NOTES OF READINGS ON DEUTERONOMY (4)
NOTES OF READINGS ON DEUTERONOMY (4)
WK There must be a good deal of importance attached to “the place where the Lord thy God shall choose”, for it occurs in this chapter many times.
JT Yes, prominence is given to it here. Inasmuch as it is not seen at the institution of the passover in Exodus 12, one is led to the conclusion that it is in accord with Deuteronomy principles, namely, that it is not the passover as in its bearing for the believers in delivering them out of the world, but rather the gain that is acquired through the exercises spiritually, so that God gets His portion out of it. Whilst the believer is in Egypt, or in the world, and is exercised, for the moment it is not God that is before him, although, of course, God is in his soul, presented to him in the gospel, but it is a question of his deliverance out of the world; and in all that process he is exercised, and the exercise brings about spiritual growth, which is sure to show itself in reference to God in time. Now, Deuteronomy supposes that all the exercise has taken place, and that the believer is happily with God, and now he connects all that which he had gone through before with God with the place where God’s name is.
WJB You would say he is affected by what God has done for him, and now there is some response to God.
JT Yes; I think as coming up to appear before God he recognises the part that God had in it all: not only am I delivered from the world, but I see that God has had an end in view in my deliverance; and I think that Deuteronomy supposes all that.
WK You mean Deuteronomy supposes that he is in the sense of it.
JT It supposes that the work is there; [p. 289] that the effect of the exercise is in his soul, and that now you are free to recognise the divine end of it.
TMG That is a very great thing to recognise.
JT I am sure it is; it is that which leads to the believer being rightly formed for the assembly.
JM It is not so much a question of your deliverance through the death of Christ, but the object that God had in regard to it.
JT Yes, the exercise that we go through in the process leads to spiritual growth, so that there is that by which one may approach God.
TMG You attribute all to God, and in the sense of that you have before you what God has in view.
JT Yes; it says “thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock, and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose to place his name there”. Deuteronomy 16:2. In Egypt it was in one’s house.
TMG Here it is more the assembly that is in view.
JT Yes, I think it is the groundwork of it; where the soul has God before it. If you have a number of people with God before them there is material for the assembly.
EM Would you not say that the passover is in the mount of His inheritance?
JT Well, it is here an ordinance for Canaan; it supposes that they are to be in the land.
WH This is the formation in view of taking up the privilege?
JT Yes; I think that from the Christian point of view it is what he has gained through the exercise; his deliverance out of the world has resulted in spiritual gain, and God is now before him. The progress that you have made enables you to see that it is not your own house that is before you now; it is the place where God’s name is. You consider for God. That is the great point with the Christian. There is now a place in which God’s name is placed. One’s house is where one’s own name is, in a way. But now you come to see that God has got a house, and a Name.
TMG You must be in the liberty of it first before you can have this.
JT It is a great thing to be right in one’s house; and hence the necessity of the passover being there. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, so that one cannot allow in one’s house any principle inconsistent with that. There was a great object in an innocent lamb being slain; first being brought in and kept from the tenth to the fourteenth day of the month. There it was, so that every member of the house might see it and say, ‘Surely there is nothing in that little creature to merit death; why then should it be slain?’ That raises the question as to the cause of its death, and that ought to affect our houses. So on the fourteenth day it is slain and then the feast of unleavened bread fellows, which signifies self-judgment. That is, in the light of the death of the lamb; if that little creature, which merits no death, has to be put to death, then it must be on my account; and that leads to self-judgment.
EM Is deliverance looked at here as an accomplished fact?
JT Quite. You see here that while you have the three main feasts, there are seven in Leviticus 23. There are only three here because Deuteronomy has an allusion to the state of the people, that is, to the effect of their exercises; whereas Leviticus has reference more to God’s ways. The sabbath is placed at the head of them, showing that that is what God has before Him; then the other feasts show how He reaches that. But here, we have the outcome of the people’s exercises contemplated, God’s portion in them. There is no book in the Old Testament that is more peculiar than Deuteronomy; because it sets [p. 291] forth that it is the mind of God that we should enter heaven now in spirit; and He sets before us the motives why we should do so; and then all that is based upon the exercises that we already have had in the wilderness.
EM Is this what is meant by “to do thee good in thy latter end”? Deuteronomy 8:16.
JT Yes; Canaan is the latter end. But “to humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what is in thine heart” Deuteronomy 8:16; not that God might know, because He knows beforehand, but that thou mightest know, and to do thee good at thy latter end.
TMG That He might bring us into a large place.
JT It would help one greatly as to the wilderness to pause over Deuteronomy 8; it is a crucial chapter, in one sense, because it is the chapter the Lord Jesus quotes from. In all the discipline in the wilderness, in all the things that we endure, God has in view to search us, and to prove us, that we might know what is in our hearts: the depths of evil we are capable of. Now God probes, and probes until it is all out. He means to replace it all by Christ. So that in Deuteronomy 26 you have a basket filled; you come in with your basket full. Of course, your basket is yourself. That is to say, the depths of your heart have been disclosed to you, and displaced; and it is filled with Christ now. “Three times in the year shall all the males appear before me” Deuteronomy 16:16; but no one is to appear before God empty, the Word says. Now, if you are not to be empty, what are you to be filled with? Christ.
TMG It is more the Colossian idea. Ephesians is in Christ; new creation.
JT Yes; Deuteronomy is more Colossian; that is to say, Christ is in your heart; and how did Christ get there? God put Him there. He put you in the wilderness that you might discover how bad [p. 292] your heart is; and when we discover how bad it is we judge it.
TMG Is not that what God is doing with every one of us?
JT I think so; and all the discipline is to that end.
TMG It is a great thing to think in connection with discipline how interested God is in us when He takes such pains, such trouble with us. It helps one greatly to think of it.
J.T. We were singing:
In the desert God shall teach thee
What the God that thou hast found. (76:6)
So that whilst we discover how bad our hearts are, we come to understand that God supports us. Nothing can be more interesting than to trace the latter part of the book of Numbers, where the Holy Spirit is formally recognised in the springing well. That is the basis of Deuteronomy; the Holy Spirit is recognised in the believer, instead of the flesh. Romans 7 is equivalent to the experience of the wilderness; because the effect of the law is seen. By the law is the knowledge of sin. The inner depths of the heart are exposed to the believer; not to anybody else. The apostle, who speaks there, was outwardly a most exemplary character. As we were saying last night, we have a public history and a private history. Now Romans 7 is to bring out what you are; and the need of it is to make room in your heart for the Deliverer.
Rem We used to hear that we would not be true here without Romans 8.
JT You cannot be a truly delivered soul without the Deliverer being in your heart. That is very important point to get hold of.
JM Deliverance is a positive thing.
JT I think one is really free when Christ is in [p. 293] the heart. Who can come up before God unless he has Christ in his heart. God will not have anyone else but a person who is full of Christ. Christ becomes known to us in each of these feasts in a peculiar way. In the feast of the passover it is, that He was judged on account of my sins; that endears Him to me. In the feast of weeks He gives the Spirit, and that endears Him to me. In the feast of tabernacles He comes for me; that is what answers to it in Christianity. Literally it is the introduction of the millennial world for the Jew; but what corresponds with this for us is going to heaven. In Christianity these three feasts are all together.
JM I am glad of that remark, because I could not see how the passover was connected with the place where the Lord chose to place His name.
JT You see the three are put together in Deuteronomy. You are a fully developed Christian if you appear before God in the light of these three feasts. Christ is in your heart according to all that He is.
EM Are not the three feasts in a way entered into in connection with the breaking of bread, and in entering into the privilege of the assembly?
JT I think so; they underlie the assembly. If you bear in mind that it is a question of the state of your soul, it simplifies it. You come before God in the light of the passover; and in the light of getting the Holy Spirit; and in the light of Christ coming for you. So that you are a fully developed believer before God.
PL I suppose it is anticipative in the feast of tabernacles? In verse 15, “in the place the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name” is left out. Would that indicate that when that feast comes the gathering will be to the Lord; He will probably be there Himself?
JT And there will be no contrary element any [p. 294] longer.
WJB When the assembly comes together there is the past, the present, and the future.
JT So that you have the full position of the believer. It is not exactly your deliverance, nor your joy, but it is the light in which you have apprehended Christ in these three connections. If it be the feasts of the Lord given formally as in Leviticus, you have, as I remarked, seven of them, beginning with the sabbath; because there it is the means by which God reaches His end in the dispensational way. What is in view here is the state of the saints, the three appearings before Him being complete testimony that He fully controls the heart.
TMG He will rest in His love and that is what He has before Him.
JT Yes; He begins with the sabbath. It is God’s way to state first what He has in His mind; and then to show us how He reaches us.
PL It is not so much the wilderness that is in view, as the land.
JT It is instruction for the land; because we should have Christ in our hearts in the way in which this chapter suggests. We are thus prepared for the land; it is the normal thing for us.
PL As in chapter 12; “These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee”. Deuteronomy 12:1.
JT The thought of the Lord’s name involves so much for us now. Every man has his house, and his name and honour are bound up with his house. So God is pleased to connect the passover with a man’s house, in order that it might be in accordance with the judgment that was meted out to Christ. But when you come to God’s house, everything there is also in accordance with the death of the Lord.
WK It shows the importance of having your own house right first, otherwise we shall not make much progress in the house of God; He would have [p. 295] unity practically in our minds and spirits so that we may feel that we are one.
JT And in our unity are the principles that govern the house of God.
JM That would be a test as to people assuming to have the Lord in the midst.
WK You cannot eat the unleavened bread if you have not the passover.
JB Would you say that the place where the Lord puts His name is connected with being “knit together in love”? Colossians 2:2.
JT The Lord’s name carries with it all that He is. I suppose the idea of “name” has reference to what a person is. We have come to recognise what is due to that name.
WHM Jerusalem was the place where He put His name. In Zechariah 14:17 there is a very interesting passage in connection with the feast of tabernacles “It shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain”.
JT We have no choice on our part in regard to the place. The Lord chooses the place.
WK And every other place is forbidden. It is a great thing to have the sense of that.
JT It settles everything; it disallows all party spirit and system.
WK There can be no such thing, there can be neither class nor party.
JT You may come up from Beersheba, and I may go down from Dan, and another may come from Reuben; and they all meet there. You cannot say I have no sympathy with the Danite, if he comes to the place where the Lord’s name is; and if the Lord has accepted him I cannot say I do not like him. If I cannot have fellowship with a Danite or a Reubenite then I have to leave the place where the Lord’s name is. We have no choice. It is the place where divine principles are. That brother may not be very congenial from my point of view; but if he is walking according to divine principles I must go on with him.
JM Likes and dislikes are not according to divine principles.
TMG It is a very great mistake, when persons are before the mind, instead of divine principles. What a serious thing it is!
JT Then I may have very different surroundings, and very different circumstances to a Reubenite or a man of Judah but, whilst in that place, there is no difference. We are in the light of the name of the Lord; we are not simply those who believe in the doctrine of the Lord’s coming; we are not to be classified as pre-millennialists. We wait for Him; we wait for our own Lord and that is because we love Him.
Ques The last feast involves the truth of His presence.
JT Present conditions will not continue; the Lord’s coming will change them so that it will be no longer His name, but Himself.
WH Is not something of the spirit of the new conditions realised by the saints now?
JT The feast of tabernacles may imply what we enjoy below when the Lord is in the midst. Where there is the consciousness of His presence we pass out of time circumstances anticipatively into what is eternal.
And see the Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heav’nly door,
Has brought us to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er. (74:5)
Well, that is the principle of the feast of tabernacles.
WK “And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast”. Deuteronomy 16:15.
TMG It [p. 297] is heaven begun.
JRM Is not the sabbath God’s great end in view? Would that be the eternal state?
JT Well, the sabbath is a relative term; that is to say, it has allusion to the previous days of labour; and as far as I understand it, it has a millennial state of things in view. When you come to eternity you cannot compass that; it had no beginning nor ending. We have part in that. The sabbath has relation to God’s ways on earth; it is the seventh day. The first day of the week is an eighth day in one sense, and in that sense it may go on to the eternal state. But for us it is the first day, because we belong to the beginning. The Jew does not come in on the first day.
JRM I was thinking of God’s rest.
JT I know; but God’s rest is at the end, not at the beginning; therefore it is a relative term, it refers to six days of labour. But when you come to our period there is nothing previous to that; hence Christ is the beginning of the creation of God, and we have part with Him in that. Hence the Jew comes in after us. The first day is connected with eternity, whereas the sabbath is the end or the completion of a period.
JMcF What is the difference between the sabbath and the feast of tabernacles?
JT Well, as to time they are both realised together. But the feast of tabernacles has another side to it. Look at Leviticus 23:33-38; Leviticus 23:39,40; Leviticus 23:42,43. There are certain points in that scripture that show a very great difference between the feast of tabernacles and the sabbath. The eighth day is connected with it; and it is when all the produce is gathered in, and they are reminded that after they came out of Egypt they dwelt in booths. It is a sort of reminder of what they were in the wilderness, and what arrangements and care and attention God had given them when they were there. Also it is [p. 298] an allusion to the peculiar way in which we learned God in those circumstances, and that now we are at home with Him.
JMcF It would seem that all these three feasts spoken of in this chapter have the same thought connected with them: “that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life” Deuteronomy 16:3: that is in connection with the passover; and “thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt”, Deuteronomy 16:12 in connection with the feast of weeks; and the same thought is connected with the feast of tabernacles.
JT That is all on the side of our state, and enjoyment; whereas the sabbath is really God’s rest.
Rem Would you say that all these feasts were to bring that about?
JT No doubt. God rests in His love; and you can understand how He rests in us as we are thus gathered around Him. But this chapter is presented from the side of our experience. In the feast of tabernacles we are dwelling with God, but dwelling with Him as known through all the experience of the wilderness. ‘There no stranger-God shall meet thee’; it is that side more.
WK “Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine”. Deuteronomy 16:13. They were looked at as in the enjoyment of all that God has to give. The previous experiences are all summed up here.
JT Yes, it is all the effect of the wilderness experience: the fruit of it, gathered up. So that God is dwelling with a people who can reciprocate His affections.