TRANSITION FROM OLD TO NEW
TRANSITION FROM OLD TO NEW
FER There is nothing much more interesting than the contrast between the close of the four gospels. Any human effort would have been to have made them pretty much alike; but really they stand in the greatest contrast. It is patent on the surface that the close of Matthew — in regard to Christ — is in connection with the remnant and the nations; He is with them unto the end of the age. That really brings you to the millennial age and they are sent to discipline the nations. You get no ascension in Matthew. In John you get no ascension, but the Lord is on the point of ascending. The point in John is association, He says “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God, and your God”. It is association with Christ, and so He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. In Mark and Luke we get the ascension. In Mark it is connected with the personal service of Christ and the apostles, while in Luke it is the transition from what had been to what is. In Mark the apostles went forth preaching everywhere, the Lord working with them; it is an ascended Christ working with the apostles here. The point in our chapter tonight is, the transition from the old to the new.
DLH Then it runs into Christianity?
FER Exactly; it is the transition from the testimony that had been, to the testimony that is now. Comparatively few apprehend the contrast between the past and the present. What characterised the past was the Scriptures; they were the ground of faith, and prophecy and promise, and marked the past; but the present is marked by different things. Everything is now embodied in a Man, there is a proclamation and the [p. 292] presence of divine power; thus you could not have a greater contrast to the past than that.
CB Do you put from verses 45 to 47 as to the testimony of the past?
FER By the testimony of the past I mean what comes out in verse 44.
WB Are not the Scriptures still the ground of faith?
FER No, what did the apostles do, what was the ground of their faith? Scripture says “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
WB Nothing that anyone could say or do would have authority over our consciences.
FER I was speaking of the beginning of the testimony, what comes out in this chapter. What the apostles announced was represented by the Scriptures. The Lord takes up the apostles on other ground here, because they were faulty, their minds were in the Scriptures, He says “O fools, and slow of heart to believe” etc., and then He makes Himself known to them. The first ground of faith, is that Jesus is the Christ. But another testimony has come in now, and that is, He is Son of God, which you could not find in the Old Testament.
WB But it reaches us through the Scriptures.
FER Oh no, it is through the apostles. God has given us the Scriptures but He has taken care of His testimony all through.
DLH Where the Lord said “Search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life”, I suppose He certainly referred to the written word?
FER Undoubtedly. And again we read “The Scriptures cannot be broken”.
WB The Bereans were commended for reading them daily.
FER Everything in Old Testament times was embodied in the Scriptures because they had not got the Man and the Spirit. Everything there depended [p. 293] on the faith of the Scriptures. But Christianity stands in contrast to that.
DLH When Paul preached to the Corinthians, it was in the power of the Spirit, so that their faith should not stand in man’s wisdom but in God’s.
FER Everything was embodied and fulfilled in a Man — Christ — and now there is a world-wide proclamation beginning at Jerusalem, and in connection with it, power from on high.
DLH Will you explain why you emphasise the Spirit’s power?
FER The point is you have the substance. Scripture can never be more than the form of the truth, the substance is in the Spirit. The Scriptures are the divinely given form of the truth, and therefore you test everything by them.
WJ The gospel was according to the Scriptures.
FER It came in through the apostle, he identifies his own testimony with the twelve, and in connection with their testimony the point of faith was that Jesus was the Christ. Christianity was introduced about 150 years before the New Testament scriptures were brought in. The testimony was planted and had taken root, before the Scriptures were collected.
JW Would you give us the scope of this chapter?
FER The first point of the Lord was to put their mind in the mind of the Scripture. He will not make Himself known to them until He does that, and then He identifies Himself with them in the breaking of bread. At Jerusalem He takes up another thing, He was a Man, not an apparition, thus you find that the Old Testament scriptures are fulfilled in Christ. A proclamation was to go out in divine power, and they were to be witnesses. The point is transition from what had been to what now is.
HCA They must get Himself.
FER Quite so. It is most interesting, He would not make Himself known to them till their mind was [p. 294] in the Scripture, because they were faulty. What came out in the early part of the chapter is that everything had broken down so far as they were concerned, they had not faith either in the Scripture or in His word. But what comes out afterwards, is that they really had attachment to Himself, then it is that He challenges them and really brings their minds in accord with the Scriptures and identifies Himself with them, after He puts them right. When they were enlightened it completely changed their course.
DLH They evidently spoke as though their hopes had been shattered.
FER There was a complete breakdown; had their minds been in the light of Scripture it would not have been so. It is beautiful to me to see that the one link that remained was attachment to Himself and He could work on that.
DLH And those people get the light.
FER They get a rebuke, but a person attached to Christ would not mind a rebuke. The Lord here takes the place of the Holy Spirit and expounds unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
WHB If there is first that link of attachment there is hope in a man.
FER I think so, and that may give you a kind of confidence in people who are mixed up in things you could not approve, Roman Catholicism or something else. They are unintelligent, but then there is attachment to the Lord. You could not read this chapter without seeing that His absence was a very great blank to them. Their minds had been too much attracted to Israel instead of being concentrated on Christ Himself. Had it been so things would have been a bit different. The mass of people are distracted by things here instead of being attracted to Christ.
WHB There is no light until Christ shines in the heart.
FER No. Peter says “Ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts”. Prophecy is all very well up to a point.
WHB As a matter of fact after Christ has shone in our hearts for the first time we get occupied with prophecy.
FER Very likely.
WHB When the testimony first came out was not that the order?
FER In a way it was needful to clear things dispensationally because there was much confusion in people’s minds. I can easily understand that prophecy has not the same prominent place now as it had then.
HCA But at that time there was the most complete confusion.
FER Entirely so, all the promises in regard to Israel had been spiritualised and applied to the Church, and in the minds of people the Church includes all the believers from Adam downwards.
WB Which remains in the minds of many.
FER I think it does, and hence you have to help them in dispensational truths. It is a wonderful thing to me to think that everything that has ever been spoken of is all fulfilled and embodied in a Man who has gone into heaven, the embodiment of everything that God ever purposed or promised. I have no doubt that the Lord here could work on their attachment to Him and when He began to expound Scripture to them they took it up very readily.
JMcK When He vanished out of their sight they knew where to find Him.
FER Yes, it changed their course, He made as though He would go further but they detained Him. What a moment it must have been to them when He was made known to them in the breaking of bread. It was a familiar act on His part, He had been accustomed [p. 296] to do it, and it was in that way that He identifies Himself with them.
DLH Under usual circumstances they would have been the host.
FER If the Lord is present He must take the place of host, and so we get the Lord’s table and the Lord’s supper; He must be host. In the Old Testament the eleven patriarchs had to be formed in unity upon Joseph. Joseph was the gathering point for them and so they were formed in unity upon him. So the apostles had to be formed on Christ. Joseph was typically their preserver and was undoubtedly typical of Christ.
HCA The transition comes in here when He takes their hearts away from the sufferings to the glory.
FER You cannot detach the glory from the sufferings, because after all, the glory is in the sufferings. The glory of God is in the suffering and even the Son of man is glorified in the suffering. “To enter into his glory”, here is in a public sense as Peter speaks of it.
WHB Is moral glory always superior to manifested glory?
FER What is manifested is moral glory. The material part is a small part of the moral glory, but you cannot disconnect the display from what is displayed, from the moral part of it. The glory of God means completeness of moral perfection, it is the display of moral perfection, and when it is a question of God you cannot leave power out, because power is part of God’s perfection. Therefore when God displays His glory power is one element of it. Moral glory is the great thing; with God power is an essential element of glory, simply because God is God, Almighty.
HCA The transition brings in power.
FER But it is not human power though connected with men, and working through man; it is [p. 297] power from on high.
WHB Did not the Lord Himself bring down power from on high at the resurrection of Lazarus?
FER Yes, but then the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him as Man here. You could not speak of Him acting simply as a man, because everything was carried out in the power of God.
JMcK There is that power in the world today, but how is it we do not have it displayed?
FER It is because we want to run it in connection with human power, you want to yoke the two together, and the Spirit will not have that. A man must be very small indeed as to himself if he is to prove divine power. Paul said he would most gladly glory in his infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon him.
JMcK What power had Peter on the day of Pentecost?
FER No human power. The finest testimony of Peter was his “Silver and gold have I none” etc. He had no power but he had the name of Jesus of Nazareth, that is, he had His renown and he had the power of the Spirit, power from on high. You must have in the soul the sense of the name of Jesus, the sense of His renown, name is renown. Everything that was spoken of in the law of Moses, the prophets and Psalms are fulfilled in Christ, and that is His renown and the Spirit is here to maintain it. I believe it was the secret of the apostles’ power, their hearts were full of the sense of it, of His name and they used the power that had come down, and could use it.
CB Is the Spirit as active today as then?
FER Not in the same outward way, because it is the end of the dispensation. It is brighter but much more limited.
DLH In Haggai the people are assured that the Spirit is still with them.
FER Yes, but the Spirit points on to the latter glory of the house, and that is what we have to look forward to now. You cannot expect glory to be identified [p. 298] with anything here, and everything must go on to the heavenly city.
HCA Is that the clue to our weakness?
FER We are not sufficiently elated with the name of Jesus. The soul ought to be filled with it, filled with His renown, and then we would be able to use the power that is here.
WJ The Spirit is bound to answer to that.
FER Christ would find delight in the heart filled with it. It is the proper condition of the Church. Supposing Christ were dwelling in the heart by faith, you would be able to use the power of the Spirit here. It is wonderful to have everything embodied in a Man, and that Man expressing to me the love of God. Philip preached Christ to the Samaritans, that was something more than a text of Scripture. The immediate testimony here is repentance and forgiveness of sins. He comes out as the Christ and not as the Son of God. In Acts Paul came out with more light and preaches Him as Son of God.
PRM What place has the preaching of repentance today?
FER A very great place. All gospel preaching would be extremely defective without it, because man is bound to return to God, and if you urge man to return then you call for repentance. In all good gospel preachings you urge men to come to Christ. God has approached man in Christ, and now man can approach God in Christ.
PRM That is more than the preaching of the terms.
FER It is preaching the significance of the terms, the obligation of man to return to God.
JMcK Is not the first effect of the gospel to make a man say he is unfit for God, and that is repentance?
FER But he wants to go a step further, turn to God and tell Him so.
WJ Peter fell at His feet saying “I am a sinful man”.
FER That goes beyond repentance, it was his state. In preaching you would affect a man in regard of his conduct, but Peter was made conscious of his state. He had done nothing wrong to affect his conscience.
CFG Would you not preach man’s state?
FER You want to affect his sense of responsibility more.
DLH You get that in the thief, “We receive the due reward of our deeds”.
FER Conscience takes no account of state. A man is born in sin and shapen in iniquity, and conscience is born with him and knows no other state. Another ‘I’ takes account of state.
WJ Are we not preaching the gospel in the house of God?
FER Yes.
WB But the half of London never go anywhere.
WJ Yet they are where the Spirit of God is.
FER They are in the most profound ignorance of God, we need to give more place to the presence of the Spirit, to His power and abiding presence.