BEGINNING OF THE GLAD TIDINGS OF JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD (6)
[p. 468] BEGINNING OF THE GLAD TIDINGS OF JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD (6)
JT There is a stage reached in our souls in which we need confirmation, and I think there are many believers who are not really confirmed.
TMG What do you mean by that?
JT They are not confirmed in regard to the things they have been taught; things they have endorsed, and are quite orthodox about. There is a good deal that is right in principle in confirmation, as taught in a certain religious body. The mount of transfiguration is confirmation. I do not say that is all that is in it, surely not, but speaking from the side of our experience, there is that in it.
WK Confirmation of what?
JT Confirmation of things they had been hearing from the Lord, as contained in the previous chapters; the confession Peter made in chapter 8. The confession he made was that Jesus was the Christ, and it was amply confirmed to Him on the mount. What was there was not simply faith. He says, we “were eye-witnesses of his majesty”. 2 Peter 1:16. That is how Peter refers to it. “We have not made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly imagined fables, but having been eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory; This is my beloved Son in whom I have found my delight”, 2 Peter 1: 16, 17.
JM Would you say it was also in view of the testimony which they were to render?
JT It was that they might be fully confirmed as to that.
WK Peter says “the prophetic word made surer”. 2 Peter 1:19.
JPW [p. 469] Is it the glory of the Person of the Lord that is contemplated in our souls?
JT I think so. I do not think any Christian is confirmed unless he enters the holiest, though he may receive much in the way of teaching. The confirmation is in entering the holiest, which, I think, answers to this. This was special of course. The apostle Paul was confirmed in the third heaven. All that precedes leads up to this. They had committed themselves. It was not Peter only that made the confession “Thou art the Christ”. Mark 8:29. The Lord says, “whom say ye that I am?” Mark 8:29. No one contradicted Peter. If a thing is said and you hold your peace you commit yourself to it. The rest were committed to what Peter said. Sometimes in a meeting we may sit silent, but that is committing yourself to what is said. If a wrong thing is said you should not remain silent about it. So all the twelve were committed to the confession that Jesus was the Christ. The instruction which followed showed the seriousness of such a confession. So when Peter attempted to rebuke the Lord, the Lord rebuked him, and He turned round to the disciples so that they should get the benefit of the rebuke. In a way the confession was theirs, and the rebuke was for their good as well as Peter’s.
WK Peter was spokesman on their behalf.
JT Peter represents what we are after the flesh, and thank God he also represents what we are after the Spirit. He represents in his confession what we are after the Spirit, and in the rebuke which he administers to the Lord he represents what we are after the flesh. The flesh would encourage us to take our ease, and have some compassion on ourselves. Peter says, “God be favourable to thee, Lord, this shall in no wise be unto thee”. Matthew 16:22. But He [Jesus] turning round and seeing His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, “Get away behind me Satan, for thy mind [p. 470] is not on the things that are of God, but on the things that are of men”, Mark 8:33. It is a very serious thing to be in fellowship. You cannot escape from the seriousness of it. You may say, I am not responsible for anything that is said and done. You are. You have to take the whole thing as it is, not what you like only. You get the assets and the liabilities in the fellowship, and if you look into it you will see that the assets exceed the liabilities, otherwise you could not get on at all; you would get into bankruptcy.
WK You have both the benefits and the disadvantages.
JT Yes. I believe most of us would admit that it is a paying concern. Only those who are unexercised speak otherwise. They do not know the value of the coin in which the dividends are paid. We want to know what spiritual things are; chapter 10:29 shows what you get. “There is no one who has left house or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, that shall not receive an hundred-fold now in this time; houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions, and in the coming age life eternal”. Mark 10:29,30.
Rem Those are the dividends.
JT Persecutions are assets. Like a ship at sea, you cannot go on without ballast. Ballast is an important asset. It is one of those assets that the apostle gloried in. “We also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works endurance, and endurance, experience and experience, hope”, Romans 5:3. We cannot escape from any of the responsibilities of the fellowship, but then we get the benefit from the assets.
JPW Does it come in in connection with the joys and sorrows?
JT “Your grief shall be turned into joy”, John 6: 21. The assets are convertible, to use another financial expression. The sorrow shall be turned into joy. The Lord says, “Fill the waterpots up to the brim with water; and they filled them”, John 2:7. You cannot have the wine till you have the water first. It was the water of purification; but then that is convertible. He converted it into joy, He made the water wine.
WK It is a great thing, that it is not only sorrow, but He said “I will see you again, and your grief shall be turned into joy”. John 6:21. Where there is sorrow it is dispelled, just as death is swallowed up in victory.
TMG It is the principle of Marah.
JT Yes; it was not water to drink. It was water for purification, but it became wine to drink. It is a remarkable thing that it was the water of purification that was turned into wine. But then there is water to drink that does not need to be changed. The waters of Marah were brackish. They had the flavour of Egypt — judgment.
TMG It has to be learned experimentally.
EM Does this lead to confirmation?
JT I think it is leading to it, but there has first to be the learning of ourselves. The Lord says to Peter, “Get away behind me, Satan”. Mark 8:33.
TMG Peter was looking at the wrong side.
JT It is very solemn that one should become so quickly a mouth-piece of the devil, after such a remarkable confession as Peter had just made. You notice the Lord does not say, Get away behind me, Peter. He does not say that. It is said, “He rebuked Peter”. Mark 8:33.
EM Would you say that Peter had not yet been confirmed in the light he had received?
JT It did not characterise him.
SM It shows what a place the natural mind may have in the things of God.
JT “To be spiritual]y minded is life and peace”. Romans 8:6. To be spiritually minded. The Lord said to Peter, “thy mind is not on the things that are of God, but the things that are of men”. Mark 8:33.
WK “Those that are of men”, and yet He said, “Get away behind me, Satan”. Mark 8:33.
JM How do we get the gain of what the Lord teaches His disciples here; the gain of confirmation?
JT Well, the instruction at the end of chapter 8 is most essential. There is the confession to which you are committed, and following upon that, the discovery of what you are. Romans 7 shows that the exercised mind serves the law of God. He may fail, but that is his mind. The flesh serves the law of sin. He has really come to Psalm 119 in the spirit of his mind.
TMG A man for God upon earth.
JT The whole of that Psalm exalts the law. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of Christian experience. David makes use of the whole alphabet in that Psalm, and it is all to eulogise the law of God. Romans 7 tests the man but he serves with his mind the law of God. The proof of genuine conversion is that the law of God is paramount in the soul; the flesh is still active, but his mind delights in the law of God.
JM In the end of chapter 7 he distinguishes between his mind and the principles of the flesh, and then in chapter 8 he gets the power.
JT In chapter 8 he comes to recognise a new order of things, not now the law of God. The point of chapter 7 is the law of God. In chapter 8 there is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. Romans 8:2. There is a new order of things in which there is life, and there is a Spirit in that life, and there is the law of the Spirit of that life. That is the thing that sets the soul free.
Peter thought that he was doing the Lord a kindness when he said, “Pity thyself”. In Romans 8 you are set free, not indeed from the law of God, but from the law of sin and of death. The law of God is essential. There is a law even in the new creation, Galatians 6:15, 16.
EM Without law all is chaos.
JT Law is a fixed thing. It is remarkable in regard to the offerings that regulations are made for everything, and then afterwards the law of the offering is given. I have often wondered why that was not given first; but the law is a fixed thing, it remains.
JPW Is there anything in Romans that answers to chapter 9 of Mark?
JT No; not so far as I understand it. The Lord’s path was ascent and descent, but the ascent is the same as that descent. The mount of transfiguration is the summit of the ascent, and then there is the descent after that. He was entitled to go into heaven at that point on the ground of what He was as a Man.
JPW “The kingdom of God come with power” Mark 9:1. What does that mean?
JT That is the way Mark presents it, the kingdom in power. Power is absolutely essential for service. “The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power”, 1 Corinthians 4:20. Of course, there is more than that in the transfiguration. The transfiguration suggests the whole order of things which God is going to establish, the heavenly and the earthly, and Christ the centre of it. The holiest is what answers to this in our experience. That is not all, but I am speaking from the side of our experience. We want to see Christ as He is before God.
TMG That is why you say it is beyond Romans.
JT Yes; He was transfigured before them. It was for them to see. Well, the holiest is not something that takes place before us now. It is what [p. 474] Christ is before God. In Matthew, the Lord said, “ye shall see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”. Matthew 16:28. To see the kingdom in its entirety, not, indeed, the King, but the Son of man. The title in which Mark represents the transfiguration is most attractive. In Luke it is the kingdom of God. The emphasis there is that it is God’s kingdom, but here it is the kingdom of God in power. All is intended to be confirmation for the apostles in their service. If you get a view of the Lord Jesus like that which Peter got you would say, How different from the men that we know; how different from what I am myself. Though He was transfigured, it was not that He was essentially changed. “He is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever”. Hebrews 13:8.
JM Does it refer to His present place?
JT It refers to what He is now.
TMG As you were saying, what He is now as in the holiest before God.
JT You see it is a testimony to His Person that He was transfigured without dying.
JM As you were saying, it was the end of His path of service,
EM Would you say, the way He appeared would express what He was morally?
JT I think so. In appearance He answers to everything that He was morally. He was veiled when on earth, His flesh was the veil. But here on the mount the veil is removed. So it is said, “his garments became shining, exceeding white as snow, such as fuller on earth could not whiten them”. Mark 9:3. There was no power on earth to whiten like that. It is a whiteness that shines, which I do not think could be found in natural things. The bride in Revelation 19 makes herself ready. Her clothing is “bright and pure”, reflecting what Christ is.
JM It is not like Luke, who speaks of His decease; that is not [p. 475] here.
JT Exactly. If He went up from the mount of transfiguration it would be private, whereas His exodus was to be public. The exodus is not going into heaven. The, exodus is going out of the world. It says of the exodus that the Israelites “went out ... in sight of all the Egyptians”, Numbers 33:3. He would go out publicly. He said, “it is impossible that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” Luke 13:33; as if He would emphasise the sad state that was there. It was there He would go out.
TMG Finishing His labour there.
JT The difficulty in connection with many Christians is that they want to go out privately, like the woman with the issue of blood. You will get all the privacy in the Father’s house, but our baptism is the beginning of our public history; baptism is public. The principle of it is publicity.
TMG The tendency is to shun the reproach.
JT The Lord uses this occasion as a confirmation of the testimony, and not only of the apostle’s testimony, but of all previous testimony; the word of prophecy is “made surer”. Moses and Elias who represent the old dispensation witnesses retire, and all attention is called to the Son. “This is my beloved Son, hear him”. Mark 9:7.
TMG The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
JT Quite so. All the prophets spoke of Christ, but now He has come. John says, “I must decrease”. John 3:30. He disappears in the presence of Christ, saying his joy was fulfilled.
RL Peter refers to the cloud as “the excellent glory”. 2 Peter 1:17.
JT Moses and Elias were manifested in the glory of the kingdom. They appeared in glory. That is the glory that we share. But then the cloud comes; there came a cloud and overshadowed them. Elsewhere [p. 476] it is called a bright cloud; it was the Shekinah, the divine dwelling-place.
RL There is the glory that we share. The Shekinah belongs to God.
JT That was the Shekinah from which God spoke, the same as in the temple of Ezekiel. Here it is in connection with the holy mount. Peter says, “Let us make three tabernacles”, Mark 9:5 but there was only one tabernacle, and that was Jesus. The cloud had reference to Him. It says, “they entered into the cloud”. Luke 9:34. It was from that the voice came.
TMG It is the difference between the two glories of John 17. There was the glory given by the Father which they were to behold, and the glory which we are to share. The Shekinah is what we are permitted to behold.
JT He took them up into a high mountain by themselves. It is a vision for their confirmation, but they have with them that One who is the only One to whom they are to listen. The greatest person in the Old Testament, the most honoured servants, are inferior to Him. The testimony of the Law and the prophets had reference to Him. Now all was in Himself.
JMcF Have you any thought as to His being the true tabernacle?
JT I think the Shekinah alluded to the fact that Jesus was the true tabernacle.
JMcF And Moses and Elias were not.
JT If you read Exodus 25, Exodus 26 and Exodus 27, you will find they all answer, in some sense, to Jesus.
RL Peter speaks of being “eye-witnesses of his majesty”. 2 Peter 1:16.
JT Yes; what strength there is in the words Peter uses; “the excellent glory” and “his majesty” 2 Peter 1:16; “the holy mount”; all is clothed with power. When you allude to anything, the strength of your language indicates how you feel about it. Peter puts [p. 477] it in his own language. It shows the strength of his feelings. “The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”, he says. 2 Peter 1:16.
WAW Is there anything in the gospel of John that answers to or alludes to this?
JT Well, John says, “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a father, full of grace and truth”. John 1:14. I think that is an allusion to it.
WAW John was one of those who was with Him on the mount.
JT John does not make much of position as regards the Lord’s person, because with him the Person is everything.