“LIFE AND INCORRUPTIBILITY”
B.M.D. The allusion in verse 10, where we began to read, to “life and incorruptibility” might well enter into our conversation and inquiry. It says that “our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and has brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”;—a very profound matter which would alert our interest in what is beyond death. It occurs to me, dear brethren, that in this chapter Paul is facing the turning away from him of all in Asia, the beginning of the breakup of the public testimony that he had been labouring in, and he reverts to the stability of what had been established through Christ’s death in bringing out an order of things that death does not touch and to which breakdown does not attach. Now we have come to the very close of the same dispensation and it should be apparent to every one of us that the rapture is near and that the testimony—the same testimony as has been maintained by the Spirit throughout—can be maintained in the power of life and incorruptibility alone. Then I thought that the ministry of Elisha would bear on this time of the Spirit. That history, so well known to us, is somewhat like a review of the dispensation, the prophet’s service bringing life out of death and maintaining things householdly, which would link, I think, with the house of Onesiphorus who sought out Paul diligently and found him. So, though we are in broken days, God will bring through in someone His thoughts according to His promise and it would seem in households too. Then perhaps we can get a touch as to a condition of things out of death in John 12, if we can, so to speak, get over the page from John 11 where we have to go through the thing in deep moral exercise. The Lord, remember, stayed away two days; there is no escape from going through this depth of exercise to reach the sphere of things which is not touched by death. That is really where the assembly is, where she belongs; it is a deathless company, a deathless system and, dear brethren, we belong to that. I just thought this might helpfully engage us as we inquire simply and dependently.
L.MacF. So do you think we would be concerned as to the continuance of the testimony in life?
B.M.D. Unless it is in life what is it? Publicly in Christendom it is a name to live but dead; that was Sardis (see Rev 3: 1), but life is there somewhere. I think this allusion to life and incorruptibility is like a touch of John coming in in support of Paul’s ministry. l know it is Paul saying it but, as he saw the beginning of the breakup, he committed the deposit: “keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him”, and then: “keep, by the Holy Spirit ... the good deposit”. It seems that he is assured that what was given to him and brought out by him as regards the truth of the assembly would go through. But we are in John’s time and need to support in life and incorruptibility what was brought out through Paul. Would it be safe to suggest that?
L.MacF. Yes, that is choice. Timothy would be one into whose hands things could be committed as faithful to the Lord and to the testimony of our Lord. So we are concerned that these precious things might continue in our younger people.
B.M.D. The fact that we are exhorted not to be ashamed would show it is in a day of outward smallness and insignificance and reproach; so the exhortation is not to be ashamed of it. Why should we be?
B.T. So in John 6 “It is the Spirit which quickens, the flesh profits nothing”, v 63.
B.M.D. That is a lesson to be learned, a very deep lesson to learn that the flesh profits nothing. To be in accord with the total removal of the man in the flesh at the cross is a very deep moral lesson. Do we not need to learn experimentally that we enter into the grace of a life and incorruptibility that is not shadowed by death?
J.A.P. “Brought to light life”: is that a link with John’s ministry that has been referred to, that Paul would be with John, working together with John’s thoughts?
B.M.D. I think we can see something interweaving itself here that bears very much on the close of the dispensation. The deposit has come through, the recovery is to Paul’s ministry. It seems to me that the test now is the maintenance of the truth. And that is why it is John’s supporting line in life and incorruptibility that will maintain, might we say despite the public breakdown, what is in accord with the heart of Christ.
C.F.D. These things have been brought to light by the glad tidings. Do you think that what Paul is saying here lays great import on the preaching of the glad tidings, that if there is to be the maintenance in the power of the Spirit of God of what has been introduced, you can think of it as related to the power of the glad tidings?
B.M.D. That is very helpful. We used to say, and I expect it stands, that everything is encased in the glad tidings, including the mystery; everything, the whole scope of the truth. Therefore there is no greater service that any one of us could engage in, would you agree, than the preaching of the gospel?
C.F.D. I fully agree with that, and I think we want to be more concerned about it. I think the import of the preaching is something that possibly we have allowed to slip in our minds a little bit and we need to be revived to it.
B.M.D. So he is writing to an individual here who let the fire get a bit low, and he wanted him to rekindle the coals. Maybe we could stimulate one another a little today to evangelical zeal; and yet what is in mind always is the vessel that Christ loves. It had been there in this beloved servant; ‘rekindle’ implies that he had once been a bit brighter. I suppose we could all admit that we could be a bit brighter; and yet why should we not close—indeed we must see to it in our committal that we close—at the brightest point? Should we have any less a standard?
C.C.G. In 1 Corinthians 15 corruption and incorruptibility are mentioned: “Thus also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruptibility, v 42. What would you say is suggested in being sown in corruption? We know corruption cannot inherit incorruptibility, and further on it says, “But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom, nor does corruption inherit incorruptibility”, v 50.
B.M.D. It brings us back to the value of the fellowship of the Lord’s death, so that we learn experimentally to have no confidence in the flesh or anything to which corruption attaches. We are about to experience the change, that same chapter alludes to it, and what we need to be accustomed to now is spiritual change. Even while we are yet in these conditions of frailty and humiliation we need in the Spirit’s power to become accustomed to spiritual change; presently it will be in the twinkling of an eye, indeed at any moment the actual thing will take place. So in a meeting like this what we are looking for above anything else is an experience of a spiritual manifestation. Are we ready for it?
C.C.G. We should always have our minds on the things that are above where the Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, see Col 3: 1, 2. The important thing is where our mind is.
B.M.D. We seek the power by the Spirit to abstract ourselves from what may hinder us. The Corinthians apparently were deficient in the experience of spiritual manifestations, I suppose because of their state. But that is not normal and Paul says, I would not have you ignorant of spiritual manifestations, see 1 Cor 12: 1. So we would seek to be in the power of the Spirit and in a sense of the mutuality of love working in the organism of the body; the Spirit, I am assured, is ready to give us a spiritual manifestation of Christ.
B.T. Do you think that Paul saying, I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified (see 1 Cor 2: 2) would make way for that? He might have been tempted to go into discussions of higher truth with them not having come short in any gift, but he was determined to know only that because of their state.
B.M.D. I think that is very fine. So as the Corinthian brethren read that letter it would have been an inward search for everyone would it not? saying, Well, Paul is determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Would not each one say, Where do I stand in regard to that search? It could never be that we are in the presence of spiritual things and there is not some search coming into our souls because of the condition we are still in.
G.H. Maybe you could say some more as to being ready at this time for spiritual manifestations.
B.M.D. Would it not be that our interest and affections should be quickened as to what can take place in this meeting? The Spirit of God is here, we are actually in the presence of God. The habitation of God in the Spirit is now. Here we are in the variety of our circumstances and histories but the Spirit of God is among us and in us. What possibilities there are as we are thus convened!
R.N.H. It says in Romans 11: 29: “For the gifts and the calling of God are not subject to repentance”. Would that strengthen us with regard to Paul’s exhortation to Timothy when he refers to the calling of God and also the gift of God according to the laying on of his hands?
B.M.D. Yes. We were looking the other night at the corner-stone; God has not altered the material or the pattern of the building one bit; what has been built in is Christ, but it is Christ in the saints. What is it we love in one another? It is the measure in which we are formed according to His image, the image of God’s Son. That is what gives us a bond with one another, it is our love and our formation in some measure according to that image.
T.E.D. I was wondering about the way Paul was in the shipwreck and how even that experience, which would have been behind him here in writing to Timothy, shows how a man with God can go through into life in spite of the very circumstances of death around. Would that help us as to what you are seeking to get at?
B.M.D. It bears very much of course on the prophetic side of the breakdown—“Ye ought ... to have hearkened to me”, Acts 27: 21. That is where we went astray, did we not? We failed to listen to Paul. But then in a way he immediately takes over, he really took over the captaincy. Ye should have listened to me, and then he said, Take food: it has to do with your safety. There is never greater need than to keep Christ before the affections of the brethren. We need it with the enemy assailing to try and spoil the finish. How is it going to be withstood? As we keep Christ before the affections of the brethren.
T.E.D. Even as safe at land the enemy is there with the viper. These things are abounding around us, these elements of Satan’s power, but the question is will they have an influence on me?
B.M.D. We do not want to minimise their power, it is an awful power and in our own strength we are not able for it. Satan said, I have destroyed the thing in the shipwreck, it has all gone to pieces. And what is Paul doing? He is gathering those sticks into a bundle. Satan saw the same thing he destroyed being rebuilt. That was the recovery, was it not? Immediately the viper takes hold of his hand; it is the hand that was again bringing about assembly conditions in warmth and mutuality in this rekindled fire. And has Christendom ever been more cold? Do we not need the warmth of one another and the affections amongst the brethren? That is what Satan hates. But what did Paul do? He shook it off, not into the heat but into the fire; that is that he dealt with it judicially. The heat, I think, was the warmth amongst the brethren. Is that right?
T.E.D. Yes. I was just impressed by it as you mentioned the breakup; we are in the presence of that, but we find that there is life and incorruptibility coming to light in spite of all the enemy has done in the recent decade or two.
B.M.D. We are in John’s time, but the recovery is to Paul’s ministry, there is no question as to that. There is no salvage of the ship; it is smashed and any assumption to be it is not the truth; there is no such pretentious position. Our links with one another are on moral grounds not ecclesiastical.
L.MacF. “The Spirit life on account of righteousness” (Rom 8: 10): I am thinking of the need of the Spirit and making room for Him in critical times, and also the need of food coming in for the dear brethren that the young might be sustained in life.
B.M.D. Well, we have to admit that we are in critical times. Yet could we not say wonderful times? Have they ever been better? What is available is the full glory of the divine system, the arrangement of love operating even if it comes down to two or three gathered to Christ’s name, see Matt 18: 20. I read the other day that His being in the midst is not just a sequence. I thought perhaps it was—that where two or three are gathered to my name, there am I in the midst of them. But it is a fact. Do you think is that all right?
C.F.D. You say it is a fact and not a sequence.
B.M.D. Not exactly a sequence. Where two or three are gathered together unto Christ’s name “there am I in the midst of them”. It is a fact and we prove it.
G.H. Reference was made to the shipwreck and that Paul exhorted them to partake of food. In the New Jersey area we had some very difficult times, deep exercises were gone through, and then we had a reading on ‘Food which Abides’ (see JT vol 16) which was very helpful amongst the saints. The Lord’s servant felt that what the saints needed was food.
B.M.D. So Paul took a loaf. What would be in his heart as he took that loaf! Everything precious to Christ was in that beloved servant’s heart as he took that loaf. It was not exactly the Lord’s supper but it would point to it, to the truth of the one body, the mystery that he was privileged to unfold. That is really what is involved in the good deposit to be kept by the Holy Spirit. He has kept it somewhere in someone; even through what we speak of as the dark ages it was here. It is a little like the Lord’s body-coat which was not rent; but it is in mystery, they drew lots, someone had it somewhere.
G.D.P. You mentioned about being able to keep Christ before the brethren. Paul says: “I know whom I have believed”, that would be stability, would it not? Then later he says to Timothy: “knowing of whom thou hast learned them”, chap 3: 14. So it would carry forward, would it not?
B.M.D. So what have we that we have not received from others? To be practical, it has come down through faithful men who were competent to instruct others also. Thank God we remember the stability of those days in men who were competent to instruct others also. Let us cleave to that.
B.T. Jacob asked his sons: “Why do ye look one upon another?”, Gen 42: 1. We have to challenge ourselves as to that because there is no food in looking into each other’s face rather than going to Joseph.
B.M.D. Exactly. That would never do, nor do we want to feed on the history. We want to learn the lessons, look back over the surface of the waste, learn its lessons, but let us look towards the land. The Spirit will engage us with the heavenly Man and He will lead us over. It is not authority that gets us into the land; we need it in the wilderness but it is attraction that gets us into the land.
C.S.E. “But has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death”, and then the glad tidings come in there: what is the sense of the appearing of the Lord there?
B.M.D. That little word ‘now’ makes it clear. We await His appearing; that is future. We love His appearing; that will be His manifestation and His vindication publicly. But what has appeared in testimony now? Christ has: “so also is the Christ”, 1 Cor 12: 12. Do you remember those lectures by Mr Raven: ‘The Testimony of the Christ’, vol 2? It would do us all good to re-read them. The testimony is Christ; “For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”, Rev 19: 10. You could put it either way I suppose. So it is now; there has been a manifestation in testimony of Christ. Where is it? It is in the saints.
J.A.P. Earlier in the reading you spoke about the household; did you have more to say to us about that?
B.M.D. What comfort it would be to the apostle at this point that someone searched him out diligently until he found him! And he twice says, The Lord grant mercy to that house. And we are in an area of things now where mercy is needed particularly in regard of the households. Things are getting more difficult. They were difficult enough when we were young but you feel particularly for parents bringing up their children in the present world, the school and all the exercises of getting employment; it is mercy alone that will get us through. It seems as if the testimony involves households, and the fact that the devil has attacked divinely-appointed institutions of the household, involving husbands and wives, and parents and children, shows that he sees its importance in the divine mind, because the family of God is going through into eternity and he would seek to destroy the practical way in which the household can be brought up in the fear of God and in the truth.
K.N.P. That links with what you were saying earlier about feeding, because the lamb was for the whole house, was it not?
B.M.D. Certainly. You mean that every one would be brought into that sympathetically and tenderly feeding upon the sufferings of Christ so that we are set free from judgment. It just seems to me as if these things need constantly to be re-stated among us. Baptism is another; it needs to be re-stated, and the truth of it.
K.N.P. We need to understand these things more. We go on with things and sometimes wonder if we know why we are doing things. But do you think as we feed on Christ and these things are re-stated it puts everything in a fresh light because it shows everything as having gone through the death of Christ?
B.M.D. So we need to cling to this, that the idea of a whole household can go through. Many of us just have to hang our heads. There is enough left to keep us humble for ever but that does not in any way affect the divine pattern; and the truth will be maintained. Timothy is being revived, his gift is being rekindled, and the truth now maintained in the godly committal to the truth of a man and his house searching out Paul.
K.N.P. So Paul goes right back to his commission: “to which I have been appointed a herald and apostle and teacher of the nations”—to present Christ.
B.M.D. Exactly; he never deviated from that. Even when conditions came in that were difficult he never deviated from the divine pattern.
A.S.H. He said he was not ashamed of these things; and speaking of the other brother he said he is not ashamed of me and of my chain. Would he find consolation in a brother not being ashamed of being in the work?
B.M.D. Certainly, I fully agree with what you are saying. Many are not prepared for a day of small things where there is nothing of any outward pretension whatever, but what they fail to see is the moral glory that attaches to a day of small things. I do not like the word ‘position’—you understand what I mean: language limits us somewhat—because if it is a position at all it is only what belongs to every Christian on earth who has the Spirit, but we just seek humbly to walk in that light, and as I find you doing it as well, we just go on and walk together. It is as simple as that is it not?
A.S.H. That is what I had in mind.
B.M.D. So if we can find more, we can join hands and thank God for it. But I believe in hat we have had to go through in recent times we have had to come to it that if necessary I will walk alone rather than compromise what is precious to Christ; I would rather stay alone. But we will not have to. John’s line comes in supportingly bringing in the family of God as an environment in which the truth can be worked out in the mutuality of love among ourselves.
C.C.G. The thought of the household brings to my mind the passage in Colossians 3 which deals with household behaviour: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, do not vex your children, to the end that they be not disheartened”, vv 18-21. That is good advice.
B.M.D. It is very good to say that and to go over the truth of what is becoming to a Christian household; there is a blessing attached to it. Alas, in most countries even the laws are destroying the sanctity of the household. If men only knew it they are destroying a nation. But what is the devil at? He is seeking to destroy the coming generation; in fact in some sense he has not been without success. These things are very, very humbling but we are not to be overwhelmed by them; God is still proceeding and I am sure He will maintain His testimony, and also what is proper in households.
C.C.G. Satan is rightly called the destroyer, is he not?
B.M.D. He is, of everything precious to God.
When we come to Elisha’s ministry it fits in with our times because it was in the recognition of that pot of oil, the recognition of the Spirit, which really commenced the recovery, that the Spirit was here involving Christ’s body and the Head in heaven. So the legal demands of the clerical system were overcome as dispensationally the sin against the Spirit, overcome in the recognition of the Spirit. The debts were paid and we live on the rest. I do not want to put too much into this but I just think there is some kind of little review prophetically of the recovery resulting in a wealthy woman. I mean that we have come into exceeding great light, the precious wealth of things we were recovered to in the power of the Spirit. Now the test is how is that going to be maintained if it be not in the energy of life and incorruptibility?
C.F.D. So we have really been recovered to sonship, have we not?
B.M.D. Yes, that is the point that we will get to here. She took up her son and went out. But what happened first was a decline in the responsible element. It would seem as if the father was almost callous, and then the danger that came in was “my head, my head!” We need to guard our hearts more than anything that is guarded, for out of it are the issues of life, see Prov 4: 23. If we are not right in our affections we will not be right in our thinking.
T.E.D. The turning away might not be a physical thing but it might be in my mind and thought. Is not this man here of that feature, having turned away in casting off his own responsibility?
B.M.D. Yes. think this beloved woman really represents the feminine element we might say the assembly or the testimony going through feelingly. You think of it how the child sat on her knees and died. What that beloved woman would have gone through! Just pause and think of it! The father seemed almost indifferent. We have to hang our heads about how we failed in responsibility. He was immersed in the harvest or his business or the world or something, but this beloved woman was not. Think of her taking her child on her knees till noon and it died; think of what she went through.
J.A.P. She is a wonderful woman. Adding to what you are saying, the prophet himself had to come under her influence. At the end of verse 30 it says, after Gehazi’s service failed. “And he rose up and followed her”. Mr Taylor said that you never can help a locality unless you go into the place, and that is what Elisha had to learn here, go to the place. Long distance will never solve anything.
B.M.D. The staff is sent with Gehazi but that did not effect anything; it was not authority that effected it. As you say, he had to go to the place. So he would enter feelingly into what this beloved mother was going through is the motherly side of the assembly: Jerusalem above ... which is our mother”, Gal 4: 26. Was that not reflected in Paul in Galatia? When he travailed again was he not the mother reflecting the mother above, reflecting it down here, prepared to go through travail again till Christ should be formed in them? I think that is the setting here.
B.T. So where there is a breakdown on the responsible or administrative side as seen in the father, these exercises are carried in the subjective side, and that is what you are calling attention to, that we should get hold of the subjective side amongst us, should get hold of what is current at the present time in relation to this.
B.M.D. I am very thankful that you say that; that is exactly how I feel. It is not exactly a question of ministry. Think of what we have had, what food there is. I know we might say it is on our bookshelves, but it needs to be in us. The whole question now is the subjective answer to the truth as presented. What is needed is something more than ministry, it is effective ministry that is needed.
L.MacF. Then the small upper chamber; we need conditions locally in which the truth can be worked out.
B.M.D. Yes. She had regard for the prophet and she provided for him. Her husband was amenable to it; outwardly things looked all right, but when it came to the test he failed but she did not fail. So she did not even confide in him what she was going to do, she had direct links with a spiritual ministry seen in Elisha.
A.S.H. Would you please say something on the prophet going in and closing the door and then praying to Jehovah.
B.M.D. Well, what would you say?
A.S.H. I think he would shut out all encumbrances, all that was not in keeping, and then he would get to Jehovah where the source is. Would that be right?
B.M.D. It would. And then he walked up and down in the house. He would be looking round, Why has this happened? What has happened to this boy, his head? He is an area of sympathy. He is not pulling down the house but the opposite, he is going to bring life in by personal contact and warmth. Like Paul who embraced that young man, and said: “his life is in him”, Acts 20: 10. The brethren apparently thought he was dead. Maybe we give up persons too quickly.
J.A.P. What you have said is helpful because this woman said to Elisha: “I will not leave thee!” That is really Paul’s ministry, it is a current thing; I would not go against that, she says. I am applying it, but she was helped on those lines. She did not follow Gehazi.
B.M.D. Gehazi did not help. The staff did not help. There was no sign of attention, nothing happened. But what we do need is effectiveness in ministry. How can we acquire the power to be effective in ministry? We are not talking just a pleasant song. We are in critical but wonderful times; there have never been times like it. I venture to say there has never been a generation in the generations of faith more responsible than our own. The ends of the ages have come to us with all the accumulated wealth of history involving the wars of the Lord, and we stand directly responsible for the maintenance of all that. Is that right?
J.A.P. When you say there are none more responsible, do you mean that we have had the ministry of the revival, as we often say, and therefore we are very responsible?
B.M.D. Yes. The test now is the maintenance of the truth till the Lord comes. And surely we are convinced it is near: “the coming of the Lord is drawn nigh”, Jas 5: 8. The finish will test us whether it is in life and incorruptibility.
C.C.G. In this section with the child we have the eyes, the hands and the mouth. This suggests contact. You will recall that in Acts 9 Peter put them out and kneeled and said, Arise, and she opened her eyes, see v 40. What do you think is suggested in the contact here rather than the word?
B.M.D. I think it is how personally the prophet could involve himself in these circumstances in detail so that there is something imparted by way of spiritual warmth. I think the seven sneezes is the energy of the power of the Spirit showing itself resulting from the prophet’s service, but it is bound up with the exercises of this beloved woman.
S.E.H. Would you link the revival of this lad in any way with the rekindling of the gift in Timothy?
B.M.D. Yes I would. I suppose it would first involve Timothy personally; he would say, Why have I let the embers grow cold? How easily we do that. How easily we droop and are not as we should be in the Lord’s service. We might as well be practical, who of us has not fallen into that? It is a time to get re-quickened, to see that those embers can be revived in ardent committal and devotedness to Christ for the few moments that may remain before the Lord comes. I do not see anything in a halfway position; I cannot understand a worldly-minded Christian; morally they do not exist. Dear brethren, you might think that is a bit strong but I believe that the close calls for full committal and consecration to the interests of Christ.
T.E.D. That is the real test that is of concern in this country, the elements of the world creeping in and the tendency of heart to go towards that side of things rather than faithfulness for Christ.
B.M.D. Well, the world is about to come under judgment. What is the value of getting my roots in that? It is only a way through, to maintain a testimony in righteousness, that is all. Our life is not here, it is where Christ is; He is our life. If that is not so am I in these things at all?
T.E.D. What is in mind in “she took up her son”?
B.M.D. I think it is the position in recovery, it is the full level in liberty of sonship. She takes him up another way, it is life out of death, it is life and incorruptibility coming to light through the glad tidings.
We read in John 12 and I just used the homely expression, Can we get over the page? Do the brethren understand that?
J.A.P. You want us to get into the joy of eternal life?
B.M.D. Yes, but we cannot miss out chapter 11. The fact is that the Lord remained away two days; why did He do that? He could have gone there immediately and met the whole position. He loved each one of them, the personnel in Bethany. There is no question about His ineffable love for us but we have to go through these things experimentally and in depth.
C.F.D. If Christ is to have His place amongst us, whether here or in Bethany, it means that a certain moral process has to be entered into and gone through and then you can emerge in chapter 12 and find that Christ is the centre.
B.M.D. In a way we have had to learn Him in a fresh way. Someone has said that “my new name” (Rev 3: 12) may be some allusion as to how the Lord presented Himself in the days of recovery. Now in chapter 11 it was just that; “I am the resurrection and the life”. There was something displayed of what was in Him personally. He not only met the need in that family where death had invaded but filled it with a fresh view of Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life”. Do you see anything in that?
C.F.D. Yes I do. While it was a wonderful family and a locality of affection, there was still something to be worked out so that He was truly in His rightful place. So before they went the Lord said: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it”. That was the end result, was it not?
B.M.D. So it is worthwhile working through this exercise in depth of feeling and tears, and in which He shed tears too. He sympathetically in His priesthood enters with us into all that we are going through. Some things continue among us and we wonder why. The Lord is able to work out more than one thing at the same time; what we need is patience to be with Him in what He is doing. But if in it we learn Him in a fresh way what fruitfulness will result.
C.S.E. The Lord says, “I am the resurrection and the life”: the gain of that can only be learnt clearly if we know what it is to have the experience of death. It would have meant very little to them otherwise but the actual experience of death and the Lord Himself presented in this way as the resurrection and the life helps us to see the greatness of the Person after we have been through the experience, do you think?
B.M.D. Yes. It really is the Person. The “I am” of course would involve that. It is, I suppose, anticipating His own precious death and resurrection but it is fixing the affections on the Person. So can we get over the page?
C.S.E. If we are really to reign in life and to enjoy this life and incorruptibility we have to get over the page.
B.M.D. What you say is right; that is Romans, learning to reign in life, each of us individually going through this deep moral process, learning Christ as the resurrection and the life. What must it be then? I must be with Him where He is. Could you stop short of being in the presence of the object of your affections?
C.S.E, I was affected earlier in thinking about the stability that was in the apostle’s own soul when he said; “I know whom I have believed”. As we spoke about days of brokenness it just entered into one’s soul that if we can say like the apostle “I know whom I have believed” and that He is able to keep the entrusted deposit, that is really what the ministry is to help us into, to get to a place of stability in our own souls and in our links with Jesus.
B.M.D. Very important. He was fully persuaded, you could not have shaken him. He knew where he was and we need to know where we are and why we are there.
B.T. Our currently getting hold of Him as the “I am” would link, do you think, with the new name?
B.M.D. I wondered that. It is transferring our interest now to another world; it is another scene altogether. Presently we will be with Him there and we will see Him as He is. But is not the affection of the saints of the assembly already arising to the imminence of what it will be when He comes? I mean we quicken one another at a time like this. We reach after it and it weakens our hold on earthly things and worldly things. We do not belong here at all, we belong where Christ is. He has entered in already as the Forerunner for us.
J.A.P. I would like to know more about the new name. Martha said to the Lord Jesus after He had adjusted her: “Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God”. While the expressions were not new it was new to her. She grasped something in what He said. Is that what you are at? The Lord reached into the family. I missed your thought when you spoke about turning the page; you meant, Can we turn the page?
B.M.D. That is what I am asking. I am just raising that question, Can we turn the page?
G.H. What do you actually mean by that?
B.M.D. Well, we are inquiring about this. I do not think it is just an automatic thing to turn the page. The Lord wants to get us into an out-of-the-world circumstance of relationship of life and being, where the hold down here is almost so small that we can leave it at any moment. I am convinced that the dispensation will close in the enjoyment of eternal life among the twos and threes gathered to Christ’s name in the bond of affection of brethren dwelling together in unity. There is testimony in that: “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love among yourselves”, John 13: 35. Would it not quicken our hearts to furnish something for Him, to get over the page where they made Him a supper, where things are normal and right? And we get in this beloved woman the quality of devotedness necessary for the close of the dispensation.
T.E.D. That starts in the local setting, does it not?
B.M.D. Yes. It was from Bethany the Lord was taken up according to Luke and to which He will come back. Do you think we can furnish a Bethany? Will He find faith on the earth? Let our committals be deepened that it may be so.
C.S.E. Would turning the page also mean that I am ready to go on, that I have absorbed the gain of the lesson that the past was intended to teach me and I am ready to go on with the Lord?
B.M.D. And in our learning the lesson He has endeared Himself to us in a way we would not have known Him otherwise, forming a preciousness of a bond. But then it will presently be to know Him in His own relationships, in His own sphere of things entirely, an out-of-the-world condition of relationship and being.
C.S.E. So we could not get the fragrance that comes in chapter 12 without getting the gain of chapter 11.
B.M.D. Exactly that. Maybe we could just leave it as a simple question: What does it mean to turn the page?
G.H. You said you have noticed that in John’s gospel the thought of the word is mentioned quite often, but then also the thought of life, really living, is also much emphasised in John’s gospel. John would say that to be in life is the way to overcome the world. Is that the idea?
B.M.D. Surely.
NEW YORK
10th November 1984
Key to initials
C.F.Dadd, Plainfield; B.M.Deck, Motueka; T.E.Druckenmiller, Plainfield; C.S.Elliott, New York; C.C.Greenidge, Plainfield; G.Hesterman, Plainfield; R.N.Hesterman, Plainfield; S.E.Hesterman, Plainfield; A.S.Hinkson, New York; L.MacFarlane, New York; J.A.Petersen, Plainfield; G.D.Pfingst, Plainfield; K.N.Pye, New York; B.Taylor, New York
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