The Return of the Glory
and other
Ministry by E. J. McBride

The series, 'The Return of the Glory' is challenging, has valuable instruction, and is still very much needed in these last days.

The exercises in Isaiah are to secure the evangelical spirit of Jehovah in Israel. In other words, to break down the contracted, selfish, national spirit that marked them, about which there was no glory, and to put in its place an enlarged spirit of liberty and affection that would go out to every one.

• Now in order to work that out, the main objective of the prophet's ministry is to bring the people, by a series of very interesting exercises, to contemplate Christ as a Substitute – perhaps the most difficult thing to get any one to contemplate.

• Believers can contemplate Christ in almost every light rather than that light. I have no doubt that the series of woes which Isaiah brings forward, are to get souls into the consciousness of what the prophet started with in his ministry, that is what he said in the presence of the glory,
  • "Woe unto me! for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips", Isaiah 6: 5.

• The series of woes I believe to be the way God will bring His ancient people to that utterance. When they come to that, they will want a substitute; they will look round for a living Man, a Person of whom of old it could be said,
  • "He shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground", Isaiah 53: 2.

  They will look round for Christ, and I would feel inclined to say that I believe the gospel has had its proper effect on any believer when he has looked round for Christ.

• The first effect of the light of God entering a soul is to look round for relief. The pressure of guilt, the burden of guilt, makes a man look round for relief,
  • but when he gets relief he looks round for Christ, and when he does so he finds Him, for the desire of all nations has come. That is the object of Isaiah.

Jeremiah, as I understand it, takes hold of you at that moment, and would substitute the Spirit of Christ for your spirit.

• He finds you have looked round for Christ, and have compared Christ with yourself, and that in the comparison you have realised what you are.

• You can understand that. I am sorry for the person who compares himself with Christ, and does not feel ashamed of himself, but Jeremiah comes on the scene, and he records the fact that when God first spoke to you He produced in you a feature of Christ, and He has never forgotten it.

• You may have forgotten it, but He reminds you of it. He says,
  • "I remember for thee … when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown", Jeremiah 2: 2.

• "Thou wentest after me". What a moment that was for God's heart! And so He works in you till you renounce the spirit of Adam and you adopt the Spirit of Christ.

Now Ezekiel comes along at this stage to take account of you as a believer marked by the Spirit of Christ. What is going to be the end of the Spirit of Christ, beloved?

• "Whom he has justified, these also he has glorified", Romans 8: 30.

• When the Spirit of Christ has full sway with a man, there will not be a feature about that man that is not entirely in accord with all the blessedness of God. Ezekiel comes along to secure that.

• But he has to bring into evidence, not the guilt of a man, that is what Isaiah deals with; nor the state of a man, which Jeremiah deals with; but what a man has produced by his activity in having lent a hand to building up, under Satan, a vast system of things that has not a feature of Christ about it. That is why the glory had departed. Ezekiel 10.

People sometimes say, speaking of their own meeting, 'I don't know why it is that we do not get any refreshment or any light'. Have you built up a place for one brother, for one special person, more than another?

Rem. There is a glory connected with Israel. In Romans 9: 4 we read, "Whose is … the glory".

E.J.McB. Yes, and there is a glory connected with manhood – natural glory. I take it Israel's glory will be that they will be the head of the nations.

• What is so distinctive about God, is that He has the feelings and affections of a Father. That is His glory. In all His creatorial and His administrative actions, He has the thoughts and feelings of a Father, and that was revealed when the Son was here; that glory then came to light.

Rem. "A glory as of an only-begotten with a father", John 1: 14. That would be the very highest point?

E.J.McB. That is right, the very highest point. It is the radiancy of that which is to fill everything, and from which every family will take character. If we knew better the generation to which we belong, we should be a dignified people.

• We try and get the young people out of the world by representing what the evil of the world is, and they say, 'I do not believe it, I will go and try'.

• If you get them out of the world by glorifying God in their eyes, they would say, 'I will not have anything to do with it, I will not touch it, I belong to a much more glorious system'. I merely remark that, to secure the fact that the glory is a great assembly feature at the present moment.

• I read Psalm 19 because it brings before us a spot where God's glory has not been outraged. I think the reason why we want to take account of that is this, that we have to look at the glory, and we have to look at the assembly as having come from heaven. It did not spring up in the earth.

• There is a day coming when the glory will cover the earth, but the whole assembly testimony has come down from heaven – from the place where God has secured His glory, and where it has not been tarnished.

• Everything that He had committed to man had been in measure outraged, but He has secured His glory in the heavens. It is from there that Christ came.

• One feels the danger of making christianity a part of something here, instead of a holy, exotic plant, that belongs to another sphere, and that cannot live by anything that is here. It is entirely dependent for its existence, and for its development, on what comes from heaven.

Rem. That is very beautiful, because we see that in Christ: He lived on account of the Father.

E.J.McB. Yes, "All my springs are in thee", Psalm 87: 7. He was as a root out of dry ground. The ground yielded nothing to Christ.

Rem. All His joys were derived from heaven.

E.J.McB. Yes. You may ask the question, Why did God lay the Israelite aside, and frame a vessel entirely from heaven? The greatest of men whom God raised up – remarkable men – failed Him, so He brings in His own Man out of heaven.

Ques. I suppose that everything now has to be patterned after that Man?

E.J.McB. Yes. The church lost glory when she received support from the earth.

• The church at the beginning, in its pristine beauty, stood as a vessel wholly and entirely dependent on supplies from heaven. But when they introduced what was worldly, and of man – intellect, ritualism, and ordinances – they began to mar the features of the glory.

• That was the great danger at Colosse, and had evidently been developed at Corinth. The apostle feared the danger of introducing an element of earthly glory into a vessel that is going to display Christ in such wise that it expresses the glory of God.

• I have no doubt that in the public history of the church the glory of Christ has become lost to view. In Thyatira there is room for a woman in publicity, which means that the glory of the man has waned.

Ques. When you spoke about the conversion of Saul, had you in mind this vessel being formed from the glory?

E.J.McB. Yes, and it is not difficult for any believer, who reads his Bible to discern that we get an entirely new note introduced in the assembly's constitution with Paul's ministry – a note that the early apostles found some difficulty in picking up in their music.

Ques. What is the new note you speak of?

E.J.McB. The heavenly note. You can understand Peter's difficulty as to the sheet let down. It was let down from heaven, it was taken up to heaven, its only contact with earth was for the conversion of Peter. It had done its work when Peter was converted. It had no interests here, it belonged entirely and exclusively to heaven.

Ques. When you say Peter was converted, you mean to the truth of the Gentile being admitted?

E.J.McB. Yes; you can see the necessity for Peter's conversion, because he had the keys; and if you do not convert the doorkeeper you will have no one in heaven.

Ques. Is the gospel, then, the gospel of the glory of the blessed God?

E.J.McB. Yes, the outshining of the radiancy of God.

Ques. In connection with the glory and what is heavenly, do we not get that in John's gospel?

• There were those of whom the Lord could say, "And the glory which thou hast given me I have given them", John 17: 22.

E.J.McB. That touches a very important point – the necessity for John's ministry.

• The tendency would be to ritualise Paul, but John comes in to show that we can only understand Paul in the light of his ministry – that is, in the light of that which is vital.

• Paul was brought in to complete the word of God. The tendency with the complete word of God was to ritualise it.

• John's testimony was that the Word was God. His ministry is vital, the effect of it is seen in living people, it cannot be put into the hands of the clergy. To ritualise it would spoil it.

• Now the heavens have been opened, and the radiancy of that spot has come to this scene in a Person – the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why Christ is so attractive to the saints.

Ques. "We have contemplated his glory", John 1: 14 – was that not special to the apostles?

E.J.McB. Well, I suppose it was. They had a unique position in relation to Christ. But then they have described the position and shown us the way into it, so that it does not remain unique any more.

• "That which we have seen and heard we report to you, that ye also may have fellowship with us", 1 John 1: 3.

• John's gospel is "I am the way".

Rem. I can understand your remark in regard of what comes from heaven, from the glory, that there is nothing here that will add to it, and it must go back there.

E.J.McB. That is right. People ask sometimes, 'Why all this history of sorrow, why all these trials and tribulations?'

• The reason for them is that the vessel is being formed to hold the glory, not only to be in it, but to hold it: "having the glory of God". The vessel will be all divine handiwork, so there is most exclusive workmanship in the framing of it.

Ques. Do you connect the framing of it with the discipline of the way?

E.J.McB. Yes; all the history of your life here with all its vicissitudes, its exercises, its joys and its sorrows, is being used of God to form each one who shall stand as part – a component part – of that stupendous structure that will be adequate to have the glory of God.

Ques. Is that the thought of transformation?

E.J.McB. Yes, and not only transformation, but transparency; it is clear as crystal. There was no doubt whatever that nothing about the Person of Christ hid the radiancy of God that was there.

• The point God is working for with the saints, is that they shall be changed into the same glory. The veil is done away. Why? Because we have transparency. The necessity of a veil is that things are not quite transparent, but when that which abides and subsists in glory comes in, the veil is removed.
  • The apostle says "having therefore such hope, we use much boldness", 2 Corinthians 3: 12.

• All the features of it are absolutely suitable to the place to which it belongs. I have no doubt the ministry of Christ in Luke made the company that was associated with Him as transparent as Himself.

Rem. This makes the assembly very great, because if Christ was here and He was transparent, and there was nothing to hide the shining out of the glory, the assembly should be here with the same features.

E.J.McB. Yes, and all God's operations now have in view the assembly being formed for Him, not for men.

Ques. Must there not be training by the way, as the moulder with his hammer would straighten things out?

E.J.McB. Yes; John helps you there. He says,

• "What we shall be has not yet been manifested", 1 John 3: 2.

• It has not yet been manifested, but it is in process. There are two kinds of processes; one the moulding in the hands of the artificer, the other the crucible under the hand of God, and I have no doubt we mould one another.

• You may get many knocks, but God takes care of the crucible Himself. If He puts it into the fire, He watches it. He sits as a refiner. He never lets the furnace exceed your powers of endurance. He knows the amount of pressure under which you can pass.
  • "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear", 1 Corinthians 10: 13.

• The trial of your faith is much more precious than of gold which perishes, though it be tried with fire.

• Having secured the situation and having suggested the bridal aspect of it, as in Psalm 19, it is like the bridegroom coming out, going forth from his chamber, and you say, 'What are you looking for?' 'I am looking for the bride'. 'Have you not come out a little prematurely?' Suppose the Lord comes out, would you say He had come out a little prematurely?

Rem. It says, too, "he rejoiceth as a strong man to run the race". He must have something in view if He rejoiceth.

E.J.McB. I think the Spirit secures bridal affections now, so that He is not disappointed. I like the thought of Christ coming out, because if He comes to His people He will find the affections there that will be fully developed in the glory.

• What a choice thing it is to Christ to come and find affections here that are heavenly in character, and origin, and in all their longings formed by the Spirit.

• Peter speaks of loving one another out of a pure heart fervently. How intensely precious to Christ! 'Oh', you say, 'I am not of much account'. But I say, you can love the brethren with a pure heart fervently. That is one of the choicest features that can be produced on earth.

In the epistle to the Corinthians you have the local company, and the exercise of the apostle is that the local company should be in order.

• You might say to Paul, 'What do you want Corinth in order for? You raise certain questions with them, what is in your mind?' 'Well', he says, 'I will tell you. If I could only get the local company in order, I should begin telling them about the glory'.

• So in the second epistle, having helped them into divine order by his first epistle, the apostle lets his heart out, and the interesting feature is that in doing so, he actually takes a man into the glory. That is the way he conducts a man there, and the man says, 'I do not know whether I have a body or not'.

• Now, when he gets the saints at Corinth to recognise the difference between the celestial and the terrestrial, he has got them in order. The saints had risen to his thought, that there is a heavenly vessel.

• They were accustomed to earthly vessels. Every man is accustomed to look forward to a time when there will be earthly glory. Now the apostle got the Corinthian brethren to recognise that there is heavenly glory;
  • "different is the glory of the heavenly, different that of the earthly", 1 Corinthians 15: 40.

• He has things in their proper order now, and having secured that he begins to let his heart out. He introduces the Lord of glory.

• They had been polluting all the features of the glory. They had magnified Adam to such an extent that they had beclouded Christ. Where there are men of ability there is often the beclouding of the precious features of Christ.

• A simple sister or brother, who is of very little importance in the world, may be very great in spiritual affections, like Mary
  • "the house was filled with the odour of the ointment", John 12: 3.

• I sometimes wonder whether we have room for these boxes of ointment in our meetings.

Ques. Will you explain what you meant, when you said in the first epistle the apostle was setting things in order so that he might present the glory?

E.J.McB. What I think is that, under that line of ministry, he liberates a soul to such an extent that the soul is prepared to follow the whole line. He could not stop short, and I think sometimes you feel, when under a ministry of Christ, as if you had arrived there.

• That is the point in 2 Corinthians, but note this: if you are there, you will feel very small down here. I do not think I ever felt so distressed with my pathway, as the moment when I first had a sight of the glory.

Rem. Then we should be like Stephen. We should want to go there now.

E.J.McB. When God opens heaven and the blessedness of it lays hold of you, you say, 'Well, how long have I to wait?'

• The Lord would propose, under the ministry of the covenant, that He would commence conditions by which you can make that practical. That is what I call covenant conditions.

• He would establish conditions by which you can take that journey; He would assure you of liberation here. That is 2 Corinthians 4. Liberation here is that, instead of the body being the controlling vessel, something within it becomes the controlling power;
  • "always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus", 2 Corinthians 4: 10.

• He gives you also a constitution which belongs to where you belong. That is your new constitution.

Rem. Do you suggest, then, that it is the glory really which liberates?

E.J.McB. Yes, I do. There is no doubt whatever that if we were under the shining of the covenant, being held by the Lord of glory, we should be changed.

Rem. Then in chapter 4 it says, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels".

E.J.McB. Now a man is liberated from what is here because he looks at his body as the earthen vessel that holds the deposit. Your impressions of Christ are infinitely greater than the vessel in which they are.

• I would be sorry for any preacher who did not feel, when he got up to preach, that he, as a vessel, could not express the impressions he has.

Rem. They are too great.

E.J.McB. Yes, they would be.

Rem. The thought is very beautiful that God is forming a vessel that is great enough to express Christ. He is forming the holy city which, when it comes out of heaven, will be great enough to express Christ, and when the display comes, it will have the glory of God.

E.J.McB. That will be the end of all God's ways with us. Saints will write their hallelujah psalms in the ways of God with them, and everything that hath breath will praise the Lord.

• It is not once a week, but everything that hath breath will praise Him. All their breath goes to praise the Lord. That is the end of the psalm history.

• God brings the saints into unity, and into affection so that they are together really, not merely because they are in the same room. The danger with people is they reckon they are together because they have met in the room, but the brethren ought to be always together.

Ques. Do you mean in the way of being together in affection?

E.J.McB. Yes, quite so. The fact of brethren being together because they are in the room is merely an ecclesiastical church position that is public.

• The brethren are together because they love one another. Being together is only a manifestation of the affections that will not be apart from one another.

Rem. As the Scripture says, "We all, looking on the glory of the Lord". We should begin to move in this connection if we were all looking on the glory of the Lord.

E.J.McB. Now do you not think we should be right in saying that the supreme point of glory that God has secured in the Administrator is this, that He can frame a vessel to hold the glory.

• Now Pharaoh gave Joseph supreme authority to administer in Egypt, according to his wisdom, and to put every man just in the place he wanted him in.

• God gave His Son supreme authority to frame a vessel to hold the glory, and that could express God's feelings in a family way.

Ques. Is chapter 3 the process in view of that? Is it progressive "from glory to glory"?

E.J.McB. We become more like one another – that is, those formed according to the same image – so that it will become apparent to the world when the assembly goes up. 'Why, they might all be brothers, they are so like one another'. As a matter of fact, they are all brothers.

Rem. That is interesting – to be like one another, and in many respects so unalike. You referred to Joseph, who had the power to put every one in the place in which he wanted him. I suppose the same thing is true with us. The Lord can put each one in his place, and each one would have the same object – the glory of the Lord would be the end in view.

E.J.McB. Yes. John's first impression when he was called into heaven was radiancy. Revelation 4: 1-3. That is the first impression.

• There are a great many other things he saw when he had been there a little time, but the first impression he had was of radiancy;

• "and he that was sitting like in appearance to a stone of jasper and a sardius", Revelation 4: 3.

Rem. Speaking of the precious stones again, there should be with us ability to recognise these things. We shall see them readily enough in the glory, but we may see them now.

Rem. In chapter 3 it is, "transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit". Why is that?

E.J.McB. As I understand it, it is not that He told you to do it, not because you ought to do it, but you get imbued with the spirit of the Transformer.

• That is, if you had every believer on earth absolutely subject to the authority of Christ as Lord, you would have them all in one place and all like one another.

• The point secured in this second epistle is a very choice one.
  • "Come out from the midst of them, and be separated … and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty", 2 Corinthians 6: 17-18.

• Sons and daughters describes the family here, not our heavenly relationship.

Referring to the Psalm again, we read as to the sun, "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof". Sometimes people talk about not being evangelical. They think one can be evangelical by visiting the houses of people who do not know Christ, but if we were to secure proper assembly conditions on the heavenly line, I am sure the heat of the sun would be felt. That is testimony.

• We have made a great mistake. We have taken to life-boat building, when we should have had a light-house. People have made the need the object, rather than the light that is to remove it. I am not saying need is not going to be an object, but you secure your objective by securing the light that will remove the need. Why, look at the light! I am not afraid of making for that harbour. Look at the light.

Rem. "The shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ", 2 Corinthians 4: 6.

E.J.McB. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels".

Rem. The vessel was broken when they stoned Stephen, but the glory shone out then.

E.J.McB. The actual language of the heavenly man came out there.

• "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge".

• What a moment for God! I think of God looking down on that dying man and saying, 'That is like Jesus over again!' It is very choice.

Ques. What is seen in Stephen is beautiful. How could that be produced in us?

E.J.McB. It is a very real thing. In 2 Corinthians 4: 10, we read,

• "Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus".

• The world had its way with Him. Men would get rid of Him if they could, and they did. You would leave them if you could, but "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge".

Rem. Then the life of Jesus is manifested in our body?

E.J.McB. It is remarkable. It does not say bearing about in the body the death of Jesus, but the "dying".

Ques. What is the difference?

E.J.McB. The death was one act; the dying of Jesus is from John 11 to 19. Those peculiar utterances, those peculiar affections, that would introduce the light of an entirely different scene into this scene, that is the dying of Jesus.

Rem. Paul wished for the conversion of Agrippa and those who were with him.

E.J.McB. He did, indeed, and I have never met a christian yet who was badly treated by a man, who would not have done all he could for the man's soul's interests. That is the kind of spirit a christian has. A man comes and tries to destroy your trade. You ask him to a gospel meeting.

Ques. That is how the jailor was converted, was it not?

E.J.McB. That is a choice sample. Now in Revelation you get the city coming out of heaven, and one of the angels who had the seven last plagues, having come to show it to John.

• The idea of the seals, and the end of all the plague system is brought before the mind, for when God brings the issues of Calvary to bear on the scene, there will be no more plagues. God put the judgment on that Man that we might escape.

• If you refuse to escape, and He lets the judgment out, it will be the end of all plagues. There will be no more escape. The angel would just give you a sight of what has been framed, while these things have been going on.

• What am I going to show you? The bride, the Lamb's wife – what the Bridegroom came out of heaven to see, as suggested in Psalm 19. That is the point.

Ques. Do you mean that this goes back to an earlier part of the book of Revelation? That is before the plagues are inflicted.

E.J.McB. Yes. The seven last plagues, I mean the whole history of plagues, has been God's way of framing this vessel.

• The assembly, we know, will have been actually caught up before the last plagues are literally poured out; but what is before me is the ways of God morally now with the assembly, putting her through them in principle, so that their moral import and lessons have been learnt.

• In the day of display it will be evident that she has judged morally all that the righteous judgment of God bears down upon when the last plagues are inflicted.

Rem. That is interesting, because the plague order would seem to be over in Revelation 21: 9, It says "one of the seven angels which had had … the seven last plagues".

E.J.McB. I do not know anything that is more valuable to us, than to recognise that everything that God has had on this earth has had a contributing element in the formation of the assembly.

Ques. Give us an example.

E.J.McB. He had to destroy the city of Sodom, but it brought to light that He saved a righteous soul. That is an actual assembly feature. It was brought to light that there was a righteous soul, vexed by the filthy conversation of the wicked, and God has developed that soul in such conditions. That is marvellous. It is an assembly feature.

• What will mark the assembly is that she has a righteous soul. In going through Scripture you cannot help seeing that the overtures of the grace of God were calls to man. What is going to come out of that? Look at the radiancy that is coming out of that.

Rem. I suppose the plagues are in connection with clearing the scene, are they not?

E.J.McB. It is very much like display here. If we could sit down and see that everything has been swept away, it would be a great thing. The carrying of it out publicly is, I think, a detail.

• God has gone through all the moral issues that are going to be publicly raised, and the assembly ought to go through them. She is entirely dissociated from this scene in all her links. Have you ever had that view of the assembly, "and shewed me"? How the Lord would like to show you what the assembly is from His standpoint.

• We speak of it with feeling and affection from the breakdown viewpoint, but the Lord says, 'Let Me give you a look at it. Have you ever seen it as I see it?' 'Well', you say, 'I do not know how you made it'.

Rem. John was a long way from the breakdown here in the mountain, was he not?

E.J.McB. That, I consider, is the value of the Supper. There is nothing that takes one away from the breakdown like the Supper. You might be millions of miles away.

Rem. In the transfiguration the Lord took His disciples into a high mountain, but when He would give a view of the bride it is to a great and high mountain.

Ques. Is Balaam's prophecy in line with this?

E.J.McB. Yes. I think Balaam's position is that he is made to see the people as Jehovah sees them. The exercises of the scene of ruin would bring one into line with what God is doing.

• The angel is showing the thing as God sees it, and the effect of it is that you turn away from everything here. You say, 'In a little time the ground will be cleared'. You get a vision of what is there.

Rem. So that to be conversant with God's movements, helps us in the understanding of the vessel that is formed for His glory?

E.J.McB. There is nothing that is of greater value to the saints than to look at the moral issues of anything. You say, 'There is no harm in that', but what is the moral issue of it? And when you see that, you turn away. 'Now', He says, 'I will show you the moral issue of all God's ways'.

Rem. That is interesting. It is not a question of the harm of a thing, but what it is going to lead to.

Rem. If we considered the moral issue of things it would affect us in our daily life.

E.J.McB. Yes. If we were "bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus", and the new creation's stainless light were dawning in our souls, we should be in accord with God as to moral issues.

• You would say to the angels, 'I am not surprised at what you are doing. My ideas of moral issues are framed from God's – that brings me into sympathy with divine operations'.

• God would give you, by the Spirit, divine thoughts of the assembly, as she is in the affections of Christ. What marked her in the crystal-like character of her light – nothing hidden or secret – no undisclosed matters – beautiful, clear, transparent and open. It is radiancy.

Ques. So there is not only transformation, but there is transparency. Sometimes we speak about reflection. Now reflection is not quite enough, is it?

E.J.McB. A looking-glass is reflection. That is why I used the word radiancy. Reflection means that you have got a peculiar substance behind it, but in radiancy the things go through and through it; it comes out from all quarters – in every part of it.

Ques. It has been said, 'The pearl is a supreme assembly thought'. Why?

E.J.McB. Because it is what Christ gave Himself for. Ephesians describes the heavenly vessel – that epistle is really the charter of the assembly position.

• "Taken us into favour in the Beloved:"

  "holy and blameless before him in love", Ephesians 1: 6, 4.

• You can sit down and think of it, and re-think of it and you cannot get beyond it. "Holy and blameless before him in love".

Rem. Christ loved the assembly and gave himself for it. He had that in view, as it is coming out here.

E.J.McB. He had that in view; the passage describes the man and the woman as of one another.

• "This mystery is great, but I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly", Ephesians 5: 32.

Rem. What marvellous expressions, "blameless before him in love".

• "Having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things", Ephesians 5: 27.

Rem. He presents it to Himself glorious.

E.J.McB. Yes. Suppose some one gives you a choice, exotic plant, to carry home to your wife, and you do not know how to carry it home. You are afraid of injuring one petal, and you think an injury to the smallest petal would spoil the beauty of the whole thing. Here is a vessel of transparency that has been carried home, and there is not a petal spoilt.

Rem. It is very wonderful.

Rem. "What hath God wrought!"

Ques. Go on where?

E.J.McB. Into display. 'On His Father's throne is seated Christ the Lord, the Living One'. Hymn 404. Many a meeting travels into the joys of the thousand years, and misses the joys of heaven. The thousand years is on earth, is it not?

Rem. There is an earthly side, but it is connected with the coming of Christ in power and great glory, is it not?

E.J.McB. Yes, I think the point in Psalm 24 is not so much that privilege is open, but who it is that opens it. Not the vast, stupendous system that has been opened up, but He who has opened it, so that we can enter into the heavenly side of things.

• What is connected in Luke with Bethany is the fact that it is from there He is carried up into heaven. You may move on to millennial joys, or you may hesitate when you get to Bethany, as to going any farther, and if you hesitate you will be carried up into heaven.

Ques. Would not that be going farther still?

E.J.McB. It would be going higher, but not farther. You want to go higher, but you do not want to go into things that are not yet public.

• What spoils the time of privilege is, either a recurrence in your mind to what has transpired, or looking on to what will transpire, instead of enjoying what is. From that spot you can rise to the full height.

• What will publicly take place on the earth when the Lord comes back again, has taken place in the saints; they are in the state of being clothed with power from on high.

• God is going to pour out His Spirit on all flesh in the days to come; that is a millennial thought, but the Lord tells the disciples to remain in the city till they were clothed with power from on high.

Ques. Do you look upon Bethany as being very close to heaven?

E.J.McB. I do, the portals of heaven are there. You will observe in John 12 and 14 the Lord opens out two things to them from Bethany.

• He shows the millennial earth, in that the Greeks come to see Him, but then He opens the Father's house. That is evidently the suggestion of the Lord.

• The Psalmist connects the thought of going up with "blameless hands and a pure heart;" that is the way the apostle connects the thought of privilege with the Hebrew brethren – hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, bodies washed with pure water.

Rem. Those are conditions for entering into the holiest, and for really entering into privilege?

E.J.McB. Yes, one sometimes wonders whether the glories of Christ, and all that is connected with Him – the outward glories that belong to that peculiarly blessed Person – have not sometimes robbed us of the blessedness of that personal communication from Himself, which is so intensely dear, and cherished in His own heart.

• "That where I am ye also may be", John 14: 3.

Ques. Do you think that the danger with us in the morning meeting is to bring in the kingdom glories, rather than being occupied with the family side?

E.J.McB. Yes, and that is what I call going beyond Bethany.

• "He led them out as far as Bethany".

• You will notice Luke is very careful. He does not say 'Amen' in closing his gospel. If he said, 'Amen', he would not have written the Acts of the Apostles. The whole point is that having secured the thing in one Man, it goes on, so Luke's second book has that in view.

I think nothing takes the earthly glory and glamour out of a person, and gives him heavenly colour, like the contemplation of that Man as seen in Luke.

• Christ is portrayed before you in that gospel in a double way; one is to give you all the thoughts of God presented in man, and the other is to secure in you the contemplation of the kind of man you yourself are going to be.

• People acquire habits, and methods of thought, and often methods of speech, from the people they admire most. I merely say that to draw attention to the care of Luke as a writer – "as far as Bethany".

• When it is a question of the Lord coming to you, no saint's house would detain the Lord.
  • "He made as though he would go farther", Luke 24: 28.

Ques. What is the mount of Olives then?

E.J.McB. I understand the mount of Olives to be a spot where things are looked at entirely from God's standpoint; fleshly thoughts are of no account there.

• The tendency is, if you go into the presence of Christ to contemplate His glory, if not held in personal communion, to be taken up with the magnificence of the view, rather than with the love of the One round whom the glory centres. Is that not so?

Rem. To be looking on as an outsider at the display rather than going in?

E.J.McB. Yes, and perhaps sharing in it. We shall share in the display, but then the display with all its magnificence is the divine answer to the breakdown, but the Father's house is a scene of love and holy joy within.

Rem. I thought when we went in our view of His glory was extended?

E.J.McB. Yes, but if you enter the millennium now, you give Christ His place as Lord; that is what I should call a millennial setting. You are recognising that everything belongs to Christ before the world recognises it. It is giving Christ His due place of lordship over the soul.

• If an unbeliever were to go into the home of one of the saints, he would say, 'You do not seem to have any of the troubles of the world in your home'. 'No, because the Lord is supreme; the commandments of the Lord are written on the door post, and they are the conditions of heaven on the earth'.

• The point is who brought them to this? The Lord of glory did. Now, the challenge is not what He has done, but who is He? If you come to contemplate who He is you will find that He is the Son of the Father's love. That is for us much greater than the Lord of glory.

Rem. I was thinking, He will not stop short till He brings us to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God.

E.J.McB. That is right. That is not onward, it is upward, as the writer of the hymn says, 'That way is upward still'. Hymn 12.

• You may go right on to the thousand years, but then the point is He would detain you at the spot from which you go up. Well, you say, I do not know the way up, and He says, 'You watch Me, and I will show you the way up'.

• How did He go up in Luke? He was carried up, and He was carried up because He was wanted up there. If He had gone up, you and I could not have gone, but if He was carried up there is no reason why we should not be carried up. If He inaugurates a line that is open to us, we can go. That is the supreme point.

• If He had gone up and entered in His own right we should have had to stay down here, but He was carried up. You would not mind if some one carried you up. The translation is this – the rapture – caught up – you are prepared to be at His beck and call, and let Him do what He likes with you.

• If He can get you as far as Bethany He will take you up. But the difficulty is to get you detained there. You run off to the things of the coming day.

I like the view of Christ creatorially; one loves the stupendous greatness of God to dawn on the soul. God gave Job a lesson on astronomy, to get Himself in His greatness in Job's mind. It is very precious.

Ques. So you think that His joy would be now to carry us up?

E.J.McB. That is the whole point. I think you have lost the real import of the Supper if you are not translated in your affections.

• You are beyond the millennium there, you are in the family circle of divine affections. Divine things in their essence cannot be expressed in language, they are known in enjoyment.

Rem. And therefore a pause in the meeting may mean inward enjoyment.

E.J.McB. I do not know why in that hymn – Hymn 14 – of J.N.D.'s, 'Hark! ten thousand voices crying', the compilers of the hymn-book left out that wonderful verse, 'Till voice by voice in silence fails'.p>

• It is where we are all one in Christ Jesus, where male and female cease to exist, and where a sweet weight of glory comes over the saints – not visible glory, but moral glory. The consciousness of divine Persons is known in the soul.

Rem. Do you think we know perhaps too well the programme of the 'morning meeting' – up to a certain point, and consequently there is not the waiting at Bethany, because that is where our affections are led to, is it not?

E.J.McB. I like that; I think our danger is programme. Having been favoured by light, saints in their minds have got an ordered meeting made up. You cannot order privilege, you can order display.

• You can have the trumpeters coming first, and the bandsmen coming afterwards, the immediate attendants following them, and then the person himself coming.

• You can order that, but you cannot order the affections. They have a way of running of their own.

Rem. I think that is interesting, because if we really look to the Lord as Head we cannot tell where He will lead.

E.J.McB. You could not tell the next thing that is going to be done. What is before me is the doorway into privilege.

• Privilege, as I understand it is this, the saints have before them Christ in the sense of the complete triumph of good over evil. Now they are free to enjoy Him in the intimacy and affection of the circle that He left, after having established and vindicated the attributes of God.

• That is what I understand by privilege. The privilege of the believer is his home circle conditions.

Rem. So that really the enjoyment of the Supper would bring you in your affections to the family circle?

E.J.McB. My own experience is – I may be simpler than some – that the Supper makes Christ real and personal to me in affection.

• Of course He will be actually visible when I have a body of glory. There is not the slightest doubt that when you know Christ personally, it gives you to see things you have never seen before. There is no doubt whatever that we reach privilege by way of display.

Rem. I was thinking of that verse in Ephesians 2 where, after speaking of the riches of God's mercy, it says that in the ages to come He might display. Do you look at display in that light?

E.J.McB. I do. I have no hesitation in saying that no person has ever touched the joys that belong to the family circle of divine affections, without submitting first to Christ as Lord, owning His right to rule from the river to the ends of the earth.,p>

• Until that place of supremacy is given to Christ, no one is free to contemplate Him in His personal place of affection with the Father. The scripture says every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus, and the effect of that is glory to God the Father – note every knee.

Rem. So really the kingdom is the way in.

Ques. Is that prior to the thought of Bethany then?

E.J.McB. It is. You touch the spot where all those rights are recognised. It was apparent to every one that Lazarus had been dead but was alive again. That is one of the features – the Colossian ground is there – risen with Christ; the power of death has been broken. Lazarus represents the company; he is a personal figure to represent the state of a Colossian company, so to speak.

Rem. Now that is John's view of Bethany. What would you say Luke's view of Bethany is?

E.J.McB. Well, Luke's view of it shows what it was to Christ. John's view is what it is for His own.

• Luke would show you what Bethany was to Christ. Christ in manhood had secured a spot from which every outraged thought of heaven had been destroyed. He led them that far.

• If we were to exploit that spot, you have the ancient people back in their place, a heavenly company held, and the nations brought into privilege.

• He detained them, and having detained them there, He blessed them, and as He blessed them He was carried up. He inaugurates a new road up to heaven.

• When you come to the Supper your anxiety is to break bread. You come there with the feeling in your soul that those outward memorials have a moral significance, if you could only get hold of it, and you want to do so. I think the Lord says to you, 'If I can detain you long enough you would see Me at that spot, and not only see Me there, but you would see Me go up'.

Rem. I suppose you would feel you wanted to hear the Lord's voice, His own voice, and you would want to have His own peculiar touch upon your spirit, and you would linger there in view of that.

E.J.McB. Yes, I have often connected it – I don't know what others think – with the little maid. Peter knocked at the door and she goes to the door, and she says, 'It is Peter'. 'Why don't you let him in?' She was too happy, because it was Peter.

• The Supper is a very sensitive thing. There is nothing official about it. If you hear a knock you say, 'I am sure it is the Lord'. Well, let Him in.

Rem. I think that is good, because the brother then who gives thanks, does it in the freshness and power of the Spirit, and the saints recognise the Lord.

E.J.McB. Yes, he does not try to explain the Supper. I think brethren get into bondage because they think they have to explain the Supper.

• It explains itself; all you have to do is to feel that the Lord has knocked; then every one is alive to the fact that it is the Lord, and there is a peculiar spring in the brethren to any living affection.

Ques. Are you making Bethany and the breaking of bread synonymous?

E.J.McB. Yes, pretty much synonymous. You will find, if you read John, that at the time of the Supper, all those peculiar instances – Lazarus, Martha and Mary – connect themselves with the thought of the Supper.

Ques. Are you speaking of chapter 12?

E.J.McB. Yes.

Rem. There we read they made Him a supper.

E.J.McB. Yes, that is, the affections of the saints are secured for the pleasure of Christ; they want to entertain Him. I have no doubt whatever that when the millennial day is established, every one's desire will be to gratify the Lord.

Ques. Could you say a little about the remark you made, that if the Lord could detain us He would lead us as far as Bethany?

E.J.McB. I think He would detain us at Bethany. The tendency with us perhaps is that when the Lord brings us to a certain point, and His moral greatness rests in the soul, and we begin to get a sense of the greatness of Christ, we overlook the fact that the Head is there.

• Room has to be left to allow the Person who is so great to speak. The indications of the Head are precious.

Ques. Do you look upon John 12 as a millennial scene, where they make Him a supper?

E.J.McB. Yes, I do. I think that the kind of spirit and attitude that should mark the saints as come together, is indicated there. They each one come from a home where they have learned the Lord personally, as illustrated in Martha and Mary and Lazarus.

• They have come by Colossian teaching to recognise that they do not need to go outside of Christ. They have tried physicians, but the doctors are of no account; and at last they have turned to the Lord, and then they find that He is adequate for the situation, for He is the resurrection. They are "complete in him".

• If you have found a Person who can lift your brother out of death, you have found some one who is infinitely greater than any physician. You are risen with Him; you have the Lord's interests at heart, and He would have you taken up with His interests;
  • but then the point is that from that spot – Bethany – He shows you that He is not going to exploit His interests down here.

• The rest of chapter 12 shows that, but from the end of the gospel we see that He is going to enter heaven, not personally in His own rights, as presented in John, but He is taken up as the first-fruits of those who will also be taken up. So we read "and was carried up into heaven".

Ques. What is the difference between what is mentioned in Luke, "carried up into heaven", and John, "I ascend"?

E.J.McB. As we have said, the two thoughts are distinct. In John it is not a question of the Son down here in weakness, but One who enters heaven in the right of His own Person, and there is a people who are wholly spiritual who can move without any hindrances. In John 20, you will notice, the Lord enters, the doors being shut. He is independent of doors.

Ques. So it is important to see these things in their own peculiar setting?

E.J.McB. It is very valuable. You want to keep the spiritual on its own plane. Hence the Lord says to Mary, "Touch me not". In Luke He says, "Handle me and see". You must keep the thing in its own bearing.

Ques. Would you say John's line is essentially spiritual? What would Luke's line be?

E.J.McB. I think the point in Luke is He secures it in your affections. The Lord wants the affections to move, and so we get the institution of the Supper in Luke. The Supper is open to the simplest affections.

• You do not want to be very advanced for the Supper to be open to you; a person may only have been received the Lord's Day before, but the Supper is open to him. The spiritual stature may be very small. The Lord secures it in the affections of the saints.

Rem. What is set forth in the Supper is the way the Lord came down to the very bottom to reach us.

E.J.McB. And it was from that point that the Father raised Him. He was raised by the glory of the Father. That is, the Father secured a family in that Person.

Rem. So that being "carried up" does not depend on spirituality, it depends on the affections.

E.J.McB. That is the whole point. That is what Luke would secure.

• In John the movements depend on spirituality. If I said to a man, 'I want you to come in without opening the door', he would say, 'I cannot come in unless you open the door'. That is what John would secure. A man who is independent of doors – who knows nothing of the natural barriers of life here; that is the line of ascension.

Ques. I have a difficulty about the ascending line. Is not the ascending line touched in the morning meeting?

E.J.McB. Oh yes, I think that; but it is not looked at from the side of the saints as being here in weakness and affliction, but as in spiritual power and dignity.

• There are the two sides; there is your place as children of God, but then there is your place in sonship. Your place in sonship is spiritual; you cannot take up a place outwardly in sonship. Outwardly it does not yet appear what we shall be.

• God has given us the privilege of being the children of God, cared for by God, but the stranger does not know that we are sons. Sons are on the line of what is spiritual. The two lines have to be kept in their own setting.

Rem. I suppose it would take the twenty-four elders to say, 'Amen'.

E.J.McB. It would indeed. In the early history of the saints they began on the line of Luke. Well, the enemy came in and said, 'I will very soon swamp that line; I will disorganise you, I will bring divisions among you'.

• John's line comes in and introduces the spiritual, so that if what is outward fails the enemy will not be able to touch it.

Rem. It is approached in a way from Luke's side?

E.J.McB. You must approach it in that way. If you do not know what it is to have been a guilty sinner, you have never known grace, nor anything of the precious things of God.

• There may be a tendency with us to have a sort of ultra-spirituality, in which we forget that we are debtors to mercy. That is dangerous.

Ques. Would you, at the Supper, be happy if there was a little more waiting on the personal affection side – the Bethany side – rather than perhaps an immediate advance in connection with what is spiritual?

E.J.McB. Yes, speaking as a brother I wish we were detained more at the Supper; the Lord's movements take their spring from Bethany. Do not make up a meeting; the Lord would bring us to the Supper if we were simpler.

• But while recognising that He would bring us to it, we want blameless hands and a pure heart, according to Psalm 24. We must be exercised to bring nothing in to interfere, no feelings against any one. A brother who is nursing feeling against his brethren is a hindrance to the Lord's activities.

Rem. To bring personal feeling would be a disturbance; would the blameless hands be our associations?

E.J.McB. Yes, I think so. We have to do business with the world, to mix with men, but we can do it with clean hands – blameless hands.

• We want the preciousness of the love of Christ to have more weight with us.

• The psalm raises the question,
  • "Who is this King of glory"? The answer is, "Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle",

• but later on the psalmist says again,
  • "Who is he, this King of glory? Jehovah of hosts, he is the King of glory".

• If you read the psalm it is very beautiful.
  • "He is the King of glory".

    "Lift up your heads, ye gates … and the King of glory shall come in".

• Who is He? That is the point. He is the King of glory. The challenge the Lord makes when He raises the question of the assembly with Peter is,
  • "Who do ye say that I am"?, Luke 9: 20.

• You have to supply the answer. That is your privilege.

Rem. The answer the second time is very beautiful, "Jehovah of hosts, he is the King of glory".

E.J.McB. Each brother and each sister should have an impression of the glory of Christ, and each impression of Christ would give a stimulus to the meeting. No brother would give the same impression.

• Sometimes one gives an impression, and that impression colours the meeting. We each one of us ought to have our own peculiar impression, something that we have gathered up relative to Christ.

• Then the convening together ceases to be a mere 'brethren's meeting', on the lines of ritualism and formalism when it is known beforehand what is going to be done, and how it is going to be done.

• A meeting carries with it immense possibilities. We might rise higher than any conception we have ever been given before. Let us look out for the spiritual possibilities of a region that we have perhaps never been in.

Rem. One has often thought that if we make room for Christ as Head, the possibilities are great. We cannot limit Him.

E.J.McB. We can, as under His leading, let Him take us as far as He wants to, and when He wants us to stop, let it be as under His control.

• There is no doubt that at times we go beyond the Lord. When He would hesitate we go on, and in that way we hinder Him. But the Lord is very good; He bears with us. He continues to appeal to our affections.

Ques. Was He speaking to the affections when He showed His disciples His hands and His side?

E.J.McB. Yes, I think the Lord would confirm His compassion to us. We do not read it in history. It is confirmed to us.

• The Lord would confirm it to us in His own Person, 'Well, you know, I went through intense pain for you; see My hands and My side'. It makes it intensely personal, and the Lord would confirm it. It is not merely an historical account, it is a personal interview with His own.

Now, there is nothing more important than that we should get, by the power of the Spirit of God, a clear sense in our souls of what God has called us to.

• I may say it is one of the deepest joys of any 'son' to have in his heart a sense of the greatness and the dignity of the position to which God has called him.

• You find today that everything is in movement; there is activity on every hand; but the saints have to learn – and sooner or later everyone finds it out – that activity in service is not morally great enough to command the heart of a 'son'.

• You may serve, not in the sense of sonship, but you will have underneath the service something that is not satisfied. The reason is simple – it is because one of the sons of God is morally too great to be satisfied with service. The only thing that will satisfy a son is the affection of his Father.

• Someone may say, 'Why am I left in this scene, whilst others are taken home?' The reason is that the affections are ripened sooner perhaps in one than in another. What God is doing in each one of us is ripening our affections as sons, so that we may adequately respond to the joy and delight that our Father has in us.

In Matthew's gospel we have the truth of sonship. No one will deny that the great thought in the King is that He is the Son. You will remember the first time a king was given to Israel, God drew attention to the fact that he was a son – Saul, the son of Kish.

• But God brought in another kind of man, David, the son of Jesse; and what marked David, the son of Jesse, was that he was beloved. He was a pattern man; he was a man after God's own heart; and he cherished in his soul the fact that he was beloved of God.

• He may have failed – and he did fail – but his failure, while proving to him with increasing severity the depths of the wickedness of his own heart, made him cling all the more firmly to the fact that he was beloved of God.

• So, though we may have to learn the depths of the depravity of the natural heart, may the Lord encourage our hearts on this side, – that we are beloved by God.

Then you find in Matthew what might be called the characteristics of a son: you get his home; and then his privileges. In the first verse of chapter 1 we read,

• "Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham".

• There you see He is a Son on two lines; one is that He is the Son of a royal king; and the other that He is the Son of a man of faith.

• Then in the next chapter we get recorded this remarkable fact – Herod had issued a decree that all the boys were to be slain; and the Lord was taken down into Egypt. Now, why was He taken down into Egypt? I will tell you; He was taken into Egypt that you and I might be delivered out of it.

• A decree had been issued, by one in authority, that all the boys were to be put to death, and the Lord was taken down into Egypt, not to avoid Herod's sword, but that the scripture might be fulfilled.

But perhaps a still more striking example is recorded in Old Testament scripture – Pharaoh commanded that all the male children of the children of Israel should be killed. Why? Satan's thought was, beloved friends, that God should have no sons.

• Christ went down into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
  • "Out of Egypt have I called my son", verse 15.

• Now, what is the first characteristic of a son of God? It is this, that in heart and affections he is free from the world.

• None of us can ever know in our souls the true height of the dignity and enjoyment that belong to the sons of God, if we have not, in heart and affections, got free from the world – "Out of Egypt have I called my son" – and what marks each one of the sons is that he is morally free from the world:
  • "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of the present evil world", Galatians 1: 3-4.

It is the world that is the danger to the young men. 1 John 2: 15. When first they start out in the vigour of Christianity, and in the enjoyment of Christ as their Saviour, they would allow nothing to divert them from Christ; but after a time, perhaps, they begin to become occupied with the things of the world.

• Now, the world is a system all framed and built up by Satan, to rob God of His pleasure in man. Cain went out from the presence of God, and Esau went out, many went out, and they founded a system which is altogether apart from God;
  • and our danger today is lest the principles that obtain in that system should get into our hearts.

• Now, this blessed Person, who gave Himself for us, went down to make a way out of that system for us. Beloved friends, how far are we out of it? The world is a system where man is kept going in a continual whirl of things, and Satan's object is to rob God of His pleasure in man. God calls His sons out of that world.

• In the close of chapter 3, we get another characteristic. The Son of man is an object of delight to heaven. Why? Nothing could be more simple; it is because
  • He walked "in paths of righteousness for his name's sake", Psalm 23: 3.

    He says, "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness".

• The blessed Lord Jesus came into humanity; and although John here would have hindered Him, He is found in "paths of righteousness for his name's sake", and heaven opens on Him with supreme delight; the Spirit of God descends like a dove, and lights upon Him, and a voice from heaven announces,
  • "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight".

Now, Christ is the great Pattern; and whilst the heavens opened upon Him in a pre-eminent way, still those who walk in the paths of righteousness – despised and rejected of men though they be – are objects of the most profound interest to heaven, and God looks down with delight upon them.

• What has God done to prove the extent of His delight in His sons? Well, He has proved it by giving the Holy Spirit from heaven, so that what came out in the Pattern – in the true Son – might come out in us. For He is the great Pattern; and
  • "God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father", Galatians 4: 6.

So, beloved friends, you are entitled down here, each one of you, to count yourself an object of the great delight of heaven. Scripture, speaking of the family of faith, says of them,

• "Of whom the world was not worthy", Hebrews 11: 38.

• No, indeed, it was not worthy of them; and heaven has supreme delight in those people. May, the Lord keep us in the path of righteousness, for His name's sake; for it is as we walk in the paths of righteousness that we get the consciousness in our souls that heaven has opened upon us, and that we are objects of delight to God.

Now, another thing I want to refer to is, the spirit of the son. I think from Matthew's gospel, chapter 5, to the end of chapter 7, you see the spirit of a son.

• He is like his Father; and you could have no greater standard. God could have no greater standard than that His sons on this earth should be like Himself. So you get this verse:
  • "Blessed the peace-makers, for they shall be called sons of God", verse 9.

• There you get the idea of a people of dignity, in a scene of confusion. I have no doubt the sons are left down here to be the great peace-makers; and the basis of it all is that they do not tolerate any confusion – neither inside nor outside.

• This feature comes out beautifully in the early disciples; they went about, and they removed every element of confusion. Why? Because they would only allow their souls to dwell on one Man.

• If they were referred to by Jew, or Gentile, by Pharisee, or Sadducee, it made no difference to them; they only allowed of one Man, and that One was the Man Christ Jesus.

If you take Moses, in Old Testament Scripture, you find that he started out in human strength to be a testimony; and he slew the Egyptian. But what had he to learn?

• He had to learn that he had only removed one side – the outward side – but the inward side must be removed as well. The Lord to this end meets him and seeks to slay him, to teach him true circumcision, before he is able to free God's sons.

Now, in our ways and manner of life down here we are to be peace-makers. Does that mean that you are going to close your eyes to anything that is wrong? No, it does not.

• There are a thousand and one things wrong; but a son of God does not go about this world occupied with what is wrong. Why? Because he has the spirit of his Father – the blessed God.

• And what is He occupied with? He is occupied with what is good. Yet He knows better than any what is wrong.

Now, in chapter 5: 43-45, we read, "Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who insult you and persecute you, that ye may be the sons of your Father who is in the heavens".

• That is the spirit which is to mark us. You may say there are so many wrong things to be put right. Yes, but that is not what the sons are to be occupied with.

• Their present business is to take care of the interests of the Father; and they are discovered to be sons by the fact that they are going about doing good. Just as the Son, that One blessed peerless Person, went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. What is the result? Anyone who has a heart, or appreciation for the things of God is instinctively drawn in that direction.

Take one case in New Testament Scripture. You remember when Paul was on his mission in Philippi, how the heart of Lydia, the seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, was drawn to him. She saw in him a man going about doing good, just like his Master; and she came to him and said,

• "If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us", Acts 16 15.

• What had drawn her? Had Paul come into the place denouncing everything wrong? No; he came in the spirit of his Father; and there shone out the wondrous goodness and grace that are in the heart of God, and the woman's heart was attracted.

• We belong to heaven, and the goodness and the grace of God shine upon us at the present moment, in the power of the Spirit, that we may find out those that are weary and heavy laden and be able to lead them to green pastures, and beside waters of quietness, by leading them to the Son.

"But seeing the crowds, he went up into the mountain, and having sat down, his disciples came to him; and having opened his mouth he taught them", Matthew 5: 1-2.

• I may say this, the mountain in this passage is morally in accord with the heavens at the close of chapter 3. It is a system of things above the earth. He goes up into the mountain, and there, in that place of superiority, and moral greatness, He begins to open out to their hearts what the spirit of a son should be.

• What is the first thing? "Poor in spirit". People who are aiming after their rights here have no real link with heaven. What marks the sons of God is that they are poor in spirit; they let their interests, so far as this world is concerned, go to the wall; they are poor in spirit, but all the resources and treasures of heaven are at their disposal.

We get a beautiful example in Old Testament Scripture in the case of Elijah. Elijah was a man who was poor in spirit, meek and lowly, and yet he could come into this scene, and bring all the resources of heaven to bear upon the poor and needy people of the world.

• What we want to display in this world is the spirit of the sons of God.

"Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies …", then He refers to the fact that if ye merely love those who love you, the tax-gatherers do the same, and if ye salute your brethren only, ye do no more than other people; and He closes with these words:

• "Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect".

• Now, I dwell on that, because nothing that is imperfect will go to heaven. Thus the divine standard is set before us to educate us into the sort of spirit that is morally suited to the sons of God. And what is it? They are to be perfect as their Father is perfect. Just think of the dignity that belongs to the sons of God! In the midst of a scene of darkness they shine forth as lights in the world.

Now I come to another side of things, Matthew 16. People may say to you: It's all very well to talk, but we have to go through the world; we have to earn our bread and butter, and we have to face things here.

• Well, speaking very plainly, if I were to take any one of you, and ask you how do you manage to surmount the peculiar difficulties of your business day after day, what would you say? Not speaking of Christianity at all, take a hard-working business man in Belfast, and ask him that question, what would he say to you?

• He would say – Come home with me. You go home with him; and what do you find? You find he has a place where he can sit down, and dismiss all these cares from his mind – a place where he can rest; where he finds home comforts and encouragement, and the warmth of affection; and he goes back to business again, invigorated, and like a new man.

Now, in this chapter you find the home of the sons of God. The blessed Lord turns to the disciples and asks them;

• "Who do men say that I the Son of man am?", verse 13.

• They replied, some say thou art John the baptist; some Elias; and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Then He said to them,
  • "But ye, who do ye say that I am?"

• The response is so beautiful: Peter says,
  • "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God".

• Now, what are the affections of the living God towards His Son? He will give Him a circle that can never be moved. Then the Lord turns to Peter, and He says,
  • "Flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens. And I also, I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and hades' gates shall not prevail against it".

It is a great thing to appreciate that circle where Christ is known in His own blessedness – where you go in from the turmoil of this world, and sit down and rest in His presence.

• You find yourself in a circle where you have not to love your enemies, or to bless them that persecute you. You are loved by everyone; and they are all glad to see you; and you are glad to see them. It is a wonderful spot – the assembly of the Son of the living God.

• No intruding enemy ever put his foot there; and whilst we have to walk through this scene in the spirit of sons, we have a home circle where we can sit down and enjoy divine refreshment in the house of God.

Now, as to the privileges, there are two great elements that interfere with the privileges of sons, and they are illustrated by Moses and Elias.

• Moses was a most honoured man. You could not over-estimate his importance, but he had to say to man in responsibility and to tell man what he ought to do. But when you come to the privilege of sons, you do not come to man in responsibility.

• Moses was a wonderful man; he was bearing with a people than whom, I suppose, there never were any more trying to have to do with; and yet he was the meekest man on earth.

• But you have not to do with Moses; he has to go out, else you are robbed of your privilege of sonship, for he was only a servant. Now, if Moses tells you what you ought to do, Elias reminds you of what you ought to have been.

There are two classes of christians who are not enjoying the privilege of sons, and they are robbed of it by reason of this – on the one hand they say, 'I am not what I ought to be'. Granted.

• Then the other class say 'Ah, if we had only been faithful, look what we might have been'. Quite true; that is Elias. But neither of these two men set forth sonship.

• Then there is another interfering element – when on the mount, Peter wanted to speak. You may have a nice thought, and you want to give expression to it. Peter had a nice thought, but there came a cloud and blotted it out.

• I like what blots out everything but Christ – there came a cloud that overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud said,
  • "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight: hear him".

• To hear Him is the peculiar privilege of the sons of God. There is no greater privilege that the people of God have, than to be in the spot where the Father is free to unfold His delight in His beloved Son to those whom love has drawn together.

• The Father's delight is that we should hear the Son's voice, and learn what He is doing for the Father. And what a delight it will be for the Father to welcome every son into His house!

May we, then, seek more diligently to enter into the peculiar dignity that belongs to us as "God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus", Galatians 3: 26, that the moral characteristics of sons may come out in us now for God's glory.