THE SPIRIT AS POWER IN THE BELIEVER
THE SPIRIT AS POWER IN THE BELIEVER
JT I think it might be noted that the epistle to the Romans does not take us beyond what might be called the ministry of Moses; that is, it agrees with that which the ministry of Moses represents. Moses received his commission at mount Horeb, and what was introduced at mount Horeb may be taken to represent the great end in his ministry; that is, the establishment of the service of God here. The people were to serve God at that mountain; and the end of his ministry was to bring that about. The epistle to the Romans qualifies for it in an individual way. The epistles to the Corinthians, especially the first, show the collective side; but neither of those epistles take us out of the wilderness. I think, that taken together, those epistles contemplate what the ministry of Moses typified. I think it helps us greatly to have the types in view when considering New Testament scriptures.
TMG When you say the service of God, what are we to understand?
JT According to Hebrews, our consciences are purged to the end that we might serve the living God. It has reference to our approach to God, and our having to say to Him according to the order that was established in connection with the tabernacle.
Rem “Let my son go that he may serve me”. (Exodus 4:23) “Israel is my son”. (Exodus 4:22)
JT Yes; that was the message to Pharaoh, not directly to Israel. The message to Pharaoh was, “Let my son go”, because the point was to appeal to Pharaoh’s heart. They had that place in God’s purpose, of course; but they were to serve God at mount Horeb. That was where Moses received his commission, and I think a man’s ministry should rise to the height of his commission. Moses did not take the people into the land, but what he did was to establish an order of service to Jehovah at mount Horeb.
JMcF Does that correspond with Luke 1:72 - 75: “to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life”. (Luke 1:72 - 75)
JT I think that is a very appropriate scripture to quote in regard to it. It shows the great end God has in view in delivering us. It is a very important thing to connect the ministry of any servant with his commission, and the circumstances under which he receives it.
WK “To serve” in Luke 1 has reference to approach to God.
JT It is a very great end to have in view, and that it should take place in the wilderness, where things are contrary. Now, Romans 6, I think, corresponds with Marah; that is, the wilderness is definitely accepted in the soul; and there is really no progress until that takes place. The soul bows to the will of God, because the wilderness is the sphere of the divine government. The flesh, in us is not to escape the judgment of God any more than the Egyptians. The bitter waters become sweet as we see that Christ has been into them.
TMG Is that the acceptance of death as our own portion?
JT Yes. The waters, as has often been pointed out, being similar to those of the Red Sea, typify death as God’s judgment. Christ has been into death on account of what we are, and hence death [p. 43] is our portion because of the flesh in us. If the bitter waters of Marah are accepted, we are never disappointed at anything: no circumstances or combination of circumstances will disappoint us.
Ques Is it the acceptance of death here?
JT Yes. We may accept the gospel and regard ourselves justified, and still continue to live on in the flesh; the bitter waters are not drunk; but this is not acceptable to God.
Ques What enables one to accept Marah?
JT Well, I think it is seeing the divine end in view. It is not man in the flesh that God intends to bless. The soul is led to see that God intends to conform us to the image of Christ. The foundation of everything that comes in afterwards in our history is really laid in our souls as we receive the gospel, and the gospel is really the presentation of Christ to the soul. So that the Deliverer is presented, and we are to be formed after that order of man.
Rem And that Man has died and is risen again.
JT If Christ is rightly apprehended in your soul you love Him, and you do not wish to be diverted from Him. What is written of Ruth may be applicable to us; she would die where Naomi died.
Rem You want to be identified with Him, whether in death or in life.
JT Yes. Then chapter 7 takes up another chapter in our history; it treats of our relation to the law. Chapter 8 is the brazen serpent and the springing well. Rahab had light, not only as to what represents the resurrection of Christ, but she had light as to the power of the Spirit; she told the spies what the Lord had done to the Egyptians, and what the people had done to the two kings of the Amorites that were on the other side of Jordan, to Sihon and Og.
Ques What do Sihon and Og stand for?
JT Og was a very big man, and he had a very [p. 44] large bed; it is remarkable that it is recorded of him that his bed was nine cubits long and four cubits wide, and when the Spirit records that, you may depend upon it that it has reference to the kind of man he was; he was slothful, and it is just slothfulness and absence of exercise that hinders us. I have no doubt, that the spiritual apprehension of this chapter enables us to apprehend what is represented by what is recorded. A bed is a place where there is no exercise, Og was a slothful man, and a very big man, and it is only in the power of the Spirit you can overcome that. It is really what we are after the flesh. We have not to go very far to find a big man; doubtless it is what we are in our own eyes after the flesh.
Rem It takes the power of the Spirit to overthrow such a man.
JT Just so; that is how the power of the Spirit is brought into evidence; it is by the overthrow of such a man as that. He would be a man utterly insensible of the rights of others. Conflict with him comes in directly after the springing well is recognised. You come to a point in the history of your soul when you recognise that all power is in the Spirit, so that there is no power in the flesh.
JMcF Where do you find such a man as Og?
JT We have not far to go; you have not to go outside yourself; I mean if you take account of yourself after the flesh.
Rem Mr. Stoney said he once thought that the flesh was stronger than the Spirit.
JT Take a man like Saul of Tarsus; see what he must have been in his own eyes; and the same applies to us all naturally. But Paul says: “no longer live I, but Christ liveth in me;” (Galatians 2:20) there was the overthrow of Og.
Rem It was Christ that was in evidence; Saul of Tarsus was no longer [p. 45] in evidence.
JT Quite so. Oneself is often one’s greatest obstacle in advancing spiritually.
Ques How do you distinguish between this and Canaan?
JT The teaching of this chapter refers to Christians as we are in the flesh; but we are in the light of the condemnation of sin in the flesh, and we have the Holy Spirit. Now, that is a divinely given state; it is of God that it should be so; that while here in the flesh we should have God’s Spirit, and know that sin is condemned in the flesh, and that we are entitled to the inheritance; that is what I call spiritual territory, but it is short of Canaan.
Ques That would answer to the plains of Moab?
JT That is what it is.
TMG Canaan is new creation.
JT Quite so.
WL Romans is the solution of the question of man’s responsibility; but it does not bring us into the domain of the purpose of God.
JT It is a territory for the saints to pass through, but not to live in; it is right so long as you are passing on, but if you live in it you are short of divine purpose; and, as living there, there is nothing to regulate you, because the law at Sinai did not really go beyond the brazen serpent; and the next law that was formulated in Deuteronomy was not intended for the territory on which it was formulated; it was for Canaan, It was given on the plains of Moab, but it was not for that territory. If you live in Moab you have to formulate a code of your own.
Ques Is it not our great danger, to settle down there?
TMG The two and a half tribes stopped short of the purpose of God for them.
JT The plains of Moab as a typical territory represents us as here in the flesh, but as having the Spirit on the ground of the condemnation of [p. 46] sin in the flesh in the death of Christ. Canaan represents what is entirely spiritual, and is outside flesh and blood conditions,
Rem In that state there are exercises, and there is movement.
JT That is the point; you are free of the flesh, and you move on. But the great danger after the brazen serpent, is the Moabite. Now, the Moabite is an unconverted, or worldly Christian relative. No one is more liable to draw you into the world than an unconverted or worldly relative. The Moabite had a link with Israel after the flesh.
Ques Would you say here that though you have not reached the purpose of God, you are in the light of it?
JT This chapter sets you in the full light of the purpose of God, but not yet in Canaan.
Ques If there is exercise and movement, you are moving on to it.
JT Yes; but, as I said, the danger is the Moabitish influence.
Ques You would say this is a state that applies to us so long as we are down here; we may go on in our souls to the purpose of God; but this is true of us as men in the flesh.
JT You may enter into Canaan in the power of the Spirit on special occasions. This Moab is divinely given territory which we must not surrender, but the point is that it should be influenced from Canaan, and not Canaan influenced from it. The two and a half tribes went over into Canaan from the plains of Moab; but their hearts were in Moab for their families were there.
TMG I suppose that would apply to Christians having the truth and not living in the power of it?
JT One who has Canaan in his heart does not in heart live anywhere else; that is his home. But he has to attend to his family duties, and that is [p. 47] very blessed, too, because it is divinely given territory. As head of your house your Canaan experience gives colour to all that you do. So that, instead of your influencing the assembly from Moab, you influence Moab from the assembly.
Rem Your affections and interests are all centred in Canaan, and all your relationships here are influenced accordingly.
JT But if you have to come to the meeting and attend to assembly, affairs as a matter of duty, and if you are glad when it is over that you may get back to your family, you are living in Moab.
TMG That is what the two and a half tribes did.
JT If you go to the meeting simply as a matter of duty, because you have light, and you think you ought to go, and yet you are glad when you are free, and that you can go home; that is living in Moab. I am not disparaging your going for that reason, because it is well that you do go. It was well that the two and a half tribes did go over to fight, but they were really living in Moab. In that case your influence in the assembly cannot be heavenly, and when you go home you want some kind of an outward sign that you belong to the heavenly.
Ques Is that the altar of Ed, Joshua 22:34?
JT Yes. Canaan is the home sphere, so that it is the greatest sphere; the family and business, are minor spheres, though ordained of God, but they are influenced by what you enjoy in Canaan. When the kingdom was established in David and Solomon, they ruled over all that territory, and much more, and that was right; but, then, they lived in Jerusalem.
Rem The influence in Canaan is the influence of divine Persons.
JT Yes; and the dignity of your place with Christ in the heavenlies.
[p. 48] Rem The point is, do we really take delight in that?
JT It should be the chief and constant thought of your heart, because it is there that eternal joys are begun; it is there you touch the eternal order of things — the heavenly joys.
TMG Mr. Stoney used to say we taste the joys of home before we go home.
JT So that Romans 8 opens up wonderful light as to us. It is not the final thought for us; it prepares us for that.
Ques In what way do you connect what you have touched on with what you said last night in regard to the husband?
JT Well, I connect the marriage thought with the covenant. We are to be to another, to Him who is raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God. God endeavoured to put His thoughts into form with Israel; but when He does a thing the second time He does it permanently. The first is for testing, showing His disposition, that if He could have used Israel He would have done so; that was His disposition. Hence He took up the place of a husband to Israel; there was affection, and He remembered it, Jeremiah 2. He made a covenant with them, and took the place of husband towards them, but the prophets show how far Israel deflected. Hence God has to form new marriage relations, and those relations are in resurrection.
Now, another thought comes up in the following chapter, and that is, that God intended, that certain principles should be maintained in the wilderness in Israel. Moses sums it up in the book of Deuteronomy, saying, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart”. (Deuteronomy 6:5) God intended that that should have taken place in the wilderness; but it fell to the ground. Well, He returns to that thought here in Romans 8; and where it fell to the ground in [p. 49] connection with the first order, it is secured in the second; the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in those who do not walk according to flesh, but according to Spirit.
TMG So that it is really man here according to God.
JT And then it must be remembered that this chapter treats of the Spirit. It is a sort of treatise on the Spirit. It affords light as to what the Spirit is to us; and the effect of that is that you are independent of the flesh.
Ques Why is the Spirit so prominent, and so often mentioned? It is often said the Spirit is never an object.
JT It is in this chapter. In chapter 7 you have learned what the flesh is, but you have no power to overcome it. Here you have the power.
Ques Is it that you turn to the Spirit instead of to the flesh?
JT Yes; we turn to the Spirit. But, as I said at the beginning, we must remember that this is the ministry of Moses; that is to say, the well was dug in Numbers 21, “at the direction of the lawgiver”. The authority of the Lord is always in evidence in Romans.
TMG Yes, because it is man here, and what man ought to be.
JT So that whilst you recognise the Spirit, it is in connection with the Lord. If you read down the chapter you will see that the Spirit supports you in everything; we get there what the Spirit is for the believer.
Ques In the last verse of chapter 7 it says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin”. (Romans 7:25) Is that connected with the brazen serpent aspect; the soul apprehends [p. 50] Christ Jesus in that way as the One who had put an end to the flesh?
JT Yes. The serpent was lifted up upon a pole so that it could be seen; hence it is Christ presented as the Deliverer from the state in which you were. Then the opening verses of chapter 8 introduce the bearing of the brazen serpent. “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh”. It is the impotency of the law. What it could not do, God did, for sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.
Ques You would connect the last verse of chapter 7 with the third verse of chapter 8.
JT Quite so. So that after sin is condemned in the flesh, it is something that you need not notice any more. The flesh may suggest many things in you, as it will; as the apostle says here, “it serves the law of sin;” but if God has condemned it, you need not take any notice of it.
Rem You need not recognise it.
JT If God has condemned it you are entitled to condemn it.
Rem And then you would get the good of the Spirit.
JT Quite so. But before the death of Christ you could not take the ground that God had condemned sin in the flesh, because God was owning man in the flesh, and it was in that connection that the flesh had such power. We have very little conception of what the early believers had to suffer from those who had formerly been owned of God.
Ques Well, then, the flesh is the state; but what about the mind of the flesh?
JT That is the energising thing. But many people are greatly harassed in their souls, because they do not take account of the flesh as a condemned thing. You are not under any obligation to it at all;
[p. 51] it is there, but it has no legal claim on you any more; God has condemned it; He has condemned sin in it.
WL We are not responsible for what it is, but for what it does.
JT This chapter, as I said, is a full statement as to the value of the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer. It is not a question of the Spirit in the assembly exactly, but the Spirit indwelling the believer.
Rem It is not exactly Isaac having his place, as in Galatians?
JT The point here is that you give the Spirit His place, and if you do, Christ will have His place.
Rem And it is as under the Lord that the Spirit gets His place.
JT Whilst you are here in flesh and blood you are always under the authority of the Lord. You could not reach the first part of chapter 7 without the Spirit and the knowledge of the condemnation of sin in the flesh; because the earlier verses of that chapter show the end to be reached; that is, we are to be to Another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. The teaching of chapter 7 requires the Spirit. It has often been pointed out that chapter 7 in its structure is similar to a psalm; that is to say, the end to be reached is stated, and then the road by which it is reached.
Ques Do you get eternal life here; it says in verse 13, “if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live?”
JT I do not think life in this chapter goes beyond what you realise of the Spirit in the wilderness; you do not reach the sphere in this chapter; the earlier chapters indicate there is such a sphere. Eternal life is in Christ; that is outside of the flesh altogether; but then you require power to reach that, and this chapter shows the power. But verse [p. 52] 13 is life in view of righteousness, not eternal life. In John 4 the Spirit leads to everlasting life; whereas the point here is that the thoughts of God which He had given expression to in the wilderness should be maintained in the wilderness by Christians.
Rem John starts on this ground.
JT Yes, and He takes you into Canaan at once; he says, “whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life”. (John 3:16) That is Canaan. The Son of man was lifted up in order that the believer should not perish but have everlasting life.
TMG I suppose through all this truth of Romans, God would have what He required here on earth?
JT That is the idea exactly. It is the testimony to every thought of God as regards the earth; that is the epistle to the Romans.
I think the service of God underlies chapter 7; the covenant is there. But the first epistle to the Corinthians runs parallel to this as to the company. It is the individual side here. The epistle to the Romans treats of the individual believer in his relations with God, and everything is adjusted; but then there is a parallel truth in Corinthians which contemplates, not individual believers, but the saints viewed as the assembly. With this the Supper is connected; it is connected with the service of God. It contemplates that in which our wills are set aside.
TMG I think that distinction is very interesting.
JT Corinthians, contemplates the assembly of God as distinct from Jew and Gentile: it is not the assembly in Canaan as in Colossians and Ephesians.