THE SERVICE OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST
[p. 152] THE SERVICE OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST
(Brief notes of a Reading) John 13:1 - 5; John 17:1 - 19 I suggested these scriptures in connection with the Lord’s priesthood because they present the service of love that He undertakes on our side; not what He brings from God to us, but the service of love on our side, and that is priesthood.
We get in these scriptures the things that mark the priest, the girdle, the breastplate, the ephod, and so on. To learn about the priest we must go to Exodus 28 where we get God’s description in type. It is taken out of type in the New Testament and seen livingly in the person of Christ. It is a Person of whom we have to learn. There is nothing difficult in christianity, though it is most profound, because nothing is difficult to affection. There are insuperable difficulties to mental powers but none to affection. To have things presented in a Person whom you love makes the most profound things simple and the greatest things accessible.
I think you get the girdle of the priest in chapter 13. There is great emphasis laid on the girdle; there is skilful workmanship in it. The idea of the girdle is liberty in service. It is delightful to think He is always girded, always ready to serve us in a priestly way. You get a sense of His love, the love with which He is girded. There is great skilfulness in His service. Psalm 78 speaks of the skilfulness of His hands.
We think a great deal more of His coming from God than of His going to God. The great idea of the Priest is in His going to God. The great point in John’s gospel is that we should be for God’s pleasure here. In chapter 13 His service is in view of our taking up the same kind of service. We are [p. 153] to do as He did. It is a priestly company taking character from Him and having part with Him.
Ques What is the difference between the Hebrew servant in Exodus 21 and what we get here?
CAC We get the spirit of the law in the Hebrew servant, but this is the other side. The priest is one in whose hand God can put the saints so that the pleasure of God can be effected in them. He has the names on the breastplate and shoulders so that all may be sustained for God’s pleasure. I think everyone here would like to be for the pleasure of God, and Christ has come as Priest on our side so that we might be for the pleasure of God. We go in and come out, and so the feet must be washed. Of old they could not approach the altar or the tent of meeting without having their feet washed. God cannot bear to see the influences of the world about His people.
Ques How is it that, if the Lord has undertaken this blessed service, we are so little in the good of it?
CAC I suppose because we do not consider Him. We have to consider Him as Lord and Priest. There is wonderful power in the consideration of Christ. He is willing to do it if we are willing to be in His hands. We perhaps are not willing to put our feet into His hands. The washing of the feet involved Peter being freed from every religious influence which had been very powerful in him. I do not think we see how He takes account of us in the value which God sets upon us. If our hearts were more awake toward God we should feel a greater need of the service of Christ. The gift of the Spirit is the fruit of the service of Christ. He supports us so that we may have everything that we need. He has borne us before God that we might have the Spirit. He has taken a place on our side, so that as understanding what is needed He has prayed to the Father that He might give us the Spirit.
The saints are looked at as precious stones in the [p. 154] breastplate, set there in the unity of the testimony. It is wonderful to see how the Lord has taken up our side; He knows what the circumstances are. It is the Son consecrated for evermore on our side. He has taken it up in the full intelligence of the Son. We can see that everything on our side must be removed, so the washing comes first.
Ques Did you say the feet-washing is connected with the Supper?
CAC There is a connection with the Supper for it was at the Supper that He washed their feet. He brings His own death before us and that displaces everything in us. It is Christ Himself and that He gave Himself for us. God brings it before us first as light so that our exercises may go on the right line. If you get the light of a thing you are never happy until you get the consciousness of it. The remedy is to pray and then light becomes life. God wants us to prove what Christ is on our side — to be the source of everything in succour, support and so on so that we are free to serve God. That is the service in John. God has a certain pleasure in man and that was displayed in Christ, but He came here that that same service might be brought out in others — “That my joy might be fulfilled in them”.
I think priesthood is dependent on sonship. For example, the king’s son as son with his father is a different thought from the Prince of Wales; the latter is an added dignity — but he is the king’s son first. Priesthood is an added dignity but He ever is the Son. Sonship must be known first. One must be free in one’s affections. If one has tasted sonship one would become sensitive to what would hinder. If we want to know the power of anything we must lay hold of it in Christ. God has a moral universe and He is going to fill it with certain things, and if we are brought into it it is as filled with those things. God displaces everything in us by His own thoughts in Christ. The holiest is where we come into the intelligence of all that is in God’s mind. What a holy people God’s people are! There is not a human thought left; it is all displaced by Christ. It is worked out very gradually in us, but it is all brought about by the service of love which the blessed Lord is rendering to us. God looks for holiness. I need to encourage my own heart in what is in Christ. To get the good of a thing we must first get the light of it. Many of us can remember when the first light dawned upon us of seeing Him in some new character. The service goes on and the Lord sustains His own, but the comfort and joy of it is dependent upon them being in the light of it. A person may have believed in Jesus but there is no enjoyment till that soul comes into the light. I do not think God’s thought is that we should have things as light without the consciousness of them. All these things are made good in us by the Spirit. God teaches us everything by Christ; every impression made on the soul is by Christ and nothing affects us so profoundly. It is wonderful to think you have One in heaven who will not let you be separated from His love by circumstances or anything. He will not let circumstances separate you from the consciousness of His love. The Lord really sustains His people; their names are on the breastplate.
You get in chapters 14 and 15 of John’s gospel how the Lord supplies everything. The bells and pomegranates are in chapter 15, testimony and fruit. The effect of the seed sowing is that there might be fruit and testimony. You have the sense of what we are taken up for and there is adequate resource; Christ is the Priest. The Spirit was typified in the oil which flows down to the skirts of the garments. How can we dwell in unity except by the anointing? The Priest has shared His anointing with us and that sets aside all else. I think the saints are the borders of the garments. The Head is in heaven and the saints are so linked up with Him that He sustains them in testimony and fruitfulness. How do we know Christ is living? Because we have His Spirit. The [p. 156] saints down here in life are the testimony that Christ is living. The robe of the ephod is what sustains us; it is heavenly blue. It is nice to connect the Spirit with the Priest. I do not know anything we should be more exercised about than that we should be in a priestly state.
In John 17 we see the breastplate. All the different jewels are set in the unity of the testimony, and it is in that character that the saints are on the heart of Christ. He sustains them on His shoulders in view of circumstances and weakness, but the breastplate shows the service of Christ in relation to the testimony. We think a great deal more of the shoulder pieces than of the breastplate. He represents us because we are in His affections. Who are on the heart of Christ? You find the saints on the heart of Christ in reference to the testimony. The bells are more the ministry, a sound heard in this world that is the evidence that Christ is living. The shoulder-pieces show how He sustains us. The Lord sustains us; our names are on His shoulder. But when you come to the breastplate it is what is on the heart of Christ — that we should really be in the unity of the testimony. All the precious stones are put together. The idea in John 17 is that they all may be one. You get the Lord providing everything. He makes Himself known as the source of fruitfulness and testimony. He sustains in every way. There is adequate resource for what we are called to. It is not as if we were called to something unattainable. “Without me ye can do nothing”; the resource for everything is in Him. The oil goes down to the borders of the garments; that is the only way that brethren can dwell together in unity. Otherwise it is so many men and so many minds in this room as anywhere else. When you come to the breastplate you come to the testimony. He is concerned about us in regard to the testimony. All the different precious stones are put together in the breastplate; they are together in testimony, “that they may be all one”. The principles were established [p. 157] in the disciples first but it widens out and takes in all the saints. You can never get a right thought of the testimony if you leave one saint out; every saint is on the heart of the Priest.
Another important point is that the Urim and the Thummim are in the breastplate, the lights and perfections. I hear saints say, ‘We have got such a difficulty’, or, ‘We have a lot of things about which we do not know what to do’. That is the time for the Urim and Thummim. The solution of every difficulty, the light and perfection of God’s mind in relation to every difficulty, lies in the apprehension of what the saints are in relation to the love of Christ as in the testimony. You have the light and perfection of God’s mind in apprehending what the saints are in the thought of the love of Christ. It is the breastplate of judgment; the saints are seen in the estimation of Christ and everything not in accord with that must go out. Light as to the assembly involves what the whole company is to Christ, not what one or two are; in the spiritual apprehension of this there is divine light for the darkest moment and for the greatest difficulty. You have the divine standard. Difficulties often arise because we have not patience with one another.
Rem But they had at Corinth to remove the wicked person from amongst themselves.
CAC Yes; but it never says, ‘Put away from among you that precious stone’. The man at Corinth was a wicked person and it had to be proved that he was a precious stone, and when the work in him proved that he was a precious stone he had to be brought back. The saints are precious to Christ, however naughty they may be.
You deal with your brethren according to what they are in your mind. If you know how the love of Christ estimates you, that is your estimate of your brother. If you know your own place in the love of Christ that is how you view your brother or sister, and that is power in all our relations with [p. 158] one another. If I am in a bad state the man that can help me is the man who knows my true value to Christ. For example, see Paul and the Corinthians; what he said about them in the beginning of 1 Corinthians was not true in their minds, but it was true in his mind.