THE COMPANY INSIDE
THE COMPANY INSIDE
JBS The first thing to bear in mind is that John 14 is collective. It was spoken at the supper table. I have been in the habit, and I believe many others have, too, of looking at this chapter as individual, but you see it is connected with the company. Only three verses in the chapter are individual - verses 21, 22, 23. All the rest is collective.
It is an immense comfort when you see what the Lord is in the assembly. Even if I cannot go to the meeting, I can learn what He is there. We have here the company which afterwards became the assembly, and we see the position He has there, and what provision He has made for us in this world where He is not. You understand that. do you not?
Answer. Yes, I understand that.
JBS It is a great thing to see what the Lord says, “Let not your heart be troubled”. That is not in reference to some misfortune that has befallen yourself. He does not allude to some private trial.
Rem One has been apt to look at it in connection with one’s individual circumstances.
JBS Exactly, so used I. But you see He says it in connection with what comes out in chapter 13. Supper being ended, or rather supper going on, He rises from supper. It is all inside. I think a great many people have been instructed in chapter 15, which is outside, who have never been inside. Do not you want to be inside?
You have the inside in chapters 13 and 14. This is the beginning of the company; it is very small, but that is the way it began. The Lord is showing to the little company, now reduced to eleven, what He would [p. 375] be to them, before a word is said about going outside. Do you see what I mean?
Answer. I think I do. Do you mean by being inside, being in the Lord’s company?
JBS I mean the Lord’s company in the assembly; that is the place where He is found on earth. In John 15 you are out in the field. Tell me now, when a soldier is enlisted, what do they do with him first? Do they send him to the battlefield?
Answer. Not at first. I suppose they put him through training.
JBS They bring him to the barracks. If a man seeks to be in chapter 15 and has never been in chapter 14, I say he is a raw recruit.
I get immense comfort even though I cannot now go to the assembly, in knowing that the Lord is in the assembly. I may not know what is going on there, but I know what He is. It is an immense comfort to know there is a resource for His own in the time of His rejection, even though everyone does not appropriate it.
Here He rises from supper, which was a figure of His death; and He brings the truth of it to bear upon them in a new way. He girds Himself with a towel, pours water into a basin, and washes their feet. He is rejected, and now if we are to be with Him we must go to Him where He is. There is a new principle. Now He is the living Stone and you must leave everything here to join Him. You must go into the holiest. You cannot join Him anywhere else. But if you are to join Him in that scene of unclouded light then you must have what we get here - the feet-washing - you must be fitted for it.
Ques This chapter is not individual?
JBS No, it is not. Now if you want to know Him, to know His provision, if you want to know what a resource He is for His own, where do you go? Do you go to church? Do [p. 376] you go to Rome?
Answer. You go to Scripture.
JBS No, you go to the assembly. Do you see? He is in the assembly. It is a great thing to get hold of, that He is in the assembly and nowhere else on earth; that is His place now that He is rejected here. I do not mean that He will not manifest Himself to you individually. That is what we find in verse 21, “I will love him, and will manifest myself to him”. That is individual. Now what is feet-washing?
Answer. The Lord’s care for His own, that they may enjoy His company.
JBS Yes, quite right, that they may enjoy His company. I believe a great many who have a good conscience have never had their feet washed.
Ques Is it the word applied?
JBS It is, but still the first great point of the feet-washing is this - you must be fit to be with Him. In John 10: 14, 15 the Lord says, “I ... know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father”. Peter had a good conscience in John 20, but he had not his feet washed until John 21; that is, his heart was not right. Many a man goes on with a good conscience, knowing Christ as his Saviour, but has never come to Him as the Son of God, he has never made acquaintance with Him. I could not tell you what it is, but what He desires is that you should have this acquaintance. He washes their feet, He wants to remove every stain, or what would come in to hinder this intimacy.
Ques If I do not know this intimacy I do not know the washing of the feet?
JBS I believe you are right. The Lord was going to take a new place, you see. I believe that is connected with the holiest of all. It is the same idea. He was going to take a new position, and if His disciples are to join Him there, He must fit them for it. He is in the light, you could not come into the [p. 377] light without this. It is not the advocacy, that has to do with sin. It is not sin here, it is more like what we get with the bride in Song of Songs 5. He is gone away. She was not a transgressor, what she did was only to fall asleep, but there is a shade of distance, there is reserve.
Rem The more you know His company, the more sensitive you are of any distance.
JBS Exactly. Well, that is the first thing. You must study the chapter; we cannot in one reading get through it all. I should like you to get the line of it. First He washes their feet. Then He announces that in that little company of twelve there was one who would betray Him. He presents to them the difficulties of the situation. In that small number, only twelve, you get a sample of the difficulties that belong to this day. First, there was the treachery of Judas; secondly, there was the denial of Peter. The most prominent man among them would deny Him with cursing and swearing. And Judas, I do not think he wished to do the Lord harm, but he wanted to make money by his knowledge of Him. Many are ready to do that, barter their knowledge for money. There was the love of money in Judas; he is exposed, and he goes out, as someone has said, ‘The door that closed on him gone out, shut in the One who is the Source of all’. Man in Judas had gone to the lowest point of evil. Man in the Person of Jesus was raised to the highest point of exaltation. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”, This is all inside, it has nothing to do with the world. Judas, the man whom you might have expected most from, is gone out to barter Him for money. Peter is ready to deny Him. In this state of things it is that chapter 14 opens: “Let not your heart be troubled”. Now what is their resource?
Ques Is He not everything to them in this place?
JBS I want verse 1; you have gone to verse 6. What have we first? I want the order.
Answer. He says, “Believe also in me”.
JBS That is the secret. If you do not have the first, you will not get the second, but you find many believe in God who do not believe in Christ. I do not say they do not believe in His work. Do you understand that?
Answer. I can understand it if you mean that they have not the Person before them.
JBS No, it is not that; but they do not see that the One who was rejected and cast out is the One they must count upon; that all power is given to Him in heaven and on earth. He who has the key of David. Do you count on Him?
You see there are two lines, two chains, as it were, running down the chapter; one is faith, the other is love. Faith goes down to verse 14. Faith is that I live here in the light of what He is. Love is that what love would like love gets, and that is company. Do you see the two lines?
Answer. Yes, I think I do.
JBS You get the first in Ephesians 1: 15, “After I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus”. Having faith in Him you walk about in the consciousness of the resource you have in Him. He is able to bear you up all through the difficulties here. He is not here, but you have faith in Him. “Ye believe in God, believe also in me.” That is the first thing; if you have not got that, you have not got your right place in the assembly. The second thing is, “I go to prepare a place for you”. And what is the third? “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”. If you come by Me, you get the new way - it is still all faith. “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him”.
Then in verse 12 we get another thing: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works [p. 379] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father”. Those who believe on Him shall do greater works. Stephen is an example. In a certain sense the greatest work the Lord did on earth was to raise a dead man to life. In Stephen you have a man raised above himself, and above all the power of the enemy, and going to glory. How could he be that but by the power of Christ? That shows the resource. Do you see now what we get in this chapter?
Answer. Yes, I think so. Is it not that He was going away, but they were left with resource?
JBS Yes, exactly, that is it. If you want to find a resource - come to Me. If you are short of supply, turn in here; here is your bank. It is what He is to the company, and it is an immense comfort to know when I go into the assembly that I shall find Him, and I have learnt what He is in the assembly. He winds up with, “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it”.
Ques. Is that collective?
JBS It is all collective.
Rem We have often taken that verse for the individual.
JBS Yes, we have; but it is all collective.
Ques Does it not apply to me in my individual path?
JBS No; it applies to the assembly, it applies to the Lord’s interests. It applies to such an one as Stephen, if you like, he was for the Lord on earth, and for His interests.
Ques In speaking of the resource in Him, is it simply for the assembly or for the whole path?
JBS Oh, whenever the occasion arises. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do”.
Ques John 15:7 says, “If ye abide in me ... ye shall ask what ye will”. That is individual, is it not?
JBS But that is the field. If you have not been inside, you cannot go outside. In the church of [p. 380] England the clergyman goes to college to study divinity, and then he is ordained. The order in Scripture is, you must be ordained first. You must have chapter 14 before you have chapter 15. Think of a man working away before he is ordained. It is thus with many. They do not know Him as their resource. You may speak of a man you do not know; but how can you find resource in him if you do not know him?
Now we come to love. Love gets what it likes. What would you like? He is gone away. Tell me any one thing you would like to pray to the Lord for?
Answer. Love values His company.
JBS Yes; and love gets what it values. That is always the case. It is an invariable principle of Scripture. Love gets what it likes. If you value a thing you get it.
You want His company, but if He is gone away how will you get it? What will you do?
Answer. There is another Comforter.
J.B.S. What is that for?
Answer. He says in verse 15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”.
JBS But what is He going to give you?
Answer. In verse 16 He says, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter”.
JBS Why did they want a Comforter?
Answer. Because He would be absent.
JBS That is it. They wanted someone because He was going away; they wanted comfort in His absence. Elijah said to Elisha when he was going to leave him, What shall I do for you? Elisha asked that he might have a double portion of his spirit. The Lord does not ask what He should do for them; He says, If you love me, I know what you would like. What would you like?
Answer. That I should be kept in the company of the One I belong to. We want the Person.
JBS Tell me from Scripture what you want.
Answer. Verse 18 says, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”.
JBS That is right. He will come to you. In verses 16 and 17 He says they should have “another Comforter ... whom the world cannot receive”. Why can it not receive Him?
Answer. “Because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you”.
JBS Go on to the next verse.
Answer. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you”.
JBS That is it. I will come to you Myself. That is in the assembly. I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you; that is inside.
Then verse 20, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. At that day ye shall know the greatness of it; the greatness comes out in the church. Next you come to verse 21; verses 21 - 23 are individual. Then (verse 26) you have the Holy Spirit: “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. That is on earth.
Finally, He closes up with “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you ... Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”. He is the resource. Read it for yourselves. If you would sit down with it before you for half an hour, taking every verse, I am sure you would see the resource for us in the dark day. It is not that the day is bright, but we have a bright resource for the dark day.
Do you understand the line of it? I do not expect you to take it all in, but you see the line, do you not?
Answer. Yes, I think I see it. We have a resource in the day of [p. 382] His absence.
JBS You have it today in Carlisle. It was a very small at first. It began with eleven. One had gone out to betray him. One was ready to deny him. It was not what they were, but what He is. Do you say, I get no help from brethren? That is not where you are to look for it. Your resource is not in brethren - HE IS YOUR RESOURCE - He is everything to the new company. If you are really counting on Him you will know what it is not to let your heart be troubled.