ADMINISTRATION (3)
[p. 302] ADMINISTRATION (3)
Genesis 25:5-11; Genesis 25:19-23; Genesis 27:28,29; Genesis 27:37; Genesis 35: 23 - 26; Genesis 49:8-12; Genesis 49:16; Genesis 49:22-27
JTJr We saw the last time we were together how God took up one family, and that is the point of view now in this subject, how God has that one family in mind and carries through with it. These chapters cover considerable ground, but salient points as to administration are suggested in the passages read. We see how Isaac stands in relation to the subject. Everything was committed to him by his father. It says, “And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac”. It is suggestive of the great truth: “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”, (John 3:35). Thus the line runs through Isaac, not Ishmael. Then Jacob is taken up, and we see his origin in connection with Esau. We should note that the line runs through Jacob. His name means, supplanter and we need to see what that suggests. Then his name is changed to Israel which is the name of the nation that is connected with the government of things on the earth. Then we have Jacob and his twelve sons. Twelve is the administrative number and runs right through Scripture. And then the individual characteristics of the twelve are seen in Judah and Joseph especially, and also in Dan.
We might say a word for a moment in regard to Machpelah, because it alludes to the side of administration that has to do with those who have left this scene, having died in faith. We do not have any record of burials before Sarah’s, and therefore the allusion to this reminds us of how the matter comes up immediately when it is a question of the family. We should see that that is an important side of things that was looked after right at the start of this family. Machpelah is the burial place of the saints. We can rest in the knowledge that our loved ones are all cared for, and [p. 303] that follows the statement that everything is put into the hands of Isaac.
CAM Is it your thought that burial is in view of the resurrection world? There is something buried there that belongs to another world?
JTJr I thought that. The Lord refers to the position of Abraham in Luke 16, and He speaks of the care of the dead. He speaks of the angels carrying Lazarus. We have spoken about the angelic service, and we may be sure that what happens when the saints die is a very wonderful thing. The angels carried Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. So that those who fall asleep are cared for. We need have no more fears about them. It is a great administrative idea that death is in the hands of Christ. He has the keys of death and of hades.
APT All being put into Isaac’s hands would connect with John 3, where the Father commits all to the Son. Then what you are saying as to Machpelah would connect with John 5.
JTJr They are all awaiting the voice of the Son of God. The Lord is in full charge of the matter. “Departure and being with Christ ... is very much better”. The apostle says, “absent from the body and present with the Lord”. Machpelah suggests all that; that all is taken care of. There is nothing left out in regard to those who have fallen asleep.
RWS There is no blessing outside of the Son’s realm, because it says: “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand. He that believes on the Son has life eternal, and he that is not subject to the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him”, (John 3:35,36).
JTJr The wrath of God would be alluded to in Luke 16. The rich man is seen in suffering. The Lord shows us that the position for him is suffering. On the other hand, the bosom of Abraham suggests the thought of comfort [p. 304] and delight.
CWM So that the Lord speaks of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as living: “God is not God of the dead, but of the living”, (Matthew 22:32).
JTJr That is very interesting. He is the God of the living. Jacob says, in the end of this book, that Abraham and Sarah were buried in Machpelah, and also Isaac and Rebecca. He says further, “there I buried Leah”. And that is where Jacob was buried. So that, as you say, God is God of the living. Machpelah suggests that line of things, that the saints who have fallen asleep are, in that way, in relation to God.
AR Chapter 23 gives us the location. It is “opposite to Mamre: that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan”, verse 19. It is in relation to Hebron.
JTJr Quite so, it is connected with what is outside of the world, and it is purchased for a possession. It alludes to the way things have been secured through Christ. It is all in relation to those who have fallen asleep, that they are secure. At the outset of this family this great matter is looked after. There is nothing omitted in all that is to take place in this family.
CN Joseph, in Egypt, insists on his bones being taken up with the children of Israel. No doubt he had this same burying place in mind.
DLP Would Abraham view Isaac as able to meet everything that might arise in the administration of affairs that were transmitted to him?
JTJr I think that is in mind. Everything is handed down. Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. And things are handed down to us with a view that all is to be kept. Nothing is lost of what Abraham had. All is seen in connection with Isaac now.
ANW It is evidently in that relation that Jehovah blessed Isaac: “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac”, verse 11.
JTJr You mean that God came in signally after the death of Abraham [p. 305] to confirm Isaac?
ANW Yes; I thought it was to help him in his administration.
RWS Do you think there is some defection in the administration when Ishmael is found with Isaac and later when he appears at Abraham’s burial?
JTJr The relatives usually turn up at the burials. You can hardly keep them out; in fact, they have a right there as these chapters would show, but then the principle of separation is clear.
ABP Are the details which are recorded in chapter 23 important in linking on the idea of administration with the provision of a burying place? The place would not be accepted by Abraham as a gift; it must be purchased; the boundaries are clearly defined; it is secured in the presence of the sons of Heth and those that went in and out at the gate. Does all that emphasise that it is taken on as an administrative matter?
JTJr I think so. The title is clear. There is no question as to the title to the ground; the deed is clear. God has done that and we can rest in it, in regard to those who sleep in Jesus. It is a great thought to get into our souls. To understand much about the dead is beyond us naturally. But as we think of what Christ has done for them we can rest in that.
WFK Is Isaac a type of Christ as the heavenly Man?
JTJr Yes, and everything is put into His hands. We have in John, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”. Isaac prefigures this. “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest”, (Genesis 22:2). It was a question of Isaac as being loved, and that is really the position in John’s gospel. The Lord is there in that position — in the Father’s bosom — and all things are in His hand, and especially in regard to the communication of things. Things are to go on in life. Isaac carried the thing forward in life to Jacob.
FNW Is that amplified in the passage: “My sheep [p. 306] hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them life eternal; and they shall never perish, and no one shall seize them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all”, (John 10:27 - 29)?
JTJr That fits in here. It would connect also with Joseph as the shepherd.
APf Would you clarify the idea of the burial place. Is it like “Blessed the dead who die in the Lord”, (Revelation 14:13)?
JTJr Yes; that is the idea. There is security in it. There is to be no more fear in our hearts as to death.
AAT We have referred to John 3:35: “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”. At a previous meeting we spoke of the economy connected with that. Is that the same thought that you have in mind as to administration?
JTJr It is in the sense that we await the incoming of Christ for the fulfilment of all this as to Isaac. We are taking up administration as it came out in the ways of God. It is a question of the way government worked out. God took up Abraham to make a nation of him. God was working out His thoughts in government here. He was not governing directly yet, but He was moving on to that, and we have Isaac as the residence of everything which is passed down from Abraham. Everything is there in Isaac.
GP Herod had John the baptist beheaded but his disciples buried him.
JTJr The burial would show that he was taken care of. The brethren took care of Stephen. We take care of our dead too. Devout men carry the saint to his burial. It is a sight for heaven. Well, the Lord takes the matter over from that point in regard to the bodies of the saints. And so we have Michael disputing with Satan over the body of Moses. It shows what went on afterwards; that things were taken [p. 307] care of.
ANW There is a beautiful word in Romans 14: 9, “For to this end Christ has died and lived again, that he might rule over both dead and living”.
RWS Is there the same administrative power or government in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the sons? Do you look upon it as increased or diversified in any way?
JTJr I think it has not diminished. The thing is maintained on the level on which it was given to Abraham; that is, the promises and counsels were made to Abraham, and then they were confirmed to Isaac and then to Jacob. I think you see the working out of God’s thoughts in government in the way the thing developed in Isaac, then in Jacob and then in his twelve sons.
CN Does chapter 26: 4 help in what you say? It says, “And I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and unto thy seed will I give all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves”.
JTJr Yes; God speaks now to Isaac about what is in His heart in connection with His counsels, and also as has been remarked, in chapter 25, God blessed Abraham’s son Isaac. He is now confirming him, and Isaac has to stand on his own feet, and so it says that he dwelt at Beer-lahai-roi. Then we have his two sons, Jacob and Esau; and I think we should now consider what is in mind as to them. They have the same father and the same mother, but are very different.
CFE Is the thought of expansion brought in here in the two sons of Isaac, and the two nations of which Jehovah speaks to Rebecca?
JTJr Well, I think it has in view our identification of what God is doing. There are two nations, but we need to identify the line of the testimony. That line is in Jacob, and we want to see what that means now. They both have the same father and the same mother. You might say. Why should there be a son like Esau? It says [p. 308] that Rebecca loved Jacob. It does not say here that God loved Jacob, but it says that Rebecca loved him. She is really identified with God’s work, because it comes out later that God loved Jacob. He loved him all the time, and it is for us to see what this means.
CAM I suppose she got the secret from the Lord. What a wonderful thing it is to be in the secret with God!
JTJr I think that is the point. What secrets do we have in our souls about things relating to the testimony?
CAM I suppose the truth is that there may be many amongst us of whom we may be wondering how matters may turn out with them, when we think of our inward soul exercise as to them.
JTJr Quite so.
CAM God has the key to the matter, has He not?
JTJr Well, exactly, and the secret should be in our souls. It is a matter of what God is going to identify Himself with.
RWS Would the discernment be more difficult in the case of Esau than with Ishmael? Esau had the same father and the same mother.
JTJr It is more difficult. There is the same parentage, but you have one kind of son in Jacob and you have another kind in Esau. What we have to judge is. What does it mean?
TEH The prophetic word to Rebecca would help in making a distinction.
GAL Would the struggle turn us to God?
JTJr There is a struggle, and it goes on a great deal of the time; and it comes out that Jacob’s name means Supplanter. Israel means a Wrestler or a Prince. What is now in mind is to see what Jacob really is, and whether we are ready to take that on.
JAP Is there a key in the thought of strength? It says, “And one people shall be stronger than the other people”, verse 23. Does that connect with Romans 1:4, “... marked out Son of God in power”?
JTJr “One people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger”. The strength lay in Jacob. The elder shall serve the younger, is sovereignty. It means that God is going to act in His own way, and we cannot go against that. We will be fighting against God if we try to set aside His sovereign movements. Before the boys had done anything, this was decided.
JHE Paul had to learn that his strength was perfected in weakness (2 Corinthians 12: 9) and that it is, “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”, (Zechariah 4:6).
JTJr Exactly, and that is what Jacob really came to, for he was weakened. God weakened him and changed his name to Israel. He was going through as knowing God. It is a spiritual matter. We come on to what is administrative as connected with a nation when we come to Israel. It is the name that goes through.
Question Are you linking this with the truth of Romans 7?
JTJr It would be like that. It is a struggle against the flesh. Esau really represents the flesh. What is going to supplant it? What is going to get it out of the way? It is a spiritual matter to get the flesh out of the way.
JS Rebecca makes it a matter of prayer.
JTJr She is a wonderful type here of the assembly. We are not speaking of that now, although we will probably have to revert to it, because she is a wonderful type of assembly administration, but our thought now is to get the direct application here of what God is doing to establish a nation to govern things in this world.
CN Are we to learn to displace the first man and be ready for the second? Is that the teaching?
JTJr That is the idea. God’s choice is a sovereign matter. God has chosen Christ. He has chosen us in [p. 310] Christ, too. He has not chosen the flesh. The flesh is set aside.
CN “The first man out of the earth, made of dust; the second man, out of heaven”, (1 Corinthians 15:47).
APT True administration according to God will be seen later in this nation, will it not?
JTJr Exactly; God has not given that up. I think these chapters show how He is establishing the initial thoughts, and what was set up under David and Solomon really is the outcome. God did not divert from what He had in mind.
WCR Is that why the names “of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel”, are in the gates of the heavenly city?
JTJr Quite so. It comes out there. God’s thoughts run right through to the end.
DP Would the personality of Jacob affect the public administration? Isaac had one personality and Jacob another. Jacob worked things out on moral lines. He would make things most practical for us.
JTJr I am sure he does. The practical side comes out in the intervening chapters which we have not time to read, but we know what the history was. In chapter 35 we have, “And the sons of Jacob were twelve”. That position is arrived at. Then, finally, in chapter 37, one man is singled out of the whole family; that is, Joseph.
JC Rebecca said to Jacob, “On me be thy curse”. She was in the secret with God. Romans 7 involves being in secret with God.
JTJr It is a question of the struggle and seeing that the flesh is set aside in us. We learn how to govern ourselves and come under instruction, especially the instruction of the mother Rebecca suggests. Jacob hearkened to her; he was subject to her.
ABP In Hosea 12 it tells us that Jacob took his brother by the heel. Is it mentioned in a commendatory [p. 311] way there?
JTJr I think it is. He is supplanting Esau. We have to get the flesh out of the way.
ABP In Genesis the naming of Jacob seems to suggest a readiness to pre-judge a matter when it breaks out. Behind it there had been a secret struggle. Rebecca knew about it and had the mind of God in relation to it. We can hardly judge of matters that break out until we know the underlying circumstances.
JTJr Well, it should be the exercise of Rebecca to tell her husband. We cannot be sure that she did not. If Isaac was acquainted with what was said to her he was not helped by it. He loved Esau because it suited his flesh; but he was recovered to the right position through his wife. The subjective condition amongst us may help to save the whole position.
TEH It says in Romans 7, “So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law”. Does that mean that I become serviceable in my mind before I finally arrive at the administrative side of things?
JTJr Quite so. Isaac is now before us. It is a question of his communicating things to Jacob, but Jacob comes in in this chapter to show that God is moving sovereignly and He is making a selection. The elder shall serve the younger. He carries that principle through and nobody is going to change it.
APT The blessing really came through Isaac, although he did not want it to come that way.
JTJr It comes that way. Isaac had it, and he blessed Jacob. Think of what he made him! Think of what he says to Esau about him! He commits everything to Jacob. So he says to Esau, “I have made him lord over thee”, (Genesis 27:37). He could not change it.
RWS “Also blessed he shall be”. He does not change his mind at a time when we might think he would. “Blessed he shall be”. Nothing can change it.
APT In incidents like this there may be the possibility of diverting from God’s administrative idea. It might be said. Look at what he did to Esau. That would be lack of spiritual vision on our part.
JTJr The thing to see is that Isaac blessed Jacob. He did it, and what he conveyed to Jacob remained.
JHE Everything is ‘Yea and Amen’ in Christ.
ANW It is striking how Isaac not only blessed Jacob, but he said, “Cursed be they that curse thee, and blessed be they that bless thee”, verse 29. A further blessing comes on those that bless the Jacob element. While Esau shows strength, it is in a lawless way: “And it shall come to pass when thou rovest about, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck”, verse 40. The character of Esau’s strength is lawlessness.
JTJr I think it is important to see that the blessing comes through Isaac in spite of his failure. What had been committed to him by Abraham is committed to Jacob. There is no doubt about it. He says, “I have made him lord”. I have done it.
Question Did he do it instinctively or under the overruling hand of God?
JTJr You could not say it was not a spiritual matter, because Isaac is conveying something from God. He is doing it in a spiritual sense — conveying something that is going to remain.
JAP He did it by faith, according to Hebrews 11.
JTJr He had the full idea in his mind of what God had conveyed to him.
ABP God confirms the word, in part, through Balaam: “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee”, (Numbers 24:9).
JTJr The curse in verse 29 would show that it is positive; that persons may be on that line; that instead of coming into the blessing, they are cursing, and really that was Esau’s line. It showed itself in Doeg and others; the way they would act in regard to the people of [p. 313] God.
JG Do we see the positive side working out when Jacob crossed his hands wittingly in blessing Ephraim and Manasseh?
JTJr That brings out another matter in regard to Jacob; that he was really greater than Joseph, and he was greater than Pharaoh. Jacob maintains what has been committed to him right through. It is the spiritual line. He crossed his hands.
AR Edom is still a hater.
JTJr It is a line of things that comes very close to us. It is the working of the flesh amongst us over against the sovereign line of what God has chosen. It is what flows out from fleshly feelings over against the sovereign movements of God amongst His people.
TEH Would you say love makes way for administration? First Abraham loved Isaac, and then Jacob is loved. It seems to make way for administration.
JTJr That is a fine thought. Love is to operate in the family that God is choosing. That comes out in John’s ministry. The kingdom is a love kingdom. It says of Solomon that Jehovah loved him. There is no kingdom like that amongst the nations at the present time but God had it in Israel, and He has it now in the assembly.
ANW Paul, in the epistle to the Colossians, says, “... the kingdom of the Son of his love”.
AR The line in John’s epistles is that you either love or hate.
JTJr And Cain is brought in there.
CN There is a very reassuring word in Genesis 28:4. The blessing of Isaac is repeated, and it says, “And may he give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee, in order that thou mayest possess the land of thy sojourning, which God gave to Abraham!”
JTJr Yes, and Isaac’s charge to Jacob fits in with the exercises of the present time in regard to marriages. Abraham had great consideration for the marital line.
[p. 314] Rebecca now brings it forward, and Isaac rises to it. He takes Jacob and charges him as to getting a wife and where she was to be found. He charges him about this important matter.
ANW It really seems like a second blessing. It is a very beautiful word, “And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him. Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan”, (Genesis 28:1).
JTJr It came in first in Abraham and then in Isaac. The heavenly line is to be maintained. Isaac has been alluded to as the heavenly man. We want to maintain things on the heavenly level. We are not to let them out of the family; God says, as it were, I want everything in the family.
CN Is administration further seen in verse 5? It says, “And Isaac sent away Jacob”.
JTJr Quite so; you might say that is the way things work out if one is with God. The matter will originate with Him, and we will be subject, ready to be sent to the very place to which we should go.
WFK When Isaac failed, through blindness, did Rebecca carry on the administration?
JTJr I think so; the thing is maintained in her, because she acts at once to offset what Satan was at. Satan is behind these things to try to interfere with what God is doing, and Rebecca meets the thing at once and moves in line with the love of God, for it says that she loved Jacob.
AR The father and mother were united in this matter.
JTJr Isaac comes to it. He is in his full spiritual senses now.
AR Mixed marriages can usually be attributed to failure in the parents.
JTJr I think it is lack of faith and lack of spiritual power [p. 315] in the house.
TEH In Daniel 2:49 it says, “And Daniel requested of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego over the administration of the province of Babylon. And Daniel was in the gate of the king”. If we are prepared to go through suffering as Daniel did, under the conditions that we face today, then we are prepared to be with him in the gate.
JTJr His name connects with Daniel Dan means Judge. It says in chapter 49:16, “Dan will judge his people”. So the idea of judgment comes in with Dan and it shows up in Daniel. What a judge he was! He became president. His name means. God is judge.
APT Would Elimelech really be responsible for the wives that his sons took because he took them down to Moab? He and his wife went down there in a crisis. Is there something in that?
JTJr I think so. What happened? The sons never came back. They died. That is a sorrowful matter. Naomi came back empty. So it shows what might happen if we do not come under a charge. This idea of a charge is important. The Lord charged His disciples.
It means that something is conveyed to persons. He communicated something in charging them. That is really the whole idea in these men: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Something is carried right down through each of them, and this truth as to marriage was to be maintained in Israel.
GAL Paul says to Timothy, “This charge, my child Timotheus, I commit to thee”, (1 Timothy 1:18).
ANW Esau saw that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother. Young people nowadays arrive at an age when they think they need not obey their fathers and mothers any more. Here is a full-grown man who obeyed his father and mother in regard to this important matter.
RDG Esau sees that and becomes an imitator but [p. 316] only adds to his own confusion by marrying into the family of Ishmael.
JTJr Ishmael has twelve princes; he has his administrative line too. Persons may say, ‘They look all right; Abraham is the father’. Isaac says, in effect, ‘You go where I direct you’. It is a matter of a charge. This communication has come right down to us at the present time. It is to govern us as to marriage. These chapters lead us to the change of Jacob’s name. Jacob gets his name changed to Israel, implying that he is a prince and a wrestler. What wrestlings we have had! They are going on all the time. The battle is on and Esau and that line of things is against us. It is a matter of wrestling; having power with God and with men. The administrative position comes before us immediately after the change of name in chapter 35. We have Jacob and the twelve.
ABP Would Ishmael and his twelve princes, or dukes, represent a system having a form of godliness but denying its power?
JTJr I think it would; what the Lord had to do with. They said. We have Abraham for our father. Ishmael could say that.
ABP It would be the system that the Galatians had to combat.
JTJr Wrong mothers; it is a legal system. All that came out in Jacob’s family really is the result of struggle. The struggling that is going on amongst us should lead us to self-judgment. It should lead us to Judah’s line and if Judah’s line shows itself amongst us we will get right individually and help others to get right.
JS We are to acquire power on moral lines.
JTJr Quite so. The royal tribe is suggested in Judah, but what comes out in him before that is that he judged himself. He was ready to die for his brother. That is the true basis of government, that you are ready to die for [p. 317] your brother.
APT The flesh having any place will break down administration.
JTJr I am sure it will. There will be an exposure of evil feelings. How that showed itself against Joseph! Think of the evil feelings of his brethren against a brother who had a secret revelation from God as to what was going to take place.
APT God would help us to judge the flesh, so as not to interfere with the normal administrative side of the truth.
JTJr And to see where love is. It is a love line. It comes right through Abraham and now to Joseph Jacob loved Joseph We want to fix our view upon what Joseph represents, because he is lovable.
JHE What help we will get from our great Lover! John says, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”, (1 John 3:16).
JTJr One person is singled out of all the twelve sons of Jacob as being loved. That is what marks him. He is hated by his brethren on this account and when he begins to prophesy their hatred is still greater.
RWS “These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph ...” (Genesis 37:2).
JTJr We know that is Christ typically. We know that the Lord is alluded to here, and also the hard way that He came, going through sufferings; going through all the trials of His pathway, and being rejected. Having gone through that way He is exalted. But now at the present time, we need to see that what is being singled out by God is what is lovable. I mean that if we want to apply this at the present time and be in administrative matters, let us be lovable; let us not afflict anyone; let us not irritate the saints. We want to be lovable.
FNW In Revelation 21, where administration is seen in its glory, the city is described as the bride, the Lamb’s wife. The love side runs right [p. 318] through.
AR Paul says that if we do not have love, we are nothing.
JTJr (1 Corinthians 13) is a love chapter. The apostle is talking about himself, that if he does not have love, he has nothing. It is a question of what I have. If I do not have it, I am nothing. Joseph set out the principle of what was lovable.
EEH It seems to be in Jacob’s favour that he loved Joseph, as if his love was directed differently from Isaac’s.
JTJr Jacob is on right lines.
AR Why are we so tested in our localities as to this matter?
JTJr I think it is because we are not judging ourselves. We may be thinking of the thing in others instead of judging ourselves. We need to see that we are expressing something; that there is something with us that is expressive of love.
APT In Romans 13:8 it says, “He that loves another has fulfilled the law”. In that way the thing has to come out in ourselves.
JTJr Quite so; the struggle is alluded to in Romans 7. You might connect that with the first chapter we have read. If you go that way you begin to see that the love of God has been behind it all, in your heart, and you are moving now in relation to your brethren.
AR Galatians says, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”, chapter 5: 14.
WFK Though Joseph’s brethren hated him, yet he loved them.
JTJr Quite so, and he became the administrator in Egypt, which perhaps is the greatest thought as to administration that we have in Genesis. The book ends with Joseph as a type of Christ as Administrator. We are getting accustomed to that word now in the world,
[p. 319] but God had these thoughts long ago. He had the food matter under control so that everybody was fed. They had plenty of food in Egypt; there was no shortage, because Joseph was handling it.
CAM And what made all the difference between then and now is that there was love. We cannot stress that too much. Joseph’s system connects with the gospel by John. The great power and influence there was in the disciple whom Jesus loved. He could get on with his neighbour because he was closer to Christ than anybody else.
JTJr I think that we have to learn the hard way. Joseph had to learn the hard way, but he had love to bring him through it. He arrived at a point where he was made supreme; he was in charge of everything, and he was able for it. He was not only to be in the position, but he could fill it out.
SJM David went down to help his brethren in the valley of Elah. They chided him, but they did not turn him back.
JTJr That is helpful, because his name means, Beloved. God’s administrators are to be lovable people. They do not hurt people; they are to bring in good conditions, and plenty of food to eat.
APT The Lord Jesus says, “The Father loves the Son”. It is the Father’s settled disposition as to Christ; and then it says later, “On this account the Father loves me”, (John 10:17). He loved Him because He was lovable.
JTJr Our Administrator in heaven is the greatest expression of love Himself, and He is thinking of our needs, and of feeding us.
JS He has food for the whole world.
JTJr He has food for everybody. That is the greatest thought of administration in the book. Joseph has control and the king of Egypt says, in principle, Whatever he tells you to do, do it. Regulate yourself by [p. 320] Joseph came under the control of his father, under the administration of love. Does it show that love is greater than administration?
JTJr It was what he was personally there, not what he was as administrator. The personal side came out, that he loved his brethren.
CN There is a very beautiful word in chapter 37: 15: “And a man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the country; and the man asked him, saying. What seekest thou? And he said, I am seeking my brethren”.
JTJr What a thought that is! Seeking his brethren! Some think that they will move away from the brethren. They say that they are not coming back. They do not understand what they are saying or what they are leaving. They are leaving the brethren. Joseph sets out the true idea. He asks. Where are my brethren? I want to go to them.
JAP It is said of Joseph, “From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel”, (Genesis 49:24). Do you think that Peter takes on that idea from what the Lord said in John 1:42: “Thou shalt be called Cephas (which interpreted is stone)”? In the end of the gospel he is commissioned to shepherd the sheep.
JTJr Yes, I think the stone suggests what is permanent. Love abides; it never fails.
RWS The topmost stone in Peter’s ministry is love. We have that long column of additions in 2 Peter 1:7 which ends with “... in brotherly love love”. Paul, and John, too, finish with the topmost stone of love.
JTJr Along with this we have Judah, who comes in in the blessings of chapter 49. It shows that royalty is in mind, and what the royal line is; that God has royalty in His mind, and it comes out in this family that He has selected. There is no greater idea of royalty than what is seen related to Israel. I suppose much in the [p. 321] world took character from that. We have had a wide selection of scriptures before us, but we arrive at the thought of royalty in Judah and of one man administration in Joseph One man is separated from his brethren.
WFK Is administration seen in Dan also?
JTJr Dan carries the idea of judgment. What is greatly needed in administrative matters is judgment; our being able to segregate and distinguish matters which differ and not to mix them up. “Dan will judge his people”, (Genesis 49:16). We are to separate matters and judge them according to the law. I think Dan means that.