RESURRECTION (2) - THE KIND OF VESSEL IN WHICH THE TESTIMONY IS SET FORTH
[p. 170] RESURRECTION (2) - THE KIND OF VESSEL IN WHICH THE TESTIMONY IS SET FORTH
JT The person seen at the sepulchre here is a “young man”. “And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right, clothed in a white robe”. I think we may take that as a sign of the result of the resurrection as found in this gospel — a “young man”.
RSS What do you mean by result?
JT On the ground of the resurrection we have here the kind of vessel that God uses in the testimony, whereas in Matthew we have the power which is available for the administration of grace.
RSS You think it refers to the writer of the gospel himself?
JT Yes.
WB-s Would that signify energy?
JT I think so. God does not take up a man whose strength is expended. He takes up man in his prime, as we see in the Levites.
AFM A young man sought to follow the Lord on His way to crucifixion. Is there a contrast between that young man and this?
JT I think that young man alluded to Mark himself. That is to say, he was exposed in endeavouring to follow the Lord. But this “young man”, in chapter 16, is clothed with a white robe. That is the garb in which the testimony is to be set forth and sustained in the world.
A.F.M. A spotless robe?
JT Yes. It is very clear that besides energy we must have the clothing suited for the testimony.
WB-s Would Joshua be a type of [p. 171] that? He was a young man who departed not from the tabernacle.
JT I think he is an apt type of the vessel that God takes up in the service of the testimony.
WCR When you say he must have a garment suited for that service, you mean there must be moral fitness?
JT Quite so. Our garments have reference to what encircles us.
AFM The “young men” in John’s epistle are exhorted not to love the world. That would bear on the point.
JLJ You get the young men set forth in the Levites in Numbers 8. They were to serve from twenty-five years old to fifty, and then cease.
JT Yes. It is so all through Scripture. God takes up young men.
AAT Is it not the case that young men are sometimes devoid of wisdom?
JT I do not think that would apply to those who are the product of the resurrection. As a matter of fact, the apostles were all young men. The Lord Himself came forth on His ministry at the age of thirty, and the apostles were all young men when they were commissioned by the Lord to go forth and preach.
AFM The point is that we should keep young.
JT Energy that characterises youthfulness is the point; energy and freshness. That is what the resurrection secures; and there is no growing old.
JLJ Do you think that this depends on our being in the power of resurrection?
JT Yes. The order of humanity that Christ has secured in resurrection is very beautiful. It is marked by freshness and energy, and there is no decay. So that there is no lapsing or decline. You will find that in Mark’s gospel the result of the word sown is “some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred”. (Mark 4:20) There is increase instead of decrease. In Matthew it is decrease, a “hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold”. (Matthew 13:23) There is no decrease in Mark.
JLJ What is the meaning of Numbers 8:25? After fifty years the Levites shall cease waiting upon the service of the tabernacle, but should minister with their brethren in the tent of meeting, and keep the charge.
JT I think the one point in levitical service is, that it is always to be marked by energy. They were to cease before old age set in. In the power of resurrection that is exactly what takes place. There is no decay or decline.
RSS Why is it that you get the descending scale in Matthew in regard to the seed?
JT I think it is the side of human responsibility that is in view there. Mark presents the divine side as in his own case. His end was brighter than his beginning, and in one sense that is what takes place in the history of the assembly. The Lord secures victory at the end. I mean that the assembly is recovered as such. In the last chapter of the Bible we find, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. (Revelation 22:17) There is nothing lost. The assembly is seen in the full energy of affection.
AFM And also in service.
JT Quite so.
AFM Is not Psalm 110 interesting in that connection?
JT What is your thought?
AFM I thought of Christ’s place on high, and then that lovely verse, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in holy splendour from the womb of the morning shall come to thee the dew of thy youth”. (Psalm 110:3)
JT That is very good.
RSS [p. 173] Is the principle that though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day?
JT Exactly. There is no decline, no weakening in the inward man, and it is on that ground that God secures His testimony.
GAT Do you think that if a man is not converted till he is old, he will not be used much of God?
JT As a matter of fact, those whom God uses are taken up when they are young. Would you agree with that?
RSS There are exceptions.
JT They are very rare.
AMcB In the resurrection there is no old age.
JT And so in the levitical service, as has been pointed out, old age did not appear. A man is not in his decline till after fifty really, and so neither the weakness of infancy and boyhood, nor the frailty of age, appeared in their service. They had attained to full physical development before they were introduced into the levitical service; so in the types God showed that His service was to be sustained in the energy of manhood.
RSS At the time of the late Spanish-American war the demand was for young men from eighteen to twenty-five, showing that the principle we are speaking of now applies really in the world in that way. In this country, where there is no standing army, when they need men, this is the material they look for.
AMcB In taking up these things is it not well to remember that one who might be a child in the Lord’s things, apart from age, would not do for the Lord’s service, neither would one who had declined?
JT Yes. It is well to see that the power of resurrection has to be known in the soul. It is in that power only that the testimony can [p. 174] be sustained.
AMcB If that is maintained, there will be freshness all along.
JT Exactly. The Psalms show that.
EHT In connection with energy we have your thought. What about the white robe? Is it analogous to calling “on the Lord out of a pure heart”? (2 Timothy 2:22)
JT That is the idea, purity. But it involves purity in your circumstances also.
JD Will you develop a little the meaning of your expression, order of humanity that Christ has secured in resurrection?
JT It is in contrast to the natural, because what marks the natural, as we see in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, is decline. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them”. (Ecclesiastes 12:1) And then it ends with a melancholy picture: “or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain”. (Ecclesiastes 12:6) That is man in the flesh, the natural man.
JD You are speaking of man now in an intensely moral way.
JT Man in the flesh. Moses alluded to him in the same way in Psalm 90. “The days of our years are threescore years and ten”. (Psalm 90:10) If that was exceeded, it was labour and sorrow.
JD But as to the order of man in resurrection, are you speaking of it in a moral way?
JT In the history of humanity, in the days of Abraham, God began to cut short man’s days, which, I think, governmentally showed God’s wisdom. Had God allowed men to continue to live five or eight hundred years, one can see what a result we should have today. The world would be intolerable; sin would have accumulated to such an extent. I doubt very much whether we have much understanding of what the old man really means in Scripture, and how [p. 175] the body of sin stands connected with him. The longer a man lives in lawlessness, the greater the power of sin in that man. I think, with the increase in number, and age, and experience, there is increase in the power of sin. It is an entire mistake to assume that the power of sin was as great in Adam as when Christ was in the world. The power of sin increases with the race and the number of men in the world and with their mental abilities. The greater mental abilities, the greater the power of sin. So that had God allowed men to live long lives, as in the earlier days of the world, what a terrible world we should have now! For instance; take a man like Napoleon, as an illustration, or other great men that have lived during the last thousand years. Let us suppose they had lived until now, what a world we should have had! God foresaw all that, and He out short man’s days. So that when you come to Moses and Joseph you see the difference. Joseph lived only one hundred and ten years, and yet he was supposed at that time to be an old man. Well, now, I think it was at that point that the idea of eternal life came into evidence; the thought of everlasting life becomes all the more appreciated if men are to live here only a few years, say seventy, instead of seven or eight hundred.
AFM Can you give us a Scripture to show that, or are you simply judging?
JT It is implied in the gospel preached to Abraham. God emphasised death. Death is necessarily emphasised as man’s life is shortened. It occurs more frequently. The oftener the occurrence, the more testimony to its power. “Death reigned from Adam to Moses”, (Romans 5:14) but its reign was intensified as man’s life was shortened. In Genesis 5 men lived seven and nine hundred years. Death was there. It reigned, but its reign was greatly mitigated for the reason that men lived such ages. But when God cut short man’s life the reign of death was emphasised. Now it is at that point you get the gospel. That is to say, the gospel of blessing. Noah preached the gospel, but not the gospel of blessing. Paul speaks of the gospel being preached to Abraham; “In thee shall all nations be blessed”. (Galatians 3:8) These were the conditions, and a young man appears, Isaac, the one in whom Abraham’s hopes are all centred. Abraham saw everything in Isaac. His heart had rested in Ishmael. He saw death everywhere, and that it would come upon himself ere long; but there were the promises to his seed, and so he says, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Genesis 17:18) But it was not to be Ishmael, but Isaac, and so Isaac is born; and when he is weaned Abraham makes a great feast in his house to celebrate the occasion, and I have no doubt it was there that in faith he saw Christ. The Lord says, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad”. (John 8:56)
RSS Why there particularly?
JT Because it was there that Isaac, type of Christ, got his full place. He was enthroned when he was weaned.
RSS And when Ishmael was cast out.
JT Exactly, because he persecuted him that is born after the Spirit. You can see how all Abraham’s hopes were centred in that child, and the child grew to be a young man. Now there is the situation.
EHT What about the order of humanity in resurrection?
JT I was going to add in regard to Isaac, that as a young man Isaac in figure is cut off. It may be well to add, that the offering up of Isaac in no sense implies that death was a necessity on Christ personally. Isaac was to be offered as a sacrifice.
GAT A figure of Christ.
JT Yes. The Lord was out off in comparative [p. 177] youth. He had not attained to even half the age allotted to man.
WB-s “In the midst of my days”, Psalm 102.
JT Exactly.
BTF Is the principal thought in a young man energy?
JT And freshness. That is what will mark the resurrection sphere.
WB-s Will you go on further about Isaac?
JT What exercise of soul Abraham must have had! Death was upon him and upon all, and it was, as I have said, greatly emphasised. In the presence of all that, God proposes blessing for all; and Isaac is the one in whom the blessing is to be, for he is the promised seed, and he is cut off figuratively. The result brings out the true situation, that Isaac is received back from the dead in a figure, in all the bloom and energy of youth. But then he is in type a risen man.
AMcB Where there is no decay.
JT And now it is in him, in that seed, in this man risen, that the blessing is. That is the situation. The necessity for it lies in the strength of sin that is in the old man. If we felt that, we should feel the need for the energy of the new man. The strength of sin is in the old man, so it says, “our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed”. (Romans 6:6) As I was saying, I doubt if we have estimated aright what the body of sin is in its practical working, and how it is displayed in the old man.
EHT The principle of the old order of man is sin.
JT Yes, but it increases as the old man increases, whether numerically or mentally. For instance, had the tower of Babel succeeded, sin would have increased enormously.
R.S.S. For what reason?
JT Because man would have had a centre.
“[p. 178] Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name”. (Genesis 11:4) Centralisation today is the strength of sin.
RSS The thought of name in that connection I never quite understood before.
JT They wanted to have renown; it has been pointed out that name is renown. That is what men are after; the character of the present day is centralisation, and the more centralisation there is apart from God the greater the strength of sin, and it is only in the energy of spiritual youthfulness that we can cope with it.
JB We have to remember that sin is lawlessness.
EHT Centralisation produces the “man of sin”.
JT That is it. He is the outcome of centralisation.
GAT What was the object of building a tower to heaven?
JT It was not that they wanted to get to heaven. They wanted conspicuousness on the earth, that which could be seen.
JB Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom reached to the heavens; so Babylon reached to that point; conspicuousness was in mind.
GAT I thought it was with the object of ignoring God’s way of getting to heaven.
JT They had no thought of getting there. They wanted a name on the earth. So, in result, the earth-dweller is equivalent to an opponent of God; that is, in the light of Christianity, which involves a place in heaven; to want a place on earth is equivalent to opposition to God.
ST Christians walking in the power of the Spirit would be a great check to the power of evil.
JT Quite so. I should like that we might better understand what the old man is, and how it is in him that the body of sin is. Sin had its greatest strength in Jerusalem, because God had owned it [p. 179] and established the first man there. The Lord had to contend with the old man there; Jerusalem was outwardly owned of God and fortified with divine institutions. A great element of the strength of sin in Judaism was that it could lay claim to divine sanction.
ARS Do I understand you to say, in regard of the “young man” seen in the sepulchre, that it is characteristic of Mark’s gospel? Mark speaks of service, and then in John’s epistle the “young men” are characterised by being strong; “the word of God abides in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one”. (1 John 2:14)
JT That is the kind of man in whom the testimony is maintained.
RSS In order to appreciate the qualities of a young man, according to the way you are speaking of him as in resurrection, we need to take account of the great contrast to that in the old man and the development of sin in him.
AAT Is there any connection between the young man we are speaking of and the elders in Hebrews 11?
JT Elders set forth experience. They do not grow old spiritually.
AAT I thought the word elder meant old.
JT It means in Scripture, rather experience. In Revelation 4 and 5, the twenty-four elders around the throne represent experience. They are not old, as we speak, because really in the resurrection world there is no such thing as age. It is everlasting life. It is everlasting freshness and bloom.
WCR It was found with Caleb.
JT And with Moses; he was one hundred and twenty years, and so was an old man in his day, and yet his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated.
BTF You are not speaking now on the line of the order of the house of God, are you?
[p. 180] JT We are speaking of the kind of man in which the testimony is maintained in Christianity, and which will be in display in the millennial world, a world of eternal freshness and vigour being established in resurrection. These features, spiritual freshness and vigour, are what mark those who are realising the power of Christ’s resurrection.
RSS I think what you say in regard to the elder is helpful. Of course there is no one to appoint to such an office now, but at the same time, there are those who would take up that which might fall to them in that way, and what you would look for in such is not exactly years, but experience. You might get an old man with very little experience, or judgment, or wisdom.
JT What marks the elders all the way through in Revelation is, that they have the mind of God. They know things.
RSS “Sir, thou knowest”, for instance.
JT They can explain everything. They can give an account of the saints, Revelation 7:14.
AMcB That is the character in which Moses comes out in Deuteronomy. He is a man of experience.
JT Deuteronomy is very interesting in that way. It shows what Moses was personally. The age assigned to the Levite is very helpful as typical of the energy in which the testimony was to be upheld. The book of Numbers has reference to Christianity, and it refers to the energy in which the testimony is to be maintained now. The age is from twenty-five or thirty years to fifty. That is a man in his prime physically. I think it is very beautiful to think of an order of man in which there is perpetual bloom, and energy, and freshness; this lies in the Spirit. One would like to get hold of that thought. In Romans 6 the old man is said to be crucified. There [p. 181] is a striking fitness in the words, “our old man is crucified”. (Romans 6:6)
AMcB He ought to be crucified.
JT The old man and crucifixion fit morally, because in the old man the strength of sin was seen. The totality of it was seen there. Crucifixion is what answers to that. How obvious it is that we should not “serve sin”.
AMcB Newness of life comes in there too.
JT We are to serve in newness of life. That is the point. In chapter 6 we walk in newness of life, and in chapter 7 we serve in newness of spirit.
JD What is the point reached in chapter 8, “if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”? (Romans 8:10)
JT It is Colossian truth introduced in the epistle to the Romans. He does not say that Christ is in the saints at Rome, but if He is, the body is dead, because the body is the vehicle of sin; but then the Spirit is life in view of righteousness.
JLJ It has reference to the believer’s own personal body.
JT Yes. I think Romans 8 gives us the young man of Mark 16.
WB-s It says of him, “sitting on the right side”, and then in the end of the chapter it says, the Lord “sat on the right hand of God”.
JT The right hand is the symbol of power.
RSS You were remarking a moment ago that you get in Romans 8 the young man.
JT I think Romans is the adjustment of everything on earth. It brings in the man that God sought. Man is recovered according to God, and that involves newness. We get newness of walk in chapter 6 and newness of spirit in chapter 7. The latter is in contrast to the oldness of the letter.
EHT Romans 8 speaks of the Spirit of Christ.
JT I have no doubt that chapter 8 involves [p. 182] the young man. There is the energy and freshness of the Spirit. The chapter shows how it is arrived at in us.
WCR That is how it works out in Numbers 21, after the well is digged and the water springs up.
JT There is no flagging or murmuring after Numbers 21. They set forward. Then Og appears. Some of us have been dwelling on the fact that the size of his bed is mentioned. It was a very large bed, 16 ft by 7 ft, a remarkable size. Og appears after the brazen serpent, and Rahab, in speaking to the two spies, says, we have heard what Jehovah did to the Egyptians at the Red Sea and what the people did to Sihon and to Og. I have no doubt that is an allusion to the energy the people had acquired in the springing well. In that energy Og was overthrown.
LTF What about the big bed?
JT A bed in this connection suggests spiritual slothfulness and weakness. The state described in Romans 8 is the immediate contrast to this. It is man characterised by the Spirit, and therefore marked by energy and freshness.
RSS In the Psalms we are told a good deal of David’s musings on his bed in regard to Jehovah.
JT But spiritual power is acquired in exercise. The bed is the contrast to exercise. See Proverbs 6:9 - 11.
WB-s The paralytic man was on a bed and afterwards he carried it.
JT That is the point, and it is the kind of thing one looks for as a result of resurrection. The Lord would bring in a man who, instead of resting on his bed, could carry his bed. As we have been saying, Romans 8 gives us the idea of the young man, a man in the energy of the Spirit.
JB Walking, “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”. (Romans 8:4)
GAH Up to Numbers 21 is it not more inward [p. 183] and the difficulties in the believer more individual? After that chapter is it not more outward deliverance, but the conflict does not cease, though the nature of the conflict is different? When you get the Spirit it is more for external conflict.
JT Sihon and Og have no reference to such enemies as are contemplated in Ephesians. In Ephesians we are said to be in conflict with spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places. I do not think Sihon and Og typify that, but rather a warfare that is carried on inwardly. I do not think that Romans gives us conflict for the testimony exactly. It has reference to your inward experience.
RSS But the conflict in regard to the testimony is in Ephesians.
JLJ You were saying there is no murmuring after Numbers 21. What about chapter 32, where the two and a half tribes want to stay this side of Jordan?
JT They did not want to go into Canaan. That is type of those who, although they have the Spirit, and have light as to the assembly and are prepared to fight for it, but live in their families and businesses. That is what we are all exposed to.
WLP Is not that a dangerous position to be in? You cannot stay there.
JT You are sure to be taken captive if you continue to live there. There is not the protection that there is in Canaan.
But I suppose it is well to keep the point of our chapter before us, the “young man”. That is the order of man in whom the testimony is maintained in the present time.
AMcB Will you say a little more on Romans 8?
JT It is a chapter of the greatest interest, and I believe that, carefully considered, we shall see that it presents this energy and freshness that we are dwelling [p. 184] upon.
AMcB The chapter begins with everything ended as regards the old man and everything new in Christ Jesus; and then, at the end, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and the love of God.
JT The latter part of the chapter corresponds with the prophecies of Balaam. The saints are seen in the light of God’s mind. There is no divination against them, and they are more than conquerors through Him that loves them.
WB-s The “young man” here speaks of Jesus in connection with a then despised place from which He came; “Jesus of Nazareth”. He then speaks of the crucifixion and the resurrection, and then as to seeing the Lord in Galilee, the outside place. As we accept contempt and crucifixion we realise the power of resurrection; then the outside place corresponds with this.
JT When Barnabas forsook Paul, Timothy appears as a young man. Paul took him and circumcised him, and he is the one in whom the energy is continued after Paul’s departure. I think it is very suggestive, as if the thing is to be continued in the energy of youth.
RSS What we are considering has a good deal in it for our younger brethren.
JT I think so. Now the older ones necessarily have great exercise as to who will be exercised as to the maintenance of the testimony if they are removed. Take an old brother who has been through the school of God’s discipline, and has come to the end of his years. He is now really in accord with the ark of the covenant. The Lord said to Peter, “When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not”. (John 21:18) That is to say, at the end of [p. 185] his days Peter would be absolutely in accord, with the ark of the covenant; his will would be fully gone. Well, you would think, why is not Peter left here? He seemed to be the kind of man to leave. But he says, “I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me”. (2 Peter 1:14) His body was a tabernacle. The tabernacle was in accord with the ark. So that it would seem as though Peter would be the one to leave here, or Paul. Why did not the Lord perform a miracle and continue these men? But the Lord would love to bring in others like them. If He has wrought mightily in Peter, He can do so in another. I believe the promise to the children has the testimony in view. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right”. It is “the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth”. (Ephesians 6:1 - 3) If one’s days are long on the earth, it is that they may be identified with the testimony. It is right in that sense to have a desire to live, and therefore the “commandment with promise” is an encouragement to that desire, and the way to it is to recognise the authority that is placed in the parent. If you recognise that, you will have long life; but then if you recognise that authority as God’s authority, you will come to recognise the ark of the covenant, because the ark of the covenant refers to One who recognised the will of God. If you are left to live long on the earth, it is that you may be identified with that.
RSS The tables of stone were there.
JT They represented the will of God. That is how the youth among the saints are brought in to take up the line of testimony. They learn it from the parents. It is right to want to live in connection with the testimony, and therefore if the young recognise the authority in the parent, they will come into levitical service [p. 186] in time.
WCR Do you mean by that, that they first learn subjection to their parents and then subjection to the will of God?
JT Yes. It is very gracious of God to place authority in the parent. If authority is placed in the parent who loves you, you will accept it and submit yourself all the easier; that is God’s grace. And really God has, from the outset, placed a testimony in the human race to almost everything that should come in afterwards. The authority placed in the parent at the outset is a testimony, that God in grace has placed there. A child can recognise authority in a parent easier than in Christ, whom he does not see, but recognising it in the parent he recognises it in Christ.
ST Paul speaks of Timothy as “my own son in the faith”. (1 Timothy 1:2) And Peter speaks of “Marcus my son”. The apostles were fathers in the faith to these men.
JT Quite so. The older brethren, who are exercised, naturally consider for the testimony, as to whether the youth among the saints accept any obligation as to it. If you bow to the authority of the Lord in the parent you will become a Levite, and all your desires will be met and your life will be long on the earth, but it will be in levitical service.
RSS Explain that.
JT Because long life for the child is made to depend on his bowing to the will of God. You live on the ground of carrying out the will of God. If you begin that way and continue in it, you come to love the will of God, and eventually you see how it is all in Christ, and so you love Him as the ark of the testimony.
RSS How does this make you a Levite?
JT Because a Levite loves the testimony.
AMcB In 1 Corinthians the apostle says that he baptised the household of Stephanas, and in the last chapter he says of that same household, “they [p. 187] have addicted, themselves to the ministry of the saints”. (1 Corinthians 16:15)
JT I would not baptise a child except in view of the testimony. I mean that I would have in mind that the child is to be a vessel of the testimony.
WLP You would not care to baptise the child of those who are not in touch with the testimony?
JT Faith is not lawless. It is the opposite. Faith bows to God’s will. You see these children are to replace their parents. That child is here, under God, to replace its parents. You have that in view. Baptism has that in view.
RSS Baptism “for the dead”.
JT To fill up the gap. If the parents pass away the children should take their place.
WCR You made a remark as to whether we were justified in speaking of the conversion of the children of Christian parents.
JT Conversion is turning to God from a path of unbelief. Now the children of Christian parents are regarded as already in relation with God from the outset. They are said to be “holy”.
RSS Conversion is from unbelief and lawlessness.
AFM You expect that God would work in the child, however.
JT The child must become a subject of God’s sovereign work, of course.
AFM And learn the grace of God.
JT But he does. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season”. (Hebrews 11:23 - 25) That is the order. That is to say, Moses came into fellowship with the people of God when he was come to years,
[p. 188] and as coming into fellowship with them he is taken up for the testimony of God.
EHT Do you think his parents were in the light of the testimony?
JT I believe they saw something of the beauty of Christ in the child.
AFM And their faith as to him was in the light of that.
JT When he comes to years he puts out his hand to God’s people; he identifies himself with them. And then God takes him up as a vessel of the testimony.
LTF Would you say that such have not pursued the path of lawlessness and unbelief?
JT Yes, and they are already regarded as the Lord’s. I am not, of course, denying that if the child of a Christian parent turns aside he needs conversion. He does. I am speaking of the thing viewed normally.
JB In regard to Timothy, do we not get him brought out in the epistle as an antitype of the Levite?
JT Yes. I think levitical service is seen in the epistles to Timothy in a marked way.
GAT I like what you say about Moses, that God did not use him till he comes into fellowship with the people of God.
JT Neither does He use us. The idea of coming into fellowship is that you commit yourself to the people of God; and no one knew better than Moses how much reproach was attached to that people; he identified himself with them in spite of that.
GAT You would not apply that to us today?
JT I think the child has to come into fellowship with the people of God. The parent, as a parent, has nothing to do with bringing the child into fellowship. If the parent does that, he is likely to do damage. The child comes into fellowship when he has spiritually “come to years”. Moses refused, the court of Pharaoh and chose the people of God.
E Must there be a personal belief on the part of the candidate for baptism?
JT It demands belief in the head of the house, or in a person converted from heathendom.
E “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved”.
JS I suppose you alter the position of the child by baptism, but you can never alter the condition.
JT That is it. The Israelites are said to have crossed the Red Sea by faith.
AFM The children went through.
JT It was an act of faith on the part of the people. This refers to baptism being understood by those who are committed to it.
WCR Therefore salvation was connected with it. As it is in Mark 16: “he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved”.
JT Quite so. But it is important in connection with the question raised as to those who are to take up the testimony. The testimony should be in view in their baptism.