EXTRACTS

So that the first sign is that He manifested His glory. What is the effect? The effect is that the disciples, already believing, believed on Him. That is another thing John has in view, true believers in Christ. So in the verse I read, “While ye have the light, believe in the light”.

Believe in the light. Now the light, whatever it may be, whatever comes from God is to be believed, and let no one turn a blind eye. I was going to say a deaf ear, but it is a question of the light to the eye. It is a serious matter to turn a blind eye to divine light so that you do not see. A person says, ‘I do not see it’; that is, you are blind or you are wilful. The first thing you get in this gospel in regard of the Spirit is that John saw Him. “I saw the Spirit”, he says, “descending and ... it abode”. That is the point. Indeed, He that sent him to baptise told him, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”. Hence the importance, dear brethren, I do urge with feeling, to keep your eye open, your spiritual eye, and keep it single. Matthew says that the lamp of the body is the eye, and if thine eye be single, or simple, thy whole body is full of light, full. A very remarkable figure that! You know there is not one bit of darkness when the eye is single, but if thine eye be evil thy whole body is darkness, thy whole body. You may profess to be a believer on Christ and in fellowship, even pretending to be defending the truth and yet every movement of yours be darkness if your eye is not single. It is not only what people say, but what they do, where they go, all is darkness, the Lord says according to Matthew’s record. Then, “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great the darkness!”. So it is, alas, with our brethren in bodies around who have left the path of light. How great is the darkness! Better if they had never been out. That is a solemn warning to us to keep a single eye, for if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is it! I become an imitation. That is the worst kind of opposition to the truth; the worst kind of darkness is imitation.

J. Taylor (Vol. 89, pp.14, 15)

In 1 Corinthians 12 you have the Spirit as the motive power, as it were, of things; in chapter 13 you have the love; and in chapter 14 you have the intelligence. It is in chapter 14 that it is said, “God is in you of a truth”; in the midst of a people who are intelligent, who are intelligent in God’s word, by coming to listen to Christ; that is how we become intelligent. Everything that you do in the assembly now is not only the fruit of love, it is governed by intelligence. As I have often said in regard to actions in the assembly, the point is to be governed by the light that governs the position. Whatever determines the position, determines the light that governs it. There is light to govern every position. Take the gospel of Matthew. One feature of it is that there is a new kind of legislation. The Lord says, “I say unto you”.

Well now, the point for us to inquire is, What has He said about this position; what is His mind about that difficulty? Whatever is His mind about it, that is the light that governs it, and your action is to be governed by that mind, and that is acquired by headship.

J. Taylor (Vol. 6, p.393)

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