RESTRAINT AND LIBERTY
[p. 18] RESTRAINT AND LIBERTY
2 Thessalonians 2: 5 - 8; Matthew 16: 15 - 19; John 20: 21 - 23
I wish to speak at this time, dear brethren, about restraint and liberty, making it, as it were, a dual subject; and also added to that, the means of accomplishing restraint, and the means of accomplishing liberty. The subject will be divided up in a threefold manner, firstly, political restraint involving the government of the world, involving too the rule of Christ in the world, a sure guarantee of the restraint of evil, and the liberty of good. Secondly, the restraint in the service of God, through the personnel employed by Him, involving apostolic power and skill. Thirdly, collective restraint, or I should say, firstly collective liberty afforded through collective means, and then restraint afforded through collective restraint.
The first point is obvious; it occurs only in the second letter to the Thessalonians. Second apostolic letters are peculiar, and are usually to meet conditions arising immediately, which had not been arrived at in the first letters. The same applies to the gospel of Luke, which did not fill out what the writer had in mind, at least, according to his judgment; but afterwards he was helped in filling it out. Heaven knew; Luke was a servant, and heaven took him on again for a great service in writing to the same servant Theophilus, thinking that he would be gracious in looking into the matter of the truth of Christianity. So that second letters, such as this second epistle to the Thessalonians, are peculiar; the first was the proclamation of the gospel and the loveliness of the Thessalonian assembly, for the idea of the word ‘assembly’ had come into use. Until Acts 14 the metropolitan idea had prevailed and was thought [p. 19] right and useful. In Acts 9: 31, the word ‘assemblies’ comes in, though it is disputed by some, that the single thought was still prevailing. It would seem so, as in Acts 18: 22 Paul went to Caesarea, and then it says he went up, and “saluted the assembly”, as if it was the only one. But the plural thought remains till now, and evidently love enters into it, and this is of advantage to the ministers. The Lord was establishing garrisons, as David did; in establishing His empire He has set up garrisons, and placed the authority in local assemblies, and the saints prove the benefit of them. So it is these second epistles are very instructive. But here the first is so, even more than the second, because the first deals with the attractiveness of the company at Thessalonica, as if God rested on the thought of the Thessalonians, young and fresh and most attractive, and obedient as well. They had “become imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus”. (1 Thessalonians 2: 14); they followed the way, the order of the assembly set out in that section, “the assemblies of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus”. The assembly of Thessalonians is one of the finest you can get, especially because it is “in God the Father”. The second letter is to warn and instruct the young assembly as to the coming of the Lord, and the coming in of the antichrist, or rather, of the man of sin. It all turns on the means of meeting the conditions from which the assembly was formed; it was early, but not one of the first. Jerusalem was first, then the assemblies in Judaea, then in Syria.
But “the man of sin” (verse 3) is called in verse 7 “the mystery of lawlessness”, not any particular person, or empire, or even the Roman Empire, but a mystery, that is something that was working by the enemy against the truth of the assembly. Now that mystery exists today; it has many more ramifications than previously, and it is now steeped in sin;
[p. 20] all its ramifications working to that effect. It becomes us who”call upon the Lord”, according to 2 Timothy 2: 22, to enquire as to this matter, as to how it is to be met. We all need to understand what it is; though the antichrist, as yet, is not seen; in Paul’s mind it is more the ‘anti-God’. It is working still, a mystery. We all need to understand that word, “the mystery of piety is great. God has been manifested in flesh, has been justified in the Spirit, has appeared to angels, has been preached among the nations, has been believed on in the world, has been received up in glory” (1 Timothy 3: 16); that is the truth; it is a combination of words, almost poetic words, unfolding the deity of God, and piety, too, to call attention to the need to be pious, hence it is “the mystery of piety”. Anyone who understands the mystery of piety has something about him that others do not know: “And confessedly the mystery of piety is great”, and the greatness is apparent. And so the man of sin is called “the mystery of lawlessness”. The intent is not to enlarge any more upon it, but to add the corrective, it is being restrained; that such a thing as that is being restrained, and the Holy Spirit is here to help us to keep ourselves free of that iniquity. There is the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, “greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4: 4), and that great Person is the Holy Spirit. We are to cultivate godliness and piety and assembly service, and not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom is with some”, Hebrews 10: 25. This awful thing is still current after these eighteen hundred years, all working against the truth of the assembly, which is growing and is supported in the sense of piety, the mystery of piety; it is one thing, and it produces the mystery of the assembly, which is a greater thing. How great a thing is glory to God “in the assembly in Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 3: 21. It means enjoying it and being in it to the glory of God.
That is the first point, and the second is the passage read in Matthew 16. When I speak of persons, I cannot but think of the twelve apostles; they are primary; there were the things as to which the Lord loved to go over the ground with them, as to who they were that He had in His mind, not one more than another. The number twelve has administration in mind, and they were to be the great administrators. So Peter is selected, the Lord at times calling attention to him. The twelve did not discern what an instrument the devil had in Judas. It is what we read this afternoon as to “the darnel of the field”, (Matthew 13: 36) — “the sons of the evil one”, a terrible thing; sons that oppose Christ are the progeny of the devil, not just a demon, such is the character of the wickedness we have to deal with. The sons of the kingdom were copied or imitated, just as Moses and Aaron were imitated, and so it is that such persons are devils this is not to occupy you with evil, but that you should be acquainted with it. But I am speaking of the personnel, that of the twelve, and Peter’s selection; not here primarily, when the Lord had seen him fishing; that is not what I am speaking of here, but now as being appointed an administrator, and having the keys, the custody, of the kingdom of the heavens it is said of him, “first, Simon, who was called Peter” (Matthew 10: 2), so that he becomes a most interesting person, especially in the maintenance of good against evil. There is the release of good, the deliverance of good, to meet the evil. Peter was in that office, and he becomes a most interesting occupation, not with his failures, we have no time for that But I want the brethren to see this idea of restraint; that we have a weapon called ‘good’, with which to overcome evil. We all recall the incident on the holy mount, in Peter’s glorious ministry, but there is one [p. 22] thing the brethren may notice, that though he had this remarkable revelation, and spoke as he did here, he never spoke of it himself but once; he never uses the thought involved in it until he is about to die, that was in his second letter. It is to seek to show how we have the means of keeping things; “Keep”, says Paul, “by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted”, 2 Timothy 1: 14. The Lord would have us keep this most precious thing. Paul kept his item in 2 Corinthians 12 for fourteen years how long Peter kept his, we do not know; which shows that we do not want to be resting unduly on one point of levitical service. There are levitical rules; that is, we are to learn to say what we are given of the Lord to say; it will keep; and it will come out, bringing in those thoughts, even when it does come; so Peter’s matter came out in his second epistle, on the holy mount, from God as to His Son. Paul had the commission of the Son (Galatians 1: 16), and of Christ “among the nations” (Colossians 1: 27); he had the knowledge of the Sonship of Christ; his first preaching was on that (Acts 9: 20), bringing to us in these modern times what perhaps our earlier brethren did not know. I urge the brethren to keep to the full thought of the Sonship of Christ, “God ... was pleased to reveal his Son in me”, Galatians 1: 15, 16. It was revealed to Peter, but to Paul it was a closer thing. We shall be there in the full thought of son-ship. Peter used his knowledge beautifully, but Paul even more so. The dispensation of sonship is the dispensation of the Spirit. It shines especially in Paul’s ministry, “the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”, (Galatians 2: 20); He was endeared to the heart of Paul. The thought of Peter enters into what I am saying as to binding and loosing, “And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens; and whatsoever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be bound in the heavens; and whatsoever [p. 23] thou mayest loose on the earth shall be loosed in the heavens” (verse 19). The Lord gave that to Peter, not even to Paul, though he does similar things; he binds people, and looses them, but he is not given the keys of the kingdom, though he did his work well. Peter brings this forward as he is about to put off his tabernacle, a thing that comes very near to us who are older; but we feel He is coming; the Lord says it to His bondman John, and hundreds and hundreds of years have elapsed because He has waited for us. We are all bound up in the Spirit; and let us wait on others, not that any should perish, but “that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Timothy 2: 4. The work of the gospel is a prime work, “for it is woe to me if I should not announce the glad tidings”, 1 Corinthians 9: 16. It is the time of the gospel; the work is being done, not in any profession, but let us each see to it that we perfect the work, not in any doctrinal sense, or creed of any system, but in Christ Jesus; that is where the perfection is. So to finish as to Peter, and what I had to say. How he must have had this thought before him, this lovely finish, “but having been eyewitnesses of his majesty”, how he would delight in that word, for he loved the Lord; so he says (2 Peter 1: 17), “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight; and this voice we heard”; it was the Father’s voice; a fine thought in Peter’s mind as he was about to depart, to put off his tabernacle, to be martyred, “another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire” (John 21: 18); even if Peter did not seek it, he valued the privilege the Lord gave him of being a martyr. Now thirdly, in John 20, we have, not the binding, but the remitting; the Lord gives it to them as He breathed on them, He is going to commission them; it was a peculiar commission, and it has come down to us; it was not apostolic, it is for disciples (and if [p. 24] we are anything spiritually, we are this!) to be in the power to remit sins, and surely we should be thankful to do so if we can; “whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”. There is nothing else, no conditions beyond that; the Lord says He is trusting them to act faithfully in His absence, because there is so much of the committing of sins, even in us who break bread, who have all this privilege, there is so much of this committing sins. But our great High Priest is above, and the Holy Spirit is here, if there is anyone who needs forgiveness, any who are not growing in the truth, the Lord at the top will inaugurate it for you, so that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”, 1 John 1: 9. Well, there is the confession and the cleansing, the outcome of the Lord’s own great service; and then we have the great High Priest above, and not only the High Priest, but we have Him as “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2: 2); it is the great work of redemption, so that it is possible to have forgiveness because of His death. So in our verse it reads (John 20: 23), “whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”. Now forgiveness must be touched on for a moment; it is a matter of the Lord’s mind, and He is delegating it now, such forgiveness, to those who are saints, that the fellowship should be kept pure. If sins are committed, then there is forgiveness and cleansing. It all follows what He said through Mary of Magdala, of whom it says, “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out”, Luke 8: 2. For in verse 21 He says, “as the Father sent me forth, I also send you”; He is speaking to His disciples as having already been told the message through Mary, involving that they were great morally; so He breathed into them the Holy [p. 25] Spirit, in pattern, not the truth as at Pentecost, but He is showing them how intimate He is with them, so that the truth of the dispensation can go on. There must be the confession of committed sins, and then the cleansing. The commission was to remit sins; how can we be together in the fellowship and have love amongst ourselves unless there is this matter of forgiveness, for in remitting there is no more consciousness of it in the fellowship? It is in this passage these disciples are like us all, having moral authority to forgive sins; to confess them, but more, a commission granted by the Lord to forgive and remit sins. The fellowship thus goes on to the end as these things are looked after. If there is the remission, there is also the retention of sins; we cannot go on with people who will not judge themselves, for as appropriating each other, we are to join with each other in dealing with sin.