The Testimony of the Christ
and other
Ministry by T. H. Reynolds

The testimony of the Christ is evidently that part of the testimony of God – chap 2: 1 – which sets before us the exalted Man, the Man of God's counsel in whom all His purposes are established.

• The testimony of God necessarily sets aside, because it is God's, the wisdom and thoughts of men.

• It brings in the cross – Christ crucified – as pouring contempt on the pride of man, and it is rendered in the power of the Spirit.

• Hence the hidden wisdom of God is contained in it, ordained before the world unto our glory; and
  • this wisdom is declared by it to those who, having accepted the truth of the cross, are thereby prepared for the further truth that

• there is another Man before God – the second Man;
  • and that in the mystery of God connected with Him, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

To God's assembly at Corinth had been given a special endowment of gifts, in order that the testimony of the Christ might be confirmed among them.

• The assembly is the place where the thoughts of God and the mind of God are known by the Spirit.

• It may be replied, it is the place where they ought to be known; but we see that
  • gifts were given to the Corinthians in order that the testimony – which no doubt they had heard from Paul – as to the exalted Man before God might be confirmed among them.

• Alas! they had descended to the toleration of the man who had been set aside by the cross;
  • but that did not alter the fact that God's assembly at Corinth was the vessel of the testimony of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ.

• The voice of man has no place in the assembly. The Spirit unfolds the hidden wisdom of God.

Such was the start at Corinth; they came behind in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• The word here used for "coming" is more properly "revelation".
• It would seem to indicate that the waiting, or expectation, of the saints who compose the assembly, is in its full character
  • for the revelation, the unveiling, of that blessed Person in all the glories which He wears and sustains, who is now hidden at the right hand of God.

• The heavens will unfold and let out the glory; the new Jerusalem will descend out of heaven from God, and the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

• The unfolding of the heavens, and the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will administer the kingdom of God, will be a blessed day;
  • but the assembly now has the testimony of the glorified Man who will then be revealed.

• The assembly is founded on the truth of the cross and resurrection of Christ; the first born One from the dead is its "beginning", after the fallen and sinful man had been judged and set aside in the cross;
  • and in the assembly was confirmed the testimony of God's glory in Christ. This we see at Corinth.

It is well for us to look back to the start, and to be made conscious that such a testimony can only be maintained in the power of the Spirit.

• Any revival or maintenance of this testimony can only be as the Spirit is given His place, and the power and wisdom of man refused.

• Things that eye has not seen nor ear heard can only be known now by the Spirit;
  • though at the revelation of Jesus Christ, when the heavens unfold, they will be known by the remnant that has refused man and waited for God. Isaiah 44: 4.

• These things will be unfolded to them in the new Jerusalem, but the assembly has the knowledge of them by the Spirit now.

The testimony of the Christ was beginning to lose its lustre already at Corinth.

• Man was getting a place; they were carnal and walked as men.
• Apostolic power in Peter had resisted it, when Simon Magus sought to get a place through money; he still wanted to be "some great one",
  • while the Spirit bore witness to the fact that the One whom man crucified was the Man of God's right hand and counsel.

• Paul resisted the evil at Corinth, and in the second epistle leads these Corinthians to behold the Lord's glory with unveiled face, that they might be transformed as by the Lord the Spirit.

• The evil which began at Corinth has become full-blown in these last perilous times, when in the midst of the form of godliness "men are lovers of their own selves",
  • and Paul's doctrine of the glory of Christ has been given up by Christendom.

• The man of God is to continue in this doctrine, and in the behaviour suited to it.

We need to be conscious of how much the people of God – ourselves among them – have slipped away from Paul's testimony of the Christ which was confirmed in the assembly at Corinth.

• It was only at the close of his life that Jacob guided his hands wittingly and laid his right hand on Ephraim's head, the one who was to be "fruitful" to God, the man, so to speak, of His right hand.

• The name of Manasseh signifies "one who causes to forget", but it is not enough that we forget the things that are behind, nay, it will only be an effort to do it,
  • unless we have God's object before us, willing, if need be, to cross our hands, and lay hold of the purposes of God in Christ.

• It is beautiful to see Jacob refusing to take his right hand from Ephraim's head, as he replied to Joseph,
  • "I know it, my son, I know it".

It is solemn to see in the book of Revelation the testimony of the judgments that will finally fall on the church, then become Babylon

• which was in its original state the depositary of the testimony of the Christ.
• Rejected by the Lord as any witness for Him, it finally falls under the judgment of God. It has exalted man and corrupted the word.

• But when the testimony of these judgments is closed, the voice of Jesus is heard, saying, "I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star".

• God's purposes for heaven and earth centre in a heavenly Christ, the One disallowed of men,
  • and those who hear are wakened up in true affection by the voice of Him who engages their hearts with Himself as the Man of God's counsel and purpose.

• The heart is revived to Christ, and to the glory which is His, and which is to be revealed when He comes.

• Thus though the assembly has lost its glory in having given up Paul's doctrine, so that a mere shell of ecclesiasticism remains;
  • yet the Lord does revive the testimony of the Christ at the close.

• Man and his pretentious voice lose their place in the hearts of those who hear Christ's voice, so that morally the affections and conduct are ordered according to the original calling of the assembly.

• May the Lord give it to be so with us – Christ in heaven the object before us, His revelation our expectation, and Himself becoming more endeared to our hearts.

T.H.R.

It is an exceedingly solemn consideration that the church as the vessel of testimony and light has failed, and the candlestick has been removed from its place.

• How soon that which is responsible for the light, recovered through grace at the Reformation, will be spued out of Christ's mouth, none can say; but any spiritual mind must feel that the moment is drawing very near.

• True, that which belongs to Christ will be caught away to heaven, but that does not alter the fact of the judgment of the candlestick.

• The church was set, not only to be a witness of a Christ rejected from the earth, "His life is taken from the earth":
  • but through the ministry of the apostle Paul it received the testimony of His glory in heaven.

• As to its own position it is one with Him there, but in its responsible testimony it had received the gospel of the glory of Christ, a gospel whose character is that it is preached to every creature under heaven.

There is a general sense among Christians that this responsibility has not been fulfilled,

• and the millions of heathen who have never heard the gospel are pointed out as witnesses of the shortcoming of the responsible witness;

• and efforts are made, no doubt with honest intent to rectify the failure.
• Doors are being pushed open by human effort, and man and money are looked for to accomplish the work by those who are earnest in their care for perishing souls.

• There is danger lest we forget the failure, and that God is about to set aside that which failed.

• The sense of this would lead to confession, and the absence of all thought of now being able to fulfil the responsibility,

• while the servant who bows under the failure, would earnestly look to the Lord for doors opened of the Lord according to His own word. Rev. 3: 8.

Let it be noted also that it is not only a question of failing to preach the word – to proclaim the gospel to every creature, but a question also of light.

• When the Lord spoke the parable of the Sower, He added,
  • "No man when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth in under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light", Luke 8: 16. Compare also Mark 4: 21.

• And again, in connection with the word of God which the Lord testified in the midst of Israel, a testimony which outshone the wisdom of Solomon, or the preaching of Jonas,
  • and of which He said, "Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it", He speaks of a candle being lighted to be set on a candlestick and give light.

• The light is to come out in those who have the testimony and keep it, and naturally the effect of the word is looked for where it is professed; the body is to be luminous.
  • Those entering in should not merely hear true words but see the light.

In the Thessalonians we see the true effect of the word.

• "Ye were ensamples to all who believe in Macedonia and Achaia, for from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith is spread abroad." Their light was shining.

• Theirs was "work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope"; while, as often noticed,
  • in the church at Ephesus – Rev. 2 – the candlestick was not giving light, for the spring of love to Christ was absent from correct doctrine, and from service.

• The decline is complete, so that, though a solemn thing to say, Christendom itself is the great hindrance to the gospel. God works sovereignly to accomplish His purposes,
  • and we can thank Him for millions of Bibles that are circulated, and for a wide proclamation of the gospel, but where is the light, the candle, and the candlestick?

A great commission was given to the apostles; they were to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and doors great and effectual were opened to them of the Lord;

• but can He open them in the same way for that which has failed?
• We cannot ignore the fact that what was formed to give light by apostolic testimony has failed, and is about to be moved out of its place.
  • We cannot set up the candlestick again, but have to bow under the judgment of God upon it.

• The multitudes of the heathen will have the gospel of the kingdom preached to them through another channel of testimony – the remnant of Israel; and the great multitude of Revelation 7 will be the result.

• The faithful Witness of God will then have set aside the unfaithful church as a testimony, a very solemn thought for us.

• God's ways will be wrought out through all, but the church has failed, and we cannot go on or speak as if it had not.

In the address to the angel of the church at Philadelphia, this is, I think, brought to light,

• that there was no ecclesiastical assumption, but that there was a true remnant character in the midst of that which was nominal and false.
• There was a return to light – to the truth as connected with Christ Himself, the Holy and the True.

• There was a little strength – that which kept His word – His word is the expression of Himself – John 8: 25 – they had not denied His name.
  • To such Christ says, "I have set before thee an opened door, and none can shut it".

• This is not trying to push open a door, unmindful of the failure – that is presumption; but the return of the heart to Christ – keeping the word of His patience –
  • and the truth is held in connection with Himself; for the saints should be, as the exponents of the word, the expression of Christ.

• It is well for us to recall the parting words of another.
  • "Beloved brethren, I feel satisfied that if there be godly recognition of God's hand upon us, and lowly confidence in the purpose of the Father for the glory of His own Son, there will be a great deal of blessing, and spreading forth into doors which He opens."

    And again, "Count on abundant grace in Him, to reproduce Him in the power of the Father's love; and to be watching and waiting for Christ".

It is this reproduction of Christ through keeping His word, while it is accompanied with a godly recognition of the state in which the church is found – our own failure also, which is to be desired above all.

• The evangelist will be none the less earnest in seeking souls, and in principle at least the gospel and the church will go together.

T H.R.

It is evident that the peculiar blessings of the Christian flow from association with a risen Christ.

• The hopes of Israel were connected with a Redeemer who was to come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.

• The Gentiles were without hope as to any earthly promises made to them; their blessing could alone on the earth be secured in Israel.
  • This we read in Psalm 67, "God be merciful unto us" [Israel] "and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us; that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations".

• But the rejection of Messiah by Israel deferred the gathering of the peoples to Shiloh, and opened the door for the making known of other and heavenly blessings.

• The Jew stood in the position of the manslayer of old who had unwittingly killed his neighbour,
  • for through the intercession of the Lord – "Father, forgive them, for they know what they do" – the slaying of Christ was treated as a sin of ignorance.

• Notwithstanding, they lost the earthly hopes, even as the manslayer must for the time be excluded from his inheritance, and be secured in a city of refuge.
  • For the security of the manslayer Moses wrote – "Thou shalt prepare thee a way … that every slayer may flee thither", Deut. 19: 3.

• Such a way was cast up by the resurrection of the Lord, and though it was for the time impossible for the Jew to have the promises connected with the Messiah upon earth,
  • yet the hope set before them was within the vail, in connection with a glorified Christ at God's right hand.

In the epistle to the Colossians, we have very distinctly the hope given to the Gentiles who believed the word of the truth of the gospel. It was a hope laid up for them in heaven.

• Even for Israel all had been lost upon earth; and as all blessing for the Gentile on earth was bound up with Israel, so could the earth be no inheritance given of God for the Gentile;

• and if the gospel of a glorified Christ – as in Hebrews – became the city of refuge for the Jew, so did it also bring in a hope of heaven for those who had "no hope" in the world.

It is all important that we should be clear upon this: so that the knowledge of our association with a risen Christ, alive out of death, may be the means of our entering by faith into the part we have with Him, whose life has been taken from the earth.

The gospel has come to us from heaven where Christ is. It has brought all the value of the work of Christ to satisfy the claims of God, and to purge the conscience of a sinner,

• as well as to glorify God in respect of all that He is, so that He might be fully revealed in light and love. It has thus brought Christ as a Saviour to me.
• But He is not here, and therefore it reveals Him to me as risen, and thus He draws me to His side, that I might have part with Him.

It is true that we are actually still on the earth, and that we have to live our responsible life down here while He pleases, for He is our Lord; and

• "whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's".
• And this responsible life is in a world from which the Lord has been rejected, so that it is a scene of opposition through which we pass.
  • Here is the blessedness of having Him as our Lord.

• In the sphere of our responsibility He commands and directs and guides us, and ministers to us as having all things in His hands for our blessing.

• But there is that which we have within, in association with Him who is our life.

• It is exemplified for us in the moments which the disciples spent with the Lord after that He was risen from the dead.

• They were in association with Him who was no longer "in the days of his flesh". They saw in Him life out of death, and more, He breathed it into them.
  • Those must have been wonderful moments of association with Him, when they realised what life out of death was, as they saw and possessed it in Him.

• Now the Holy Spirit has come, and we by the Spirit enter into what they knew when He breathed into them.

This leads to a further realization of the soul. So far it is the gospel which leads us into association with Christ risen,

• and we find ourselves delivered from the authority of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of the Father's love.
• We could not be there if we were not of the same order, able to give thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

• To give thanks to the Father supposes the spirit of sonship. And hence we are prepared for that which follows in the verse which forms the heading of this article.

• We may say that in the revelation of what Christ is to believers who form the body, the church, we have morally that which He is in the great mystery of the ways of God – the Beginning, and the End.

• In this verse He is the Beginning – while in chapter 3: 11, He is, so to speak, the End – the great summing up of everything to believers.
  • "Christ is all, and in all."

• In John 1 we go back into eternity, and there the Word was, in whom the eternal thoughts and purposes of God existed, and in whom they were to be revealed.

• In 1 John 1 we have the Word upon earth, a new beginning indeed, heard, seen, and handled, so that He could become the word of life to us.

• But here, He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; and it is only thus that He could be the fountain and source of all that wonderful material which should form His body. It is of Himself.

• We see that there is no question here as to the settlement of questions between the soul and God. That is by the blood of Christ.

• I must know the Lord Jesus first as having come to me as a Saviour.

• Then I am drawn to Him, and I find that I am in association with One who is outside of this world in resurrection life – indeed in glory.

• There by the Spirit we know Him as our life. It is not merely that we are saved, making our way through the world to heaven, but we are within with Him –
  • He is our life – and we are of Him, and of the order of resurrection life in which He is.

How we need to know our origin. On the one hand we need to know what it is to be brought from the darkness without into the kingdom of the Son of the Father's love.

• There we are sons with Him – having the Spirit of sonship – this is supposed, though not taught here. We are within now in association with Him.

• On the other hand, we find that our origin is within, even from Him who is the beginning, the first born from the dead.
  • This is really the material of the body, the church, a new creation in Christ.

• The child of Adam must be brought from without to within by the death of Christ,
  • but there he learns that he has a new origin, and that it began with Christ being raised from the dead.

It is beautiful to see the labour and conflict of the apostle to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

• It was given to him to complete the word of God, and we may be very sure that we do not enter into what it is to be perfect in Christ Jesus apart from having the word of God complete in our souls, that is,
  • the knowledge of the mystery – that the body, the church has its origin in the resurrection of Christ.

  • He is in the saints as life. Everything within is known according to Christ.

• There is no other man than Christ, "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all".

T.H.R.

It is wonderful that we should be given to know the Lord, and yet He is beyond all knowledge.

• None knows the Son but the Father, and yet Christ has given gifts
  • "for the perfecting of the saints … till we all come … to the knowledge of the Son of God".

• The apostle prays that we may know the love of Christ, and yet it passes knowledge, and again, speaking of that which his own heart enjoyed, he says
  • "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord".

• True, this is knowing Him by the Spirit where He is in glory; yet the Son was veiled in humiliation, so that there might be an intimacy between Himself and His sheep – a spiritual intimacy – expressed in the words,
  • "I know My sheep and am known of Mine, according as the Father knows Me and I know the Father".

Two questions are addressed to the Lord as recorded in the two first scriptures which stand at the beginning of this paper.

• One by unbelieving Jews – the other by a man whose eyes had been opened by the Lord.

• The first is a question of darkness and ignorant unbelief. "Who art thou?"

• The second is the response of one who had already experienced the works of God, as wrought by Jesus, to the question,
  • "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?"

• The work wrought in him had convinced him that the One who wrought it was from God, and hence he asks
  • "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?"

• The answers to these questions involve the revelation of God in light and love.

It is interesting to see how the subject of chapter 8 is introduced. It is the words of God, no longer in a law containing His claims on man,

• but the exposition of these words in Jesus, and hence the revelation of Himself. Grace and truth came in Jesus Christ.

I have no doubt that the sinful woman brought to the Lord pictured the state of Israel as unfaithful to Jehovah.

• In reality the Scribes and Pharisees brought their own moral condition under the eye of the Lord.

• They pronounce their own condemnation in saying "Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned";
  • and though there was a sense in their souls of the grace that was in Jesus, and that He would be unwilling to judge, as they ask "What sayest thou?"

  • yet their consciences were deadened to their need of that grace.

• He does not reply, but stooping down wrote with His finger on the ground. Surely it was meant to be a significant action, though they understood it not;
  • for it was in very deed the same finger which once wrote on the two tables of stone the ten words of the law, which now was writing on the ground.

• Jesus had not come to take up law against a people unfaithful to their covenant, He was tracing the ways of God in grace in His lowly life of humiliation on earth.
  • "God was in Christ … not imputing … trespasses."

• He was the revelation of God in grace and truth, and hence the Light of life to those who followed Him.

• The Pharisees one by one retreat from the Light, convicted by their own consciences, and yet unwilling to own their state and to become debtors to grace. They neither knew Him nor His Father.

When the Lord plainly states that He is the Light of the world, the Pharisees accuse Him of bearing witness of Himself. Who could have replied,

• "Though I bear witness of Myself, yet My witness is true",

  but the One whose words had convicted with divine light the consciences of those who now question the truth of His witness?

• But more, He knew whence He came, He spoke what He had seen with His Father, and having come from thence, He was what He testified.

• This is the Light of life; to the Pharisees light only brought conviction unwilling and resisted. He plainly tells them, "I am from above", and this testimony draws forth the question, "Who art Thou?"
  • The Lord replies, "Altogether that which I also say to you" – New [Darby] Translation.

• In other words, He uttered exactly and absolutely what He was. How blessed to have the words of God – compare John 3: 34 – presented to us not only as doctrine, but as truth in the person of Jesus.

• The soul is indeed instructed by the word, but the truth is learned as it is in Jesus and God is known.
  • When righteousness was demanded of man by the law, he quailed before the requirement; now that it is ministered to us in Christ by the Spirit, it becomes light in our souls.

• To the question "Who art Thou?" we can answer, the One in whom the light of God has reached us, but reached us in such a manner that it is the light of life which we have.

• In this chapter we have then, open sin which the law condemned – cloked up sin in the Pharisees, and the conscience convicted of it by the word of Jesus –
  • and no condemnation in the lips of Him who was presenting God in grace to man.

• But we are not left there, for positive truth is in Jesus; He is what He speaks, and is thus the light of life to those who follow Him.
  • He is the truth, the Son who makes free.

Thus far we have sin whether open or concealed in man, and the light of life in Jesus.

• In other scriptures we learn how the conscience is relieved of sin, so that the soul is free to be engaged with the Object in whom is the light of life.

• In chapter 9 light is given to a blind man, not merely to relieve him of his infirmity, but that he might know the Son of God.
  • The subject is introduced at the close of chapter 8 by the rejection of the Lord.

• With the Jews it is no longer a question of stoning a sinful woman, but they took up stones to stone the Lord in the temple, and He passes on.
  • The temple is left, but He has come to work the works of God.

• The disciples here, as the Pharisees had done in chapter 8, raise the question of law as applied to the government of God. Had this man sinned or his parents?

• It is difficult even for a saint to be free of questionings, and to understand that the condition of man has brought God in sovereign grace into the scene of his ruin.

• Man is a sinner, but more, a rejecter of God manifest in Christ through the blindness and hardness of his heart. Yet in such a being the works of God are to be made manifest.

But it is not the work of giving sight to the blind man to which I desire to draw attention so much, as to the end for which his eyes had been opened.

• He finds himself as the subject of the work of God disowned by all. That which had been wrought in him had convinced him that Jesus was from God, and for this confession he was cast out.

• For a brief space of time he is alone, then Jesus finds him. It was a supreme moment.
  • The One driven out of the temple by stones – the Sent One of the Father – and the one cast out by men are together.

• The end for which light had come to the blind man is reached, as Jesus says,
  • "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?"

• For the first time He sees the Person who had given him sight, but knows not yet who He is –
  • "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?"

• He had thought of Jesus before as a prophet, one mighty in deed and word, who speaks for God and acts for God towards men.

• Now he is to know the One who in the truth of His own Person as the Son of God can lead into a portion outside of man,
  • and conduct one cast out by man into the light of a sphere of holy love, characterised by the mutuality of intimacy that exists between the Father and the Son.

• The light given makes known the Son of God.
  • "Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee."

• He knew His sheep, and found him when excommunicated by men, and now the sheep knows Him, believes, and worships:
  • "Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him".

• Nothing more is said, and we leave the man in the intimacy of the light and knowledge of the Son of God – a worshipper.

I has often been noticed that one woman who was alone in the world, because she found not the body of her Lord – alone till He spoke her name, Mary! as intimately knowing His sheep, and so giving her to know Him in resurrection –

• is the one chosen to carry the message to the disciples that Jesus, as the Son, had put them into His own relationship as Man with His Father and God.

• The word has brought the revelation of God to the soul, but He in whom it is brought is the Son, who takes us up to the Father, and places us before Him in love.

• Again we may say it is wonderful that we should be given to know the Lord.
  • "If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father", 1 John 2: 24.

T.H.R.

In these scriptures are expressed the truth as to "living stones".

• In Matthew is set before us the "living Stone". The Father reveals to Peter the Person of Christ as Son of the living God; thereupon the Lord adds, "Upon this rock I will build My church".

• The prominent thought here is the Lord Himself as Son of the living God, and His work in building the assembly which He could designate as "My assembly".

• In Peter we have the "living stones", who are such as having come to the living Stone.

The revelation of the Father to Peter engages us in Matthew.

• It was no longer the gathering of the remnant of Israel round the Messiah which was before the mind and spirit of the Lord, but building an edifice which He could call "My assembly".

• It is a blessed thing in any little measure to be brought into the apprehension of the revelation of the Person of Christ as Son of the living God,
  • because then the words "I", "Me", and "My", from His lips become full of meaning to our hearts.

• The edifice, too, which He builds has all its character, both as to material and structure from Himself.

It is deeply interesting to see that which engaged the heart of the blessed Lord at that moment – to think of what a deep joy it must have been to His heart as He recognised – and He alone could – the beginning of a new work.

• No one can doubt that it was the work of God in souls which caused them to listen to Christ as He called the remnant of Israel to Himself. Matt. 4: 18-22;
  • they recognised Him as Jehovah's Servant; but now the Father revealed to Peter the truth of His Person, that He was Son of the living God.

We must admit that Peter did not understand the blessing and bearing of the revelation;

• he was not yet free of the man, whose object and centre was self and not God, for the Lord shortly after tells him that he savoured of the things of men;
• but what is brought before us is, I judge, that which was present to the heart of the Lord, and consequently He charged His disciples to tell no man that He was Jesus the Christ.

• Suffering was now His path and not the gathering of Israel, but suffering which laid the foundation for the accomplishment of this new work of building according to the power of life in His own Person.

But to us naturally there cleaves, as to Peter, that which is of man, that which consequently hinders us from apprehending the revelation of the Lord's Person.

• Hence it is interesting to note the incident which forms the introduction to the questions put by the Lord Himself to His disciples as to Himself:
  • "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?"

    and then more closely,

    "But whom say ye that I am?"

• I doubt not that the Lord allowed the disciples to get into the position where they had no bread, but where they were with Him.

• He could have reminded them of the need before they started, but He allowed it that they might realize their true position as having nothing, and yet possessing all in Himself;
  • therefore he uses the occasion to warn them of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

• The disciples were neither Pharisees nor Sadducees, but they were liable to be affected by the doctrine of each: the one is formality, the other infidelity.

• We have perhaps little idea of how easily our hearts may be tempted to rely upon an ecclesiastical position, or system of doctrine – a creed which becomes to us a refuge when there is not faith in the Lord.

• We should hold fast the form of sound words, as the apostle directed Timothy, but he adds –
  • "with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus".

The Sadducees would not allow anything beyond man in his present order and state. There was, they said, no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit.

• The Pharisees admitted both, but sought to build up divine things according to the formalism of men;

• the Sadducees denied the work of God outside of the present sphere – the work of new creation – hence they were necessarily infidel as to the glory of God,
  • and their leaven if allowed would lead to practical infidelity, even in the hearts of the disciples, as to the Person who had drawn them into His own company, the Person in whom all God's glory is established, and to be made good in man.

• May the Lord preserve us from the leaven of either, whether of Pharisee or Sadducee, in order to be led into the power of that which was now before the heart of the blessed Lord –
  • the building of His assembly in the power of the revelation made by the Father as to Himself.

Twice had the Lord shown to the disciples that the smallest portion which they had, when taken into His hands, received a wonderful enlargement.

• No letter of truth which the disciples held as Jews, but when connected with the Lord received an expansion beyond all thought. Five loaves fed five thousand.

• And we are thus taught that the testimony held in such a feeble manner by the disciples could be used and enlarged by the Lord for the full blessing of His people on earth.

• But this the disciples had not yet understood, consequently they were unprepared for the further lesson to be learned in the position into which they had been led –
  • to be free of formalism on the one hand, and the infidelity of the heart on the other, and there to learn the sufficiency of the Lord.

• Both kinds of leaven prevent our coming to the Lord as to a living Stone disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious.

It may be asked what is meant by coming to the living Stone.

• It is the apprehension in the soul that the truth connected with the Person of the Lord as the living Stone lies beyond and outside the thought of building up Judaism, that is of man in his own estate;
  • and the further apprehension that in the revealed truth of His Person, the rock is known and reached, on which is built that against which the gates of Hades cannot prevail.

• Against all that is of man death has prevailed, and yet man would still systematise and seek to establish some ecclesiastical pretension.

• We may do this if we are unbelieving as to the living Stone. Ecclesiasticism could never hold the truth of the Son of the living God.

• When we see the Lord walking on the water, it is evident that we see One who was superior to the ordinary estate of men, so much so, that they thought it was a spirit, till His words, "It is I", assured them that it was Himself.

• When He had stilled the storm – chapter 8 – they said,
  • "What manner of man is this?"

    but here they confess,

    "Of a truth Thou art the Son of God".

Now in resurrection, still the Man who came of the seed of David according to the flesh, He is declared Son of God in power.

• He is not only superior, but He who in grace had taken part in flesh and blood, is outside the estate of flesh and blood, raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
  • but according to the power of life that was in Himself – the living Stone on which the assembly is built.

• The Father's revelation brought out the truth in contrast to the thoughts of men as to His Person, and we have to spiritually apprehend it as they had, for it was no revelation of flesh and blood.

We have seen that in Peter's epistle we have the living stones. It is well to trace the manner in which the subject comes before us.

• Peter presses on those to whom he wrote that they had been redeemed from Judaism – chapter 1: 18 – the religion of the flesh, and that they now believed in God by Him who had been raised from the dead.

• Purified from their old associations by obeying the truth through the Spirit, their affections flowed in a new circle,
  • "unfeigned love of the brethren",

• it was no longer Jew loving Jew; their birth by nature was of the seed of Abraham, but they had been born again of the incorruptible seed, by the word of God; for all flesh, even Abraham's seed according to it, was grass.

It is well to see how the apostle seeks to bring them into an entirely new circle of association.

• It is, so to speak, the sheep following the Shepherd out of the fold, the door being opened into new associations by the resurrection of the Lord from the dead.

• Here they taste that the Lord is gracious. His goodness and graciousness are their portion, and this leads them to the apprehension of Himself as the living Stone.

• Man is left – they are dependent on the graciousness of the Lord. Having nothing for their souls anywhere but in Him, they taste His grace who feeds His flock like a shepherd, and gathers the lambs in His arms.

• In peace as their own portion in Him, and in new affections and associations they are free to apprehend Him as the living Stone chosen of God and precious.

• It is no longer their estimate of Him and His work, but they enter into God's estimate. He is chosen of God and precious.

Not only can they build their every hope upon Him, but all that is for God is built up in the truth of His preciousness –

• a spiritual house and a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus.

• In Matthew then we may say we are engaged with the revelation of the Person, and with that which was present to His heart in consequence;

• and in Peter we are led up to the point when we enter into that which was thus before Him through the Father's revelation to Peter; the blessed thought of God as to the preciousness of His Son.

May the Lord make us willing to come to Him thus; free from the formalism and unbelief of our hearts

T.H.R.

It must be clear to the thoughtful reader that the passage of the Jordan – Joshua 3 – is the way of entrance into the purpose of God for His people,

• not as at the Red Sea the escape from the enemy's power and from the place of judgment.
• The Ark makes a way through the Jordan for the people to pass into Canaan, while the rod of Moses opened a path through the depths of the sea for the ransomed to tread.

• God, who had executed judgment on the power of the enemy and delivered His people at the sea, secures His own purpose in the ark of His covenant.

The wilderness had proved the people, and in the ark was deposited what Moses was instructed to write as a witness against them – Deut. 31: 26 – for it was in their rejection of Christ, that the words of Moses were fully verified,

• "he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation";
• but in the ark God secured His own righteousness, whether we look at the tables of the covenant which were deposited therein, or at the mercy seat where the blood of atonement was sprinkled.

• It was the ark of the covenant which opened the way for God to bring the people into His purpose;
  • but the priests were also there, and they are on the side of the people; the priest is ordained for men in things pertaining to God.

Besides the ark and the priests, there is Joshua the leader of salvation. The word of Joshua to the people was,

• "When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place and go after it".
• In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have the great truth that Christ "has entered in" – chapter 9: 12 – and in chapter 10 we go in where He is the great priest over the house of God.

• True, that in this case it is the sanctuary, while in the other it is Canaan, but the principle is the same
  • "ye shall remove from your place and go after it".

• God and His ark were there, and the ark passes on before, and all the power of the enemy to keep His people out of His purpose for them is rolled back, and they are to go after it.

It was when the feet of the priests were dipped in the brim of the water – for the swellings of Jordan were there – that the waters were driven back, and the priests stood firm in the Jordan while the Israelites passed over on dry ground.

• The priests are connected with the things of God. The priest is for us, but in things pertaining to God, not in things pertaining to ourselves.

• True, we have the care of the Lord in every detail of our history,
  • "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's".

• But the priest is connected with our being partakers of the heavenly calling, and we know the value of the priest as we seek to be true to the calling.

• The swellings of Jordan are overwhelming to nature, and we shrink at having the sentence of death in ourselves, but Jordan has been driven back at the touch of the foot of the priest.

• Thus two things combine under the Leader of our salvation to conduct our souls into God's purpose for us – the ark and the priest.

• In the Son of God, Jesus Christ, every promise of God is Yea and Amen, unto the glory of God by us. That is our ark.
  • He too is the priest who sympathises and supports, and who as Forerunner has entered within the veil.

There is one point which could not be indicated in the type we have been considering, that is, the glory and love of the Person who is both the ark and the priest;

• and in Him also we apprehend the love of God who has purposed for us according to His own heart.
• When we open the gospel of John we are at once engaged with "the Word", the One in whom all the counsel and purpose of God existed in eternity.

• The ark in Israel was the depositary of the testimony of God in time so far as God's will was then revealed,
  • but in "the Word" every thought of eternal wisdom and love existed, and in the purpose of God the Light was for men.

• Then we have the great fact that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us", and connected with this truth of the incarnation we read of those, the apostles, who contemplated "his glory" – glory as of an only-begotten with a father – here is love, and again in verse 18 we have the bosom of love.

• He who dwells in light unapproachable is declared by the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.

• Here we touch the ocean of divine affections made known in the names of the Father and the Son.

• We might be lost in the expanse of glory as we think of eternal counsels existing in the eternal Word, but they have come to us in such a way that the glory of the Word become flesh has been contemplated, that is, as of a Son with the Father;
  • not only the Word with God, but the Word expressed in Him who became flesh, and His glory is seen in the light of love, the Son with the Father.

• How near the love of God has come to us in Him who has declared God – the Son in the bosom of the Father.

Hereby perceive we love, because He laid down His life for us; utterly unworthy objects, but love reached us in that way, in order to bring us into the peaceful enjoyment of the privileges which love has conferred.

• Again we read, "therefore doth My Father love Me because I lay down My life that I might take it again".

• It was according to the Father's will that He who gave His life for the sheep, should lay it down to take it again in another state and condition; but He must die in order to do it.

• The ark must pass into Jordan in order to make the way into the new place for man according to God's purpose.

• What wonderful attraction of love there is for us to remove from our place and go after the ark, as we survey this scene of divine affections and love that we are taught to contemplate.
  • The love of the Son – "that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment even so I do"

• – then the love of the Father to Him, because He laid down His life to take it again, so that He might place the sheep He had led out of the fold, and the other sheep which He would bring, in the place of life, of liberty, and of pasture, in the intimacy of divine affections.

How little prepared we are to move out of our place; but surely these divine affections have power to create desire in our hearts, and though the swellings of Jordan if we look at the overflowing water might deter us, yet all its power is gone;

• for the foot of the priest has touched its brim, and the way into the purpose of God for us lies quite open.
  • Besides, "He is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him;"

    in taking that way we have the support of the priest.

When Jordan is passed, then we begin to realize the place into which we are brought. We have everything in Christ.

• We realize that He has been severed from the world by His death, and we have been severed from the man according to the flesh also by the circumcision of Christ;
  • there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

• We are in new associations, as well as in a new place, as risen with Him through faith of the operation of God.

• Then the passover is the peaceful remembrance of the redemption which has not only sheltered us from the judgment of God but brought us to His place.

• This is followed by the feast of unleavened bread, the cakes being made of the old corn of the land, and the manna ceases.

• Over Jordan we enter into the purpose of God in Christ. We know Him where He is.

But the point before my mind is this place of association with Christ.

• "Ye shall remove from your place and go after it."

• The blessed Lord knew the swellings of Jordan in every way. We must not suppose that the break-up of every association on earth was nothing to Him.

• He had gathered the disciples round Himself. He had, too, the title to everything here as Son of Man and King of Israel.

• The glories of the kingdom were before Him on the mount of transfiguration, but He must die; Moses and Elijah both speak of it to Him.

We see the tender affection of the blessed Lord to His own in the closing chapters of John as the moment drew near for Him to part with them, and again in Luke.

• "With desire I have desire to eat this passover with you before I suffer."
• But He looks beyond the death that was before Him to the renewal of association with His own on the other side of Jordan,
  • He washes their feet that they may have part with Him.

• Surely this tells us not only of favour conferred on us, but of His own desire.

• Did He desire the company of those He loved on this side death only? Did He not also desire that we should be in present association with Him where He is gone?

• Is He to have no companions now that He has entered into the place of the purpose of God?

• He held the feeble disciples around Him when here by the attraction of His love.
  • He rejoined them when He had passed through death, and He held them still as he companied with them for forty days.

Now comes the question for us,

• Are we prepared to remove from our place and go after Him?

• The Lord give us affection to Himself that it may be so!

T.H.R.

The end of Romans 8 is very blessed; every circumstance of sorrow or trial is challenged,

• and the whole range of creation from the highest to the lowest is regarded by the apostle Paul, with the conviction that
  • nothing shall be able to separate us – himself and those to whom he wrote – from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• The Christian is here looked at as in the midst of a groaning creation where there is sorrow and suffering, "If so be that we suffer with Him",
  • but as having the Spirit, and therefore the consciousness of the love of God.

• And as the first ray of divine light that shone into his heart, shone from the face of Jesus Christ, so does it in revealing the love of God conduct his affections to the Person from whom he received the light.

• He does know, therefore, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose.

In the Epistle to the Philippians we are carried farther, if in any little measure we are able to follow the way in which we there see the energy of the Spirit as it wrought in the apostle.

To the Romans he wrote, "So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also",

• and most blessedly does he unfold the whole scope and power of that gospel of God, which has its source in the love of God.

To the Philippians he had to write that he was set – a poor prisoner in bonds – to answer for the gospel; others were preaching it.

• Many of the brethren waxed confident through his bonds, and were much more bold to speak the word without fear; others were preaching Christ of contention, supposing to add affliction to his bonds.

• But here we see a man not merely "persuaded" of God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord in the midst of very trying circumstances, but he is above circumstances. "I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."

• He is not now carrying forth the good news of salvation, but realising how that salvation would be made good with regard to him.

He knew the salvation of which he spoke as the full triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ over Satan's power.

• All would turn out to him to salvation through their prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

• It is beautiful to see how he links the prayers of the Philippians with the conflict in himself,

• and the assured sense he had of the victory of Christ over the power of Satan, according to his own earnest expectation and hope,
  • "that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death".

What an answer for the gospel was thus made to the power which sought to crush this servant of Christ, and to terrify those who had fellowship with him in it.

• Let us again note well, that it is not only "I am persuaded" as to the love of God in the midst of circumstances, but "I rejoice", even when Christ was preached of contention.
  • How above circumstances he is here!

Some of us may be able to take up Paul's utterance in Romans, and say "I am persuaded", who feel – though we may admire it in Paul –

• that we have hardly touched that experience which enables us, according to his word to the Philippians, to
  • "Rejoice in the Lord alway" –

    that is, to find our spring of joy always in Himself.

• For this we must not only believe in the Lord, as those able to say "I am persuaded", but we must be near Him.

• There is often some time between the moment when our hearts have this persuasion of the love of God, and the moment when we have so reached the Lord that He becomes the spring of our joy.

• I do not mean joy on account of what He has done for us, but on account of what He is to us.

Some fourteen years elapsed in the history of Abraham between chapters 15 and 16 of Genesis.

• In the one we read, "And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness";

  in the other, "And Abraham fell upon his face and laughed".

• It was the promise that Sarah should have a son which made Abraham laugh, and God, we may say, encouraged his joy, by telling him to call his son's name Isaac, that is "laughter".

• We may ask, what filled up that interval of fourteen years – not that it need be so long with us, though, alas, often longer?

• It was the episode of Hagar and Ishmael; in other words, it was occupied with Abraham learning that what is after the flesh, even in a saint, has no place before God.

• That which is from the flesh in its best efforts, is not that which is from God.

We may say that in chapter 17 Abram's soul is lifted on to new ground.

• He was "persuaded" in chapter 15, but yet he connected there the blessing of the Lord with himself and his own circumstances, and in result he got the promise of the earthly inheritance;

• but in chapter 17 the revelation to him of the name of God as the Almighty God, calls Abram, as we speak, to leave his own side and to go to God's side:
  • "Walk before Me, and be thou perfect".

• And now how enlarged to him is the purposed blessing of God. He is now Abraham – a father of many nations.

• He is lifted out of the thought of the blessing which would accrue to himself, into the thoughts which were in the heart of the blessed God.

• It is blessed to owe everything for oneself to the love of God in Christ Jesus, but what is it to think of what Christ will have as the travail of His soul?

• Now circumstances come in, the cutting off from all confidence in the flesh, for Abraham is called to walk before God. It is no longer to be Ishmael, but Isaac; and Abraham laughed.

With Paul, the three days during which he neither ate nor drank, completed the experience which taught him the worthlessness of the flesh. Judaism was left for Christ.

• He had no thought of bringing Christ into connection with the flesh; that question for him was settled in the cross both as to the flesh and the world; the flesh, the world had crucified Christ.

• Paul's thought was to reach Christ where He is, where His God and Father had placed Him in righteousness.

• The thought of many a Christian now is to connect the Father's name with the course of things down here,
  • instead of seeing how Christ has gone out of this world to the Father, so that our hearts might resort thither, as knowing the Father's name.

    To Abraham it was the Almighty God, to us the Father.

Connected with our finding a present joy in the Lord through reaching Him, I might here quote a verse from Psalm 37:

• "Delight thyself also in the Lord: and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart", verse 4.
• Listen to the way in which Paul speaks of the delight he found in the Lord,
  • "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord".

• Listen to the desire of his heart –
  • "that I may win" [or rather 'gain'] "Christ, and be found in Him".

There is also the looking for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, to change these bodies of humiliation, and fashion them into the likeness of His body of glory –

• the moment of eternal unhindered delight in the Lord, because, being like Him, there will be no hindrance to the capacity of love to delight in Him, in whom is our all for ever.

• As to this, I quote one more verse from John 17:
  • "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou has given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world".

• How wonderfully this shows us that the Lord has associated us with Himself.

This desire of His heart is expressed in order to attract our hearts, as we realize His great love.

• His death has a claim upon us, for at unutterable cost to Himself, He has cleared us of all the judgment that lay upon us as sinners,
  • but this appropriation of us for the deepest apprehensions of His own love, ought to touch us very deeply and awaken very earnest desires towards Him.

• It is a comfort to us to know that if He does awaken desires in our hearts – and what can, but finding delight in Him? – He will grant us the desires of our heart.

T.H.R.

Everything which will enable the soul to enter into the realities of Christianity will be of great interest to the one who is exercised as to them.

• It is a thing to be regretted, when any converted soul remains merely satisfied with the shelter from judgment afforded by the blood of Jesus,
  • and does not seek to know what the purpose of God is as to it – even now to bring it into the full result of the reconciliation effected in the death of Christ.

• Israel did not remain in Egypt sheltered from judgment by the blood on the lintel, but the Lord brought them to Himself.

When God makes known His call, and His call is according to His purpose, it is not then a question of resting under shelter, but of moving;

• hence the word of the God of glory to Abram was – "Get thee out" –

• there must be movement, not merely from the old country and associations, but into new associations and towards a new country –
  • "come into the land which I shall show thee".

• So Israel ate the Passover lamb with girded loins, shod feet, and staff in hand, ready to move.

God and Israel could not be together, according to His love for them, in liberty while in Egypt.

• It is when He has brought them clean away from Egypt and the Egyptians through the sea, that they awake to who He is, and what He is to them. Exodus 15: 2-3;

• and further, it is the mountain of His inheritance, the place which He had made for Himself to dwell in which is before them in hope; the sanctuary which His hands had established.

Our realization of that which is set forth in Israel's history, is connected with a work done for us by God through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• It brings the soul, when it is apprehended, from the place of distance and alienation into the presence of God in holiness and love,
  • all His righteous claims having been met, and Himself glorified by the work on the cross.

What I would press is, that it is a real journey of the soul from distance to nearness.

• This movement of the soul is founded upon the truth, that He who met every question which could press upon the conscience of a sinner – whether from his own miserable condition, the accusings and power of Satan, or the righteous judgment of God –
  • has been heard from the horns of the unicorns – Psalm 22: 21. He has been raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.

• The soul can thus move on into the liberty of grace, and the knowledge of God in love – love shed abroad in the heart by the Spirit – leaving no unsettled question, as between itself and God, behind it.

The result of the sufferings of Christ Godward, as portrayed in Psalm 22, is that He can make God known to His brethren, as He knows Him.

• "I will declare Thy name unto My brethren".

• In Psalm 69 the sufferings there detailed result in the Lord saving Zion and building the cities of Judah;

• and again in Psalm 102 His sorrows end in Jehovah appearing in glory – He is Jehovah, the Same – and building up Zion, and then He will declare Jehovah's Name, the name of earthly relationship, in Zion;

• but in Psalm 22 He makes God known to His brethren according to His own relationship to Him, after having been in those unfathomable sorrows when He was made sin for us,
  • and having come forth in resurrection, being heard from the horns of the unicorns. We learn this from John 20: 17.

• Hence there is boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He has inaugurated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh,
  • for there is no unsettled question behind, and there the soul learns God.

I do not pursue this subject further, for there is another point connected with the realities of Christianity to which I desire to turn.

The believer is born of God, he has the privilege of being a child of God.

• It is not enough to claim the privilege, but it would be profitable to ask ourselves the question, what is it to be a child of God?

• Here it is not the question of a sinner being brought to God from a distance, with boldness to enter into the holiest, blessed as that is, but of being of God.

• The origin of the children of God is from God
  • "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus", 1 Cor. 1: 30.

• True, we are looked at there in the light of saintship rather than of relationship, but the principle is the same.

So in 1 John 3, where the manner of love is unfolded that has given us now to be the children of God, such are clearly manifested as partaking of the divine nature – verses 9-10 –

• and the chapter concludes with God abiding in us by the Spirit, which He hath given to us.
• Then in chapter 4, where the test as to the Spirit of God is given, we have – verse 4 –
  • "Ye are of God, children".

Again in Romans 8, we have the full answer in liberty to the groan of chapter 7 –

• "Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?"

• God does it through Jesus Christ our Lord closes chapter 7, but in chapter 8: 1, we have "in Christ".

• Hence it is no longer the question of the flesh and our state, but God's Spirit is now to characterize the believer.

• Those led of God's Spirit are God's sons, and the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children.

• The children are in the liberty of grace, they will be in the liberty of glory, being then revealed as sons of God.

In John's epistle is shown very distinctly that the children of God have their origin from, and belong in every way to another sphere than this world. Being God's children,

• "the world knoweth us not because it knew him not".
• We are too, to be "like Him", bearing the image of the heavenly, for we shall see Him as He is.

• Here it is evidently no question of even a justified man being set up in his own estate, but of deriving from another source, and belonging to another estate and world altogether as partaking of the divine nature.

• The world did not know the Son of God when He came into it in grace, it does not know those who derive from Him.

The cross laid the ground for this grace of God towards us; as also to free us from our old estate, for no creature has a right to leave his own estate,

• but we have the title to leave it behind, because the Lord has gone out of the whole sphere of flesh and blood.
• If we appropriate His death to the sphere in which we had our old estate, we enter on the enjoyment of another estate,
  • for the one eating His flesh and drinking His blood abides in Him and He in him.

• In John's epistle this abiding in Him is known because He hath given us of His Spirit. Chapter 4: 13.

How difficult it is for us to get our souls disentangled from the habit of applying to ourselves all that the grace of God bestows, as remedial of our own state or estate, and be on the line of the gift of God.

• On that line we are not merely saved sinners brought nigh, but we derive from the blessed God Himself to whom we are brought nigh.

• If John shows us that God's children are not known by the world, because it knew not Christ,
  • Paul shows us that where Christ suffered in a sinful and hostile world, there God's children from their very nature and origin suffer with Him.

• The manner of God's love to us in the name of the Father is very wonderful.

• May we as having received of His Spirit find our home in those blessed affections, abiding in Him and He in us.

T.H.R.

In this chapter we have a beautiful pattern portrayed for us of the way in which the Lord acted in days of rejection –

• days when, as disallowed of men, He had to retire with His own disciples into the desert.

But I would first trace the history which led up to this point.

In the end of chapter 3 the approaching rejection of the Lord begins to manifest itself, when the Pharisees attribute the power by which Jesus wrought to Beelzebub, the prince of demons.

• The Lord thereupon pronounces the solemn judgment on the blasphemy of these leaders,
  • and then refuses to own any relationship save that which is formed by the word of God.

• In this and the succeeding action of the Lord we have Paul's exhortation to Timothy confirmed.

• After referring to the defection which had already begun, and which would culminate in positive apostasy, he charges Timothy, in view of the judgment of the quick and the dead, and of the appearing and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, to
  • "preach the word".

• This is the great business of the servant of Christ in days of defection and error, to set forth the truth, to preach the word.

Disallowed and blasphemed by the religious leaders of Israel, the blessed Lord takes the place of a sower, sowing the word –

• that became His great service – in order to produce in the soul of man that which should respond to the mind of God made known in His Son;

• for the word which Jesus sowed was expressive of Himself – the Son of God's love – the Vessel of His grace.

The varied effects of this sowing, and the circumstances which would attend this work of the Lord, are then detailed; and finally in verses 35-41,

• the difficulties and dangers are portrayed, to which the testimony of God – which reposed in the Lord and through His grace in the twelve disciples whom He had chosen – was exposed through the wind and the waves of the sea of Galilee.

The Sower of that word which was to produce fruit for God in the souls of men, together with those He had appointed first to be with Him, and then that He might send them forth to preach,

• were in the ship which the disciples thought would be wrecked in the storm that arose.
• What adverse power of the enemy could wreck the vessel as it crossed the stormy billows to the other side?
  • Its destination was fully assured, for the Lord "as He was" was in it.

• The testimony of our Lord suffers evil in these days as in those, but there is great encouragement for us in the fact that it is the Lord's testimony,
  • and though apparently He may be as One asleep, yet will He maintain His testimony that the preaching may be fully known according to His will.

• May He give us to know Himself as Lord, and His support and strength.

In chapter 5 the further needs of man are met by the Lord, for man not only needs the converting and formative power of Christ's word, but he needs deliverance also.

• Deliverance is shown in a three-fold manner: from the thraldom of Satan; from an incurable disease, and such is sin; and from the pressure of death.

The power of man's deliverance having thus been manifested by the Lord, a very solemn question arises in chapter 6:

• Who and whence is the Person who has such wisdom and does such mighty works?

The question first arises in His own country, and the answer given is that He is the carpenter, the Son of Mary.

• We may notice here that this gospel is called – chapter 1:  –
  • "the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God",

• yet their natural understanding is offended that One well known among them should present God to them. It is the insensibility of the natural heart.

• Sooner or later we all have to face this question; we may have been converted by His words and set free by His work, but if set free,
  • who has set us free in order that we may dwell in love, and know Him whose words are the expression of Himself.

• It involves the question of confessing Him Lord, and being in the fellowship of His rejection.

There is a beautiful presentation of the Person, in whom Israel were to recognize their God, given to us in Isaiah 40: 11-12:

• "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young".

  And yet He is the One "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure".

• The bearer of glad tidings to Israel said of this One,
  • "Behold your God!"

    One so mighty and yet so near to them in grace.

• In chapter 50 also the same Person speaks to them. He clothes the heaven with sackcloth, and yet knows how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
  • Yet for Israel He was the Carpenter.

That this question of owning His Person was a momentous one, is further shown by the mission of the twelve. Mark 6: 7.

• They are sent out in the power and grace of the Lord, and their mission had the character of a final test,
  • if men would not receive nor hear those He sent, nothing but judgment awaited them.

• It was the same morally with Paul's gospel,
  • "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost".

• For note, that his gospel was not merely the message of alleviation for man, but the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The works of Jesus and His disciples attracted the attention of Herod, the worldly and apostate king who reigned in the land of Israel.

• This serves to draw forth the history which is a pattern of the alliance of the guilty Israel with the power of the world – Isaiah 57: 9 – culminating in the murder of Christ's witness.

But at that moment nothing can surpass the tender care of the Lord for those He had sent forth with His testimony.

• He takes them apart with Himself, and retires with them into the desert.
  • They are in the privacy of His own company, and it is there that His servants are formed.

  • They learn Him first for themselves, and thus they learn the grace of His heart for others, and the resources they have in Himself.

• Such as these are wonderful moments. "Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door".

• How often do we forget to shut the door so that all else is outside.

• At that moment corruption and murder and rejection were outside, but the retreat of the Lord's company was known in the place of rejection.

• Paul exhorts Timothy to be in the secret of this resource of grace in the Lord Himself, though he had to suffer evil.
  • "Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus".

The needs of the multitude that came together unto Him drew Him forth from His privacy, and the compassion of His heart led Him to teach them many things,

• and then to dispense the bounty of heaven to them, for what little the disciples had was multiplied from heaven:
  • "He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them".

• Thus this rejected One is learnt, and the actings of His grace in the place of His rejection.

I do not dwell further upon the details of this portion, as my object is to draw attention to the circumstances of the Lord's rejection,

• the consequent retirement into the desert with His own, and then the administration of heavenly grace through His disciples in the very scene of His rejection.

So far this is heavenly grace brought to our side, and it is a blessed thing to be in the secret of it; but in the close of the chapter we pass to the Lord's side;

• He had gone to the mountain alone, and the disciples were toiling on the sea.

• And now He is not seen as dispensing the bounty of heaven on earth, but figuratively as the heavenly One Himself.

• He is simply "above all", and thus His disciples are further instructed as to who and whence He is.

Here He is not with them in the retreat of a desert place, but talking with them as One in the sphere of His own supremacy, the One who is above all.

• In pattern we have here what the Lord taught His disciples doctrinally in John 14: 18:
  • "I will not leave you comfortless" [or 'desolate'] "I will come to you".

• But He comes to us, as being in the sphere of His own proper power and glory, and makes Himself known to us as in it. "It is I: be not afraid."

• This was entirely between the Lord and the disciples:
  • "The world seeth Me no more, but ye see Me".

• And now it is not the sustainment of heavenly grace for earth, but the sphere of His own life begins to dawn, now made known to us by the Spirit.
  • "Because I live, ye shall live also."

T.H.R.

In Galatians 2: 20 the apostle gives us the two sides of individual Christian life, as he knows it.

• On the one side, the true "I", Christ living in him – the old "I", having been crucified with Christ – was that which lived to God.

• Paul's real self was in touch with the scene where Christ now lives to God. If I be outside myself it is to God.

• But on the other side, as still living in flesh, the soberness of faith – and not ecstasy – governed him –
  • faith that formed a motive outside of himself in the Son of God who loved him, and gave Himself for him.

• It is a blessed thought that the true "self" belongs to that scene where Christ is,
  • "He liveth to God";

• and the motive is outside of self for the walk in flesh – the love of Christ.

• I suppose Colossians 1: 27, "Christ in you" is more in view of what is collective, but Galatians 2: 20 seems intensely individual.

T.H.R.

There is a great contrast in Luke 11: 31.

• On the one hand, a woman of wealth and position – "the queen of the south" – who came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon;

• on the other, "the men of this generation".

• That which is represented by each, is distinguishable enough to-day.

• There is one who having sought finds; there are those who, with a greater than Solomon in their midst, demand that their carnal minds shall be satisfied by a sign.

The form of unbelief and the character of the men of this generation may vary, but there are still "the men of this generation",

• and we have to take care that we are not infected by the leaven, the course of this world.
• Wisdom was set up from everlasting; Christ, the wisdom of God, characterised the beginning of His way, but He is the end as the beginning;
  • and it is in the mystery of God that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid.

• The church is that in which also they will be displayed, but there is a formative power, and that is acquaintance with One who is the centre of all –
  • "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,

    "that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height,

    "and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God".

By what are we affected, by the One who is the centre of glory and love, as the Queen of Sheba was affected and drawn by the wisdom of Solomon;

• or in anywise by the "men of this generation"?
• Not only was every question of her own heart satisfied, but the wealth of his wisdom in its display left no more spirit in her.

• The Lord keep us from the course of this world by the attractions of the greater then Solomon.

T.H.R.