MAN (10)
[p. 168] MAN (10)
1 Samuel 16:1 - 13; 1 Samuel 17:1 - 54
JT We have read extensively but it is necessary in order to get the full bearing of the truth in this section. As will be noted we are dealing here with David and Samuel, having already dealt with the book of Genesis ending with Joseph and Jacob. We shall all recognize that David and Samuel are to be taken as typical of humanity, that is of man according to God. That is what we are dealing with, not with man in the ordinary sense, the unconverted man, but man according to God. It would seem that David and Samuel represent that man as may be seen from a cursory look. So the question now is how we should take up this subject in these two chapters. The word of Jehovah in chapter 16 is, “And Jehovah said to Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?”. And then the account goes on until we come to David. So it says, “Fill thy horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided me a king among his sons. And Samuel said, How shall I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And Jehovah said, Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah. And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will tell thee what thou shalt do; and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee. And Samuel did what Jehovah said, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the city came trembling to meet him, and said, Dost thou come peaceably? And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah. Hallow yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he hallowed Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice”. This is the position that is before us.
[p. 169] S W. Even a man like Samuel has to learn that God has set aside the first order of man.
JT Quite so. He said, “Surely Jehovah’s anointed is before him”, but he was not; even Samuel chose the wrong man.
S W. In the first verse of our chapter he had to be spoken to about his mourning for Saul.
JT Even after that it says, “He looked on Eliab and said, Surely Jehovah’s anointed is before him”. He made a mistake, for that was not the anointed; he had to wait for David, he had to go down the line to the eighth person until he came to David. It shows, as you say, that we are likely to miss the right man, we have to be sure that we have the right man for our choice.
JHE Were the elders in a poor state when they came to meet Samuel trembling? Why should they come trembling?
JT It was not an insubject state. God had told Samuel what to say; so that they were not really in a bad state in the full sense of the word; they were just anxious about things in a general way, which is often the case and very likely rightly so.
AR Is there not something very important in the fact that God said to Samuel, “I have provided me a king among his sons”; God was making His own selection now and David is over against what Saul had been?
JT Quite so, but Samuel had to learn that Eliab was not God’s selection; he was one of Jesse’s sons, but he was not the chosen one. We want to be sure that we have the right choice.
Ques Does Samuel’s being impressed with Eliab suggest that we are apt to be impressed with the wrong qualities even in a brother? There were things about Eliab that greatly impressed Samuel but they were not spiritual [p. 170] qualities.
JT Just so; he was a brother of course but that is not everything. There are brothers and brothers. We are all brethren here this evening, but we cannot say that we are all on the same level spiritually, but then the question is, Why should we not be?
Rem There are brethren that James refers to that are greatly impressed with the brother who has means, who has a gold ring. They should not undervalue him on that account but on the other hand they are somewhat like Samuel, are they not, in being impressed with the wrong qualities?
AJEW Does this thought of “among his sons” connect with the genealogy in Luke’s gospel where we have the Lord referred to as the “supposed son of Joseph”? Luke 3:23. He is linked on with the race in a certain sense; yet He is distinct from it.
JT Yes, quite so, David is among the sons, as you say, and we have in Matthew something similar; Joseph is a righteous man whatever thoughts there might be as to him, but he was a righteous man according to Matthew.
ABP Would it be right to say that David’s heart is a sort of key-note in this chapter? Jehovah says, “Man looketh upon the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh upon the heart”. Later, when David came down to his brethren Eliab said, “I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart”, 1 Samuel 17:28. Eliab misjudged him entirely.
JT Yes, although he was his brother; but the brother is not always to be relied upon in that sense. As we said before, to be a brother is not everything, he must have certain qualities, for God looks for quality.
AN W. Is there something in the fact that David is the eighth and not the seventh? He is not the end of a line but the beginning of another one.
JT Just so; the number eight begins another set of numbers you mean. Sometimes it might appear [p. 171] that he is the seventh, but there is a question about that. Clearly however he is the eighth according to this chapter.
FJF Were the disciples in Jerusalem like the elders here? When Paul came from Damascus they seemed to misunderstand his coming. It says that they were afraid when he first came to Jerusalem.
JT There is a resemblance in the two cases, the two circumstances. So that a title is not always a guide, we need more than the word ‘elders’ as here, for instance. There are elders and elders; “From among your own selves”, Paul says, “shall rise up men ... to draw away the disciples after them”, Acts 20:30 and he was speaking to elders. You have a good number in Africa. Johannesburg, for example, is quite a big city, but there, as in New York, there are elders and elders. The same matter obtains everywhere and we have to accept facts.
FHF Is a man according to God marked by obedience? Would that be a prominent feature with him?
JT I think that is what marked David outstandingly; he was a man of obedience. He was characteristically a man of obedience, and so was Samuel, a remarkable man. These two men give character to the two books of Samuel.
JTJr Would verse 14 of chapter 13 help in regard to what we are speaking of? It says, “Jehovah has sought him a man after his own heart”, 1 Samuel 13:14. Does it suggest that before this matter came up Jehovah had been looking?
JT Just so; tell us more about “a man after his own heart”.
JTJr Well, we have had the subject of man before us, and have considered many expressions of manhood on the earth; but the idea of a man after God’s heart is the real thought, is it [p. 172] not?
JT If we consider man as a subject we may ask, Who is this man? The man is Christ; properly speaking it is “the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2:5. That is the idea. But then that has to be worked out for us in other men and David sets out this thought in a remarkable way.
FHL Is that not why David is such a remarkable type, because his name is the very clue to the dispensation; the Lord says, “I am the root and offspring of David”, Revelation 22:16.
JT Just so, and the second part of that verse is, “The bright and morning star”. That is the idea. It says, “He made the stars also”; Genesis 1:16 but then Christ is the Morning Star.
JHE We know that God is love, and the very name of David means ‘the beloved’, does it not?
JT He is a type of Christ, God’s Beloved.
ANW The words that have been referred to in chapter 13 were said to Saul, “Jehovah has sought him a man after his own heart”, 1 Samuel 13:14. That was in connection with David, and it seems to be the word that marks him. There is settlement for God in David, is there not? I thought it was really a rebuke to Saul that it had to be said to him, “Jehovah has sought ...”. He did not find the man in Saul, but He found him in David.
JT And so Jehovah says to Samuel, “How long wilt thou mourn for Saul ... ?”. He should not have been mourning for Saul; that was not the right man; God had rejected him. It was not a question of Saul’s burial but that He had rejected Saul as well as the Philistines; it was rejection. We shall have to distinguish, before we proceed, between such men as David and Samuel, and such a man as the Philistine, who is a man too, but entirely out of the mind of God, this terrible idea of a Philistine. A Philistine is not a man according to God at all, so that just to [p. 173] be a man is not everything; it is a question of the quality that you can get in man; and Christ is the leading thought in that so that we have to be able to work out from Him what man is.
Rem There are three spoken of that are not according to God, Saul and Eliab and the Philistine.
JT Quite so. They are all men in a certain sense. Later we read of a Philistine who had six fingers and six toes. If you go by their fingers and toes you will see that they are not according to God. If the man has not the number five then he is not the man according to God. The number five is the normal number that attaches to the normal man.
AR Is that why David selected five stones?
JT He chose five smooth stones, exactly; it is a question of the man according to God.
Ques In Psalm 78 it says, “From following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance”, Psalm 78:71. I wondered if the quality of dependence was learned early in David’s life so that he was able to meet this giant? He could meet him as dependent upon God.
JT Very good. That is what we are trying to get at. The word ‘man’ might be misleading as covering either a Philistine or somebody the very opposite to him; so that we have to go by the quality or character that God sets out. We must begin with Christ: “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2:5. That is the great thought that we begin with.
TEH I was greatly impressed with the last verse of Psalm 78 which has just been referred to: “And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands”, Psalm 78:72. David was a real man.
JT [p. 174] Just so.
FJF The skilfulness of his hands was proved in chapter 17. How skilful he was in bringing down the giant, and with one stone!
JT Quite so; there were five, however, that is the right number to have.
FJF But he hid the five, did he not?
JT Yes, but they were there; he knew where to get them; they were the right kind to be used in the conflict. He did not make any mistake as to the kind of thing that he was going to use. He had no sword in his hand it says, but he had stones, and one of them did the work.
Ques All Goliath’s armour described so elaborately in verse 5 of chapter 17 was of no avail, a helmet of bronze and a corselet of scales five thousand shekels of bronze in weight. Would that allude to a certain state, an infidel state you might say, that marks men at the present time?
JT Quite so; there are many abroad in the world today of this kind but they are not God’s kind. It is a question with them of plenty of some kind of thing, but not of quality. The idea of quality is in Christ, that is God’s Man, “the man Christ Jesus”.
AR Is that seen in chapter 16? It says of David, he was ruddy, and besides of a lovely countenance and beautiful appearance. “And Jehovah said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he”.
JT Yes, he was the man, the man of God’s mind, of God’s own heart; David was a man after God’s own heart, a wonderful thought. Well, that is the man we are dealing with this evening.
VCL Would not the fact that the Spirit of Jehovah came upon David be a great distinguishing mark of God’s man?
JT Quite so, the Spirit of Jehovah; that is God Himself, the Spirit of God [p. 175] is God Himself.
SCM This man is marked by going down, going down into the valley, so that he represents the Lord in going into death.
ABP Would it be right to say that what David was outwardly was in full keeping with what he was inwardly? The idea of sincerity would mark him.
JT There were seven others that were passed by before David was reached, that is the great thing to notice. How many must be passed by? Christ has not to be passed by by anybody; He is the Man after God’s heart, the man Christ Jesus.
DP Is it a mark of pre-eminence that David was anointed by Samuel in the midst of his brethren?
JT In the midst of his brethren, just so, a beautiful thought! The Lord is in the midst of His brethren on the Lord’s day morning, as we say; He is in the midst at the Lord’s supper so that it is a question of our joining in and having part in the service in that sense. We belong to the brethren of Christ.
JTJr It is remarkable that there is this defection in Samuel here. The Lord had told him that He would name the man and yet Samuel proceeds to select Eliab. Does that not bring out a certain defect in him? He had not followed the instructions and yet generally speaking he is a spiritual man.
JHH Was not Samuel very quickly adjusted though? When he got the word from the Lord he was quickly adjusted and could go through to the seventh one and say, “Jehovah has not chosen these”.
JT Quite so, he was quickly adjusted, as you say. He is a good brother. Still you have to hesitate and say that there is some difficulty with him; he is a good brother, still there is a “but”. Very often that happens.
Ques What is meant when it says in Timothy, “Lay hands quickly on no man”? 1 Timothy 5:22.
JT [p. 176] That means that you are to be discriminative, to be sure you have the right man; you are not to select him too soon, not to be too quick about it. It says, not quickly.
TEH Would that also have reference to any one seeking his way to walk with us? Would that principle apply, to lay hands suddenly on no one?
JT Quite so; you have to be discriminative in your selection among the saints because we are dealing with divine things.
VCL You have used the word ‘discriminative’ several times. Is it right to look and see what is characteristic of a man? Samuel was characteristically known as one of whom God let none of his words fall to the ground. Would you view his defect in the light of what he was characteristically?
JT Well, I would; and characteristic is a good word but it is not everything, of course; it is only what it says, characteristic, and that means that it is not the full idea, it is not the whole, the pure idea. The full pure idea is Christ, the Man according to God. That is Christ and we have all to come after Him, after Christ.
FJF We could hardly use that word ‘characteristic’ of the Lord, could we?
JT No, it is not good enough; there is only one word good enough for Christ.
FJF Because everything, you would say, is perfect there.
JT Well, quite so, still it is more than that. James has the expression “a perfect man”: “he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body”, James 3:2 but that is not Christ. “There is ... one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2:5. There is only one Man like that.
Ques Does David as selected here in any way typify the second Man out of heaven?
JT That is Christ too, [p. 177] of course.
FNW The Lord Jesus could say He was “altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8:25.
JT Just so and, of course, abstractly we have to get the whole truth. John’s epistle would say abstractly that we are all like Christ because in the future we shall be changed and made like Him: “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3:2. That is the way to get at the truth and we have to get at the whole truth in dealing with these matters, so that the word ‘abstract’ is an excellent word as to them; you can apply it to the quality that was in Christ in that sense.
FHL Are not these beautiful features seen in David, integrity and trustworthiness and so on, reflected in his beautiful countenance? Is there a moral meaning in that?
JT I would think so.
GB Is there a possibility of these conditions being found amongst the saints today? Here was a very sorrowful state. Saul, on whom the Spirit of God was, the anointed one, was greatly feared even by Samuel, whom God selected. But we see how God goes about it to get the position adjusted. If such a condition is found amongst the saints today, how should we in such a case seek one to lead? Could you help us to get the right setting of it?
JT What do you mean by ‘such a condition?’ I mean a sorrowful state. Could you help to put us in the right setting?
JT We have already touched on Samuel and noted that he himself was a bit defective in the selection. He was a wonderful man but he was not absolutely right; he was not fully like Christ. But we get the abstract idea in the epistle of John, that is to say what is in the abstract sense like Christ in the saints. He that is born of God does not sin, it says; that is abstract and we have to make allowance for [p. 178] that..
GB There is sometimes a great danger amongst the people of God in that in looking for a leader; there are those who follow one who is really not the man whom God has in mind.
JT We have to watch for that; if we are discriminative we will not follow a man that is not according to God for a leader. He is not a leader if he is not according to God. That is what I am trying to get at, the abstract idea; we have to bring that in now at this point, the abstract idea as seen in John’s epistle.
Rem This abstract idea may be seen in Paul’s word to the Colossians that he laboured to present every man perfect in Christ.
EAL In the previous chapter, 1 Samuel 15, Samuel says in speaking to Saul, “Jehovah has rent the kingdom of Israel from thee today, and has given it to thy neighbour, who is better than thou”, 1 Samuel 15:28. But the weakness with Samuel seems to be that he saw in Eliab a man of great stature, the same kind of man as Saul. He did not seem to have rightly judged what the flesh is, and this led him into defection.
JT Quite so, but the real man was David; Eliab did not have quality, he was not up to the mark.
Rem And Jesse was defective as well as Samuel; he evidently did not think it was worth while having David there.
JT He knew where he was, of course, but did not think it necessary to bring him forward. That is a very extraordinary thing, that Jesse did not think it worth while to bring his son David forward, whereas he was God’s man. Jesse was, in this matter, entirely out of accord with God’s mind.
FJF As a man of God does not David prove God in secret with the lion and the bear before he comes out [p. 179] publicly?
JT What a man is with God does not always come out at once, you mean, quite so.
AJE W. Is it not noteworthy that in chapter 17 David holds the scene by himself without Samuel, as if the choice made through Samuel is fully justified by what ensues? I was just thinking of the precious features that come to light in David himself in chapter 17, not needing, so to speak, to be augmented by any other. He stands on his own excellence, does he not?
JT He is the man, and all these qualities come in at once in him; that is, the number five characterizes David, a lowly, Christ-like man.
JTJr The young man in chapter 16, verse 18, had seen these qualities in David. Somebody knew them.
JT Just so; David the son of Jesse is called, and he was suitable for what was needed. Saul needed a man to play for him, a very humbling thing, and David was in that position at first and was ready to fill it, to do what was right and needful. But now we are looking at what he was in chapter 17.
Ques In this chapter we read of David’s having met three enemies, the lion and the bear and the Philistine. We may understand the aspect of the lion and the bear but what is the aspect of the enemy in this battle with Goliath? What is the meaning of meeting this enemy?
JT He is the order of man of whom we read later that he had six fingers and six toes; he is a bad man, he is Satan’s man. That is not the man for God at all.
Ques Does he represent the opposition in one of its most dangerous forms?
JT Quite so; such are Satan’s men, that is what I would say.
ANW The word ‘hero’ is applied to him. That is a word much in use in the world [p. 180] today.
JT That is found in Genesis 6, men of renown; like the six-toed and six-fingered man they are not of God at all; they are not the sons of God, but the unholy product of those called the sons of God in Genesis 6.
SCM The Lord refers to a strong man armed, that his goods are in safety; but when a stronger than he comes he first binds the strong man.
JT Quite so, he binds the strong man and takes away his goods; it is a stronger than he that does it. Christ is the stronger.
EAL The men of Israel in speaking of Goliath said that he had come up to defy the armies of Israel; but David said that he came up to defy the armies of the living God. His viewpoint was different.
JT He is on God’s side. But the abstract that we have spoken of in the epistle of John has to be considered in that sense because it is perfect in itself; it is after Christ. “Whosoever is born of God sinneth not” 1 John 5:18; it is a question of being born of God.
JTJr We do not keep to that side enough, do we? That is the side of being born of water and of the Spirit. If we kept more to that side in our soul’s history we would be more the demonstration of what we are speaking about.
JT It is a question of birth, what God effects by birth, not by creation but by birth. Creation, of course, has its place too: God created man in His image. But birth is another matter and that is John 3, new birth, being born anew, and being born of water and of the Spirit.
VCL What is said as to us abstractly is to be seen concretely in Christ, is it not? I was thinking of the thief when he says, “This man hath done nothing amiss”, Luke 23:41 There could be no new creation, no eternal condition of blessing at all without this that we are [p. 181] talking about now; we must have all this with a view to what God has in His mind; that is, new creation. We must have this in the sense of birth, not simply creation. There are many other things in the epistles that we have to consider on these lines which we are not able to do now for want of time. But we shall have to look into this matter again as to David and Samuel because it is so great in the sense of man, of manhood. We have to make allowance for the abstract idea, that is to say what God is doing on the principle of birth; and, of course, creation too, as I have said, but it is new creation.
FHL “If anyone be in Christ, there is a new creation”, 2 Corinthians 5:17.
JT “There is a new creation the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new: and all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself”, 2 Corinthians 5:17,18. There is no question about it, there is no discrepancy at all. These are wonderful facts.
FJF Would you say that what is produced by the new birth would have these characteristics; they would come to light in due time?.
Ques And would you say that what is descriptive of Christ is to be seen concretely, too, in the saints?
JT Surely. And so reverting again to new birth in John 3, we must have that in order to get what is in the mind of God for eternity. There is no imperfection whatsoever in the thoughts of God and in that sense we must have the new birth.
SCM Would you bring in 1 John 5, “We know that everyone begotten of God does not sin, but he that has been begotten of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him”? 1 John 5:18.
JT That is all the abstract idea, quite [p. 182] so.
AR It says in 1 Corinthians 15 that “flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom”, 1 Corinthians 15:50. How far would that go as applying it to John 3?
JT That would include John 3. Flesh and blood does not inherit the kingdom of God; we must have something different, something entirely of. God. “All things are of God”, it says 2 Corinthians 5:18; that is as to the eternal thoughts of God.
TEH How do we understand John 1:13 when it speaks of the children of God as those “who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God”? John 1:13: Is that a further thought than new birth?
JT Quite so; it is just the abstract thought that we are dealing with. It is the abstract in John’s epistle, and we must keep in touch with that and hold it or we shall get out of the line of the truth.
ABP Would it be right to say that the circumstances of this chapter were ordered of God in order to bring out David in bold relief as compared with every other man? And have we the same idea in Revelation 5 where heaven and earth are waiting because there is no one found worthy to open the book? There it is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
JT Here it is Christ really in principle; it is Christ beforehand. And I would say to the brethren now, at this time, that we are bound to come to the abstract idea or we shall get out of the line of the truth. We are bound to come to the abstract idea and bound to learn what it is to follow it out.