The order therefore is "the house", "the assembly", and "the pillar and base".

• The house involves enjoyment; it involves, of course, that in which God shows Himself in His affections, and in which His order is seen, but it is a place of holy, spiritual enjoyment.

• The house being said to be the assembly, conveys the idea of intelligent counsel and administrative action, resulting in public support for the truth, this latter involving conflict.

• I wish to confine my remarks to the house, as such, and in this respect I have also specially in mind the statement of king David as to his affection for it. The word that one would bear in mind as to oneself, and one hopes that all will take notice of it, is the peculiar expression,
  • "affection for the house of my God".

• Those of you who are conversant with 1 Chronicles will have noticed that David speaks in chapter 22 of preparing for the house in immense wealth out of his affliction; whereas here in chapter 29 it is in his affection.

• The comparison of these two words in relation to the house, will help in the understanding of my remarks, for as combined, they present to us Christ, in His affliction and then in His affection.

Before coming to Ephesians, I would remark that the gospels in their four different features present David and Solomon typically,

• and particularly Matthew, so that you find Christ in the exercise of His service, and indeed in His whole sojourn here, peculiarly in houses in Matthew.

• He is indeed presented to us in that gospel, as in a house, in His childhood. Luke presents Him in a manger, but Matthew presents Him in a house, as sought out by the wise men of the East. We are told that the star
  • "came and stood over the place where the little child was", Matthew 2: 9.

• The place is a larger idea than the house; indeed, that is confirmed in 1 Chronicles in chapter 21: 25 where king David buys "the place" in which the house is to be.

• Now the wise men came to the place as guided by the star. It was the star of "the king of the Jews", Him they sought, showing how they were in accord with the mind of God, being free from national prejudice.

• No one can reach the house otherwise; so long as national prejudice is in our minds we shall never really reach the house. They came seeking "the king of the Jews", implying that they were to be subservient, that they were recognising the priority of the Jews.

• The Lord, indeed, insisted on this in talking to the woman at Sychar, and the Samaritans themselves later, had to learn that the Spirit should come through the apostles that were sent from Jerusalem.

So the wise men came to the place under the guidance of heaven. They were deflected in going to Jerusalem, but finally the star directed them "to the place where the little child was" – a very interesting and touching consideration – but the star did no more than that.

• Being at the place, they entered into the house. I would suggest that there is something to be learnt in that, for many are content with the vicinity in which Christ may be, – but they entered into the house; they entered into the house where the little child was.

• He was under care; He was with the one who would care for Him best under God at that time, as is always so where the need of care exists. Where could care be found to equal that with the parent in the house, for God has provided in the house such care as all stages of His family require.

• That is how matters stand in Matthew: they entered into the house, and they find the child under care. They saw "the little child with his mother" and they worshipped.

So throughout Matthew we find the Lord signalising certain features of the truth as being "in the house", characteristically.

• To illustrate this, in chapter 13, He entered into a house, and His disciples followed Him. That is another thing. He takes up a position in the house, and persons who are followers understand, and they follow Him there.

• It becomes a place of exposition and of wonderful disclosures. No one can afford to miss these, the holy expositions of Scripture and of the parables and types in the house; and then the disclosures of hidden things, things that were in the Lord's heart, with regard to the assembly.

Then we find later, chapter 17, the Lord in the house, and Peter would have reduced Him to the level of an ordinary temple taxpayer.

• Unless we frequent the house in which He is, we shall have wrong thoughts of Him, and shall reduce Him in our thoughts, and words, and ways, to the level of ordinary persons, which the Holy Spirit greatly resents.

• So that Peter said, his Master certainly paid tribute. But as he came into the house the Lord anticipated him and adjusted him, and brought out the blessed fact that the position was that of sons.
  • "Then are the sons free", Matthew 17: 26.

• Thus in that house the truth of sonship came out. And so throughout Matthew's gospel in which also and only there, you get the word 'householder'. Chapter 13: 52.

• All is to prepare us for the great leading thought, the assembly; that we might be in the world assemblywise. In order to be here in this way we must be in the good of, and enter into the spiritual buoyancy and enjoyment of the house.

So you find the Lord in the house of "Simon the leper", meaning that the public position may be one of reproach, but He is there nevertheless.

• Many would avoid being in that house; but if He takes up a position subject to reproach and you avoid it because of that, you will miss the blessing attached to it. You find there the full appreciation of Christ's dignity and service; a woman anointed His head there.

Then later in Matthew, the Lord sends His disciples, as they enquire where He would eat the passover, to a certain one. He says,

• "Go into the city to such an one", chapter 26: 18,

• saying nothing about the man with a pitcher of water, or the upper room, as in Mark or Luke, but simply sending them to convey to the man, that He would eat the passover in his house.

• The proposal indicated that the Lord would be free in that house, that He could eat the passover there with His disciples in liberty and dignity in the house – not, in Matthew, in the upper room.

Now all that bears on what I have in mind; it prepares us for Paul; indeed, all the evangelists stress the idea of the house.

• Luke presents it to us in the most attractive way, and I speak now to the young people, because Luke has a peculiar way of gauging the necessities of souls, and he knows that young people love enjoyment. The world knows it too, and strains every nerve to supply the need.

• So Luke presents the house in chapter 14 as that which is to be filled – "that my house may be filled", verse 23; but in chapter 15, as the place of enjoyment; figuratively the most delightful things are going on there – "music and dancing";
  • what is presented in the way of music, what is spoken of in regard to Christ, is so delightful, is presented so perfectly, and with such charm, that everyone dances, everyone moves in response.

• The elder brother had no interest in it at all.

Then John presents the house as the place in which the Son abides; the Son abides in the house for ever. He abides there.

• He abides in the house for ever; we shall never be without Him, and there we shall be truly free – a very great fact, especially at the present time.

Then John goes on later to tell us that the house was full of precious odour – "the house", without saying whose house it was:

• "The house was filled with the odour of the ointment", chapter 12: 3.

• The sense of smell is delightfully ministered to in that house; there is nothing corrupt there. You will have noticed that the ointment which Mary used, was not in an alabaster box in John.

• The alabaster box would allude to the care with which the ointment was preserved from taint, but there is no need of that in John;
  • it is to render tribute to Mary of Bethany, who loved our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption.

• That is what you will find in the house in which Jesus is ministered to.

Now all these remarks will help us as to Ephesians, because Ephesians presents things in their fulness; not in a hard forced kind of way, but one thing growing out of another,

• and all coming out of a heart full, by the power of the Spirit. That is what marks Ephesians.

• The apostle's heart was simply full, and words are employed to denote the excessive excellency and greatness of the divine things presented.

• So Paul speaking about both Jew and gentile having access through Christ "by one Spirit to the Father", opens up his heart to these gentile believers, as indeed towards all.
  • "No more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God".

• What a word for us! Some of us have been speaking about the blind man whose eyes were opened, John 9, that he was cast out – a man without a country, without a family, without a religion; as we might say, even his parents undertaking nothing for him.

• What is he coming into? He is coming into all this of which I have been speaking. The Lord enquires of him,
  • "dost thou believe on the Son of God?", John 9: 35.

• The Son of God will give him a country, a family, so that he is no longer a stranger and foreigner, but a "fellow-citizen of the saints, and of the household of God" – marvellous statement!

Now the passage goes on to show what this is, because we need to understand what the house is. And so the apostle says that it is

• "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone".

• Now look at that, dear brethren. You say the "foundation of the apostles and prophets", are they in the foundations? Well, according to Revelation 21 they are, every one of them, for there were twelve foundations, and on each the name of an apostle of the Lamb – twelve names.

• The reference is to the quality of the apostles' work in founding Christianity.

• I am not speaking so much of the foundation itself as the foundation of God; that is not exactly what is in view here – that is stated in 2 Timothy, where it is necessary to state it, because things are slipping away
  • but in Ephesians the apostle is speaking in love, his heart engrossed with the greatness of the divine things into which we are brought; he would convey that the very best is there; you cannot admit of anything better than "the apostles and prophets".

• It is the quality here, not only the sureness of the foundation.

Then, after the foundation, he speaks of the topstone, as if the apostles and prophets were so in keeping with Christ in the laying of the foundation that He becomes the topstone of what they lay.

• So the structure is bound up with the very best in the apostles and prophets, and then the ornamentation and binding influence of the glorious Person of Christ, the head of the corner! Such is the house as Ephesians presents it, and what a place!

• How one seeks enlargement of heart to take it in, and to have a part in it, for Ephesians is the excellence of the thing, even from the foundation; and then the ornamentation and the binding influence of the glorious Person of Christ as the Head of the corner.

• The next thing the apostle says is, that it "increases to a holy temple in the Lord". Though it has the form of a house now, a place of enjoyment for us – "a habitation of God in the Spirit" – it also increases, that is, it looks on to the time when the Lord will be supreme; it increases to a holy temple in the Lord.

• When He takes up the reins of government in the world, that which we have part in now will be the means in His hands of making His rule intelligible to all, for His reign will not be arbitrary; of course it will be absolute, but it is such a rule as will be intelligible, and acceptable to all.

• Thus I apprehend the idea of the building increasing to a holy temple in the Lord. When the Lord reigns by and by, He will rule in power, but all will be made intelligible in the temple.

I refer now a little to Chronicles, and what I would draw attention to is the king's words,

• "in my affection for the house of my God".

• I want to arouse affection in each of us, dear brethren, for the house; it is such a great commanding thought with God that He would have us not only to seek it as a place of enjoyment, but to have affection for it, and, as having affection for it, to come forward, and to make it as joyful and as glorious in a holy sense as we may.

• So, as I have said already, we have to distinguish between David's affliction and David's affection, what he provided in his affliction I apprehend to be according to his might, what he had as king, as he tells us elsewhere.

• As he commanded the resources of his empire he provided in abundance everything that was necessary to the house. And so, as afflicted, he sets forth, typically, Christ in the gospels.

• But then in chapter 22, in which he tells us that he provided all these things, mentioning the enormous sum of one hundred thousand talents of gold, and one thousand thousand talents of silver, and iron and brass and wood, and everything that was needed in abundance – in that very chapter you have Solomon.

• I wish to point out, dear brethren, hoping that the Lord will use it for our instruction, that Solomon in this chapter is Christ as Son as seen in the gospels. It is Christ as the suffering, afflicted David, but He is nevertheless the Son – "young and tender" it may be.

• I do not mean that Christ was that personally, but it is the way in which the idea of sonship is introduced for our apprehension. We have to learn things from the beginning; and so in chapter 22 David, having reached, not the foundation, but the place, which he purchased, begins to tell us what he had provided for the house, and then immediately you have Solomon.

• That is a matter that deserves our attention, that an afflicted David and a tender Solomon, his son, combined, is the Christ of the gospels. There is no change in the Person, but you have the combination of suffering and sonship – sonship in its tenderness, but nevertheless sonship.

• And so the wisdom and the provision and the ordering and the pattern all emanate from David. He represents the suffering Christ, the afflicted Christ. How that touches our heart! We are never to lose sight of that; but then the house is not built under those circumstances; the house is not built by a suffering Christ, an afflicted Christ; for the house was not built until David died.

• But the two things run together – the afflicted David and the tender son, Solomon, until they are both reigning together, a very remarkable thing; yet there is no foundation of the house laid under those circumstances: the element of war, the element of affliction, the element of suffering, these do not properly belong to the house.

• The house is a place of holy enjoyment. I am endeavouring to make it attractive to every one here, and specially to the young people.

• So when coming to the actual structure, and when Solomon acts by himself after David's death, he represents the glorified Christ. The house is built or constructed, by a glorified Christ – a Son – but the Son in heaven.

• Think of the Son in heaven! You say, 'It is the same Person who was on earth'. Of course it is; as to His Person He is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever", Hebrews 13: 8; there can be no change in His Person; but a Christ in heaven, is different from a Christ on earth; the Son of God in heaven is different from the Son of God on earth.

• You understand what I mean by the word 'different'; the Christ that is in heaven, as raised from the dead went about among His people forty days. Where was He when He was not with them? Who can tell? We are in the presence of His inscrutability when we come to this.

• We must never reduce Christ in heaven to mere theological terms – never! We have to apprehend the Person of Christ in heavenly circumstances – what He is there, but the inscrutable always attaches to Him. He has gone up far above all the heavens, beyond the created worlds. Who can follow Him there? We cannot follow Him there, but He has gone there.

• He is Christ in heaven, nevertheless; and as the Christ in heaven He appears as the great builder of the church, the assembly. Paul says,
  • "God … was pleased to reveal his Son in me", Galatians 1: 15-16.

• What a Son is the glorified Christ! Think of the enjoyment going on between the Father and the Son! How He loved to dwell upon the fact, that He was going to His Father. He sends the message to His disciples:
  • "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God", John 20: 17.

• So, He is up there in all the unalloyed enjoyment of the affection of the Father. Their reciprocated affections are enjoyed in their own sphere. Now all that enters into the formation of the house, as in Ephesians
  • "through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father".

• So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners. That is the idea, dear brethren.

When you come to 1 Kings, David is a weak, old man; he thus ceases really to be a type of Christ.

• The point in Chronicles is to bring out the greatness of Christ in the time of His sufferings, and as He is now in heaven.

• So the Holy Spirit dwells with great delight typically on the greatness of the provision for the house and its anticipated grandeur.

Coming back to this question of affection. Is it not attractive, this thought of the house? This place of holy, spiritual enjoyment to which we are called as sons.

• David says, "In my affection for the house of my God, I have given of my own property" – "my own property".

• What this is in the antitype I would leave you to explore; what this gold of Ophir is. As we come to the closing moments of our Lord's life, and His great affection – and then how it is expressed to us through Paul, His chosen vessel – and his great affection, it is no longer a question of volume, but of something very special – "gold, of the gold of Ophir" – of His own property. Think of what Jesus has in this sense, and how He devotes it to the house!

• And then the silver: Solomon does not make much of silver in the structure, but David does, and I apprehend that it grows out of the death of Jesus. We must ever come back to that. All consideration of special devotedness, of special service, must come back to the love that devoted itself unto death, in view of all this.

• So there was the "gold of Ophir" – what was so special – but there was also the silver – the "seven thousand talents of refined silver" – referring, I apprehend, primarily to the love of Christ in redemption, and how all has been secured on that principle.

• So that we have the most delightful dwelling-place as the result of the special devotedness of Christ. He loved Israel, but there is something distinctive here, in the special devoting of what was His own property, in securing the thought of God. It is the best kind of gold and the refined silver. It has the church in view.

Then we have the appeal, 1 Chronicles 29: 5, which I hope will not be in vain, dear brethren. It is to whoever is ready to come forward for the work.

• The Lord has led the way for us, and we see in Ephesians how the one specially selected for these things followed Him in devoted energy. In His ministry we get what is special, answering to the gold of Ophir, which David gave.

• Paul, under the Lord, leads the way for us, in provision and care for the house. So that where God dwells in holy love – "a habitation of God in the Spirit", is a place of spiritual joy for us.

May the appeal, dear brethren, come home to us so that we may not be wanting in affection for the house.

The operations of Christ mediatorially as Son, His services, are all to that end, in regard to each of us, to the assembly, then to Israel and the nations.

The passages read in 2 Samuel yesterday afternoon and which we were unable to dwell upon, were in chapters 7 and 15 which we may profitably touch as we proceed. Particularly that in chapter 7 because it brings out the thought of sonship for the first time in the types we have been looking at.

Our subject from the outset of these five readings has been priesthood as seen in 1 and 2 Samuel, but particularly in David.

• We saw it first of all in Hannah, who shone in prayer and faith and poetic contribution in the service of God.

• Then we saw it in Samuel who exhibited the qualities of a priest. Although not formally installed as a priest – not being of the sons of Aaron he was scarcely qualified to be a priest – he was a priest actually and practically, and in more ways than one he influenced Israel.

• He led them to repentance, offered the sacrifice of the sucking lamb, and prayed for Israel so that God came in against their enemies; showing how priesthood brings in deliverance for the people of God.

• Then there is no longer an official place as the judge of Israel. We saw him in 1 Samuel 19 exercising leadership, or presidency, over the prophets, and great power was present to overcome evil, even to the extent of overcoming Saul in his murderous opposition to David.

Then we saw in David himself how he had liberty to appropriate the priestly food – an important matter for us as entering on priesthood to know how to appropriate priestly food, the shew-bread.

• Then we saw how he had liberty to speak to God and to use the ephod brought to him by Abiathar and how he used it later at Ziklag and brought in deliverance again.

Then, in 2 Samuel, we saw the seemly, considerate spirit toward Saul which belongs to priesthood, especially in his regard and respect for the anointed.

• Then there was his petition asking Jehovah whether he should go up to one of the cities of Judah, and, finally, the bringing of the ark to Zion, which occupied us largely yesterday, and his priestly energy displayed before it.

All these instances are examples of priesthood and show us how we enter upon it and exercise it, and how it is available to believers;

• David illustrates the liberty that believers should have to appropriate what is available to sustain us in and fit us to exercise the priesthood.

Now, the passage in 1 Corinthians 15 is the end which we have to come to finally in our reading.

• It will be noticed that sonship and lordship are prominent in the passage and that sonship in Christ – Christ as Son – serves in view of bringing all into subjection; and that He, so as to be the Leader in this subjection – for it is perfectly seen in Him – is Himself placed in subjection finally. Wonderful fact for us, that we have a Leader in this permanently!
  • "Then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all".

• If we link that on with 2 Samuel 7, we shall see how it worked out in the types. Verse 14 says:
  • "I will be his father, and he shall be my son".

• And then he says in verse 16:
  • "And thy house and thy kingdom shall be made firm for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David. And king David went in and sat before Jehovah".

• That is the position. David is now in the house, but how? He is there as king but then he is there in the light of sonship in Solomon. Indeed it applies to him in Psalm 89 where it says:
  • "He shall call unto me, Thou art my father … And as to me, I will make him firstborn", verses 26-27.

• We see here the working out of priesthood in David now in the light of sonship. He enters into the house and sits there, or, as the note suggests, tarries there; he had liberty to stay.

• It is a great point as regards privilege that we have liberty to enter the presence of God. There is no invitation here; he was not invited, but he goes in. He has the liberty with which, one might say, Christ sets us free, and inside he is at liberty to stay, and to speak.

J.D. "Now the bondman abides not in the house for ever: the son abides for ever", John 8: 35. Does that come in here?

J.T. I think it does. It is the liberty that belongs to it.

J.D. Is your thought that there might be something like that reached by us as in assembly?

J.T. That is what is intended. Apprehending sonship in Christ, because that is what is spoken of in David, we have liberty to enter and tarry there, and speak there, too.

• Anyone can see by looking at what he says that he is full of God. Marvellous richness in speaking to God! Let us just look at the titles that he uses here:
  • in verse 18, "Lord Jehovah";

    in verse 19, "Lord Jehovah"

    and again verses 20 and 29; in verse 22, "Jehovah Elohim", a richer and fuller title;

    in verse 23, "the one nation in the earth that God went to redeem";

    in verse 24, "thou, Jehovah, art become their God";

    "Jehovah Elohim" again in verse 25 and in verse 26,

    "Jehovah of hosts is God over Israel"; in verse 27,

    "Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel";

    and then in verse 28, "Lord Jehovah, thou art that God", or, as the note reads, 'Thou art the Same, – God'.

• The brethren will see how priesthood leads up to the soul being filled with God in all the great appellations in which He is pleased to reveal Himself.

E.G.McA. Which denotes liberty.

J.T. I think it does. There is great intelligence in the use of the titles, and he has such liberty to use them inside.

S.McC. Would the use of Jehovah Elohim show how extended David was in his thoughts, not merely confining himself to what God was to Israel?

J.T. Yes. It is His title in creation with "Jehovah" prefixed.

S.McC. It is used a good deal in the second chapter of Genesis.

J.T. Yes; more there possibly than in any other chapter of scripture. It is God creating man and entering into relationship with him.

G.A.T. Has he reached here the point you brought before us this morning about God being the end?

J.T. That is what I think we may see, connecting it up with 1 Chronicles 29 and the wonderful speech that he makes there, really amplifying what he says here. As Paul says, so wonderfully and beautifully,

• "For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen", Romans 11: 36.

G.A.T. We used to think that the Father was the highest thought in worship. Is it right to say that God is the highest thought?

J.T. Obviously. "O depth of riches", says the apostle, "both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways! … For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen".

• That is, I think, the doxology characteristic of the New Testament. The doxologies of the epistles all help in that direction. The most spiritual men of the dispensation were worshippers. They had the right thought and we get it from them.

J.C. In what way does priesthood touch the thought of God "all in all"?

J.T. The use of it, the service it renders, is to keep our minds clear from other thoughts.

• Priesthood is really a provisional thing. As far as I see, it is not final, it is not eternal.

• It is eternal in the sense that there is nothing coming after it like it, but it has in view the conditions surrounding us in which we are here as in the flesh. It involves intelligence and holiness so that we can keep out what is evil and all that is contrary to God.
  • "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge", Malachi 2: 7, for instance.

• They are under a charge as was said last night. The exercise of priesthood is in view of present conditions.

• What will remain is sonship. Of course it is a son who is priest now, but when there is no evil, when there is no hindrance, when there is no double-mindedness, when all is perfect there is no need for priesthood at all.

• It is a provisional thought to meet all these conditions that we are conscious of as in the flesh.

J.C. That is very helpful. I wondered if, in priesthood, we arrive at the thought of God as being filled with God – as suggested in David – in His presence. It is only in priesthood that we can enter the presence of God and thus be filled with God.

J.T. Quite so. You will observe that the ephod is not in evidence in his last days. In his last great service of worship, the ephod is not in evidence.

• It is all there but he is filled with God, as you say. The great end is God "all in all" – not 'all and in all'. He is all as filling us so that there is nothing else.

E.G.McA. Is that a kindred thought in 2 Chronicles 5: 14:

• "The priests could not stand to do their service because of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God".

J.T. That is a kindred thought and needs to be elucidated. Who are there, then, if the priests cannot enter?

• The answer is that the things of the temple, the material and the fittings, simply allude to persons. Persons are there, both in the temple and in the tabernacle. They are not kept out in that sense.

• In the tabernacle, only the idea of authority was kept out, as that was not then needed; in the temple, the idea of priesthood, as that was not then needed.

• In the divine, eternal habitation there is no need of what is official but a great need of persons. God must have persons and He has them in sonship. That is the great idea in the temple.

J.D. Otherwise it would be Deity filling somewhere with Itself and there would be no advance with that. The advance is that it is God "all in all", but in men.

• Would you be free to give a moral application to, "then the end", as a point reached in the assembly today?

J.T. You reach that point, that what is official has gone and you are absorbed with God. He says, 'This is what I have had in mind from eternal counsel'.

• It was not what Moses was personally that was excluded – it was what he represented. The priest is the official side, but the persons are there.

• As you say, God is enough for Himself. He inhabits eternity, we are told, and the Deity of course is satisfied in Itself, speaking reverentially, but revelation implies that He has something else.

• The Deity has taken up the relationship of Father and Son in order to bring man in and when that is secured, that is all. God says, 'I want all this Myself' – the glory filling both the tabernacle and the temple.

J.D. Would the mediatorial service of the Lord be seen in the morning meeting in that way in bringing everything into subjection, so that there might be a touch of that now in the assembly?

J.T. I think so. The Lord is recognised as we discern Him. He is apprehended on our side and from then on is to lead us on to the light of God through the Father.

• First the covenant-God, then the Father, and then God, as represented in Elohim – God in the absolute, because we shall never lose that thought. Although He dwells in light unapproachable, we know He is there.

J.D. Is it the knowledge of the covenant-God in connection with the Son here where David merges in it, that enables us to sit?

J.T. It is the perfect love that casts out fear, first of all. There are three kinds of love that enter into the assembly as convened.

1. The first is the love of Christ, that is, in the bread,
   • "This is my body which is given for you", Luke 22: 19.

2. The second is the covenant-love of God, which is in the cup.
   • "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you", Luke 22: 20.

     That is the covenant-love of God and, as John says, "perfect love casts out fear", 1 John 4: 18. So that we are set free.

3. Then there is the love that the Father has for the Son which He alludes to. The Lord says in John 17: 26:
   • "That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them".

     That is manifestly greater than the other two – the love that the Father has for the Son. That is love by itself, and that love is to be in us. We are to love the Son as the Father loves – with that kind of love.

These are thoughts that should be before us in the assembly; and although we would not make compartments in the assembly we move, if we are subject and intelligent, in that relation.

• I believe that the Lord, as looking down upon us, takes account of all the saints from the time they leave their houses until they reach the meeting-room.

• The anointing is the first great thought and it has to do with my spirit in the house in getting ready for the meeting; looking after the children and getting them ready, and walking up the street. The anointing is to be upon the saints.

• Then the coming in and sitting down; there is beautiful moral order and the anointing marks off those who have the Spirit. There is a dignity about them and a distinctiveness that no others have.

• Then it says that the Lord "placed himself", Luke 22: 14. That includes the anointing, the way He would sit. He "placed himself". That has to do with our coming into the room and sitting down.

• Then there are the announcements which have to do with the public testimony. The anointing has to do with what is public; it is connected with the tabernacle which is the public position. The temple is what is inside spiritually.

• If I give out notices, they are for the information of the brethren but they belong to what is public and they should be anointed; they should be in dignity. They are not common.

• Everything is under the heading of the anointing. That is how we sit down and heaven is complacent in all that. The apostle says in view of all that,
  • "I speak as to intelligent persons", 1 Corinthians 10: 15.

• What I am going to say to you now requires intelligence. That is the next thing. Well, I give out a hymn. What am I giving out? What is in my mind? What am I thinking about? Is there intelligence?
  • "I will sing with the spirit", says the apostle, "but I will sing also with the understanding", 1 Corinthians 14: 15.

• That is most important, that the hymn I give out, the giving of thanks, or whatever part I take, should all be in intelligence.

• And hence the thing proceeds and these great divine thoughts as to love fall into their real places.

J.B. When the Lord says in Psalm 22, "And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel", is that the end in view for the Lord with regard to the sufferings before Him?

J.T. I think so. We were speaking of that a little this morning. Before that you have Psalm 8: 2 in which it is said,

• "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established praise …";

• that necessarily enters into Psalm 22. He speaks of the deepest things – the atoning sufferings – but
  • "thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel".

J.B. He surrounds Himself in His dwelling place with His beloved people to praise Him.

J.T. The eighth psalm prepares us for the twenty-second:

• "And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel".

• Someone has been praising – the praises of Israel are assumed to be there, but then He goes on in verse 22 to say,
  • "I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee".

• That is the new thing. You must have the assembly and what I have been saying about the anointing is a most important thing because we are so common in our thoughts, so mean and natural, whereas the Lord intends a great and holy vehicle in which to place them.

S.McC. The anointing would imply that things are not done merely in a formal way; feeling would enter into the matter.

J.T. The anointing means that you have the Holy Spirit and He affects you in your external demeanour and ways. It is the same Holy Spirit

• "whereby we cry, Abba, Father", Romans 8: 15,

• but the anointing is affecting you outwardly – how you meet the public, how you walk down the street and meet men without being defiled.

J.B. Solomon was anointed with the oil of the tabernacle. We proceed from that into the temple; the anointing is not there – it is the dignity of the persons inside.

J.D. In view of what is stated here:

• "then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him",

• is all service in the assembly mediatorial, or is a point reached where that service ceases today?

J.T. It is a question of what you mean by 'mediatorial'. Generally I think it is too limited.

• The idea is that we always need Someone as with God, even eternally. We shall not see God in His essential Being.

• I believe many have the thought that they will see the Deity, the Trinity, but it is all wrong. We see Christ; He is the One we see.

G.A.T. There has been quite an exercise in this meeting in connection with that remark. We all hold that there are three Persons in the Godhead, but some of us are confused as to how they are divided. God came down and became Man.

J.T. We shall not see the Persons, I apprehend, save as in Christ. The Deity must stand.

• One of the Persons becoming man does not alter that great fact, so that as that Person is here, we have a voice out of heaven.

• That is the voice of the Deity but it is the voice of the Deity in Fatherhood, that is, in a relation that is intelligible to us. Fatherhood is intelligible to every person. Each one has had a father and God has taken that relationship.

• As the Son becomes Man and is baptised, the heavens are opened to Him and it is,
  • "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight", Matthew 3: 17.

• That is a voice out of heaven. The apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15: 27:
  • "But when he says that all things are put in subjection, it is evident that it is except him who put all things in subjection to him".

• But the Deity is not subject to the Son. It is manifest, as the voice comes out of heaven, that that is the voice of the Deity, but it is the voice of the Father and, therefore, another Person besides the One that is here.

• So that you have the voice of the Father and then the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove. That is another Person, and He rests upon this Person that is in manhood.

• There is the Trinity. It is manifest. It is not categorically stated – it is really there – it is manifestly there. That is how we come into the truth. We absorb these great facts – they become part of us.

J.D. When you address the Lord in worship, you are not speaking to the Father. The Father is a distinct Person in revelation.

J.T. Surely; quite so.

G.A.T. I am not yet clear in regard to this matter. I hold that there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead.

• You just remarked that when the Son was here the Holy Spirit came down upon Him. Does that mean there were two of the Persons of the Godhead here at the same time? And was there just One in the Godhead in heaven?

J.T. You are touching the inscrutable. We are not capable of understanding all these things. We have to have our minds formed by what Scripture presents. The Deity is inscrutable.

• While the Son was on earth, it is
  • "the Son of man who is in heaven", John 3: 13.

• You cannot explain that. It is a statement of Scripture. Also we cannot say that while the Spirit is on earth He is not in heaven.

• All we can do is to use the language of Scripture and let our minds absorb it. Our thoughts are more or less common, but the great thing is to pay attention to Scripture and be formed in our minds by the way it speaks.

E.G.McA. You made a remark when you were here a short time ago that when you were speaking of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you were speaking of the three Persons in deity;

• but when you were speaking of God, you were speaking of all three Persons as seen in the absolute.

J.T. That is right. The Father may be presented to us as "one God, the Father";

• whenever you use the term "God", you cannot exclude any of the Persons. The abstract thought has to be left.

S.McC. If we can only understand and intelligently enter into what God is relatively, what part does God in the absolute have in connection with our worship, as reaching what you referred to in the assembly?

J.T. As you proceed, you proceed to increasing greatness. God is the end. You cannot get beyond that.

• David indicated that was what he had in mind – increasing greatness. The Lord puts the Father first:
  • "… my Father and your Father, … my God and your God", John 20: 17.

• That is a progressive thought. The thought of Father is more intelligible to us; He has entered into that relationship in order to be intelligible to us – in order to draw out our affections intelligently, but God is the great end. "My God and your God".

J.T. Yes. He says, "God is a spirit". He does not say the Father is a Spirit although He is, but "God is a spirit". Remarkable that He should say that.

J.D. With reference to the mediatorial service of Christ, does His service as Mediator govern the saints viewed as in tabernacle conditions or in temple conditions?

J.T. I think in both. Paul is a figure of Christ in relation to the temple although he is outside, but it is the Son who abides in the house for ever, and in eternity we need Him. We shall be dependent upon Him. He is One that is between you and God.

• God dwells in light unapproachable. How am I to touch Him? I touch Him because the One that has come from my side as Man can touch Him. That is what I understand, that we are dependent on Him not only now but eternally. We need Him.

• He takes the place of subjection, according to this passage:
  • "then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him".

• He is within my range when He is in subjection because that is not deity.

J.D. Does the service of Christ in the tabernacle condition have to do more with the covenant and possibly with the saints' apprehension of Christ as sacrifice as we have in the first four chapters of Leviticus?

• Leviticus follows the end of Exodus where God takes possession of the tabernacle, and then is the temple character of the saints more in connection with the counsels of God?

J.T. The tabernacle belongs to the wilderness properly, and the service that Christ renders there has to do with the Supper which implies the covenant. I have to be brought into that.

• It says in 1 Corinthians that the cup is the covenant. That is what it is to me objectively,
  • but in the second letter it is what is effected in me, in the christian – that the love is there. The love is brought into my heart. The Lord does that.

J.D. Is that 2 Corinthians 3?

J.T. Yes. The Lord does that. The apostle says in verse 6 of that chapter,

• "For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens".

• Then he has a lengthy parenthesis in which he speaks about the glory of the covenant and the ministry of the Spirit; then he reaches the end of the parenthesis and says,
  • "Now the Lord is the Spirit".

• That is where you get the thought of the Mediator in the sense in which He effects the covenant in the saints. He makes it a practical thing that God's love is effected in our hearts. The authority of Christ is in the service, but the Spirit is in the service too.

E.G.McA. Does the covenant set me free to move out of the wilderness?

J.T. That is right. It is perfect love.

J.B. In the new Jerusalem no temple is seen, "for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb", Revelation 21: 22. Is that not the condition of things?

J.T. Just so. "The Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb".

• These are not, properly speaking, terms that enter into eternity; they are connected with time.

J.W.D. Paul says, "But my God shall abundantly supply all your need", Philippians 4: 19.

• What do you understand by that expression?

J.T. It would simply mean the God he knew. He knew God in the sense in which he was speaking – God who furnishes the service so perfectly and liberally. I think it is on those lines.

• "My God" is a beautiful expression. I think it is Paul conveying what God had been to him. He would speak experimentally.

J.W.D. Would it be the Father in that sense?

J.T. It would be; it is the way He provides for you. It is always well to be able to speak experimentally.

J.W.D. When you use the expression in prayer, "our God", it is God in His absoluteness. But we often refer to the Father as God relatively, and rightly so, do we not?

J.T. Yes, but "our God", what do you mean by that?

J.W.D. We use that expression meaning the Father. Our brother spoke to "our God" this morning. It does not always convey the idea of absoluteness, does it?

J.T. Well, "our God" – of course it is God.

• "For also our God is a consuming fire", Hebrews 12: 29.

• That is a relative thought. The God we know in all His love to us is nevertheless a consuming fire and when we say, "our God", I am not so sure that the Father as such is meant because there it is judgment.
  • "For also our God is a consuming fire".

• I am not sure that I get your thought fully. Perhaps you will enlarge on it.

J.W.D. Do you think we can speak to God in His absoluteness in that sense?

J.T. I think so, if it be Christ's God; that is,

• "my Father and your Father, … my God and your God", John 19: 17.

• When it is Christ's God it is not the covenant God. It is distinct from the Father, too. There you touch absoluteness, what He is in infinitude. He is Christ's God.

• If I am alongside of Christ I can get some thought as to His God. He has access to the depths of the Deity.
  • So that it says He "has passed through the heavens", Hebrews 4: 14.

• He has gone into an uncreated sphere but we cannot get out of creation in our minds, nor shall we ever get out of creation.

• But the Son goes beyond creation, beyond all the heavens. What is beyond all the heavens is uncreated.

• The Son has access there and that is, I apprehend, how things are – that God is God. "My God", he says. That is deity in the absolute.

G.A.T. Is that a higher thought than the third heaven?

J.T. Oh, yes. No creature can get outside of creation, but the Son of God is a divine Person and He passes through the heavens in going there. That enables us to understand how He is the medium through which we know God.

S.McC. I do not quite understand your remark, 'If we get alongside of Christ, we may get some thought as to His God', if what He is in absoluteness is inscrutable.

J.T. You cannot compass Him. You enjoy the air, but you do not compass it. You enjoy God and understand that He is absolute, that there is only one Person that can know Him, and when you get alongside of Him He gives you an understanding. Infinitude is always infinitude. The creature is always the creature.

J.C. How do you explain, "the Father seeks … worshippers", and worship to God?

J.T. The Lord explains to the woman in John 4 that "God is a spirit". He was that always.

• The Lord lets us into that and it is to show that He must be worshipped "in spirit and truth".

• "In spirit" means that I have my spirit from God. I did not get it from my parents, but from God. It is the link I have with God; by that I am in touch with God as He is. He is a spirit. The lower creature has not that; God gave it to man.

G.A.T. Romans 8: 9 says, "but if any one has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him".

J.T. That would be more the characteristic spirit, the kind He had, but then you have your own spirit.

• "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God", Romans 8: 16.

• You have a distinct spirit of your own.

W.B. That is helpful. It says in Genesis 1: 26: "Let us make man". There is the counsel of divine Persons and then, as you say, the link with God in our spirits. "Let us make man". The inscrutable Godhead is in view there.

J.T. Then He "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life", Genesis 2: 7.

• He has a spirit now, and he gets it from God. You have it in Proverbs 20: 27,
  • "Man's spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the inner parts of the belly".

• It is the avenue through which He can get in and through which you can get to God. The spirit is the highest part of man. That is the basis really in us; that God is a spirit and it is in virtue of us having spirits that we can worship Him.

J.D. Basically in your soul you have the knowledge that this is inscrutable, but you are governed by the fact that He has come into revelation. He cannot be compassed but you know Him in revelation.

J.W.D. "There is no other God save one". Then it goes on to say,

• "yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him", etc., 1 Corinthians 8: 4, 6.

J.T. That is revelation manifestly – God in revelation – and does not touch the inscrutability of which we have been speaking. It is God in revelation.

• We are baptised to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

• The Father retains His place in the Deity. He never gives it up. We address Him in that way but we do not exclude the other Persons.
  • Another passage of Paul's, "awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ", Titus 2: 13,

• shows that Jesus Christ is in the Deity. We are awaiting Him. That also helps us to see that we have to take things as Scripture presents them.

• If God presents Himself in graded relations, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that does not set aside the infiniteness and inscrutability and absoluteness of the Deity as composed of three Persons.

• All that is beyond and outside the realm of revelation. The apostle manifestly is dealing with paganism and he is bringing in the revelation of God to meet it.

• We have one God, the Father to address as in the Deity, and one Lord, that is, Christ in manhood exercises authority, and then "by whom are all things".
  • John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being", John 1: 1-3.

• There it is. The Lord Jesus in manhood is the same Person; "by whom are all things, and we by him"; the word 'by' meaning that we, every one of us, have come into being through Jesus and yet it is Jesus in manhood that he is speaking about.

J.B. Would Luke 10: 22 help us as regards the revelation of God as Father:

• "no one knows who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal him",

• and also Matthew 11: 27, "no one knows the Son but the Father, nor does any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal him".

J.T. Quite so. That passage in 1 Corinthians 8 should be kept clearly in mind that, whilst the Son is there in a mediatorial position as Lord, everything is by Him.

• God is the Creator of everything.
  • "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", Genesis 1: 1. He did that.

• That helps what we are saying. While He is spoken of here in manhood in an inferior position, things that are said indicate that He is God.

E.G.McA. Is it correct to say that the mediatorial service of Christ helps our spirits to touch God in worship?

• His service does not end in bringing us to the Father, but as He is what He is, the Mediator, does He not help our spirits to worship God?

J.T. He does.

E.G.McA. Regardless of how inscrutable the term "God" is, it is through the mediatorial service of Christ, the Son, who brings us there,

• so that it seems to me that, while the expression "Father" is a marvellous one, God Himself as God has recovered for Himself, or for the Deity, all that He had lost.

• So that God, the inscrutable, incomprehensible, is worshipped by His creature.

J.T. He has been pleased to come into a relationship intelligible to us to secure what He has in His mind.

E.G.McA. The terms, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are relative terms.

• In the morning meeting it is possible to reach that which is not only relative, which has distance and limitation in mind, but by Christ the Son, we are brought into the illimitable.

J.T. That is right. "Then the end …" That is the way it moves.

• The mediatorial service of Christ in the tabernacle is in relation to the Lord's supper, the covenant, but then we change our ground. All that is in the wilderness. We change our ground in the apprehension of Christ's Sonship.

• They went to the Mount of Olives, a manifest change of position, after the Lord's supper. That is a spiritual thing; it is not a public, anointed thought. It is a spiritual, inward thought.

• They went to the Mount of Olives and as there, what would come into the mind of any intelligent disciple at that time? The Lord used to be there every night, Luke tells us. He taught in the temple during the day but at night He went to the Mount of Olives. What was His occupation there? That is what a spiritual inquiry would be. What would His occupation be?
  • "And every one went to his home", John 7: 53, "But Jesus went to the mount of Olives".

• It is an out-of-the-world state of things. Olivet is outside of Jerusalem, of what is religious, and the Lord was in communication with heaven. That was His holy employ.

• We are here and what is our employ? We are alongside Him and He alongside us and the thought is that we should be occupied with God; first as the Father in the term in which He is intelligible to us, and then led on to Christ's God – "my God".

• Well, suppose we are able to take in the feelings that went on in His heart when he said that! He is speaking of God in His absoluteness.
  • "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth";

• the word is plural which means the full thought of God.

E.G.McA. How does David use the statement in regard of God in 1 Chronicles 29: 12:

• "and thou rulest over everything"? Is that God?

J.T. We have to make due allowance for the dispensation under which he spoke. By adding this on to what we have in 2 Samuel 7, we see how completely free of himself he was and what a sense he had of the greatness of God!

• It is the first time you get the thought of Head attributed to God. David represents the thought himself but he says it is from God. Everything is from Him and reverts to Him. So that it says,
  • "And David blessed Jehovah in the sight of all the congregation; and David said, Blessed be thou, Jehovah, the God of our father Israel, for ever and ever. Thine, Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the splendour, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is thine: thine, Jehovah, is the kingdom, and thou art exalted as Head above all".

• First the creation and then the mediatorial kingdom and headship attaching to it and then
  • "riches and glory are of thee, and thou rulest over everything; and in thy hand is power and might; and in thy hand it is to make all great and strong. And now, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name".

    And then in verse 17, "And I know, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness".

    Then verse 18, "Jehovah, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and direct their hearts to thee!"

    And verse 20: "And David said to all the congregation, Bless now Jehovah your God. And all the congregation blessed Jehovah the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and did homage to Jehovah and the king".

• I think it is wonderful when you consider that old man! In 1 Kings 1 he was a decrepit old man but here he stands up, according to this passage, and says all these wonderful things. What is it but the supernatural, a man taken out of death and set up to speak in this wonderful way to God!

• He has reached the end. Solomon takes his place but he has reached the end in his soul, and every one of us should have that before us.

A.B. Is that why he says in 2 Samuel 7: 19,

• "And is this the manner of man, Lord Jehovah?"

J.T. Quite so.

J.D. Referring to your point in regard to the Mount of Olives, do you make that the summit, or John 20? Is the mount of Olives John 20 spiritually or is it on the way to it?

J.T. It is on the way to John 20. John 20 is ascension.

• I would take the Mount of Olives as the turning point, the new position; making way for the ascension, for the heavenly position.

• The point is, to be spiritual at that stage of the meeting; to have our spirits under control so that the Holy Spirit gets His place amongst us.

G.W.H. Is the Mount of Olives and the Colossian position the same?

J.T. Pretty much.

E.G.McA. Any covenant that God makes with men has need in view.

J.T. Yes, I think so.

E.G.McA. The covenant is that we need to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, which is done. John 20 carries us beyond a sense of need into a spiritual realm where no need is felt.

J.T. "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God", John 20: 17. That is in mind.

• You must notice the word, it is not only the relationship but the Person – "I ascend".

J.D. When the queen of Sheba visited Solomon, she noticed

• "his ascent by which he went up to the house of Jehovah", 1 Kings 10: 5.

G.A.T. In connection with the atmosphere referred to in Solomon's temple, would what you have been bringing before us produce that atmosphere amongst us?

J.T. Spirituality is the great thing. I may be just a member of the congregation, but as to the change of position and the intelligence that enters into it, that is different.

J.W.W. Does the apostle's prayer in Ephesians 3: 14-19 help in regard of what is knowable and what is unknowable?

• "… that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God", verse 19?

J.T. That is always the point. There is what is knowable and also what is unknowable;

• "and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge".

• The love of Christ – the first love you get – you cannot compass it, but strengthened inwardly by the Spirit enables you to grasp
  • "the breadth and length and depth and height",

• that you are in a wonderful place – a large place.

G.W.H. Why is the Spirit mentioned so much in Ephesians?

J.T. That is in relation to a new domain.

G.W.H. In Colossians the Spirit is mentioned only once, but in Ephesians He is mentioned eleven times.

J.T. Yes. The point in Colossians is formation.

E.G.McA. Would the remark made in regard to Ephesians 3 be in line with what is said in 1 Corinthians 15: 28,

• "that God may be all in all"?

J.T. I think so. Being "filled even to all the fulness of God" links on with that.