THE RESURRECTION

John 11: 17–27, 39–44; Romans 6: 4–9; 8: 11; Colossians 2: 12–15; 3: 1–4

RT I suggested these passages as a guide to our thoughts to speak of the resurrection. It is something that God has done in answer to all that came in through the fall in Adam. In raising the Lord Jesus from among the dead a new world has been opened up. It goes on to ascension, of course, but I thought we may just speak of the great matter of what God has done in raising Christ. May the light of it, indeed may the joy of it, come into our hearts to affect us. The thought of resurrection is fundamental and well-known, but the Lord speaks in Luke’s gospel of persons being sons of the resurrection. It is mainly in my mind, that in speaking of it together and helping one another, there may be something of that character formed in us. The resurrection is part of the Christian’s hope but the Lord says more than that. He says, “I am the resurrection”. It is not an event only. Martha was looking forward to that, but He would lift her view, “I am the resurrection and the life—he that believes on me, though he have died, shall live”. It shows the bearing of it presently. I thought Romans helps us to be in newness of life. The reference to the Spirit is very touching, “the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you”, and shows the power available. Then Colossians gives us the teaching which leads to our minds being on the things above. The Lord may just help us in the consideration of Himself as the resurrection and the life. I think perhaps Elisha helps us in the type; on the one hand there are the sons of the prophets who knew that Elijah had been taken up, although they hardly believed it, but in Elisha there was someone who was in the conscious sense of the power of that life. We can see the effect in Elisha’s ministry in the power that he had. Resurrection is spoken of in scripture as the great demonstration of God’s power when He raised Christ; something of His pleasure entered into that, we can understand that. There is something of God’s pleasure too in the resurrection of the saints through having apprehended Christ as the resurrection and the life. God will have His pleasure and exercise His rights in raising them to be in another body and in another condition where the full enjoyment of His love will be known. I count on the Lord guiding us and helping one another that we may be attracted into and be freshly confirmed in this sphere of knowing the Lord as the resurrection and the life.

JW In the scriptures you have had read do you think we have to accept our position as dead with Christ; dead with Him and being identified with Him in His resurrection?

RT I thought the family in John 11 came through something of that. The Lord says, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (John 11: 4), and I think you can see the family in a better light in the next chapter. They had come through the exercise of death and had come into the joy of resurrection. So it is an experimental matter. It is more than light in our souls, so you see Mary and Martha going through the experience of death, “he stinks already”. But then the Lord says, “Take away the stone”. As faith enters into it we are able to go through these exercises in the light and in the faith of the resurrection, do you think?

JW Yes. Do we get a sense in this chapter that the Lord is able for everything? The raising of Lazarus and the glory of the resurrection would show that the Lord’s power is able for every situation, do you think?

RT Yes, the Lord deliberately stayed away it seems; He allowed the full force of death in those four days to press upon them. So it would bear in upon us, that the natural condition in which we live, death lies upon it, but there is Someone who has come into our circumstances and gone through them, and we apprehend Him as the resurrection and the life: I think you see something of that in the way they were at table with Him in the next chapter; they were there in the full gain of that experience.

DJW Would you say some more as to “I am the resurrection and the life”? Does it relate to the expression we get in John 5 as to the Son having life in Himself?

RT Yes, and His power to raise the dead. That is something entirely new and you can see it dawning on Martha and Mary. The event was in their mind but now it is in a Person whom we have been brought to love. He is marked out Son of God in power by resurrection of the dead. He already did it to some, but here He is taking them through the exercise to bring them and us to apprehend, not only that He died for us, but that He has the power and the right to speak of Himself thus, as the resurrection and the life.

JW We do not find our life in what is natural but really come through to the thought that Christ is the centre. He becomes the centre of this family, does He, as knowing Him as the resurrection and the life?

RT Yes, I thought that was the bearing of newness of life, so that the interests Lazarus had before would have very little appeal to him. The resurrection brings us on to new ground, and opens up a new world that is to command our interests. We will come to more of that in Colossians that our minds are to be on the things that are above. As you say, there is the experience to be gone through, that death attaches to all that is here and to my condition too as a fallen man, but the Lord has broken the power and the authority of death, and now He is opening up a new world of which He is the centre, which is to claim our affections and our interest, even while we are in these bodies and is what makes us sons of the resurrection; something is seen that our way of life is different.

RMB Would you say something about verse 26, and “every one who lives and believes on me shall never die”; how are we to understand that?

RT Well I think that is the bearing of resurrection, that it has opened up another world; “every one who lives and believes on me shall never die”, because if we have already faced death, we are brought into the light of another world to know Him who is the resurrection and the life, do you think?

RMB Yes, I notice that the Lord says, “every one who lives and believes on me”. It seems that the expression “every one who lives” the Lord imparts something to a believer which can never be extinguished, so that even if they die literally as far as things here are concerned, we know in fact that there is something in the spirit of the believer which lives with Christ, does it not? I think there is something very precious to think that the Lord imparts something to a believer which can never be extinguished even by the greatest power in the universe.

RT And it becomes our life now. I think you can see that in this family that they are already coming into the enjoyment of that life. The Lord speaks a good deal in the earlier chapters of eternal life, and I think that is what it brings us into in the present time, the enjoyment of a life which death will not extinguish. The Lord would graciously draw us into that.

DJR Paul spoke to the Philippians that they might know Him and the power of His resurrection. He goes on to talk about pursuing as having been taken possession of by Christ Jesus, but there are references in that section to His resurrection.

RT Yes, and he says there, “if any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead” (Philippians 3: 11); he knew that he would be raised, but he was seeking that the power of resurrection life may be known by him now. The chapter is full of energy, and the Lord would stimulate us to this kind of believing. John makes a great deal of believing. It has been said that he writes to make believers out of believers. The verse that has been called attention to, “he that believes on me”, means a thorough committal to Him, to have Him enshrined in our affections. Thus we are brought into this life and the enjoyment of another world, although we are still in the present conditions.

DW Is there a certain order in John’s teaching? For example in chapter 9 the Lord secures the blind man, “dost thou believe on the Son of God?” with a view to bringing him into the flock in chapter 10 and on to the family in chapter 11.

RT Yes, I am sure of that, and here I think He is bringing us on to new ground which is opening up from chapter 13 onwards. It goes on to speak about having part with Him. That would be as apprehending Him as the resurrection and the life. From this chapter onwards, He is leading us on to the Father’s house, and all that is opening up in that world. What is preparatory to that is apprehending Him as the resurrection and the life.

RHB The passage in Luke 20 refers to the sons of the resurrection and the Lord says of God that “he is not God of the dead but of the living” and then adds “for all live for him” (Luke 20: 38). That may to some extent answer the questions raised as to those who believe never dying; they live for Him and do you think the apprehension of that would exercise us to whether we are living for Him now? It is true of saints who have died that they live for Him but what about those of us who have not passed through death?

RT Is that the newness of life in Romans 6? I thought that was what this was leading us on to. Lazarus was brought back but Mary and Martha are brought through the experience of it into the light of another world altogether, of which Christ is the centre, and to which death no longer applies because the power of it has been broken, through Christ, and made good to us, through our baptism with Him and conformity to His death, so that we are able to walk in newness of life.

RHB It is connected with glory; the Lord says of Lazarus that it is “for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified”, but in Romans 6 His own resurrection is connected with the glory of the Father. There is what is humiliating about death but the answer to that is the glory that attaches to resurrection.

RT There is what is humiliating and yet there is what is a release. We would never be able to face it apart from the One who has faced death and broken its power. You can see how He is touching their affections; it says that He was moved in His spirit and He wept. What a link He had with them, and their link with Him is becoming stronger, to lead them through the humiliating side of death to see that it is opening up another world of which He is the centre, and He in those circumstances becomes their life.

DER Every believer knows something of Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and as a good Friend to refer to in circumstances here, but is the Lord showing us in this section that He wanted to be everything to that family and the blessedness of Him having that place?

RT Yes, and in deep affection He passes us through these experiences that it might become so. There is a good deal of pressure upon the brethren at the moment. There are prolonged exercises and long illnesses in which the Lord may be bringing some of these exercises to bear on us in persons who are going through the experience of facing death. But all these are for the glory of God that we may realise that, while there is no hope for our present condition, there is being wrought in our hearts that which leads us on to another realm of things altogether, of which He is the centre, and He becomes our life in our present circumstances.

GCB It is a comfort when He says to Martha, “Believest thou this?”, and she indicates in verse 27 that, like some of us, she was just beginning to understand what you are bringing before us? She mentions Him as the Son of God which would confirm what you are saying as to the centre of another world.

RT Yes, I think the Lord changes them as He would change us from being merely orthodox. We know that in the resurrection all believers will be raised, but the Lord is bringing home to us, that the power of it and the experience of it is to be true in our hearts and in our lives now. He does that with the family here. You can see them growing, as you say. There was certainly a great change as we come to the next chapter, “There therefore they made him a supper”. What affections are expressed from the experiences they went through.

PM Why do we get a glimpse in this section of the Lord’s relation with the Father?

RT Well I think it is all part of this new world that He is opening up to us. As I said earlier, from chapter 13 onwards, His teaching is leading to the Father’s house, and these experiences that we are speaking of, and the light and the joy of resurrection in our lives, would help us to be more at home with the Father, do you think?

PM Would it give us some impression of what He is to the Father as the One who is the resurrection and the life, sustaining a whole universe for the Father’s pleasure on that basis?

RT Yes, the Father raised Christ; we can understand that. The infinite pleasure that was there in Christ could not be held by death. The resurrection of the saints will be selective as well. There is something wrought out in the saints that the Father will not leave in death; they are raised because they are worthy. That chapter in Hebrews 11 speaks of persons of faith as worthy of something better because of the way they lived. Indeed we can see the Father, the Son and the Spirit, entering into the resurrection of the saints. As apprehending Christ in this way and the enjoyment of Him as the resurrection and the life, we are brought into entirely new relationships where we are at home in the divine presence.

JW Because of what we are we tend to look at things from our own point of view, we centre round ourselves. Do you think what we are having before us would give us what is the divine pleasure, what is for the glory of God, what is for the pleasure of the Father; and do you think as having Christ before us in that way we would begin to think that way, and it affects our walk here?

RT I thought that is the idea in Romans that there is newness of life being expressed in the saints that cannot be held by death; that was absolutely true in Christ but is also being seen in the saints through the Spirit’s grace. It says that He will quicken our mortal bodies, those who are alive, on account of His Spirit; there is a treasure in the saints in the work of the Spirit, that God is going to very soon house in other circumstances.

DJW Would you say something as to the fact that resurrection is connected particularly with His voice? I was thinking of Hebrews; it says “upholding all things by the word of his power”, Hebrews 1: 3. Is this sphere of resurrection maintained by the recognition of His voice?

RT It is the voice of authority. He has the right to that power. All who are in the tombs will hear His voice as well, but first there will be the call for the saints of God. He has the keys of death and of hades. That would all enter into the resurrection and the life, that He has authority over that domain and He is going to exercise it, first of all in bringing His own out of it to be housed in other conditions.

DW We noted your reference in prayer to Psalm 23, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23: 4). It is not exactly death itself but you are very near to it, in the presence of it. Would a link with the One who is the resurrection and the life lift us above that into a realm where He is the centre and where death has no entrance?

RT Well I feel very much that the Lord has brought home to us in recent times persons who are passing through the valley of the shadow of death, some more than others, but I think we have all had to face it with them. I think it has been to bring us all on to the enjoyment of resurrection ground. Some are facing it very deeply and are very bright in their spirit; you can see that they are already apprehending Him as the resurrection and the life.

Their hope is already in relation to another world, and I believe the Lord has brought these exercises, very widespread and very close to us, to draw us into the enjoyment of this other world and the relationships which are suited to it. The sons of the resurrection suggest something formative. As I have said already, these sons of the prophets are in one group but then Elisha stands by himself. He had been through these exercises of Gilgal and the Jordan, and it says he rent his own garments and he took up the cloak of Elijah. He was finished with an orthodox order of things, and he came back into those circumstances with the cloak of Elijah, and the life that was in a man who was taken up. You can see the wonderful power in Elisha’s ministry, to meet current conditions in the power of the life of another man.

JW In these scriptures we have before us we are not exactly taken off the earth and taken into heaven. Is your exercise as to knowing Christ now as the resurrection and the life, in view of knowing Him in another world and the way it affects us now in our everyday life?

RT I think that was what Paul was expending his energy on, as was referred to, in Philippians. He says, “what things were gain to me these I counted, on account of Christ, loss”, Philippians 3: 7. He also says, “if any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead” (Philippians 3: 11), to experience the power of it in the circumstances in which he was; as it was with Elisha, he brought the power of all that he had experienced into the circumstances. There was death in the pot, but he was able to bring in something in the meal that could meet it. There were the waters that were affected and he was able to bring a remedy because he had the joy of another power working in his soul.

BES Romans 6 is individual we know but is there a parallel collectively? The question is raised, “Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?” It is a very solemn thing if we allow things among us that are not pleasing to the Lord and we allow them to go on.

RT Yes. If we go this way individually we will be helped to merge collectively.

“We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death”. It is something we have to go through in view of arriving at this other world of which we have spoken, “in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life”.

DEB The passage that you have referred to once or twice in Luke 20 speaks about those who are counted worthy to have part in that world and the resurrection. That would bear too on the fact that in Colossians we read that the Father has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light (Colossians 1: 12). That would be something current, would it?

RT Yes, what we are speaking of is that we may be counted worthy through these exercises so that things that had their appeal and governed our way of life no longer hold us, but the power of another world and the Man who is the centre of it, are drawing us into that area of things where our affections are developed, so that we are able to be in newness of life as sons of the resurrection. What God is going to raise in the saints is something that is worthy of being at home in another world.

JSG In the verse in Romans 8 it is very striking how the personal name of Jesus is brought in first, and I wondered if that would link with the thoughts spoken of just now as to His personal worthiness to be raised, “if the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead”.

RT I thought it was a remarkable expression, “if the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you”. So that there is something there that warrants God raising up the saints; He takes His pleasure in them. As you say it was unique in Jesus, but the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus is dwelling in us to produce something of the features of Jesus, so that we will be at home in that other world; and the exercise is that we are at home in it now.

DER It is something for us to come to that there is only one Man before God and He is out of death. Everything else is under death, and if we are to be in life we must be in the Man who is before God, and we therefore reckon ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. That is something that each of us needs to arrive at in our souls, do you think?

RT Well the bearing of baptism is that there is only one Man before me. Colossians is very affecting in that the grace and the sympathies of Christ are with us to bring us through into this other way of life. It says that being “buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God ... he has quickened together with him”. The relationship that is worked out with Christ in these practical exercises I think all develops the features of sons of the resurrection.

DER To be in the gain of that involves walking in the Spirit.

RT That is why I called attention to that verse in Romans, “the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus”. Romans is the experimental side of things, in which the Spirit helps us, and these references here to “with him” are all experimental; that we are buried with Him, raised with Him and quickened with Him. The Spirit is helping us in these exercises so that we are more at home in that world, the resurrection world, in the enjoyment of our relationships with divine Persons.

PM Is this really when you see the ark, you move from your place and go after it? Does Christ become the point of attraction going through death into another world?

RT Yes, physically they did that; and yet how little they apprehended it shows the need for us of those exercises to know the power to sustain life in relation to God and the enjoyment of Him in His own circumstances, do you think?

JW Do you think it is something that should quicken us in our affections to be identified with Christ; to know that we can be identified with Him in His death and His resurrection?

RT It helps us through the exercises that our brother spoke of, the ignominious side of death and the pressure of it, but we are facing it in the light of resurrection. The teaching is to help us; buried with Him, raised with Him through faith of the working of God, quickened with Him; so we are facing death in the light of another world of which He is the centre, where a great realm of glory is opened up as we are helped through these exercises.

JW It really comes down to what Christ is to me. We have spoken of Him being the centre; if He really is everything to me the thought of being associated with Him, identified with Him, would be something that would really go in for.

RT Yes, and to realise His power to effectuate this, to bring us to be at home in circumstances where things that are above become a regulating feature in our lives here.

RWF Could you distinguish for us the difference between resurrection and quickening?

RT The actual resurrection will be from among the dead. Quickening as in Romans 8 will be of our mortal bodies at the rapture. As going through the exercises we are speaking of now in our spirit and way of life, there is something worked out in us in spiritual experience that gives the Spirit peculiar liberty to engage us with fresh impressions of another world and our place in it now. He does not quicken the flesh.

RWF I wondered if it had particular reference to the things which are above? Our place is there and we find that we are at home there.

RT Yes, I think the exercises that we are speaking of give the Spirit peculiar liberty, so you think of that family together in John 12, the house being filled with the odour of the ointment. I think that is the Spirit touching something in the affections of the saints that releases them, and gives some pleasure to Christ and to the Father in these days that we are in.

DW Your life is hid with the Christ in God; to the unbeliever there is that which cannot be understood. In taking account of a believer, you are not finding your pleasure in things of this world, but it relates to another Man on the other side of death. That is a mystery to the unbeliever, is it not?

RT It shows how real the resurrection world is to us, does it not? that world and the resurrection, “your life is hid with the Christ in God”. We hesitate to say it, but the fact is that that world is more real to such persons than the present world with all its allurements and attractions.

DER It is the measure in which that is so, we shall find this newness of life in Christ above.

RT Yes, and these references to “with him” in Colossians are to help us through the exercises; we are all tested but “he has quickened together with him, having forgiven us all the offences”. So that the Lord leads us very graciously through the exercises, and strengthens our affections in going through them, so that we have power to overcome in the present circumstances.

BES The quickening in Ephesians and Colossians is spiritual; it says, “he has quickened” us, but in Romans it is related to our bodies. That is to come, is it not?

RT Indeed, but the hope of it is already known, and by faith we embrace it. At present, I think it is peculiarly connected with the Spirit. I always think of quickening as when David comes in before Samuel, and it says, “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”, 1 Samuel 16: 12. There is a touch of the Spirit, as applying it to our time, touching the affections of Samuel. I think we should know something of that in our meetings, the Spirit touching the affections of the saints, lifting our spirits and fixing our minds exclusively on the enjoyment of Christ being before us.

JW I was thinking of that verse in Romans 8 that you have referred to. It speaks of the Spirit dwelling. The body is going to be quickened by the Spirit, but the Spirit dwells in that body as if the Spirit finds pleasure indwelling it, do you think?

RT Yes, I think it is not much spoken of, but you can see through that scripture that the Father, the Son and the Spirit all have to do with the resurrection of the saints. I think the present experience of being sons of the resurrection brings us into particular liberty with divine Persons, to be at home in the enjoyment of Their love so that we are able to go through the things that press on us and test us, and rise above them to be at home in the enjoyment of divine love.

GCB Is this matter of quickening in Colossians another test or proof of our reality? A number of believers might say, I cannot see you raised from the dead, but they cannot deny the quickening power in our affections towards Christ, can they?

RT No, they cannot, and as you say they would know nothing about it, but they see that there is something there that has been developed and is known, through our links with divine Persons and particularly our links with the Spirit, do you think? so that they can see a life that is not dependent on the things that men find their life in. Mr. Stoney writes that many persons want to go to heaven, but if they were taken there they would be very unhappy because they would not have the things that they live in now. They would not have in heaven their amusements and the relationships that they have now. Believers have already been able in divine grace to look beyond all that, and see that their life is really bound up with Christ in God. It is so, if it is so, but these exercises are to encourage us that they may be more so, that our life is bound up with Christ.

GCB Do you think that what our life is, each of us individually, is more apparent to others than we realise perhaps?

RT Well, would that it is more enjoyed by us; it would then be more apparent too.

There is a whole world there of great variety and infinite resources so that we are encouraged to “have your mind on the things that are above” and to “seek the things which are above”. These things are not bounded by death.

PM Are the things which are above centred in the enjoyment of relationships with divine Persons and with one another?

RT Yes, I think so, and they are eternal; they are not mystical, they are very real to us now. So that the relationships we enjoy now will require another body for their fulness, but they are already enjoyed through the Spirit’s grace.

JSG I wondered if the picture we are given of the company in John 12 is the setting out of “every one who lives and believes on me shall never die”. It was not only Lazarus who was there but the sisters were there too. They had not gone through the literal experience of death. I wondered if you would say more about the effect of the sufferings through the shadow of death on others at the present time upon our companies.

RT I think it has all been to wean us away from things that hold us, because it is bringing home to us that things here are passing, the best of them, and that helps us to know that our “life is hid with the Christ in God”. We must have the enjoyment of that to be maintained in the truth of our baptism and in the truth of being dead with Him. These things go on together in our histories, that we are in the enjoyment of our life being hid, so that we are able to resist the temptations and the powers that would draw us away to be ensnared in this world.

TJH There is a tract which the brethren will remember, ‘Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment’; many may know much about safety and certainty but what you are bringing before us is to help us as to enjoyment. Would you help us more on having our minds on the things that are above? Would that help us in the secret of the enjoyment of the things that are there above?

RT Yes, it is where the Christ is sitting; He is already enthroned there and He is not only there but He has given us a place there, and that place becomes very interesting to the saints as they “seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God”. Then, have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth”. As you say it is enjoyment and we have the experience of our heavenly part even now as we follow the way that He has gone and the way that divine grace would lead us.

PM We are living in a day when men live in their possessions and what is material. Would the experiences through which the saints are passing at the present time have in view drawing us from that whole order of things to live on account of Him. He says in John, “because I live ye also shall live”, John 14: 19. Is that the way the Lord takes us to fill our affections with Himself?

RT Yes, that was what I was thinking; materialism is the great matter among men, spending their whole lives at it and the devil is very active to draw us into it, to find our lives in what is material. But I think that these exercises are to let us see that it is all passing, even the best of it, whatever it is, but there is another life and it is centred in where the Christ is sitting. The Lord has gone before and in His grace and in His love He would draw us to have our affections on that scene where He is, and, as we have in John, He has prepared a place for us. I think He is bringing us through these exercises that that place may be more real to us, and the One who is the centre of it may be enthroned in our affections, so that we are able to resist the power of materialism and all that it would draw us into.

TJH The material things which have been referred to can be spoiled by rust or moth, but the things that are above cannot be spoiled by these things. It would help us therefore to have our eyes on the things which cannot be spoiled.

RT The question is, how real are they to us, the things that are above? As I have said, they are not mystical, they are not theories; to the sons of the resurrection they are very real. If our minds are on the things that are above we become governed by them, and we will be able to resist these other powers, because what is guiding us and holding us and drawing us into this other world is this great system of things which is centred in a risen and glorified Man.

AM Is the presentation of the Lord sitting at the right hand of God suggestive of a scene where divine affections are complacently at rest in Him? It is not a question of His present service or anything like that, though we take comfort from that, but our lives are to be hid in a scene where divine affections are known and enjoyed.

RT It would be a very restful scene where the Christ is sitting. All these things are settled, the great work of redemption, the power of Satan broken, it is all settled so He is sitting there. His work completed, and He becomes an object for our affections. The enjoyment of the gospel is our hearts being bound up with a risen and glorified Man. We are justified through faith and what He has done, and saved in the power of His life. There is a great system opened up in the teaching of the gospel that would lead us to have our minds and our lives centred in this other world where He is sitting.

DW I wondered if there was some point in the Lord at the end of Luke, when He led them out as far as Bethany, to the place where they experienced the Lord as the resurrection and the life, to a point where they saw Him separated from them and carried up into heaven, as if from that point on it was intended that such persons, that company, should be drawn to Him where He is?

RT Yes, and it is in contrast to Jerusalem where the orthodox things were going on, but this is outside Jerusalem and that is where the saints are drawn to, an area of things where these experiences are real in the saints, and their affections are settled on where He is sitting at the right hand of God. That is the place of authority and power and soon He is going to descend from it and open the tombs of the believers, and bring us into new bodies of glory.

Those who are alive will be quickened, but in the meantime it is no surprise to us to taste and enter into something of these new conditions, because already. He has become our life. Well, it is true, if it is true, but the Lord would encourage us that it may be increasingly true for us all.

RHB It is significant, is it not, it is more than geographical, that it says of the Lord in John, “He who comes from above is above all”, John 3: 31? He morally transcends every other; the thought of what is above is what is morally elevating, any object this side of death leads to what is downward, but having your mind on the things that are above is what is morally elevating to the soul.

RT It is a sphere where sin has never invaded and it has never been marred. There is One there who has come into the circumstances in which we are to lead our hearts into it.

These words, “with him” in Colossians are to attract us through the deep exercises to see Him where He is in His own circumstances, and as there a place is prepared for us, that the light and joy of it may be in our hearts. At the present time there is a triumph for God in seeing persons for whom Christ is their life.

Reading at Havering
11 December 2004

KEY TO INITIALS

R. H. Brown

T. J. Harvey

R. Taylor

R. M. Brown

A. Martin

D. J. Willetts

D. E. Burr

Martin

D. Wright

G. C. Bywater

D. E. Remmington

J. Wright

R. W. Flowerdew

D. J. Roberts

J. S. Gray

B. E. Surtees