THE ASSEMBLY, ITS PRIVILEGE AND SERVICE
[p. 133] THE ASSEMBLY, ITS PRIVILEGE AND SERVICE
Matthew 18:20; Acts 20:7; 2 Thessalonians 2:1
JT I thought that these three passages would help to show the place the assembly has; how being together prepares for special privilege, on the one hand, and also that we are in a position as together to act for the Lord.
Ques Would you put Acts 20 before Matthew 18?
JT Well, I have done so, for it is quite clear we cannot act for the Lord unless we know privilege — unless we know what we have in the assembly. Matthew 18 follows properly after chapter 16, and the latter treats of the assembly as builded.
Ques Do you mean that in Matthew 18 we get the principle of acting for the Lord?
JT Yes. The apostle in writing to Corinth intimates that coming together in assembly is for the breaking of bread, 1 Corinthians 11:18 - 22; whereas coming together in Matthew 18 is not for the breaking of bread; it is to act for the Lord; to take up His interests.
WH So He says “In my name”. Matthew 18:20.
JT Yes; things are to be carried on in His name.
JPW The “two or three” are connected with the assembly?
JT Yes; two or three are a few.
JPW There is no ground for independency connected with the assembly.
JT The history of Christianity has been that man became dissatisfied with the provision that Christ made for the maintenance of things during His absence, and there was a turning to human devices. That is to say, the provision that Christ made was not held as sufficient; and my thought is that we might see what that provision is. When [p. 134] Moses was leaving the camp he left a provision for the time of his sojourn in the mount; they had Aaron and Hur; but presently the people grew dissatisfied with the provision and sought out a captain. So I thought it would be a great help if we were to look simply at the provision that Christ has made for us before leaving and pending His return; for it must be remembered that His return was looked at as not far off. Moses in no way indicated that his absence from the camp would be lengthened.
WHM What is the provision?
JT There are His commandments and the Comforter, love among ourselves, etc., but we are to come together for the enjoyment of privilege. Of course everything in the way of service is privilege; but when we come together for enjoyment the Lord’s supper is what is immediately before us, because the Supper suggests family relationships and affections. Then the Lord comes to us, and we enjoy His presence and the affections flowing from the relationship in which we are set with Him and each other. He promises to be with us when we come together in His name, but the very fact that we come together in His name shows that He is not here. In either case we have the thought of coming together.
EJMcB Where would you put, He died that He might gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad?
JT The point there is that the children of God might he gathered together into one, instead of being scattered abroad. It is not that they should be gathered together in one place.
EJMcB If the Lord’s idea is to have His people gathered together, you cannot have all the saints together in one place locally, but you can take up the thought [p. 135] locally.
JM Would you say what the force of the word together is in these scriptures?
JT Well, first of all, that we are in one place, but the thought underlying that is that we are together in affection. In 1 Corinthians 11:17, it is suggested that we may come together “for the worse”. So I think that the thought which underlies the word together in these passages is, that there is affection; there is confidence; there is sympathy. The things that are involved require that we should be together first, the breaking of bread necessitates it; and anything in the way of administration requires it; ultimately translation requires it; hence we see the import of it. We are not translated to heaven as so many separate units. To be translated implies that we should be together.
TEW We are brought together first, and caught up afterwards.
JT I think we see the import of the thought if we carry it on to Thessalonians, because there the idea of being together precedes translation.
ENH I suppose it is very important that administration should be maintained in love?
JT I think that at the outset everything that was done was to be done in love. “Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer”, Acts 3:1. “The Lord added to the church daily”. He added to the assembly, Acts 2:47. Service, administration, enjoyment, are all made to hinge on being together.
RL And in Acts 2:44 we read that all who believed were together. The Lord’s prayer in John 17 was being answered.
JT Yes. In Ephesians 2:5 we are all said to be quickened; we are said not to be quickened together, although it so reads in the ordinary version. The New Translation reads “has quickened us with the Christ”; but then as quickened we get the thought of together. We are raised up together; we go up in company, and are made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ,
EJMcB Do you connect the thought of being together with the thought of order?
JT I think that the being together for the Supper leads on to that. We are together in the spirit of regard for each other. I do not understand the assembly in any other way. That there should be any recognition of class or clique is foreign to it. The principle of it is that there is a bond of sympathy; there is sympathy in the sense that we are all under the same reproach, we all have the same interest in Christ, and we all have the same destinies and hopes; so that as together there is a link of sympathy, and that leaves room for the Spirit.
WHM That is because the Lord is there. You spoke of the provision, and that was why I asked what the provision was. The Lord is the centre.
JT That raises the question, perhaps, as to whether the Lord is there until the conditions are there. As I was saying, we may be together outwardly for the worse, and surely the Lord would not be there in that case.
EJMcB There is a thought abroad that we come together because the Lord is there, whether order is, or is not, recognised.
JT But the Lord is jealous as to conditions. I think we do Him injury in assuming He is locally where He cannot be morally. The question to each of us is — Why do you come? Do you come because it is a religious custom?
EJMcB In Acts 2, where they were all together in one place, it was not because the Lord was there that they came together.
W.H. Why do you [p. 137] come?
JT I have in view the breaking of bread; but I come to meet the brethren — I meet with those whose spirits are kindred.
TW “They went to their own company”, Acts 4:23.
JT Yes; what a pleasure it was for them to go into that company. As Peter and John entered they found sympathy there.
WH It is not everywhere in Belfast, for instance, that one could join in with other Christians. I should like to get help on this point: there are a number of people who meet together to break bread, and I should not like to go there, though in a kind of way they have the Lord in view, and there is a measure of affection for Him.
JT But I should not break bread unless there was sympathy as to Christ and the testimony.
Ques Will you kindly say in what sense you use the word sympathy?
JT Well, take for instance these people in the Acts; they all met on the day of Pentecost; there was a bond of sympathy between them; they were all followers of the lowly Nazarene; and now He is rejected and He has gone to heaven, and those who love Him are all together. There is a bond of sympathy between them; they had all the same experience to a certain extent, and there was the same reproach attached to them; and, above all, they all loved Christ. But open principles ignore all this. With such it is just a question of breaking bread, and a person is to break bread because he is a Christian; but then there is another question. Is there such sympathy in the exercises and affections of nominal Christians, as to Christ and His testimony, as would exclude wrong associations?
EJMcB The bond which those in Acts had was that they all missed [p. 138] Him.
JT It is remarkable how even in the world at the present time, if you are travelling with people and there is danger at hand, a sympathetic feeling springs up at once. I believe there is one thing that saints are very lacking in, and that is sympathy; there is a want of sympathy amongst us. So coming back to the question of why you want to come together — it is that there is sympathy. We should be together in heart before we come together in one place.
EJMcB To return for a moment to one of your opening remarks with reference to Moses, it helps as to what is before us. The Israelites were not satisfied with the provision which Moses made for them during his absence in the mount. As a matter of fact, what we call Christendom is a system of things inaugurated to make up for the absence of Christ.
JT That is what it is exactly. The people in the camp were not content with the provision Moses had made, and neither has Christendom been content with the Lord’s provision for His absence, and hence they have turned aside to human devices. Now the Lord would lead us back to the provision which He made; and when going away He did not intimate that He would be very long. It was just for a moment, as it were, that these provisions should hold us until His return.
Ques I suppose if we are not in sympathy with one another there can be no sympathy in the things of the Lord?
JT The very idea of fellowship suggests sympathy; “they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers”, Acts 2:42. There was full sympathy with the testimony of the apostles.
Rem Moses came into fellowship, as it were, on the point [p. 139] of sympathy.
JT The thought of his brethren came into his heart, and he went out and found one suffering at the hands of an Egyptian, and he undertook to defend the sufferer. He identified himself with a suffering people. The next day he went out and found two of them striving, not with the Egyptians, but one with his brother. And surely the present situation is that. We are suffering, not from the Egyptians, but from our brethren. And the man who did the wrong refused Moses. That is to say, those who are wrong in spirit become persecutors and the persecutor rejects the authority of Christ. So that to be in fellowship supposes that you are to be in suffering. Our day is not a day of suffering from the Egyptians; we suffer, as faithful, from the religious people; and the suffering is no less real.
EJMcB I certainly go with that. One of our greatest difficulties in these days is this question of coming together. There are believers who think they have affection for Christ, but they are not really drawn out in sympathy with those who are identified with Him.
Ques Is sympathy used in a relative sense, taking the illustration of people being drawn together in face of a common danger?
JT I think the point of present danger is very important. We see how nations draw together on account of common danger. Well, we are under a common reproach. In Acts 4:23 we read; “being let go they went to their own company”. That was a coming together outside of the world, and in the sense of the danger that threatened them; but then, as together, they invoke divine aid, and they get it. I do think every Christian ought to raise the question in his own soul as to why it is that he comes.
JM Would not the acceptance of the provision that the Lord has left for His people during His absence intensify the bond of sympathy and lead to being [p. 140] together?
JT I am sure that is so. There is, first of all, a sense of reproach outside, but then there is the sympathy that you find within. And then, beyond all that, the thought of the Lord coming there.
EM There was a company in Malachi’s day that came together and spake one to the other.
JT Yes; the point is they “spake often one to another”. Malachi 3:16. We are not told what they said; they spake one to another, and that drew the Lord’s attention, and He hearkened and heard and made a record of it. In Christianity you get more than hearkening and hearing, for in addition to that He comes to us.
WHM Would it answer more to Zephaniah 3: 5, “The just Lord is in the midst thereof”, etc.?
JT Yes. Now, I think we ought to be clear as to why we come together.
Ques Do I understand your thought to be that we should be morally right and of one mind about the things of the Lord before coming together?
JT Yes; and that invites the Lord: it opens up the door, as it were, for Him to come into the midst.
Rem Because coming together in any meeting is not of much use if we are not together in affection and of one mind. You could hardly apply that to the Corinthians?
JT These passages are normal. We come together for the breaking of bread, as in Acts 20, and for what might be called administration, Matthew 18. Coming together to break bread is not, strictly speaking, coming together unto Him; nor is coming together in His Name, strictly speaking, coming “unto Him”.
Ques What do you understand by the passage read in Thessalonians?
JT What I understand by it is that the Lord is away, and according to chapter 4 of the first epistle [p. 141] He returns with an assembling shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them. There you have the principle of drawing together; only then those who have been asleep shall be assembled.
EJMcB Do I understand that your thought is to establish the principle that we are to be together before translation?
JT Yes. 2 Thessalonians 2:1, is the only place where we get “gathering together unto him”, and it is for translation.
WK How does that help us in the present time?
JT Well, the other passages that we read refer to the present time.
WK You do not give 2 Thessalonians 2:1, any present application?
JT No; except that it shows the full bearing of being together — that it goes on to that. But what I want to make clear is that the Lord has made provision for us during His absence, just as Moses made provision for the ordering of the camp while he was in the mount; and we can see what that provision is, and to avail ourselves of it. The provision is that we can come together as those who are bound up in sympathy with each other and in love to the Lord and one another.
EJMcB Hence the value of Peter’s remark; “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently”, 1 Peter 1:22.
WH And being together sympathetically, your point is that the Lord come and makes Himself manifest.
JT Those are conditions that He can recognise and commit Himself to; but if there are lines [p. 142] of demarcation among the saints, the Lord is hindered.
WH What was in my mind was that every individual for himself would be regarding the rights of the Lord.
JT You want to have conditions such as the Lord can recognise, and if you have He is sure to act for us.
RL That is why I thought that the end of Acts 2 gives us the conditions. There was not the smallest dissension amongst the company there present; they were all of one mind.
JT Yes; and you see how heaven acted for them. The place was shaken where they were assembled, Acts 4. The Lord is sure to act for us if the condition is right. The Supper is the gathering together now; by-and-by it will be the assembling shout.
EM Will you make a little plainer what you mean by “gathering together unto him” ( 2 Thessalonians 2:1), in contrast to the other two passages.
JT Because in the latter case He is present. He comes, “the Lord himself with an assembling shout ... shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”, etc. 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17. Hence, then there is the “gathering together unto him”. He is present, not on earth, but He has descended to gather us together to meet Him in the air.
EJMcB So that both “gathered together unto my name” Matthew 18:20 and “to eat the Lord’s supper” 1 Corinthians 11:20 involve His absence; but when He appears it will be gathered “unto him”; and this involves the whole company of the saints?
JT Yes. I do not think the Lord could be connected with any locality in any absolute way; “gathered together unto him” is universal. In the passage in Thessalonians He is present; that is,
[p. 143] He descends; and He descends before the assembling takes place. Whereas in the Supper the assembling takes place first. We come together. It proves how much we think of Him.
Ques Then you distinguish between translation and our coming together?
JT Yes, because the blessing in the assembly is that He comes to us. Our eating the Supper shows, at least outwardly, what we think of Christ; and His coming to us is after that. Whereas in Thessalonians “the Lord himself” descends first, with an assembling shout; and then it is said, “our gathering together unto him”.
EJMcB So one point of serious exercise to you is the question of how far we appreciate the provision the Lord has made for us during His absence?
JT Yes, that is my thought. “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands”, Proverbs 30: 27. They have no appointed leader, but they go forth by bands. The provision is there; the provision is our gathering together; going forth by bands. I think the coming together in the Acts superseded everything that had been connected with the temple.
EM I often think we becloud the situation with the expressions we use; for instance, it is a very common expression to hear, ‘We come around Thyself’.
JT Yes. How true the Scripture is to its own principles! If the Lord is away we come together in His name. If it is a question of our love for Him, and our enjoyment of His presence, we come together to break bread. If it is the quickening of our bodies and an assembling to be taken to heaven, the Lord Himself descends from heaven with an assembling shout to take us to meet Him in the air; 1 Thessalonians 4; and then the apostle says, “Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord [p. 144] Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him”, 2 Thessalonians 2:1. So it is He who brings us together.
TW There is a great similarity between the way we shall gather together for translation and the way we gather together now.
JT I think there is a parallel in it, because the word “assembling” is very similar to the way we come together now.
WHM The Lord is as good as His word, and He says, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. Matthew 18:20. If the conditions correspond to His presence He is there.
JT I think that is right. If the conditions are there He is there. But then you must have the idea of being gathered first; because you may be the first in the room; and you must have two if He is to be “in the midst”. If it is simply a question of coming to Him, well, then, to be logical, you must say that directly you arrive at the room He is there. But that will not do; you must have the saints gathered first.
Ques Does what is quoted in Matthew 18 apply to the Lord’s day morning?
JT There it is for looking after His interests.
Ques Does the prayer meeting come under that?
JT Yes; because the prayer meeting is really in connection with His interests.
JM I suppose that one of the principal thoughts with regard to the Lord’s supper and our coming together on Lord’s day morning is Christ’s absence.
JT That is true.
JM And we come together to break bread in remembrance of Him.
JT That is the truth of Scripture; whereas the other side, as in Thessalonians, is that He comes with [p. 145] the assembling shout. He is there before the assembly, so we gather to Him. But until that time comes we must gather together first.
JM And till that time comes the Lord’s supper is the rallying point for saints.
ENH And after the Supper, if we are in the normal state in answering to His mind, there will be the enjoyment of our great privilege — His presence.
JT He gives you the sense of having part with Him. But He comes; and I think it helps to see the simple contrast that in the future when He comes with the assembling shout, the assembling follows upon His coming; whereas now it is that the assembling precedes His coming. He comes to the company now as in John 20; and before He comes in there must be suitable conditions.
ENH And then there is response on our side.
JT He says, like Joseph, “Come near to me, I pray you”, Genesis 45:4. As near to Him we get the good of His headship. He leads us into the sense of what the Father’s love is.
JB Would you say we cannot put the Lord under any obligation to come to us, because it is His pleasure to come?
JT I think that is right; there must be suitable conditions for Him to come.