⬇ EPUB

THE SPIRIT IN RELATION TO DIVINE ADMINISTRATION

The thought of the Spirit in relation to divine administration is on one’s mind and heart for this hour tonight. I am sure that we need to apprehend more the importance of the presence of the Spirit with us and in us, not only in relation to this matter but many other matters; but I wish to stress in what I have to say now the administrative side.

You will notice the reference to the Holy Spirit in both chapters from which we read in the New Testament, and the reference to the well which is a type of the Spirit in Exodus. One feels, as no doubt most of us feel, especially in the days that we are in, the need for understanding the Spirit’s presence in the way in which He is with us and in us in this dispensation. And not only understanding His presence but coming to a better apprehension of what His presence means, a better enjoyment of what it is to know Him as with us and in us, in the way in which He is. It is something that will never fail us if we make room for the Holy Spirit. Many things may fail, many things may break down, as indeed things have broken down in the dispensation publicly; but there is one thing that never changes, and that is the presence of the Spirit. So that whatever may be the vicissitudes of the testimony, whatever may come into the course of things in the days that may be left to us before our Lord come, although they may be few - for we wait momentarily for His coming, for the rapture - but whatever they may be, few or many, it is important that we should see more and more the need of communing with the Spirit and of allowing the presence of the Spirit to have full weight with us as set together on the side of administration. Moses was a great administrator as we shall see. You will remember the challenge they raised against him in verse 14 as to administration, and Moses had to flee and he sat by the well. We shall come to that, but I wish to begin with John and what he says in this unique section in his reference to the Spirit. John’s ministry has in mind the last days; he has in mind the days when breakdown has set in, when Paul’s ministry has been given up on every hand. John comes in to bring in what goes through despite the breakdown. There are many things in his gospel that are unaffected by the breakdown to which he calls attention, as, for instance, the great feature of life. John speaks of life more than any other of the evangelists, and whatever may have come into the dispensation in a public way, the life line goes through, an important thing for us to see. Now in chapter 20 the Lord Jesus breathing into them saying to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” inaugurated an administration the like of which has never been seen before in the hands of men; a mandate was delivered to them which had never been delivered to men before.

So according to this chapter the Lord Jesus comes amongst His disciples; it had been a difficult time for them. The chapter opens with much perplexity and varied difficulties, but persons are brought on to our view who are getting helped. It is a good thing when we are amongst those who are getting helped, and when we are in the environment where we can be helped. There is no environment like that where divine Persons are operating to get help. And divine Persons are operating in the chapter from which we read, and there is one who stands out amongst the persons we have referred to, who is a remarkable personality - Mary of Magdalene. She is brought on to our view as one whom the Lord is honouring; one who is getting adjustment. The Lord is honouring her. He gives her a message which is unique. Never before had a message been received like it, the message that the Lord gave to Mary to carry to His disciples. And we have to understand what is in mind in this, because John has a way of bringing persons before us that causes us to pause and consider. John does not deal with the assembly formally. He never mentions the word assembly in his gospel. Matthew does. John in his gospel never uses the word, but while he does not use the word, he gives us all the vital and essential elements that enter into the composition of the assembly. And that is a great matter to see. Mary represents the kind of material that the Lord is taking on, dear brethren, at this particular juncture. He is taking on Peter and John later, but He is taking on Mary here, a remarkable thing. We might have said, why not entrust that message to John or to Peter, but Peter and John have to learn. Let none of us think that we are beyond the time of learning. It is a time for learning, a time for adjustment. It will always be as long as we are here. And John’s ministry would help us as we are taught, to be quick learners, to be quickly adjusted as indeed we are experiencing in this country and in other countries too. And it is important that we should learn quickly, because there is no time, as it were, to be lost. The translation is so near and we want to learn quickly. And Peter and John have to learn. The Lord takes them in hand amongst the others, but the first one the Lord takes on in the way of entrusting something to is Mary.

Now I believe there is something for us to understand in this before I proceed to the formal delivery of the mandate to the disciples; we need to understand what Mary represents, what the woman, the feminine side represents, especially in view of the last days when what is official has been interfered with, and entrenched upon, and broken up by the enemy on every hand. The Lord would stress in our minds the thought of the woman in Mary, that she is a trustworthy element here, not exactly the assembly in a direct type, nor in a full way but a suggestion of the assembly as if the Lord is thinking of Mary and what she, a woman, would represent to him. And the Lord can impart something to her. She is trustworthy and the Lord is honouring her. He will always honour the thought of the assembly whether it be seen in a small way or in an extended way; the Lord will always honour the principle of the assembly. And I think that is the suggestion in regard to Mary in an unofficial way. We have to understand things from the unofficial viewpoint first, according to John. As we know, John wrote his gospel in days of difficulty when doctrinal degeneracy had set in, and all his ministry is calculated to meet what has come in through doctrinal degeneracy. And oh, dear brethren, what evidences there are of it on every hand as we see how the truth as to the Person of Christ is set aside. And John would stress the truth of the Person of Christ - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And then it says that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” - reminding us of the incarnation, wondrous, indisputable. Think what a transaction took place in that great matter of the incarnation. John would save us from lifeless theology, from doctrinal degeneracy. John’s ministry would help us as to this great matter, so that our thoughts might be adjusted in relation to the truth. The truth is stressed in John’s gospel. We cannot read it without being impressed with the thought of the truth all the way through, the Lord Jesus Himself saying, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” (John 14: 6).

We need, dear brethren, to understand John’s gospel because it is the great corrective to departure from the truth in regard to doctrine. Some may say, well, we do not need to be concerned too much about doctrine. We need to be concerned a great deal about doctrine. It is important that the doctrine should be right and that it should be preserved. We need to be helped as to the doctrine and we shall be as we are prepared to be subject. The Lord Jesus says, “If any one desire to practise his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine ... “ (John 7: 17). Doctrine represents the ordered form in which the teaching may be set forth. Now in the public body, in the history of things in christianity, an attempt was made in church councils to preserve the doctrine by bringing in the creeds, by setting the truth in crystallised form so that the doctrine might be preserved, and alas, as is always the case when man goes too far, the doctrine is corrupted, the doctrine degenerates; as for instance in regard to the truth of our Lord’s sonship when in the great church council in the establishing of the creed, the desire was to preserve the truth of His person, and they felt it necessary to incorporate in the creed the thought that He was begotten before all worlds.

You can see that John’s ministry would help us to see what comes in through degeneracy of doctrine, and when the mind of man apart from the Spirit injects itself into the great matter of the truth, there can only be one result and that is disaster. What error has come through the church councils in which men endeavour to preserve the truth, their endeavour, perhaps, well meant. And then the great truth of the Reformation came in, and much was done, servants of God were raised up and gleams as to the truth came forward - the great servant of God, Martin Luther, and the truth of justification by faith emerging from all the shackles of the awful system in which the truth was corrupted then and is now. John’s ministry is taking into account all these conditions, and as it has been said, his gospel is the backbone of things, the backbone of scripture. If we are going to be preserved in relation to the doctrine as to divine Persons, we shall have to understand John.

And so I come to this matter of the administration that is in the Lord’s mind. It is introduced by this teaching in regard to Mary. She represents the unofficial side and she gets the truth for the moment. An important principle, dear brethren. And we need to be on the outlook for the feature which is suggested in Mary, and this precedes what we have read. The disciples are gathered in the light of the message that Mary brings, and the Lord comes among them and the first thing He says is, “Peace be to you. And having said this, he shewed to them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced therefore, having seen the Lord. Jesus said therefore again to them, Peace be to you.” I stress this for a moment to draw our attention to the way that the administration is brought forward. It is brought forward in an environment that is charged with peace, the Lord repeating His message to the disciples, “Peace be to you;” as if He would imply that in the setting out of the administration that is in His mind, we are to understand this thought of peace. You will remember how the disciples were sent out and were instructed to look for a son of peace. What an element a son of peace is in any city, dear brethren! What an element sons of peace are throughout the assembly! And the Lord would inculcate into our minds in the teaching here this great thought of peace with the administration that He is about to set out formally from this environment. And he says, “As the Father sent me forth,

I also send you.” Think of the high level of his commission! We are to think of the twelve, the apostles in this light. We are to think of their uniqueness, these men who were given to Christ by the Father. How wonderful they were. What men they were! What tributes to the service and work of Christ! You will remember what He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4: 19).

We see them here as under the Lord’s hand, and He says, “As the Father sent me forth, I also send you”; that is, the administration is going to be carried on by them now; they are to have their part in it. “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand.” (John 3: 35.) But now the disciples are formally brought into this matter, and the Lord says, “I also send you.” And having said this, he breathed into them, and says to them, “Receive (the) Holy Spirit.” Now this is what I wish to come to the importance of the Spirit in relation to this great matter of administration, our part in the administration. As I have said, while John does not formally mention the assembly, he stresses the persons who compose it, and we are to gather this up in our minds as we read this section, the greatness of the persons who compose the assembly. Matthew stresses the assembly formally, “Tell it to the assembly” - the augustness and majesty of that great vessel, the highest court of appeal here on earth amongst the people of God, what dignity attaches to it! But John would impress us with the dignity of the assembly from the viewpoint of the persons who compose it. Think of these persons breathed into by the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam. You see the connection with what I have been saying, that when doctrinal degeneracy has set in there must be an answer in some way to meet it. Because in man’s administration things break down but in divine administration things have to be preserved in life and in power and in authority; and therefore the matter of the Holy Spirit here, because how can divine administration be rightly carried out unless we see the place that the Holy Spirit has in the matter, for this involves ability to work out features of the administration.

Our attention has been drawn in the ministry to the two words used for authority or power. Mr. Darby points out the difference in the New Translation in Matthew 10: 1 and in the notes in Luke 4 and Acts 1. The first word for authority or power “exousia,” means the right to do things, the authority to do things, the divine commission entering into it, a great matter to see. But the second word which I wish to stress, “dunamis,” refers as we have been taught to what is dynamic, the ability to do things, the ability to carry out the administration, the Spirit being in us and imparting to us. It is important, dear brethren, that we see this, that in the presence of the Spirit, in the light of the second word “power,” as we have it in Acts 1 and elsewhere, it not only means that there is a commission with the twelve or a commission in the assembly to do things as in the first word, but there is ability to carry out things as in the second word. That is what I would like to draw attention to in the presence of the Spirit here; there is not only the divine mandate but there is this great thought of dynamic power to carry out the mandate in “Receive the Holy Spirit.” We can never do anything rightly in divine things without the Holy Spirit, and there is need for the Spirit in matters of administration. It is the great preservative against mere creed and doctrine. How much we would like a copy-book to work out all our local problems from! If we could just turn one up and see how to work out this difficulty or that! But it would not be very wonderful, for it would bring us back to Judaism. Christianity is a system of life; the doctrine of it is to be held in life, and the administration of it is to be held in life. And that is the meaning of the Holy Spirit in this section, for this glorious and dignified administration is not to be carried out according to arbitrary authority or official mandate only, although it is important to see the place it has; but it is to be carried out in the ability which the Holy Spirit gives, as if the Lord is saying, I am committing to you this wonderful part in administration, but you must make room for the Spirit. It is the pattern of what comes in in Acts 2. No other men had the experience that these men had, for they were breathed into by the Son of God raised from the dead. No one else amongst men has ever had that experience. How unique the disciples are! It is to bring to our attention this great matter of the dignity of the persons who compose the assembly.

Now we may stress the assembly here, but it is the persons who form the assembly. John does not, in his gospel, use the word formally. Matthew uses it, and taken together they are a wonderful combination. The one stresses the vessel in all its august and judicial glory; I do not mean in the sense of just administering judgment but judicial in the sense of discernment as in Abigail, “Blessed by thy discernment;” what we might arrive at as together in the light of the assembly in Matthew, the authority of the truth in that relation. But John stresses the persons, the dignity of the persons who form the assembly. And he says, “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them: whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” As has been said by Mr. Taylor, John 20, is our Magna Carta - remission comes first. They are empowered with a mandate to remit sins. Think of men having a mandate like this as these disciples had, breathed into by Jesus saying, “Receive (the) Holy Spirit.” They were empowered in a dynamic way by the presence of the Spirit with ability to carry out the administration of this great mandate. Never before had men received a mandate like it. Oh the glory of this apostolic mandate! And all these mandates of course, are as we know, carried forward in the assembly. John would impress us with the assembly from the standpoint of the dignity of the persons who form it. So that as we have part in it in any way in divine administration, we are to understand the principles of it as in John 20, because we are in days of brokenness and difficulty. We are to understand the spirit and grace of the dispensation from the standpoint of John 20, that we have the Spirit and we have the ability to have part in divine administration. We, by the Spirit; not just by a clever mind, a keen mind naturally, but by the Spirit in this way involving dynamic power, have ability to carry out things.

What need there is for knowing the Spirit in regard to this setting of the truth! How we would be preserved from systematised error in our difficulties if only we relied on the Spirit, for the administration is characterised by the presence of the Spirit among the saints in the assembly. We need to understand this in our localities. It would save us from much running to and fro; it would save us from much perplexity if we were cast back more and more on the ability that we have, in the presence of the Spirit amongst us to carry out our part in divine administration. And how it would help us in the spirit and grace of the dispensation of which we have been speaking.

How we would be helped too in regard to recovery, as the apostle says, “Brethren, if even a man be taken in some fault, ye who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering thyself ... .” “ye who are spiritual,” alluding to those who have the Spirit; they are accustomed to making room for the Spirit. They have an ability, not the ability that comes from a mind which is cleverer and keener than others in natural things or business things; but “Ye who are spiritual” - those who are making room for the Spirit and are accustomed to communing with the Spirit. As using the Spirit they have ability by the Spirit to handle the matter on hand, and they come to this matter, this fault. As having the Spirit they can look the thing over without being defiled by it. This stresses the importance of the presence of the Spirit and the immunity for us as making room for Him in regard to evil. In Leviticus, mention is made of a spring or well that is free from uncleanness. We are to understand that, and the only way we can have to say to sin rightly is as being priestly, making room for the Spirit. Such persons can look a matter over; shall they bring it to the assembly or not; is it trivial, of such a nature that it does not need to be brought to the assembly? The spiritual have a judgment of the matter and they may decide that there is no need to bring it any further. They are acting in the spirit and grace of the dispensation, seeking to recover. The man is taken in a fault and they are going to recover him; they are going to set him up, set him up wholly mended, not partially, but completely.

I would refer briefly now to Acts 15 and the letter that was written. We do not get many letters recorded for us, but this is one and it is a choice one. They said, “ ... For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” What a word! Can we align the Holy Spirit (I say so reverently) with our judgment, with what we have arrived at? Can we, as in the consciousness of the known nearness of His presence link Him on with what we arrive at? Think of the greatness of the environment here - the dignity of those who are set up not only with a commission, but with dynamic power, the power of the Spirit.

They draw from this scripture and from that scripture. What dignity is there, as one of them says, “Brethren, listen to me.” Think of the moral authority in a man like James! Think of the moral authority in a man like Peter! They were men who knew what it was to make room for the Spirit, to put into practice the ability given by the Spirit not only in ministry or in preaching, but in dealing with matters involved in divine administration.

In closing, I would allude to the scripture in Exodus referring to Moses, and I believe we can learn from it, dear brethren. It is a good word to leave at the close of these meetings. It is said in regard to Moses that he sat by the well. He had been taking part in matters. They said to him, “Who made thee ruler and judge over us? Dost thou intend to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?” You see, Moses had to learn the utter ineffectiveness of an administration which had its roots in Egyptian strength. He was skilled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but he was going to be employed by God in the wonderful administration of grace that would bring His people out from Egypt’s thrall into the wilderness where God would unfold to them His mind and heart. We have to learn as Moses did, and he comes to this point as he sits by the well. It would speak of our positioning ourselves in relation to the Spirit. Let us learn in forsaking the ways of the world, in forsaking the ways of man, what it is to sit by the well, what it is to take account of the waters of Shiloah which flow softly, over against the rampaging Assyrian who dares to entrench himself upon Immanuel’s land. In Isaiah 8: 8 it speaks of the waters reaching “even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel!” It is not beyond the neck, for the position would have been lost if the head had been covered; but it is up to the neck, the head is still above the water, that is, thus far and no further. Think of the seriousness of the position, but in the midst of it all our attention is drawn to Immanuel’s land and to the waters that flow softly. God protects the position.

I would refer briefly to the nineteenth verse of chapter four. After sitting by the well and learning all that God intended him to learn, God said to him, “Go, return to Egypt; for all the men are dead who sought thy life. And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them riding upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.” Moses is going to represent God in all the dignity that a representative of God requires, no more killing of the Egyptians. He had known what it was to flee for his life, but in chapter 4 he is going to know what it is to meet a brother who loves him, a brother who can kiss him. After the serious situation in the inn, love comes in in all its healing power, and God spoke to Aaron - God had someone to meet this crisis. Zipporah is not in the right spirit. She is insisting on circumcision of course; and God is insisting on circumcision for He is not going on with any of us who go on in the flesh, especially those of us who serve. We have to accept circumcision, the inward acceptance of the death of Christ in the Spirit’s power on all that I am and all that I have.

Zipporah is using extreme language; she is using unrefined language. She says “A bloody husband indeed art thou to me!” It did not fit in with the position in one way and yet in another way it did. And God said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” And it says that he went. He is not holding back; Aaron is a priestly man, a man who can love - a man who can kiss. It says “And he went, and met him on the mountain of God ... .” Not in the valley of despair but they meet on the mountain of God, in that elevated environment where the mists are cleared away and where God discloses Himself to His people and to Moses.

Then it says that Aaron kissed him, “and Moses told Aaron all the words of Jehovah who had sent him, and all the signs that he had commanded him.” What a sight for heaven, these two beloved men both used in the things of God! There was the embrace of love. Moses had learnt God as we have to learn Him, and may we learn more what it is to sit by the well and make room for the Holy Spirit in our thoughts in every way.

May the Lord help us as to the importance of the Spirit collectively and individually, in regard to our ability to handle matters involving administration.

← Previous 24 of 29 Next →