designation: it is the Lamb. He takes the bride as the One who has suffered and died. The bride is not seen as such until after the marriage, so that she is then also the wife, save in the one passage “the Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Revelation 22: 17). John having seen the bride as the Lamb’s wife in glory, brings back the bride character into the [p. 40] present time, and the assembly as the bride in concert with the Spirit says, “Come”.
I think the Bridegroom, as spoken of in the gospels, would set forth what was there in Him for Israel. He was there to take up affectionate relations with them if they had been ready. But that could not be without His becoming the Passover for them, and this involved the taking away of the Bridegroom. The joy of the bridechamber (the fruit of the vine that He referred to in chapter 14: 25) could not be His according to the flesh. He went out of that condition through death, making known His own love and the love of God in a still deeper way than could have been known while the Bridegroom was here, but He will resume His relations with Israel in a new way in the kingdom of God. He does not continue with His own as the Bridegroom. His association with them in that character after the flesh ceased, to be taken up in a new way in the kingdom of God.
He was bringing in a new order of things which could not be joined on to the old, new wine which could not be put in the old skins. Something quite new was there, and something which could not be used to patch up man’s old garment. He must have a new robe altogether, no patchwork. “Only in Jehovah, shall one say, have I righteousness and strength” (Isaiah 45: 24). To bring in a bit of that kind of righteousness and tack it on to man’s old rags would only make matters worse. No one puts new wine in old skins. This striking figure shows the inward energy and power of what came in by the Bridegroom which required new conditions on man’s side to hold it. Forms and ordinances suited to man in the flesh could not be the vessel of the new wine. It must have new conditions; the new skins I take to be that the condition of faith is brought in on man’s side, taking the place of ordinances. All that is of God as set forth in the Bridegroom can only be held in faith. There must be something on man’s side which is not there by nature, something which is the product of divine working and which is capable of holding the [p. 41] new wine. That is faith, divinely wrought in the soul. The disciples of Jesus had faith in Him. They understand that He was the Bridegroom, and that what was present could not be limited to the forms of judaism. It was all the activity of God Himself come near to His people to serve them by His Son. How could this be put into legal forms, or limited by what man was?
Then the cornfields were another figure of God’s grace to His people, and the disciples were in liberty to avail themselves of it. But the Pharisees would have limited them by legal restrictions. God had made the Sabbath on account of man. His thought from the beginning was to bless man in relation to Himself. Man thinking of his own pettiness could not take in the greatness of God’s thought, and he puts himself in bondage. But the Son of man was Lord of the Sabbath. He could give it its true character as speaking of rest and refreshment for men. And how it all spoke to Him! The whole golden crop had sprung up out of death in resurrection power as food for man. The wave-sheaf had been offered six days before as the acceptance of the people so that they might in holy freedom enjoy the fruit of the land. How He must have thought of it all in its spiritual significance! In the acceptance of Christ how could there be legal restrictions? All was really now according to His acceptance and His lordship. David had need and hungered, and he ate the shewbread; he was in liberty as knowing God. What were petty restrictions if Jehovah’s Servant was there, the Lord of the Sabbath? To bring such in was only to prove that they did not know Him or the One who sent Him.