THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS SERVICE (1)
[p. 29] THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS SERVICE (1)
Genesis 49: 22 - 24; Exodus 2: 15 - 22
JT In this scripture we find Joseph as a type of Christ enthroned in heaven, as Peter says: “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which ye behold and hear”, Acts 2: 33. He is, so to speak, “a fruitful bough by a well; his branches shoot over the wall”. Peter says to those who were convicted, “For to you is the promise and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God may call”. Thus the branches were to shoot over the wall. In Exodus 2 we find Moses was to be used in connection with the administration in the kingdom of God. He sits by the well, like the great Meditator of whom we read later in John 4: 6. His sitting by the well indicates how He would make the water available for the people of God. The Lord Jesus says: “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”. Christ has made the source available, but He even works so that it springs up in the people of God. I have thought of this scripture in the light of what is said in Zechariah: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts”, Zechariah 4: 6. We understand from this that what characterised saints at the beginning ought to characterise them at the end. In Joseph we have a type of Christ as the one who bore fruit, and in Moses a type of Christ as the one who carries on administration.
Ques Do we find in Moses one who removed the hindrances for God’s people to obtain water?
JT Yes, this is what comes out in Exodus 2. He is sitting at the well. He said in effect: There is no power in the flesh. In Egypt Moses had killed [p. 30] the Egyptian, but now he is sitting at the well; he acknowledges that it is not through one’s own power but by God’s Spirit that deliverance is to be brought in.
Rem The Lord sat by the well in John 4 when He spoke about living water.
JT Yes, I was just thinking of that. Tell us something about this.
Rem I thought that the Lord was then sitting by the well, but now He is sitting above and gives living water.
JT Yes, quite so. On the one hand He corresponds to Joseph, and on the other He answers to Moses as the one who carries on administration and gives the living water. In John 4 He says: “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”. This implies that the Holy Spirit which is given by Christ is to be the power which of itself is active in the believer. It is the Spirit’s delivering power. The Spirit is even the power to enjoy, and the power for worship. In John 7 it says: “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. The Spirit is the power for testimony. He flows like rivers from the believer.
Ques When it says: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts”, does this mean what the Spirit works subjectively in the believer?
JT You refer to Zechariah 4, but there it has more to do with our activity and our service and corresponds more to John 7 than John 4. The prophet goes on to speak of how Zerubbabel was to lay the foundation and bring forth the headstone. Thus it is guidance for all who serve to understand that all service must be carried on in the power of the Spirit and not through our natural gifts.
[p. 31] Ques Can this be so without a work first having taken place in the servant?
JT No, that is why we find in John 4 the Spirit’s work in the believer, and then in John 7 the Spirit’s work through the believer in connection with testimony.
Ques What is the difference between the Spirit and the living water?
JT I believe that the living water is a type of the Spirit, looked upon as the power in the believer for deliverance and satisfaction.
Ques Is it possible to have the Spirit without having the living water?
JT I believe it is possible to have the Spirit without comprehending what He is as the living water, as this type implies, that the Spirit has commenced to work in my soul. When the believer begins to understand how this power is working of itself within him, then it is that the living water is understood. As regards our natural bodies we know that we have such organs that work independently. If I wish to move my hand, it is the result of my will, but there are organs which work independently without the aid of the will, the heart for instance works automatically without co-operation of my will. Thus we have in our bodies what serves to illustrate the Spirit’s activity in our souls.
Ques Can we suppose that the Spirit is active without any desires on our side?
JT I believe the Spirit produces desires and works through these. The way in which He is active corresponds to what we see in our natural bodies when life finds its expression through the automatic organs of our bodies. As regards our natural bodies we cannot explain how life is active, but we are all the same conscious of its movements. It was in this way the Lord spoke about new birth in John’s gospel. Without explaining it the Lord spoke about it. He says: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit”. In chapter 4 the Lord sets forth something more when He speaks of what the Holy Spirit works in him who is born again, and He says that He shall be in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. The Lord does not speak of what the believer does through the Spirit, but of what the Holy Spirit Himself works out in him.
Ques But this implies that our state is good?
JT Yes, but we are speaking of the Spirit’s work when everything is normal, but in the epistles to the Corinthians and the Galatians we find how we may begin in the Spirit and fall back to the level of the flesh, and then we are not much better than such who have never received the Spirit. True, the Spirit never leaves us, but we are not conscious of His work in us, and there is no springing up into everlasting life, neither does any testimony ensue.
Ques Was this what characterised the children of Israel before they reached the brazen serpent?
JT Yes, for in spite of the Holy Spirit being in type with the people in Exodus 17 it was not characteristic of them before they reached the springing well, where, as it says in Numbers 21, they sang. In Exodus 17 the rock was smitten and the water flowed, and there Amalek began warring against them. This corresponds to what we find in the epistle to the Galatians: “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh”. But in Numbers 21 we find that they had to dig. It says, “The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver”. It is under the lead and authority of the Lord Jesus in spiritual power that the sand in us is removed. The believer begins to realise that he must [p. 33] not give place to the flesh; he must refuse to give it a place if he is to come into the good of what the Spirit is. Therefore it says, “Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it”. The people now go forward, the murmuring ceases, and they go steadily towards the goal which God in His purpose had for them.
Ques Does this correspond to the ‘height measure’ which we heard of yesterday in connection with a cube?
JT It leads on to it, that is to say to the height of the epistle to the Ephesians. The saints are looked upon there, not as babes, but as full-grown; they were men.
Ques In which way did the Spirit work in the Israelites, was it in a subjective way in their souls, as the Spirit works now?
JT Of course it is the type which we are thinking of now. The children of Israel were brought up from Egypt through the wilderness to the land of Canaan by the power of angels; but at the same time as it was through the power of angels it was a type of the Spirit. The dispensation under law was mainly through the co-operation of angels, but as to our own dispensation it is the economy of the Spirit. There is a great difference, for we have not only the Spirit as power of life, but He is at the same time in us the Spirit of adoption.
Ques Is it the same Spirit in connection with sonship as in connection with life?
JT It is the same Spirit, but looked upon from two different sides. It is remarkable that it says in John 7: 39, “The Spirit was not yet”. The Spirit was present when God garnished the heavens (Job 6: 13). We read also that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”, Genesis 1: 2. It was even through Him the prophets spake. We find that Othniel as well as Samson were moved by the Spirit of God. David prays in Psalm 51, “Take not thy holy spirit from me”. The Spirit was, as we see, active in former times, although it says that “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”. The thought is that the dispensation in which we live is something special: it is the Spirit’s dispensation. It is not now a question of the Spirit coming upon a man and then leaving him, as we find in the Old Testament, but the Spirit sent down by Jesus in glory. It is the Spirit in a Man which has been given to men. We ought to know the import of this. The Holy Spirit is not only a Person in the Godhead. He is that, but He is in a Man in heaven, and as such He has been given to men down here.
Rem He is more than an influence in us.
JT He is a divine Person, but in a Man, that is in Christ in heaven. He received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit which He has shed forth (Acts 2: 33). When the Lord was thirty years old the heaven was opened over Him, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove and remained upon Him. We see there how the Spirit came upon Jesus, in a bodily shape. The Spirit was there in His entirety, but He was on Jesus only. On account of redemption and of Jesus having gone up to heaven, the Holy Spirit has come down. The Holy Spirit, as He is in that Man, is the One who is now in the saints here. There is thus a difference between the presence of the Spirit in the saints of the Old Testament and the way in which He now indwells the believer. He is of course the same Person, but we see Him first in Christ, in Another of the Persons of the Godhead, and then He takes up His abode among men as sent down from Christ, the exalted Man in heaven.
Ques Has the assembly received the Spirit in the same way as Christ received Him; that is, the Spirit in His entirety, or is it only that each one receives [p. 35] Him?
JT The Holy Spirit is now personally here on earth as He came bodily on Jesus. He came down at Pentecost in His entirety. That is the reason why the Lord speaks of Him as another Comforter; He is a divine Person down here. It is to be noted that He is here as the One who in His entirety was in the Lord Jesus when He was on earth. Therefore it says in John 3: 34: “God giveth not the Spirit by measure”. This points to His coming upon Jesus as well as His coming upon the saints.
Ques What is the difference between the pouring out of the Spirit and His coming upon a believer?
JT These two things happened at one and the same time. It says that at the day of Pentecost they were all with one accord in one place. “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, ... and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them”. We see that He came in this way in His entirety. He came upon the whole company, but He sat upon each one of them.
Rem I was thinking of Titus 3: 6, “which he shed on us abundantly”.
JT That refers to what happened at the day of Pentecost, and the continuation of it was in the house of Cornelius as we read in Acts 10: 44, where it says that the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word. This time He came not from heaven, for there is only one coming down of the Spirit, and that on the day of Pentecost. When He fell on the gentiles in the house of Cornelius, He was already here on earth. Therefore when the believer receives the Holy Spirit at the present time, he receives what is already here, and what has been here since the day of Pentecost.
Rem It is therefore not right now to pray for the Spirit to be sent as the Spirit is already here?
JT [p. 36] Quite so, and that is why Paul says to the Corinthians: “And have been all made to drink into one Spirit”. This last is what we ourselves do. Baptism is what another does, but the drinking is what I do myself. The Spirit of which I drink has been here all these hundreds of years.
Ques What does this expression “a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”, mean? Does it allude to the assembly?
JT I believe it has its beginning in the assembly. It shows that eternal life is an objective thought. It is something into which we can enter. I believe we enjoy eternal life together with one another. The testimony is that God has given us eternal life. But then the question arises: Where is it? It is not in me, but in His Son. It is placed in the Son of God.
Ques If it is in the Son of God, how can it be in the assembly?
JT Because the assembly at this time constitutes a sphere where eternal life can subsist. In the world there is no such condition found which is essential for life. In a coming day, in the millennium, there will be a state of things where eternal life can be enjoyed, but this state, which will be public in the world to come, is found already among the people of God.
Ques If we enjoy it now in the assembly, can we not enjoy it individually in company with the Son of God?
JT I do not think that that is the thought. You may enjoy the light of it and know that it is found in the Son, where it is presented for faith. What the saints enjoy down here however is not only by faith, but in the power of the Spirit. Let us suppose that no other believers were found in the world, and that you were the only one that had received the Spirit; eternal life would still be found in God’s Son, just as much as if there were ever so many [p. 37] believers in the world. The Son of God, however, is no longer on earth, but He is in heaven, and I alone am not sufficient that eternal life should be found here. It needs a company large enough for the Spirit’s presence, so that conditions for eternal life might be found; that is to say, practical righteousness, love, light, and personal intercourse. All these things constitute a condition in which life shall be found. Such a condition is not found in the world at this time, but in a day to come these things will be found here in the world. In the meantime we can find them here through the Spirit’s presence and activity.
Ques Must we not be two or three to have a condition where eternal life is found?
JT Yes, that is very important to see. I hope the brethren will get a clearer apprehension of this.
Rem If believers do not walk in unity this will be a hindrance for the enjoyment of eternal life, however many they may be.
JT Yes, that is true, and that is why we find in Psalm 133 a condition necessary for this, namely brethren dwelling together in unity. “For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”. Life is in Christ, the Son of God, but we can only enjoy this here under certain conditions, and it is only in the assembly that these conditions are to be found now. The more we are found together in righteousness and love, the more we shall enjoy the reality of this life.
Ques Is it a question of the local assemblies or the assembly as a whole?
JT It is where the saints are gathered. We are breathing the atmosphere of life in this room. To speak simply, there is in this room a spiritual atmosphere which is the opposite of what is found in the world. We may not perhaps be able to explain [p. 38] it, but we know that we are breathing a holy atmosphere.
Ques What is the difference between life and eternal life?
JT In John’s epistle we hardly find any difference between these, but in Romans the difference is very obvious. In Romans eternal life is mentioned before the subject of life is presented. We find in Romans 5, that eternal life has come through Jesus Christ, our Lord; in chapter 6 it says that it is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Chapter 5 shows us how it has come to us, whereas chapter 6 shows where it is found. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. In chapter 8 we find the subject of life mentioned first, as in verse 10: “the Spirit is life”. In this case the word life involves a power in the believer. It contemplates him walking in practical righteousness, and I believe, therefore, that Romans shows us the difference between life and eternal life. The fifth chapter of John is very much like John’s epistle where these two ideas, life and eternal life, often have the same meaning. “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life”. Life here means eternal life.