THE ANOINTING (3)
[p. 177] THE ANOINTING (3)
Exodus 40: 1 - 11; 1 Corinthians 12: 1 - 13
JT The link between these two scriptures will be apparent to most of us; at least it will be as we proceed in our inquiry. The passage in Corinthians is really the antitype of Exodus 40. Chapter 12, verse 12, reads, “For even as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ”. The allusion there is to Christ as the anointed One; what is mainly in view is Christ in Person. It is not Christ exalted but more the vessel down here, the saints viewed as united to Him. The term ‘the Christ’ means the anointed one or vessel, and Exodus will help us to see the detail which is in God’s mind for us in this way. Exodus 39 shows that all the parts of the tabernacle passed through Moses’ hands. It says, “According to all that Jehovah had commanded Moses, so had the children of Israel done all the labour. And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as Jehovah had commanded — so had they done it; and Moses blessed them”. It is a corresponding allusion there to Christ as the Mediator, so that as believers we all come under His examination, and we are only passed, as it were, by Him if we conform to the requirements that the book presents to us. It is said that “Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as Jehovah had commanded”. Then it is said that Moses blessed them. It is a very auspicious moment, the tabernacle is passed now in all its parts but it is not all set up yet. In chapter 40 it is set up and then anointed. It is thought that what we had yesterday afternoon fits in, for Jacob reached the collective idea; however much or little he understood it, he named the place Beth-el. It was a place where God had come down [p. 178] to speak to him, which conveys the idea of the house of God. Beth-el means the house of God, and God being there with Jacob indicates what is meant. It is a place of divine Presence and dwelling and is informal, as we might say. In Genesis God was allowing His work to manifest itself in individuals, particularly in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The idea of the anointing was in the family according to Psalm 105, and Jacob coming in, the third from Abraham, entered into the matter of the anointing, first using oil by itself according to chapter 28, and then using the drink offering in chapter 35, oil meaning that God is there and pleased to be there. He had pleasure in Jacob so that the idea of the house is there.
JWD Do you think we need to reach Jacob experimentally so that the drink offering and the oil will be acceptable to God?
JT That is the principle running through Genesis. The work of God manifests itself in certain ones and they do things of themselves without prescriptions.
JWD I was thinking of the drink offering. God is everything to us and we ourselves arrive at the truth of God being supreme.
JT Quite so. Jacob had the experience in a small way, or indeed fully, because God Himself was there; but the fulness of it is here in chapter 40 in a special way, because God says in Exodus that if He is to have a dwelling it must be according to His own prescription. There was none of that in Jacob’s case, it was all from Jacob’s side, but God accepted what Jacob did and it felicitously pertained to the house of God. That is to say, Jacob progressed in his apprehension of things to the idea of the house. In the second visit he called it El-Beth-el. The name of the city before was Luz but it is now called Beth-el; however, it is from Jacob’s own experience; God is not prescribing things for him, it is what he [p. 179] himself does. In many instances in Genesis the work of God is manifest in persons and God accepts it, but when we come to Exodus we have the divine standard and pattern. Everything is according to pattern and standard, and the pattern is shown from above; it is a heavenly matter; so that chapter 40 here is the full result in Exodus. God comes in, we are told in the end of the chapter, and glory fills the house. It is the carrying through of what Jacob reached and God is showing that Jacob was in His line of things. How little he understood when he reached Beth-el and named it! In Exodus the thought is taken up and the divine standard asserted above, not on the level of the earth. Jacob’s naming it is on the earth but it is not on that level now, it is on the divine level, so that Moses was called up onto the mountain and was there for forty days and forty nights and received the pattern there. The house of God is really a heavenly thing, but here provisionally.
JB Is that why in Matthew’s gospel the mountains are spoken of?
JT Matthew is really set in relation to mountains; beginning with chapter 5 there are seven of them. As the mountains were round about Jerusalem so are they in Matthew’s gospel round about the assembly; it is a heavenly thing come down.
LES Would you say we have all the basic features of the work of God in Genesis, while in Exodus we have how it should function?
JT I think that is right. In the beginning of Genesis we have the creation, as it is called. That is, what had been there before, a chaotic condition, is brought into form, but then that is not final. Chapter 1 is basic and chapter 2 is to bring the fulness of it out, so that the man and the woman are enjoined to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Genesis is not complete, there is always a sequence. Chapter 2 is a sequence of chapter 1 and God takes a compound [p. 180] name. The added name indicates that God has other thoughts that were not indicated in the first chapter and these thoughts centre in the idea of Jehovah compounded with Elohim; that is to say, God, the Creator, is taking up a covenant relation with men. Exodus is the book of covenant, it is God taking up a fixed relation with men, or with Israel. The work goes on, the effulgence or working out of things, right through the Scriptures until the Lord Jesus appears, and it is said, “For in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”, Colossians 1: 19. The greatness and fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Jesus, that is the culmination; and now in the assembly we have His fulness, for the assembly is the fulness of Christ.
Ques When the Exodus system is not functioning in Corinthians, does the apostle in his ministry seek to awaken in them a sense of the Jacob experience or Genesis side of things, to awaken in their souls a sense of where God had spoken to them?
JT Quite so, and it is a commandment. The test of everyone’s status in the house of God or the assembly is whether he is a prophet or can discern what apostolic ministry is. “Let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord’s commandment”, 1 Corinthians 14: 37. Genesis is not the place of commandment; commandment is peculiarly in Exodus.
JWD Would you say that the assembly as Christ’s fulness is a development?
JT Yes. He is the One in whom the divine fulness is. Colossians 1: 19 says in the original, “In him all the fulness ... was pleased to dwell”, without saying what the fulness is; “of the Godhead” is interpolated in chapter 1.
JWD The fulness involves greater expansion; it is a development, [p. 181] is it not?
JT It is what God is morally coming out in Christ. Of course Deity was there in Christ and He is One of the divine Persons, but the fulness is the fulness of the whole without saying what it is. In chapter 2 it says that all the fulness “of the Godhead” was bodily in Him so that it has been brought down to us in Christ, but the first chapter is more general and less specific.
ANW The actual statement as to the assembly is, “The fulness of him who fills all in all”, Ephesians 1: 23.
JT That is Ephesians, quite so; Colossians is the personal touch.
AB Chapter 2 says, “Ye are complete in him”, and does the footnote help? It says, “Or ‘filled full’, referring to all fulness being in Him. The fulness or completeness of the Godhead is in Christ”.
JT That helps. So that the first chapter of Colossians is mainly a question of the deity of Christ, the truth of His Person, that He is the Creator of everything and “in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”; whereas in Ephesians it is that God “gave him to be head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”. So that the fulness dwelling in Christ, of which Colossians speaks, finds its own fulness — another thought. It is an extended thought in the assembly, but the assembly is His fulness.
Ques When you say the fulness of God morally, are you using the word morally as distinct from what God is essentially?
JT Yes. What God is morally is what He is in relation to things, but here the word ‘God’ is not used; it is the fulness personified as it were. What Jesus was as a Man down here was great enough for the fulness to dwell in.
Rem It is not only the thought of Christ in His Person, His essential Being, though He is God in that [p. 182] too.
JT Oh yes, the three divine Persons are equal, but Scripture refers to the economy into which They have come, that is, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father remains in the Deity but in relation to the economy and in relation to creation; and it is in that economy that Christ has the fulness dwelling in Him; in the second chapter it says “all the fulness ... bodily”.
Ques Where would you go for a scripture as to Christ’s divinity, His essential Being in its personal aspect?
JT I would say John 1 is the leading scripture for that, giving account of the Word, “In the beginning was the Word” (that is in time and creation too). In the beginning was the Person and there was more there than was understood, but John’s gospel was written so that it might be understood. He did not begin to be there. He was there; in the beginning He was there. It is implied there that He is Head essentially and it goes on to say, “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. That brings in the name of God, and that in itself is relative, it designates God as set out in the Father. Paul says, “There is one God, the Father”. The Deity is represented by the Father, but John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God”, showing that He had a distinctiveness from the other divine Persons. Then it goes on to say, “The Word was with God, and the Word was God”. We are moving upward to bring out the essential deity of Christ, that He had a personal existence as distinct from the other two Persons, and that He was with God, known in that way; and then finally that He “was God”. Then we might say, What about the other two Persons? There are not two Gods, only one God, but He was operating as God in one Person. The Others, of course, would be there too, but it was by Him, as it goes on to say,
“[p. 183] Without him not one thing received being which has received being”. It was Christ who made everything.
Ques Colossians does not go quite that far, does it?
JT No. Colossians speaks of Christ as Man; what He is morally is in relation to what He is in manhood, all the fulness is there. In Ephesians it says, “That ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”, suggesting what came out in Christ in a moral sense; so that every attribute of God is there, dealing in creation especially with men.
GAT What you say of John 1 does not bring before us the designation Son.
JT The title Son is not mentioned until you come to verse 14, “And the Word became flesh”. It does not say God became flesh, although that might be true because God was manifest in flesh, but “the Word became flesh”. He took another condition and in that condition He tabernacled among men, “and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. What beautiful relations were seen there between the Father and Son! Then we go on to verse 18 and it says, “No one has seen God at any time”. When we speak of God in that sense it includes the three Persons: “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. This is the great thought of the declaration of the Deity, that is, not in essential being but what They are morally here.
Ques Would God being all in all fit into the moral thought rather than into the thought of His essential being?
JT No one has seen or can see Him in His essential being. God is all in all and God is in us by the Spirit. He is all to us subjectively, but He is in [p. 184] us in relation to the Spirit. It does not say ‘all and all’, which would be an external idea, but “all in all”, so that the hidden fixity is seen in that.
MO Matthew 11: 27 says, “No one knows the Son but the Father”. Is that referring to His essential being?
JT That is what is stated there; “nor does any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal him”. The Son is never said to be revealed and that ought to subdue us as to these matters. We are dealing with inscrutability when we speak of divine Persons in that sense.
Rem Those who have stumbled in relation to sonship have not looked carefully at John 1. The Spirit has clarified it for us and the ministry has glorified the thought for us. We must look carefully so that we do not stumble over it and lose the deity of Christ.
JT Really the deity of Christ is stressed in it, the inscrutability of His Person. He has come out in manhood yet He belongs to the Deity and never leaves It in that sense.
ANW Would you care to distinguish between what the word ‘Godhead’ conveys to you and the word ‘God’?
JT Godhead would seem to stress the thought of God, involving in the word ‘head’ that It has come out. It is a term relating to the economy into which He has come, the fulness of Deity being in Christ bodily. I think it would mean that it is absolute, it is God absolutely. That is, He is acting by Himself in relation to creation, but there is something in the word ‘absolute’ that goes beyond that, which we cannot take in at all. The idea that no one has seen Him or can see Him refers to the three Persons in relation to Themselves. Before creation [p. 185] that is what They were and we cannot say what names They bore toward One Another then because the names we have are the names of revelation.
ANW Would you object to the word ‘system’ applied to the Deity?
JT I should not like to use that word, inferring that I could put a name on what is inscrutable.
ANW Is the idea of the Spirit in the Godhead?
JT As to the absolute Godhead, I do not like to say anything about it. You might say there were the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as now, but that would make two of Them inferior, which would be infringing on the Scripture. We should be careful.
AB In 1 Corinthians 8 it is, “To us there is one God”, but that is comparing God to other gods. In Timothy it says, “God is one”, which is not comparative. Is there something in that?
JT Yes, “God is one, and the mediator of God and men one”; that is, in the mediatorial system God being One would mean that three Persons are in Him and united, inscrutably related. The three Persons are in Him and They all have part in the Godhead but we cannot talk about how that works out. What we can take in is the present economy in which we are, for we are baptised to the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
JB How do you understand the thought, “My Father is greater than I”, John 14: 28?
JT It is in keeping with the economy. The Lord without altering as to His Person has taken a lower place in the economy to carry out the divine behest. That is inscrutable!
GAT It says He “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God”, Philippians 2: 6.
JT He did not think in that direction because He was equal with God.
LES That matter of the name is one great difference between judaism and christianity. In regard of judaism it is, “Hear, Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”, but Ephesians 4 says, “One Spirit ... one Lord ... one God and Father”.
JT That is the economy, quite so.
CT What about the passage in John 17 which says, “And now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”?
JT That is Deity; it is extreme. He had that glory along with the Father.
AM What is the thought in Exodus where the seventy elders ate and drank before Him?
JT Now you are bringing out something that will divert us, but it is well to bring it up. God can show Himself as He pleases; we have to come to it that God can do everything, and so He can come out without our being told in what way. He is inscrutable, no one has seen Him or can see Him; we have to accept that fact, and yet they saw the God of Israel and ate and drank. Cannot God show Himself in His attributes in some way? How could He speak to Satan?
ANW You made a remark yesterday that you bow to it even though you do not understand it and your soul is enlightened.
JT Quite so, and you get portions. You find how little you are and how great God is, and that steadies you. So we have to look at the context of such statements. How can God show Himself? In Genesis 18 when three men came to Abraham in the heat of the day they accepted the invitation to eat there. How can God eat? We cannot explain that, but God can do everything. They ate, and they had a lamb tender and good. How can you explain it? We must just accept the fact that God can do everything.
LES So in Mark it says He appeared in another [p. 187] form.
JT In Genesis 18 there can be no doubt that we have a suggestion of the Trinity, but it is set out in three men who can eat ordinary food. You may say, I do not know how that can be, but we are to accept it because God can do everything. Which One was Jehovah? How can we single Him out, and how did Abraham distinguish between the three? There must have been something shining out in Him that was not in the other two. And then Jehovah talked to him about righteous people. How simple God is! He comes down and eats food and says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” Abraham saw Him there as a Man, so let us accept the fact that God can do everything; the Holy Spirit is here and He will impress our souls.
Rem What you say will relieve us of a lot of worry if we just accept the Scriptures and go on.
JT God will in time give you an abundance to settle your mind, for the God of the whole of the New Testament was really in view; that God came down and ate food! How did Jesus eat fish in His resurrection condition? Spiritually you understand that He could do that, so that Peter says He ate and drank with them after He arose, and all that has to be accepted.
LES The Spirit of God will operate giving spiritual impressions, and our minds need to be under control.
JT Quite so. When we come to Exodus it is not simply Abraham and three men, but Moses and Aaron and seventy elders of Israel, and they “went up”. It does not say they went up the mountain, but it is moral going up; Moses and Joshua went up the mountain physically, the others went up as a type of what we come into in the assembly. In ascension we go up, so in the type this experience is not down below; it is what you get up above. The higher you go the more you have a sense of God’s greatness, so [p. 188] that they saw the God of Israel, and under His feet “as it were work of transparent sapphire”. Here it was God coming in in Deity, although Abraham in Genesis 18 also saw that it was God who had appeared to him.
Ques In Colossians we have the word ‘image’ used alongside of the word ‘invisible’: “who is image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation”, Colossians 1: 15. It does not refer to His essential being, does it?
JT That would represent Christ in incarnation as the image of the invisible God, so that Thomas said, “My Lord and my God”. How could he say that? There was something that impressed him, so that he said not only, “My Lord”, but “my God”. It means that God was represented. We do not bring God the Father in there but He was represented, “He that has seen me has seen the Father”, John 14: 9. God was there representatively, He had visited His people. But that does not deny that Jesus was Himself in the Deity, and that gave Him all the distinction for those that perceived Him.
LES God being with us includes what He is in Christ.
JT He must be a divine Person to be Immanuel, the fulness could be in no other. And the fulness of Christ is the assembly; that is what we are dealing with now; and what distinction we need in the anointing if we are to be before Christ in His body!
R Was it revealed to Peter in Matthew 16: 16, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”?
JT Yes, the Father revealed that to him, but that was not His essential Deity, that was what He was there before Peter’s eyes. The Lord Jesus had been asking what people had been saying about Him and then asked, What do you say? Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”.
[p. 189] The point is what was before their eyes so he does not say, You have part in the Deity. The anointed One is what we are dealing with.
Ques When you speak of God being in us, is that true in any way apart from the Spirit?
JT I do not think so. Of course there is what is physical, as Paul says, “In him we live and move and exist”, Acts 17: 28. God is in the grass and the earth and makes all things grow. He is in everything and He is making the world go, but He is in us by the Spirit.
Ques Then the Ephesian phrase, “in all”, means by the Spirit?
JT Quite so.
GAT Are you connecting the tabernacle with the assembly?
JT That is what is in mind and we should go into these great matters. They are infinitely great and we need to be subject and bow to the Scriptures first; we should pray to the Lord to give us understanding in all things. What is in mind is what God had in the house at Beth-el. What Jacob had in Beth-el was, you might say, only himself and God; that was the house; but what companionship he would have, because Jehovah came down to where he was and talked with him! When we go back to Abraham, there were Abraham and the three men, and finally only Abraham and God, but not in the sense of Beth-el. Then when we come to Exodus and seventy go up with Moses and Aaron they see the God of Israel, but that is not the house either; it is just dignity, just exaltation; God is giving them dignity to meet the need. There were never seventy men like these before; even Abraham did not get that view, nor Jacob. It is an exalted view and it has in mind typically the present position and what we are to reach. ‘And see! the Spirit’s power has ope’d the heav’nly door’. That is opened to us! All [p. 190] that line of thought is brought into the tabernacle; it is made a fact in the collective situation.
R Is the thought you have in mind that in chapter 40 there is a heavenly pattern of the assembly, and that now we get the details of the working out of it in the first nine verses?
JT My thought is to show that in the type everything passed through Moses’ hands, and similarly every christian who came in from Pentecost on, has passed through Christ’s hands. There is no use trying to escape; we should have in our minds that we are dealing with God in heaven and we cannot impose anything on Him. He will examine you, and His people will have a judgment of you, and admit you into the assembly. This is the pattern exactly because everything passed through Moses’ hands and he blessed the people; everything was done as God commanded; we must come to that. The Lord commanded, and it is God’s assembly, so that it must pass through the hands of Christ.
GAT This is very searching. “Lord, knower of the hearts of all”, Acts 1: 24.
JT So that we examine persons; that is what our care meetings are for — to examine one another. The Lord is with us in that we must pass judgment; it is according to God.
GAT Romans 1: 20 says, “For from the world’s creation the invisible things of him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity — so as to render them inexcusable”. Would that help?
JT Well, that is the initial idea. The things of creation express God in His attributes. His hidden power, but that is not Deity, it is divinity. The word ‘divinity’ there is more what God is as in the fulness; the Godhead is the idea that is inscrutable. The creation is more or less a witness to God in His [p. 191] attributes; He made the worlds, and we apprehend by the mind His hidden power and divinity. Divinity is not as strong a word as Godhead; it suggests what He is as operating.
AM What is the thought of God being in us? God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. Is that not God in us?
JT No, that is not God in us, that is image and likeness. You must come to the New Testament to find God in us.
R The scripture quoted refers to moral likeness, does it not?
JT Man is like God in a very small sense. In Colossians it is Christ who is brought forward as the “image of the invisible God”. Likeness infers that one is like God and it must come before image.
The link between Genesis 35 and Exodus 40 is to be kept in mind, because it comes right down to David and he refers to Jacob too; the house of God is connected with Jacob because it begins with him. What is involved is that Jacob had the sense that he could be on good terms with God. That is what young people have to come to, that they can be in holy, happy relations with Christ; He sets us near Himself in holy, happy relations. Jacob felt that and called the place where he had this experience the house of God. God did not call it that but Jacob did; it represents what he experienced in it. We can never fully understand a thing unless we have experienced it.
GAT When we are at an occasion such as this do we come to that in our souls?
JT That is what we are about to see. You would say of such a one. He was at the meeting today. So the man in 1 Corinthians 14 is a worldly man who has little interest in God; he goes in and hears prophecy and is converted. The whole company is affected by what he does, because he falls down and [p. 192] worships God. If they dispersed and later met the man down the street, and wondered what experience he had had he would say, God was there! They did not tell him that God was with them but he experienced it. So Jacob could say, God and I were in the place, and he named it the house of God.
ANW As to the saying, “God is indeed amongst you” (1 Corinthians 14: 25), is He only amongst His people, “whose house are we”?
JT Quite so. He is not among the people generally, “God is ... amongst you”. One can go out and report that God is in truth among you; he can say, I have never been in such a place before!
GAT Where did the man of 1 Corinthians 14 go after that?
JT He would be at the meetings always.
JWD Is Jacob’s state only maintained as these scriptures are taken in and we are regulated by them? Exodus 40 is the continuity of the spirit of Jacob.
JT That is what I thought we might see and work out in connection with our other scripture, “So also is the Christ”. You might say ‘the anointed’ instead of “the Christ” because it means that the personnel are anointed. That is what the man in Corinthians would feel; it was the most dignified assembly he had ever been in. Then “that God may be all in all” is another thought; that is the true result of prophecy, and we shall come to that later, but the point for the moment is that God is among you of a truth.
RG How is Jacob able to call the place El-Beth-el?
JT ‘El’ is God in the sense of power; it is the sense in which He had been made known to Abraham; He revealed Himself to Abraham as the Almighty God. Jacob would have in mind that this God of his fathers was in that place; he had built an altar earlier and called it “God, the God of Israel”,
[p. 193] but here it is the God of Beth-el; that is, it is the house of God and He is the God of it, and it is not simply that He comes in there but that He is to be worshipped there.
RG You would have to see and know the Person to use that term.
JT It shows that Jacob had the idea of worship. In Deuteronomy we are told He is “the God of gods”, but that is a very different idea from the God of Beth-el. If He is God of gods He is over China and has to do with Ethiopia. He has authority to execute judgment against them; but in Jacob’s house He has different ideas. The God of Beth-el means that He has come near to us and we must worship Him.
CT Do we see this in Acts 10 where it says that they magnified God? Is that the thought of the house?
JT Quite so. Jacob experienced the thought of “a people near unto him” in Psalm 148 as God came near to him and stood by him. And every young person should think of what he may experience at the meetings. Are they in a hurry to get out? That is the feeling Jacob had at first; he said, It is a dreadful place! But then afterward he anointed a pillar. In chapter 35 he comes back twenty years older and with a large family, and God talks to him and tells him to go to Beth-el. He prepared himself to go and he ordered his family to do the same; so they buried their gods and went to Beth-el, and we are told that Jacob’s name was changed, as if to say that God liked him better. God changed Jacob’s name at Peniel, and Jacob said much more in Beth-el the second time than he did the first time. In changing Jacob’s name at Peniel God did not tell him His own name; that took place when he came back to Beth-el; it is a place of revelation and a place for living, so that the house of God implies God’s presence.
[p. 194] It is a place of life, and Corinthians opens up that it is where things come out and there is prophecy.
R Reverting back to what we get by the Spirit, would you speak of the man in Corinthians that fell down as getting that impression by the Spirit? Was he filled by the Spirit or was he just impressed by the fact that God was there?
JT God was there not only in relation to him but in relation to the whole company, and he came into it. The Holy Spirit is God, we must keep that before us.
JWD In Corinthians certain conditions prevailed and God was not in them. Things can be darkened, but having God among us implies proper conditions, does it not? Just because we have a meeting in our locality it does not mean that there is a condition like this.
JT No, indeed; there may be a bad condition into which He cannot come. The divine Presence always implies conditions. So if we are ambitious to be teachers and speaking with tongues and so forth it will darken the position.
JB Would the Lord in speaking to the woman in John 4 bring her to what God had in view in connection with Jacob? There is reference back to Jacob and then He begins to speak in connection with worship.
JT He had to refute what she was saying and He was right in that, but even though He refuted what she said she went on and referred back to Jacob. Then she said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship”. He said, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when ye shall neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what”; you do not know what you worship. She had said, “I see that thou art a prophet”. What prophesying it was! and she had come into that. Jacob is not presented here as a prophet, he is connected with the house of God. When she said, “I see that thou art a prophet”, the Lord did not despise her, but He went on to tell her about worship. Why did He not speak to Nicodemus about worship when He spoke to him? This woman had said, “I see that thou art a prophet”, and now there is hope, she is ready to take in the truth; we need to be ready to take in the truth.
CT You were speaking of Jacob’s name being changed. Will God change our names today?
JT Yes, but He reserves the disclosure of His own name; that is an advanced thought. He reserves His own Name but He changes your name under certain conditions. Jacob provided them; he got on well in Peniel; he said to the man who wrestled with him, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. The woman in Samaria would not say that, though she wanted the blessing as did Jacob. He wanted the blessing, and the ground for the blessing there was that he was powerful, he wrestled with the man to the breaking of the day; he had power with God. That is the point, and that means wrestling in prayer and having the light that God will speak at such a time in the history of your soul. God says, You are changing over your natural will now, and He changes Jacob’s name to what means ‘a prince’. It seems that Israel means ‘prince of God’, or ‘one that prevails’, and God has use for a man that prevails spiritually.
JWD His ego is changed.
JT The whole moral being of the man is changed. But did God tell him His own name there? No, He did not. He awaited His opportunity at Beth-el and there in chapter 35 He said, “I am the Almighty God”.
AB Is it not beautiful to see in chapter 35 that God was on speaking terms with men? God went up from the place where He had talked with Jacob and Jacob called the place Beth-el, not because God appeared to him but because God talked with him.
JT Quite so, that is the ground on which Jacob pours the drink-offering on the pillar. In our reading today we should make clear how in Exodus 40 the divine requirements are fully met and the tabernacle is set up according to divine standard. We come to the idea of the house in the end of the chapter but the anointing is in verse 9 where it says, “Thou shalt take the anointing oil”. We had yesterday the component parts of the oil that was used here; Jacob had no oil like it in Genesis. First the parts of the tabernacle are put together and then the oil is used. That is what Corinthians brings out, for the apostle says, “No one can say, Lord Jesus, unless in the power of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 3), showing what a place the anointing has and where the oil is. This is the oil we have in Exodus 40 and it is brought in here after the mention of the court: “And thou shalt take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle, and all that is in it, and shalt hallow it, and all its utensils; and it shall be holy. And thou shalt anoint the altar of burnt-offering, and all its utensils”. They are all anointed, the utensils as well as the altar; then it says, “And thou shalt hallow the altar, and the altar shall be most holy”. In Leviticus the altar is anointed seven times, referring to the Person of Christ who presented Himself without spot to God by the eternal Spirit. The Spirit is greatly stressed in connection with the altar and it is said to be most holy. Then the laver is in verse 11, “And thou shalt anoint the laver and its stand”; and that finishes the matter of the tabernacle. Then we have the matter of the priests; and when we come to verse 34 it says, “And the cloud covered the tent of meeting,
[p. 197] and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle”. You can see we have come here to something much greater than Beth-el; God came there and stood by Jacob but now we have the glory filling the tabernacle, and it says that “Moses could not enter into the tent of meeting, for the cloud abode on it, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle”. We have typically the greatest collective thought here.
AB Would mutuality be in mind, the co-ordinating of all Israel in the matter?
JT That is what Exodus teaches us, it is the main thought after chapter 35; the tabernacle is the whole thought, you might say, with the exception of the breakdown in chapter 32. This thought we are engaged with now is the dominating idea in Exodus; it is the house of God and everything must conform to the commandment.
T Do you mean the anointing is the full thought here in Exodus, and that we are part of the assembly as the anointed vessel?
JT Yes. We are getting help now as we are challenging ourselves as to what we have in the system, in the tabernacle, and in our houses, and whether we are anointed. That is what we are aiming for and Corinthians enriches the idea greatly for us, telling us that in order to say, “Lord Jesus”, in the assembly we need the Spirit.
TU You have said that anointing is in view of testimony; is this a further thought here?
JT Yes, this is the full thought of God in the type. He has complete control of the tabernacle and He is restful in it. Even Moses cannot serve in the presence of this glory, for God says, I thoroughly accept all this and I want it all to Myself.
GAT Is this the answer to the affliction of the saints?
JT The offerings for the tabernacle in chapter 25 and now this result are the answer, and God is [p. 198] saying, I am perfectly restful here. It is what is heavenly down here in testimony. It says further, “The cloud abode on it ... . And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel journeyed in all their journeys. And if the cloud were not taken up, then they did not journey until the day that it was taken up”. It is a testimonial position and everything is controlled by the cloud, it is the presence of God among us. There is a greater thing than elders or deacons — God is greater, and this is God Himself.
Ques Would the early chapters of Numbers fit into this? The end of Exodus 40 seems to be a point stressed in Numbers 9.
JT It is the external position there but in Exodus we are presenting ourselves, “whose house are we”. In early Numbers the priests and Levites are brought forward as the only ones to have to do with the assembling of the tabernacle, and after that thought the next thing is the priesthood. The people themselves are viewed tribally in Numbers and also militarily. These are all features that exist in the wilderness where we are to view ourselves as sojourners. But here we have the idea of the tabernacle as composed of the saints, and God is there of a truth so that anyone who comes in realises that God is there, and the whole system is regulated by the cloud.
Rem So that priestly service and levitical service are for the saints and to the saints. It is a concrete idea and we are not to look at the matter abstractly.
JT Quite so.
ANW Is Acts 2 the antitype and 1 Corinthians 12 the inauguration?
JT Acts 2 is the inauguration of the position, the initial idea, and then in Corinthians Paul is dealing with the gentiles. The question of the Spirit and the anointing is before us in these meetings and [p. 199] heaven would challenge us as to whether we are alive in the assembly and taking part in our place according to divine ordering. Is my functioning in the power of the anointing? Am I functioning at all? Am I living? Each has his place and each part is to be functioning in the power of the anointing. You cannot even say, “Lord Jesus”, without the power of the Spirit.
JWD There is the suggestion of a supreme state of soul that Moses could not enter into; is that not the interior position? And do we hold our own personal relations with God in the system as greater than all that serve in it?
JT Yes. God is fully delighted with what is here. He is wholly complacent in the scene and even Moses cannot serve. It is God Himself who is present.
Ques Is the anointing the Spirit objectively, and the cloud the Spirit subjectively?
JT The cloud would just mean the divine Presence, it is a symbol and is what is seen outwardly. God Himself is inside, dwelling there; He is in thick darkness, but nevertheless there. In christianity He is here in light.
GAT In 1 Corinthians 15 God is all in all.
JT That is so. The tabernacle is not final, it is a wilderness position but the principle is there of God being all in all; He fills the whole scene.
LES Over against our calling Jesus ‘Lord’ by the Holy Spirit is the one who says, “Curse on Jesus”.
JT It is an awful thought that anyone should say, “Curse on Jesus”.
LES Why is it brought in there?
JT It is the exposure of the conditions in the wilderness. If there is rivalry in the assembly the devil gets in and there is something of [p. 200] that kind.
UOG What is the difference between the cloud and the Spirit?
JT It is the same idea, but it is all to be viewed contextually. Here the cloud is mentioned first as covering the tent of meeting, and then the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. The glory filling is another thought; it is not filling the tent of meeting; the word for ‘tabernacle’ is not the same as ‘tent of meeting’. The tabernacle is the full thought of where God dwells but the tent of meeting is where God meets us. As God meets with us conditions change and God is with us, we realise His presence, that is the inside. In verses 36 to 38 we have striking emphasis on God’s presence. God’s dwelling; those three verses are to be taken by themselves.
TU Is the glory linked with one specific meeting or with every meeting?
JT The glory is present in every meeting. There is more than one glory because we go “from glory to glory”, but here we have only one general idea and that is the place of God’s dwelling. The cloud conveys the public idea and indicates that God is there. You take off your hat in the meeting and are reverential because God is there.
RG Is the cloud in verse 36 a confirmation of chapter 33?
JT That was to honour Moses. Moses pitched his tent outside the camp and God honoured him there; but this is not to honour Moses here. God is saying, so to speak, I can go on without you; I can go on with no Moses in authority and no Levites. It is God; God will tabernacle with men.
CT If I come to the meeting with the end of the chapter in mind will it regulate me?
JT Quite so. We should look for the glory in every coming together. If we look for it, we shall see it.
[p. 201] R Is this the viewpoint of looking at it from the mountain? “How goodly are thy tents, Jacob”.
JT There it is tents; this is the tabernacle. The allusion there is to how the saints are set around the tabernacle of God.
JK Would that contribute to this condition?
JT That is what is to be seen, the proximity of the houses where we dwell to where God abides. Those were the dwellings of Jacob, but there is also the dwelling of God.