GOD'S WAY LEADS TO THE GLORY
GOD’S WAY LEADS TO THE GLORY
JT In suggesting this scripture my thought was that it answers to our brother’s wish — the consideration of the divine way as leading to the glory. God’s way is in the sanctuary, and His way is in the sea; and I thought we might see from this section of Scripture, that is, beginning from chapter 20, that evidently His way is with the object in view of taking His people out of this world, and establishing them in connection with another system of things; that is the great end that God has before Him.
Rem It is God’s delight to have His people near Him; to gather them around Himself.
JSA What is in view here is that He is carrying them up from where they were to the point where He would have them to be.
JT And He says, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest”. It is a great thing to see that God begins in the securing of what is for His pleasure. In chapter 20 He asserts His rights. It is clear that unless God’s rights are owned the thought of God’s people moving out of this world, and being suited to God’s world, cannot be brought in.
Ques How would you describe His righteousness coming out in chapter 20?
JT Well, I think the law is the principle of it. It is the assertion of God’s rights over us; these must be recognised. I think, when it is recognised then you have the unfolding of the divine way. God’s divine way is in the sanctuary; and the sanctuary is unfolded in chapter 25.
Rem You say the rights of God have to be first [p. 66] acknowledged.
JT I think so. Apart from that you never get any light.
WK What do you mean by the rights of God?
JT Well, He has a right to man’s affections. “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself”, (Luke 10:27). I think God delights in seeing the saints loving one another. It seems to me that if these things were recognised there would sure to be light. God’s way is made clear.
WK Yes; by God’s rights you mean what is due or becoming to render to Him.
JT Yes. God was never fully recognised in His rights until Christ became Man. The law was never really answered to until Christ became Man; and He not only recognised the law, but He magnified it and made it honourable..
JSA God never gave up His rights, though He was denied them until the Lord came.
JT I think it is consequent upon that we have the opening up of the divine secret. It is evident, that God must be recognised in man before He begins to unfold what is in His mind. There must be the full answer in man to what is of God. Christ answers to all that; He answers to the tabernacle.
Ques You referred to two passages in Psalm 77, “Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary;” (Psalm 77:13) and, “Thy way is in the sea”. (Psalm 77:19) What does the first of these convey to us?
JT The first conveys to my mind what was communicated to Moses on the mount. Every divine thought was to find its fulfilment in Christ. But I think that before that takes place there was in Christ a full answer to what man should be for God. The Lord becomes Man; takes up everything due to God, and recognises it.
Ques Would you say that what is set forth in [p. 67] the type of Exodus is really the unfolding of what Christ is as Man?
JT If you have a Man who answers in every way to God’s requirements, God has His Vessel. We know that Christ was the divine Vessel. If you have God’s will answered to in every way here, you have the ark of the covenant.
JSA Until you have the perfect answer in Christ to what God looks for in man, you cannot have the gospel in its full sense. You must have the Man that answers to God before you can have God’s thought about man.
Ques Would you say here that God proposes to go on with Moses after the breakdown, really on the ground of what is set forth in Christ?
JT Yes. We get the idea of the Mediator prior to this. Moses says, “Peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin”, (Exodus 32:30) but we know he could not. Directly Christ becomes Man, God reveals His thoughts, and goes back to the beginning, what man should be first, what Adam should have been and then what Israel should be; all that must come before you could have the unfolding of God’s thoughts to man.
Rem It really needed Christ to come in, in that way, for God.
JT Yes; then Christ becomes the Vessel. God has His Vessel, so to speak; and having Christ, then all His thoughts become unfolded. I think the tabernacle is the unfolding in type of what God had in His mind for man. So that “Thy way is in the sanctuary” necessitates our inquiry as to all that is in the sanctuary, or the tabernacle.
JSA I was thinking only this morning in reference to what you have just said, of the beginning of Hebrews 9, where, you get a list of the things seen in the holiest of all; they really referred to God’s ways in bringing the people along; the manna, and [p. 68] the rod; they were there for God; He saw Christ in them.
I think, referring to what you were saying just now, that it would be impossible for God to make any complete revelation of His testimony until there was a complete answer to what God was. He could not set it forth completely in testimony. It might be figurative, but not complete; and therefore it is of immense importance to see what Christ was here for God.
JT Think of such a scripture as this; He was “heard because of his piety!” (Hebrews 5:7)
Ques How do you understand that?
JT He was heard on the ground of what He was as Man, and thus He was a pattern of the order of man that is pleasing to God.
Rem “I knew that thou hearest me always”, (John 11:42) and “I do always those things that please him”, (John 8:29)
Rem “He that doeth these things shall live by them”. (Romans 10:5) That was only true of the Lord, but it was true of Him.
JT Then you have the unfolding of the mind of God, that all must be effected through death. So the Lord goes up to the mount of transfiguration, and there the idea of the tabernacle was suggested. Peter thought of three tabernacles, but the cloud overshadowed them and the voice said, “This is my beloved Son, hear him”. (Luke 9:35) Now, Moses and Elias were there, and what they were speaking of was not what Moses had been hearing on mount Sinai. What they were speaking of was the means of accomplishing that, of effectuating it; that was His death. The mind of God was unfolded in the sanctuary, but how was that to be effectuated? What Moses and Elias were occupied with on the mount of glory was how it was to be effectuated; and that was by His decease. The Lord went down from the mount of [p. 69] transfiguration to die, so that it all might be effectuated.
Rem All that God was is declared in Christ now?
JT I think so. He went down to Jerusalem to die. They spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.
Rem So that now it is not the same with us as it was with Moses; Moses only saw God’s back parts.
JT Quite so; and that leads on to what I was speaking of as to the glory. We see the way that we shall reach the glory. The Lord went down! they marvelled, they wondered at Him; even His disciples wondered to see the deliberation with which He went down to die. If you follow that way in your soul you reach the glory; because that is the way the Lord went to glory.
JSA Will you explain a little more what it is to reach the glory. Do you mean to reach it in our souls?
JT I was thinking of Stephen; he saw into glory. The Lord’s footsteps were there and Stephen followed after the Lord, and the result is, he says, “I see the glory of God”.
SL “Thy way is in the sea”. (Psalm 77:19) Is that His death?
JT Yes, I think so. His path is in great waters; and I think Stephen went there; Stephen followed the Lord’s footsteps.
Ques Would you say that means that we must accept death for ourselves here, and in going that way morally we reach the glory?
JT Yes; and Stephen sees the glory of God in the face of Jesus. The question is, Who appreciates the glory? Only the man who accepts the will of God here.
Ques In accepting the will of God do you mean [p. 70] really accepting the One who has established the right to live here, and who has gone into death?
JT Yes; the apostle Paul says, “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”; (2 Corinthians 4:10) that is, the dying of that Man. He had been speaking of the glory, and he says he saw in it the face of Jesus; these were his thoughts, and then he says, “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”. (2 Corinthians 4:10)
JSA Would you say that you get His way in the Supper?
JT I think so. The bread is the symbol of the Lord’s body. I never think of it thus without introducing into it the idea of God’s will. He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will”, (Hebrews 10:9) and “a body hast thou prepared me”. (Hebrews 10:5) I do not see that the Supper could be enjoyed apart from that. The Lord’s body is that in which God’s will was carried out. Well, He died in that body,
Rem It is a wonderful thought that the body of the believer can be presented as a living sacrifice. He carried out God’s will here; and our bodies ought to be for the will of God too.
JT If that is so, there is room for the Spirit. The body of Christ is that in which you have the reproduction of Christ, and the idea of that reproduction is that there is that here which answers to God’s mind.
Ques Do we come into that here practically?
JT I think it is a great thing to accept it. I was thinking this morning that if you recognise the light you make room for the Spirit. Disregard your own feelings altogether; recognise the light. If you accept that as a principle, the next question is; are you going to be controlled by the light? If you are, you disallow your own will. We are one bread, for we are all made partakers of the same loaf.
[p. 71] Rem It is not submission in a legal way; it is through the affections.
JT I think it is a great thing to recognise the light that is intended to govern any given position. If we recognise the light there is room made for the Spirit.
Ques Does not light come to us in the gospel?.
JT It does.
Rem God is light. If Christ is the revelation, if He is light and the light is the life of men, is not that the unfolding of what God is? The knowledge of God is light.
JT Yes, quite so. God was, so to say, placed under a necessity of removing lawlessness, and what gave the Lord peculiar pleasure was, that on the cross He removed the lawless man.
Ques By the lawless man you mean the man who does his own will instead of the will of God.
JT Yes; “Lo, I come to do thy will”. (Hebrews 10:9) There was not another to do it. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. (Matthew 6:10) There was a Man here answering to God’s will; and that Man removes the lawless man.
JSA Mr. Raven made a very striking remark: he said, The lake of fire was a proof of the love of God. It means just that God being what He is. He must remove everything that is contrary to Himself.
Rem The obedient Man comes in to remove the lawless man.
JT Therefore the lawless man cast out the only law-abiding Man that ever was on the earth. On the other hand, the Lord removed the lawless man vicariously. It was peculiarly delightful to Him that He was removing that which had so much grieved the heart of God.
JSA It is not only the exposing of the lawless man, but the removal of him.
Rem The Lord delighted to do God’s [p. 72] will.
JT I think the body of Christ here is the answer to that. That Man is to be reproduced, and hence the bread in the Lord’s supper represents the body of the Lord on the one hand, and on the other hand it is a symbol of our unity.
JMcF This is certainly on a line with what was expressed at the beginning; that we should, in our affections, leave this world, and so to speak, enter into the blessedness of another world of which Christ is the centre, another order of things.
JT There has to be a recognition of the will of God before there is any movement on God’s part. I think Saul of Tarsus represents the biggest man here on earth; in him there was the embodiment of the will of man acting against the will of God in testimony. God had been dealing patiently with Jerusalem, offering to send Christ back to them; but they refused this; and the Lord appears to Saul. Saul recognises Him, and he says, “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?” (Acts 9:6) There is the recognition of the Lord, and I think that necessarily preceded the new movement.
Ques Did not God move in reaching Saul of Tarsus?
JT But there was no movement of the testimony until that man’s will was broken. In a sense Saul represented the nation. They will be dealt with in the future as Saul was. Compare 1 Timothy 1:12 - 16.
Ques Was it not indicated, that there was to be a movement of the testimony in what the Lord said to Saul, that he was to be a witness unto all men of what he had seen and heard.
Rem One has to recognise the rights of God; and if you recognise the rights of God, then you are reckoned righteous.
JT Yes.
JSA Someone used to call them the primary
[p. 73] rights of God; and until they are acknowledged nothing can be right in you.
Ques What is meant by “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”? (Revelation 2:7)
JT I think on the one hand there is the Lord’s authority; that is, He sent the messages to the churches; of necessity they carried with them the authority of the Lord. But then there was also what the Spirit said to the churches.
Ques Is the testimony connected with The kingdom aspect of things?
JT I think the kingdom effects it; but the testimony involves all that is in God’s mind.
JSA The testimony really, as I understand it, is connected with the fulfilment of God’s purpose.
JT Moses said, “show me thy glory”, (Exodus 33:18) I think it is a wonderful desire to have, to see the glory.
Ques What do you understand by “thy glory”?
JT I think Christ is the glory of God. Think of Christ as He is now before God! What shining of moral glory there is in Jesus!
Ques What prompted Moses to ask that?
JT I think it was a very right desire. In the presence of the broken law, in the presence of the golden calf, where could the glory of God shine? It refers to the way God accomplishes His purpose. Moses saw it on the mount of transfiguration. Christ was going into death to carry out the will of God.
Ques What do you mean by moral glory?
JT It is every attribute in God’s nature and character being absolutely answered to; it has the full answer in Christ.
Rem In Christ you have both the display and the response.
JT I think Christ is the glory of God. All that God is, found its answer there.
WK Yes, it shines forth there.
JT The psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God;” (Psalm 19:1) he saw there perfect order; there was nothing to interfere with the will of God. Well, what is in Christ is that brought down to earth. There is one Man in whom every thought of God is centred; and that Man goes up there. So Stephen “saw the, glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”. (Acts 7:55)
In the next great rebellion of Israel the Lord says, “all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord;” (Numbers 14:21) that is, that where the lawlessness of man was so manifested. His glory should be displayed. I think Moses would delight in that thought. In the next chapter, Numbers 15, you have the burnt offering. It is very encouraging to see that in the presence of the rebellion of the people, God introduces the burnt offering; and the heavenly colour — “the ribband of blue;” showing how He accomplishes His thoughts in Christ.