1. that they had forsaken Him, the fountain of living water,

2. and had hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns, which hold no water.

• So that God Himself is the fountain of living water. And one of the final promises in scripture is that to him that thirsts, He will give of the fountain of the water of life freely.

• But while God Himself is the Fountain, the water becomes available to men from a certain environment and the features of this environment develop in scripture.

In the first passage we read, the environment is Eden. A river went out of Eden to water the garden.

• In the second scripture the environment is the sanctuary. In Ezekiel 47: 12 we are told the waters issued from the sanctuary.

• In Revelation 22 the river of water of life, clear as crystal, flows out from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

• John 7 brings it down in a practical way to each one of us; it is out of the belly of a living believer, one who believes all the time and has a living state of faith, that rivers of living water flow.

• Anyone who is livingly believing in Jesus is continually coming to Him as glorified.

“If anyone thirst …” We soon get thirsty; even in natural things we need continually to drink, and the living believer in Jesus continually comes to Him in faith, coming to Jesus glorified,

• which in a spiritual sense, includes Eden and the sanctuary and the throne.

• So the living believer has access to the whole environment in coming in faith to Jesus glorified; and in coming, not only is he refreshed and satisfied, but he becomes a channel.
  • “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”.

• There is no doubt that in that scripture the Spirit of God has in mind Genesis 2 as well as the other scriptures.

• But the idea in Genesis 2 is that the river went out first to water the garden. Then it divided into four heads and went out to water the earth in its various sections.

• Therefore when anyone, livingly believing, comes to Jesus glorified as a habit of soul, there is refreshment available to satisfy his heart completely, and moreover, the living waters can flow out from that man.

• The environment from which they come is Jesus glorified, and the source is God Himself as known in Jesus.

I feel this is an urgent matter for my own soul. One desires earnestly to find complete satisfaction of soul in God Himself in the environment in which we are permitted to approach Him.

• It is a satisfied soul who can be serviceable in a true sense and can become a channel to others.

A.H.R. Did Paul start his career that way, by seeing Jesus glorified?

G.R.C. Yes he did and he says right at the end,

• “I have learnt in those circumstances in which I am, to be satisfied in myself”.

• The living water was so known in his own soul; so that even in prison, in the most untoward circumstances, rivers of living water were flowing out of Paul and have come down to us today.

• We need to learn this. The psalmist says,
  • “As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God”, Psalm 42.

• God alone can satisfy the human heart and surely one of the lessons of present exercises is that we should each prove that.
  • Our satisfaction is in God and if everything else fails, our souls will be restful and satisfied in Him.

• And if we have each learned that, how valuable we would be in the testimony!

R.S. So the waters flow out to water the garden. What had you in mind as to that?

G.R.C. Well, if you take John 4, for instance, the woman had to be watered first.

• In a way she was the garden just then. She had to be watered first before she could water others, and that is the way true gospel testimony works. The Lord says to her
  • “if thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says Give me to drink”.

• She was in the presence of the Source, and then He says,
  • “whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst forever”. That is the garden watered.

  • “But the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”.

• Now the reason she would never thirst forever is because the fountain would spring up into eternal life. That is the environment according to that passage;
  • the environment in which the living water is known as flowing is eternal life and the Spirit is given to bring us into eternal life.

• This links very much with Genesis 2. The conditions of life were there under God.

R.W. In Zechariah 14, I suppose, that is anticipating the world to come. It says that living waters flow out of Jerusalem. Can you tell us the direction in which they go?

• Is it your concern that we might lay hold of this now, so that we might be useable and serviceable and that the evidence that the Spirit has operated in each one of us might be seen by what we are and what we do?

G.R.C. That is just it. It seems to me the living water is what we need to prove first – the value of the Spirit.

• You see, a man who is dying of thirst is not much good to anybody until he has revived
  • and in spiritual matters a man is not much good to anybody unless he is satisfied. Not only that his thirst is quenched, but he is satisfied.

• I wonder whether this is a preliminary thing, an underlying matter, because it says,
  • “We have all been made to drink of one Spirit,”

• and is linked in 1 Corinthians 12 with being baptised into one body and of being active, useful in the power of the Spirit in the body, and also being in the gain of the anointing.

• Because, with reference to the body, it says,
  • “So also is the Christ”,

• that is, the saints viewed as anointed, relative to Christ Himself. The precious oil is flowing down.

• The anointing is in view of activity and service, representing God, but if we have not first appropriated the Spirit as living water, how can we be available to Him relative to the anointing?

• It is to persons already satisfied that the Holy Spirit can distribute life and enjoyment of life, as resting upon the anointed.

S.W.H.R. So do you think that everything that goes back to God is what has come from Him?

• In coming from Him in the figure that you are using, it refreshes everything it comes to first. John’s gospel confirms that, does it not?

• You quoted chapters 4 and 7 and at the end of the gospel you get persons going out “even as the Father has sent me”. Would that be the result of receiving from God what He makes so freely available?

G.R.C. I think that. So that the great end in view is the return to God. He is the Source of the living waters, but wherever the living water came, it says in Ezekiel, there was life, and life is with a view to response to God.

S.W.H.R. Are you concerned that we should go habitually to the Source and not to any other false sources for refreshment of this kind?

• There are many false forms – things that have come in and intruded. I presume that the idea of the water of life would convey something that was clear and pure.

G.R.C. “Clear as crystal,” it says in the last verse. We know the world and its river, the Nile is typical of it. And then Christendom has its waters, the harlot sits upon them.

• That is what things are heading up to and are there already. There are many waters. It does not say they are as clear as crystal, nor does it say they are pure – it says the waters are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

• Now there should only be one people,
  • “I will be their God and they shall be my people”.

• But what you have in Christendom is peoples. Instead of there being one, the people of God, though all profess the name of God, are split up – peoples and multitudes.

• There should be only one multitude surrounding the Lamb. There should only be one nation, a holy nation.

• There should only be one tongue in that sense, that we are all speaking the things of heaven in the power of the Spirit.

• And that will be so if we get the gain of the river, the water of life. There will be one people, one multitude, one holy nation. We shall all be saying the same thing.

F.G.P. In Ezekiel 47: 1 it says, “the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, south of the altar”. Would that suggest that it has all been made good to us through the death of Jesus?

G.R.C. Very affecting! How favourable, south of the altar!

• There is the north of the altar, the suffering of Christ and all that enters into that, and our self-judgment.

• But the north has made way for the south and this river flows south of the altar.

F.G.P. I wondered if this would impress our hearts that this river of living water flowed to us from the death of Jesus!

G.R.C. It would. The waters come as it were from Jesus glorified, but it is the result of His death, because it is at the altar He glorified God and therefore God has glorified Him.

J.L.W. Do you think that would save us from being so casual about these things? You spoke earlier of the need to be urgent. Why are we so casual?

• I was thinking of what has just been said, that we are not really touched deeply enough by the cost of the supply, are we?

G.R.C. No, and I wonder whether we are prepared for the environment. We all would desire to see living waters flowing to men, water of life,

• which will set men in life relative to God so that God gets His portion from them.

• Wherever the double river came, there was life – Ezekiel 47. That is what is in view and we love to see it and we would love to be channels of it, each one of us.

• The first river in Genesis, Pison, means ‘freely flowing’. It is the normal result of the Spirit given, where there is nothing to obstruct. It flows toward the land where the gold is, the bdellium and the onyx stone
  • – the onyx stone suggesting sonship because it was on the onyx stones of the high priest that the names of the children of Israel were inscribed according to their birth.

F.G.P. And the gold, would that bring before our hearts that it is flowing to us because of His righteousness?

G.R.C. Yes, quite so. But you see if we have the river in the full sense of it, we have to remember the environment.

R.S.C. Would the Lord’s words to the disciples. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations” be the starting point of this water flowing freely in persons?

• The continuation of the division of the river in Genesis is seen now in satisfied persons going forth. They had received the living water from the Source.
  • He says to them, “but do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high”, Luke 24: 49.

G.R.C. Yes, you see it working out, I believe, in Acts. Zechariah 14 has been quoted:

• “in that day there will be a fountain of living waters open in Jerusalem,” and that happened at Pentecost.

• To begin with, the fountain of living water was open at Jerusalem and rivers were flowing there, as you say, through the believers. They were vessels of living water for others, all satisfied themselves and filled with the Spirit.

• But then the river goes on flowing. God would make way governmentally for the river to flow. And so, in His ordering, Saul of Tarsus persecuted the saints to help the river.

• Those who were scattered went everywhere evangelising the word. The river was flowing.

• They were all persons such as you get in John 7, living believers in Jesus glorified. The fact that they were refugees and that they had lost things here did not overburden or overwhelm them.

• They were living believers in a glorified Jesus and whatever locality they came to, they evangelised the word. That is like the flowing of the river. It was spontaneous.

• Men try to control rivers with dams and so on, but a river likes its own course and you see in Acts the thing making its own course under God’s control – freely flowing – surrounding the land where the gold is.

J.L.W. It took the fragrance and sweetness of Eden with it.

G.R.C. It did. It came from that environment – starting at the upper room.

P.R. There is only one other mention of bdellium in scripture and that is in Numbers 11: 7, where it says that the manna was like coriander seed and its appearance as the appearance of bdellium. Does this suggest feeding on Christ daily, do you think?

G.R.C. Yes, that is very interesting. The gold came to light in Jerusalem but then it goes on to bdellium and the onyx stone, which, no doubt,

• would suggest more the fullness of Paul’s ministry bringing out the preciousness of Christ as you say in the bdellium and suggesting sonship in the onyx stone.

P.R. The priest had two stones on his shoulders. Each stone bore the names of six tribes and he carried them in this way before God.

G.R.C. Yes. I think you see the river flowing in Acts without any human organisation, which would only damage it. The river flowed under God’s ordering right to Antioch.

• Barnabas, led by the Spirit, brings Saul into it and then the Spirit says,
  • “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them”.

• The river was flowing into the Gentile world. The gold, the bdellium and the onyx stone came to light all along the line.

Ques. The work at Philippi started at the river. It went on from there and developed, did it not?

G.R.C. It did.

H.E.P. I was looking at 2 Corinthians 3,

• “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord, the Spirit”.

• I was thinking it confirmed the thought of environment and how we enjoy these things as looking on the glory of the Lord.

G.R.C. I think that helps. The Lord would help us on this matter of environment from which this river flows. There are the various waters of Christendom, as we have already said, which will yet become entirely apostate and such waters are already flowing. So we have in Revelation 17: 15,

• “The waters, which thou sawest, where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues”.

F.G.P. But if we come to Jesus, the Source, for our drink, the waters will be pure.

G.R.C. They will. That is the point.

Ques. I would like to ask why you connect the onyx stone with sonship?

G.R.C. Because of the onyx stones on the shoulders of the high priest. There were six names each side according to birth. I believe that is usually thought to refer to what the saints are in sonship before God.

• The Lord would support us in the joy of that relationship on His shoulders.

• The breastplate is rather sovereignty, not according to birth but according to the setting of the tribes as they were set around the tabernacle. Is that what you had in mind?

Rem. I was thinking of that in the shoulder plates, but I just wanted to get the thing a little bit clearer.

R.J.M. I was thinking again of the source of these rivers. They will never be turned aside if they derive from that source. Whatever comes in in the way of opposition or anything like that, the river will still make its own way.

G.R.C. A river makes its own way. That is good. You have only to look at nature to see the marvellous power of a river to make its own way, however hard the soil.

P.H. It could not be much harder than when Nimrod began his kingdom in Genesis 10, that is, Havilah. God is wonderful in His provision! What foresight in providing for the posterity of such a man as Nimrod and for such as ourselves.

G.R.C. That is Havilah, is it?

P.H. That is Havilah, where God had sent the river already to surround it, with a view to the work of God picking up souls in mercy.

G.R.C. That is very good. To think that the river can make way in such soil as that!

P.H. The beginning of his kingdom was there in Havilah and it comes right down to the harlot that you quoted in Revelation 17.

G.R.C. Yes; it says the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.

Ques. Is that what was in mind when you said that the river not only went into the garden to water the garden, but into all the earth?

G.R.C. Quite so, because it goes on to say that the second river, Gihon, surrounds the whole land of Cush. I think the third one Hiddekel is ‘running water’ which flows toward the land of Ashur, that is Assyria, not a very hopeful terrain naturally, but it is running water.

• But the first one is ‘freely flowing’. It is where the Spirit is free that you get gold, bdellium and the onyx stone.

R.W. Would you say a little more about this thought of the garden? It seems as though that was the specific thought. The river went out from Eden to water the garden from which it was parted. The next paragraph is that God puts man in the garden.

• Could you open up that a little, so that we might enter into the full light and the glory of divine purposes, to see why God in His grace and sovereignty has taken us up so that we might be useable as flowing in the current of these four rivers?

G.R.C. I wondered if the garden referred to the saints. You see, we think of the living water in gospel activities rightly,

• >but the first purpose of the living waters is to water the garden and keep the garden fresh for God.

• It is in the garden that life according to God is seen. It is eternal life, really, as applied to us, I think.

• And the river comes from Eden which means ‘pleasure’ – it is the pleasure of God, the good pleasure of His will. The will of Ephesians 1 is the will of pleasure. It is what God has been pleased to purpose,
  • “according to the good pleasure of his will”.

• It is from the standpoint and environment of the good pleasure of God’s will that the living water flows.

• But the first thing is that the garden might be thoroughly watered and fruitful, both for God and for man – man enjoying eternal life in the garden and God getting His portion from it.

• It says that Jehovah walked in the garden in the cool of the day. The whole thing was designed for His pleasure, and all will be secured at the end.
  • There you have the street – “in the midst of its street, and of the river … the tree of life”.

• That is the street where God can walk. We may think it is for us to walk there but it is the golden street as transparent glass where God walks with His people –
  • “I will dwell among them and walk among them”.

N.H.T. In the Song of Songs it says, “let my beloved come into his garden”, and it says previously, “a fountain in the gardens, a well of living waters”.

G.R.C. That is good. Well, we must have got the gain of the living water for ourselves to be a garden for the Lord because that is for the Lord.

• He has a garden where there is living water for Him. He says to the woman in John 4, “Give me to drink”.

• The Lord was seeking refreshment for Himself and God was seeking refreshment for Himself when He walked in the garden at the cool of the day. That is the great objective.

• But if there is to be refreshment for Himself from the woman, she must be watered first. She was part of the garden and we are part of the garden.

• The river is then “parted into four main streams” and is thus going out universally, all with a view to bringing others into the garden. Wherever the river goes, there is life.

F.G.P. So the woman completes the thought. “Come see a man who told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?” Is not that evangelising?

G.R.C. In principle the rivers were flowing out from her. She had been satisfied – she had been watered and her response to the Lord had no doubt given Him refreshment.

• He even speaks of the Father and she speaks of her father, Jacob, “our father … drank of it himself,” she said. Then the woman herself becomes a vessel of living water.

D.V.W. She has changed her source. She was relying on tradition before but now she is in touch with Christ glorified really.

G.R.C. Well, that is my concern. I think we have relied on tradition long enough.

• Let us get to the source of the living water. Let us really be satisfied persons. How little one has known it!

• What a lesson to learn to be really satisfied in ourselves, satisfied to have God filling the heart!

R.W. Have you in mind that all those things are progressive? first the garden and then the house in Ezekiel and then the sanctuary. Do you think we need to be building up all the time?

G.R.C. Yes, we do. You see, as soon as sin comes in, the garden idea alone is not sufficient.

• You must have the sanctuary idea now. The sanctuary means a place set apart for God. Therefore you have the house with its sanctuary and it is from there that the rivers are flowing once sin has come in.
  • But then the full flow of the water is from “the throne of God, and of the Lamb”.

• What I understand by that is that the full and permanent flow is the result of God being glorified in all the rights of His throne, God’s throne therefore being established on an immovable basis in the universe.

• That awaited the coming of Christ, although it is foretold in Ezekiel chapter 43,
  • “This is the place of my throne, and the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst for ever”.

• God’s house in that sense is the place of His throne, as the city in Revelation has the throne of God and the Lamb in it.

• But it is wonderful to think the river comes out from the throne because it means the flow can never be stopped.

• It flows from the standpoint that all the rights of God’s throne have been met in the Lamb. Nothing can stop the flow of divine grace.

S.W.H.R. If you are in touch with the throne then nothing can shake you. Is not that a very important thing at the present time because there are very many still wanting to lean on something? But what you are saying this afternoon, I believe, is to take us each one to the throne.

• I thought that in John 7: 37 there is a very present indication. “In the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying If anyone thirst …” We want to examine ourselves about that, do we not?

G.R.C. All the outward forms were there on that great day of the feast but no satisfaction, no real living touch with God, the Source of the living water. We have to get free from all that. There is nothing we like more than a prop.

D.V.W. We do not get the results we desire in the preaching because we are not really satisfied persons ourselves. If we were really satisfied, men would take account of it and there would be results.

G.R.C. Yes, I am sure, and we need to see that to get the full power of the free flowing we must be in keeping with the environment. These living waters do not flow from any kind of environment.

• It is not a question of coming down to man’s level and saying, ‘Now we shall get the living water, now we shall get something that will take effect because we are right down on the level of the plain’.

• But you do not get a fast free-flowing river on the plain!

R.W. Is it striking that all this is linked up with time? It covers the whole period of time. Revelation is the millenium; in eternity the thing will be sealed finally, showing the great possibilities placed within the reach of man – if only man will just avail himself of it. Glory would result from it.

G.R.C. And for those who wish to know God in their measure and wish to find this full satisfaction for themselves and to be channels of living water to others, it depends on their accepting the environment from which it comes.

S.W.H.R. What do you mean please by accepting the environment?

G.R.C. In Ezekiel, the waters issue out of the sanctuary.

• God never lowers His standard. For full and free gospel testimony according to God, the waters issue out of the sanctuary. In actuality, that is where they do come from.

• They come from God Himself in Christ but if they are to be unobstructed in their flow through us, we need sanctuary conditions down here.

E.H.H. Is it seen in the reference in Acts 3? I was thinking of what has been said as to being satisfied persons. Do you not think it beautifully expressed in Peter and John,

• “Silver and gold I have not, but what I have, this give I to thee”? They were sanctuary men, were they not?

G.R.C. That is very good – “what I have”. And it was evident that they had something. They were satisfied persons and, as you say, sanctuary persons.

• That is a good word, ‘sanctuary persons’. Are we sanctuary persons?

• The believer in John 7 would really be a sanctuary person. He is continually coming to Jesus glorified.

F.G.P. Does not Paul bring out the glad tidings from that height? It is “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” in Timothy 1. Although he was in prison, he was bringing the gospel down from the glory.

G.R.C. That is right. That is the only proper place to bring it from and my main point is that we should understand the environment. We can look into it ourselves, these environments from which the river comes.

• They are all linked together as a development because of sin coming in, but they come from the place of God’s pleasure where the good pleasure of His will is seen.

• They come out of the sanctuary, they come out of the throne of God and the Lamb, and they come out of a living believer in Jesus because he is continually coming to Jesus glorified.

• He finds in Him present gain and he sees in the faith of his own soul the realm of God’s pleasure, the place of God’s sanctuary. And he is in the presence of the throne.

R.W. So would you say that where we are today is the environment? There is everything that speaks of life.

G.R.C. Well, that is what we would like it to be.

• “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”.

• Here is a soul who, as far as it was in his power, would maintain sanctuary conditions. And it is not any company.

• In this sense, all the saints on earth, all believers who have the Spirit are sanctified in Christ Jesus.

• What we need to do is to encourage one another and all Christians, as far as we are available, to be true to what they are according to God.

• God has sanctified them in Christ Jesus. Why not be true to Him? Why should we go down to lower levels and think we will be able to help the gospel service by that?

R.W. In Revelation 1 we read,

• “To Him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.”

• Are these sanctified persons?

G.R.C. Yes, and we must look at every Christian that way, in our affections and thoughts towards them, however much they are out of accord with it practically.

• The thing is, that if we are to know the benefit of this river and the way to move in the current of it, it is in the measure in which we are in accord practically with what is true of us from the divine side.
  • It is wonderful to be able to think of all Christians as sanctified.

• It is true there was in Corinth a wicked person, but in addressing that company where the wicked person was still allowed, Paul says,
  • “ye are washed, ye are justified; ye are sanctified; in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God”.

• So that from that angle it is a question of what God has cleansed,
  • “What God has cleansed, call not thou common or unclean”.

• That is, God would call the saints back to His standard of holiness and sanctification.

F.G.P. Following on what has been said as to Peter, we are told that the lame man held Peter and John. I wondered if he held on to them because he could see they were heavenly?

G.R.C. I think so. They were in the practical gain of sanctification.

• The practical gain of sanctification is in the Spirit. Peter gives you the practical side – Paul does too in Thessalonians.

• From the divine side, we are sanctified by the offering of Jesus Christ once for all.

• But practical sanctification is
  • “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”.

P.H. Do you think we need to learn more of this? I was thinking of John in the island of Patmos, It says,

• “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,”

• and how much he unfolds to us as having become in the Spirit from that point, to the end of chapter 3. It goes on to say in the 4th chapter,
  • “And I saw, and there was a door opened in heaven”.

• From that point, he goes right up to the source of the living waters, into the presence of God, and from that level he sees things from the highest altitude. Is that something of the environment?

G.R.C. It is. I feel sure this question of environment is very important. Scripture does not include these things for nothing.

• Let us take account of what scripture says as to where this living water comes from – not only that God is the Source, but what is the environment from which it comes?

J.L.W. I think that is very good to leave with us, because we do not want to go away from this meeting and say that we have had a good time, and that is the end of it;

• we want to go away with exercised hearts to get the gain of it and follow it up.

G.R.C. And if we get the gain of it, we shall be always satisfied ourselves and always channels of living water for others.

R.J.M. The fountain will be seen. The fountain suggests the springing up. It just cannot help itself, can it?

G.R.C. Quite so.

R.S.C. Would Mary, choosing the good part, be a simple illustration of environment?

G.R.C. It would; sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Rem. So that if we live in this environment, it is not a matter of conscious effort, this water flowing from us, is it? The water would just flow.

G.R.C. That is right, a river flows; it does not have to be pumped, nor does a fountain. It has just been said that the river makes way for itself. Rivers and fountains do so.

P.H. In referring to becoming in the Spirit in Revelation 1, I was thinking that there is no knowing how far the Spirit can go, what He can do with us, how far He can take us, if we are available to Him.

• We do not need to plan out a certain routine of service. John was at His disposal and the Spirit took him up presently in chapter 4.

G.R.C. Yes, the same thing is seen in Acts. I mean the way the river moved, there was no human organisation about it.

• The river moved and the river no doubt has moved many times in great activities that have spread across the earth, but then man comes in and organises the movement and then it is spoilt.

• When man begins to organise a movement which is initiated by the Spirit the thing is spoilt. And in the end the Spirit is grieved and may leave the movement altogether.

I think there are three aspects of food brought before us in John 6. It is a comprehensive chapter.

1. The first is what would correspond with the manna of old. He says,
   • “I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me”.

   The manna came down from heaven, and Jesus came down from heaven to tread a path that was different from that which any man had ever trod. That is, He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him.

2. Then secondly you get the thought of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, which refers to our feeding upon Christ in death;

3. and thirdly, “If then ye shall see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”.

   This is a question of feeding upon Him as the Man of God’s counsels, as having ascended to fill out the place that was given Him in those counsels. In each aspect it is food for our souls.

D.V.W. So that the gospels are very important, because they depict for us the pathway of Jesus, and this is food for our souls as the manna was; is that what is in your mind?

G.R.C. Yes, indeed. And then it is the bringing of impressions of Christ, as depicted in scripture, into our souls livingly day by day.

• The manna fell on the dew and then had to be gathered. From God’s side, it falls on the dew, but from our side it has to be gathered. So the Lord says,
  • “Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto life eternal, which the Son of man shall give to you”.

• It is a gift from the divine side, but we labour much for other things which perish.

• The thing is to use energy in securing and appropriating the living bread which abides to life eternal, because the manna builds up a constitution which goes through.

D.V.W. Does this involve the Spirit working in the believer? You spoke of the manna being on the dew. Would the dew speak of the Spirit, and is the Spirit essential to give us this living food as we feed on Christ?

G.R.C. Yes, I thought so. The Spirit in us would prepare the way for the manna.

R.S.C. Would the introduction of the manna in this chapter and how it was to be gathered be helpful as to the way in which we appropriate Christ as we feed upon Him?

• It was to be gathered every day, and nothing was to be left over from one day’s portion. You spoke of energy just now; there is a need for a continuous fresh gathering of impressions of Christ.

G.R.C. Yes. Each had to gather for his house, and they gathered according to the eating, but then all were supposed to have in a way the same kind of appetite. It says,

• “Gather of it every man according to what he can eat, an omer a poll”, Exodus 16: 16.

• The normal eating would be an omer, the tenth part of an ephah.

S.W.H.R. The Lord emphasises a great deal His having come down out of heaven, and as to the manna emphasis was also made in the same way. Would you say something about that? It speaks about the corn of heaven and the food of the mighty.

G.R.C. The food of the mighty seems to me to be a very beautiful description of the manna, because those who have been mighty in spiritual acts and power have fed upon that.

• It was the food of Paul and Peter and the other apostles. They were mighty men, and it was the food of J.N.D., we might say.

• In fact the manna no doubt has been the food of all those who would be called mighty in the path of faith. Is that so?

S.W.H.R. Yes, I would think so. You reminded me immediately of what was said of Gideon, “Go in this thy might”.

• His strength lay in the admittance of his own smallness. I wondered if that was the idea, it was a small thing. As far as what we are here, the manna would reduce us.

• I am very impressed with this repetition of “out of heaven”; are these three foods you have referred to progressive?

G.R.C. Yes, except that of course we have to begin with the second – eating His flesh and drinking His blood – do we not? The manna was not available to anybody who had not already eaten the passover.

• So that the first thing was that they had to appropriate Christ in death, and feed on the lamb roast with fire.

• The light of Christ here would not be food for our souls if we have not first appropriated His death.

S.W.H.R. What impressed me this morning at the supper was that I felt how little one knew and appreciated Christ in death. I had a feeling that perhaps it depended on one’s measure of appreciating Him in glory –

• “I live on account of the Father”, He says afterwards, and that is something further?

G.R.C. I think it may be important to enquire more into what you are saying, because after all, in the history of the children of Israel, they increased in the appreciation of the death of Christ typically as they went on.

• So even though we say the second food comes first, and it does initially, still, as we are treading the wilderness path, appropriating the manna, we enter into the death of Christ more and more fully as we go along.

• The passover gave them strength to pass through the Red Sea, but they needed the manna to continue to learn what the death of Christ meant in the wilderness.

• And finally it would enter into their ability to cross the Jordan, although they had other food; and in the finality of things after they had crossed the Jordan they kept the passover and ate the manna and the old corn of the land all on the same day.

• They merge then and, of course, the passover being repeated annually meant a continual increase in the appreciation of it.

• In Egypt they would be mainly concerned with an escape from judgment, but in going over the passover again in the wilderness it would assume more a contemplative character relative to the experiences they passed through.

• Whereas the passover in the land would have still more depth of meaning, after further experiences like the brazen serpent and the Jordan.

• The passover would continually take on a deeper meaning, I believe, so that each year normally – I am speaking spiritually now – the appropriation of the lamb roast with fire would be a deeper experience.

R.W. Is this now what the Lord is substantially to us? “I am the bread of life”; Christ before us, the living bread.

• Joseph said, “Be not angry with yourselves … for God sent me before you to preserve life”. The matter on hand is life.

• “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died”.

• But this is something that is substantially sufficient to preserve the whole being in the joy of life.

• And it is remarkable that you do not get bread mentioned at all until Genesis 3, do you?

G.R.C. That is very remarkable.

R.W. In the garden of Eden there was no bread. Bread came in after the question of sin came in, and they were to eat bread with the sweat of the face. That is the first mention, I think, of bread in scripture.

• But this is all in contrast to what man can do. It is available, substantially so, in Christ to sustain life according to God.

G.R.C. So that it really sustains life in the wilderness like the manna; and then the old corn of the land would sustain life in the land. I take it that is implied in

• “If then ye shall see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”,

• and then you get the tree of life, sustaining life in the paradise of God in the place of God’s pleasure and delight.

R.W. Does it not challenge us as to how much we enter into the joys of what is really life?

G.R.C. And the one index of the amount we have entered into them is satisfaction.

• “He that comes to me shall never hunger and he that believes on me shall never thirst”.

• The living water brings life into the soul, and the Lord says it springs up into eternal life.

• But there is a sort of road to eternal life, in which the Spirit leads us, and we need strength for the road; strength to be sustained in it and strength as we touch eternal life from time to time in measure – strength to be sustained in that.

• And for that we need bread. Water alone is not sufficient. We need Christ substantially as Man, as bread for our souls.

R.W. We ponder much on the death of Christ. I realise it is essential; but I do feel that we should feed more upon the Man where He is, so that glory might fill our souls continually. Do you think so?

G.R.C. Well, I think that is right; the three sides perhaps should go on in a commensurate kind of way. You mean we are apt to leave out the third.

R.W. Yes, and I wonder whether we dwell too much on the side of the death of Christ. It is most essential that we should begin there, but do you think that we should move over to His side of things and get the joy of life where Christ really is at the present time?

G.R.C. Well, it seems to me that the more we do that, the more we shall appreciate His death.

• We stay at the death of Christ from the standpoint of our need and the elementary truth of it as meeting the need of a sinner.

• But you see, as they went on feeding on the manna, so they appropriated the passover in the wilderness in, no doubt, a way that they did not understand at all in Egypt.

• Then finally they had the passover in the land. At all stages of their history in the land they kept the passover.

• So I would say that the further we go in the appreciation of the manna and of the old corn of the land, the more we shall appreciate the death of Christ;
  • so that there is depth with us, increasing depth, as well as increasing apprehension of God’s purpose. What do you think?

R.W. Yes, I suppose the old corn is the previous year’s gleanings; the thing is there, is it not? It is something that is ripe and matured and would create life, and sustain life.

• I think what you say is very helpful because we are all feeding on something; and I believe it is most essential, especially as we read John’s gospel, because John’s gospel is progressive, is it not? It arrives at fullness.

G.R.C. And then, you see, the Lord says, “He that comes to me”. There is that proviso.

• You cannot get the manna simply by reading scripture, although the Holy Spirit may sovereignly give us impressions at any time as we read. But it is coming to the Person.
  • “He that comes to me”.

• That is not a thing done once at conversion, it becomes the habit of soul, that whenever you are hungry, you go to Jesus. Like a child, whenever it is hungry it goes to its mother and asks for more.

• We need three meals a day physically, so we probably need that spiritually – at least that.
  • The Lord says, “He that comes to me shall never hunger”, John 6: 35.

• You will never get hungry if you keep on going to Jesus. Similarly, He says about rest in Matthew 11: 28
  • “Come to me … and I will give you rest”.

• The thing is to come more than once a day. As burdens crowd in, we are apt to try to carry them ourselves and then when we get hungry spiritually,
  • we are apt to cast about to find food ourselves and perhaps we think ‘I’d better read a chapter’.

• But we do not always get the food we are after when we do read the chapter. The Lord says, “He that comes to me”; it is a question of a living transaction with Christ glorified.

• The only way we can come to Jesus now is to Jesus glorified. The thing is to get to Him where He is and He will provide what we need. He will give us impressions of Himself come down from heaven.

• But we begin where He is. I think that is what you had in mind?

R.W. Yes, indeed.

D.V.W. I was thinking of the type. They were told to go to Joseph. Joseph is the one who is the sustainer of life, and the Lord is the One who rea11y sustains life amongst His people.

G.R.C. It is a great thing to get that into the soul, I feel. How slow one is to learn that life is in the Person,

• not in reading about Him, valuable though that is; but life is in the Person, and it is a question of getting to Him.

• And then, it is what He hands out. It says, “Go to Joseph”, and it is what Joseph hands out that becomes available to them as food.

• So what is the Lord going to give me if I come to Him? It will be something in accord with scripture – perhaps something from scripture.

• But it is a question of what comes from Him, the living One. “I am the living bread”.

S.W.H.R. I think that is very helpful, what you have said about coming to Christ in glory. It must be so, because that is where He is.

• The manna is that Person come down here. In coming down here. He did not alter His personality, and He has not altered it on going back.

• We occasionally say things about believers in a general way, that they just want Christ down here.
  • The question is, do we want Christ at all, because if it is the manna or if it is the glorified Man, it is the same Person.

• Do you not think that the manna, “the bread out of heaven”, is so essential to us if we are to get on together? I have often thought that it connects with Philippians 2.
  • “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.

• He came down and that mind is what we need; and we get that from Him as we feed on the One who came down out of heaven to do His Father’s will.

G.R.C. So the manna fell around the camp, because it is in camp relations and the frictions that are liable to come into camp relations and camp movements that you need the manna.

• It involves our relations with one another. We need the Spirit of Christ with one another under all circumstances.

• Some of us may remember camp life in the army when we were so close to each other.

• It tests our brotherly relations in a special way when we eat and sleep together in very small surroundings. Friction can easily come in.

• And now we are in small surroundings in local meetings, but if we were in the gain of the manna, if the manna were our daily food, then we would never irritate one another.

• Small and round and sweet, no hard corners.

S.W.H.R. Following up what has been said about that I wondered whether if we really fed on the One that came down out of heaven, it would give us a desire to know Him in His own sphere.

• We could understand better what a wonderful thing it is for Him to be in a sphere not of any straightening, no restriction in His Father’s presence – living on account of the Father. Would you say that?

G.R.C. Yes, He lived on account of the Father even down here. All that He did sprang from that.

S.W.H.R. Is this connected with the third phase – seeing the Son of man ascending up where He was before?

G.R.C. “I live on account of the Father”. I would think it covers all the phases, that whatever phase He was in, it was on account of the Father, even in going into death it was

• “on this account has my Father loved me”.

• It was His Father’s will. That was the spring.
  • J.B.S. said, “if I want to be like Jesus where He was, I must know Him where He is”.

• It is as I know Jesus where He is, I have power to be like Him where He was. So that, “He that comes to me” – it seems to me that
  • we have to come to Him where He is, because that is the only place we can come to Him now.

• And if we are in touch with Him where He is, we long to be like Him where He was. His path becomes our measure, and He will see to it that we get the impressions of the manna that are needed.

• The manna in that way still comes down from heaven. It comes from the One who is there, who gives us impressions of what He was here.

• Of course the gospels set them out, but we need living impressions day by day from Him.

R.W. And when He was here, He was also there. He refers to Himself as the Son of man who is in heaven.

G.R.C. Yes, so you cannot separate things too much. What He was here took colour in His pathway, from the fact that He was always there, you mean?

R.W. Just so. He never ceased, did He, to display all that is heavenly. He came out of heaven, but that is where He lived really.

• I do feel the need of appropriating rightly eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

• I do feel that formation is in mind, and the more that we appropriate the flesh of Christ and drink His blood, the more we shall be divinely formed in what is wholly of God.

• Life, that life, was demonstrated here on the earth by Jesus Himself, and will reflect in persons who drink His blood. It is appropriating His death in order that out of it life should appear. Is that so?

G.R.C. Yes, He laid down His life for us and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives, so that a similar spirit appears in us.

R.S.C. Paul’s epistles link us with Him, we might say, in all phases.

• We have died with Him, we are buried with Him in baptism, we are risen with Him, our life is hid with Christ in God, and then we have been raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.

• We may speak of these things in a kind of theoretical way, but how do you think we are really maintained in the full gain of what we have, as having part with Christ in all these different settings?

G.R.C. That is what I want help on. This chapter is intended surely to answer that question. It is by feeding on Him that we are enabled to be with Him in all these circumstances, I think.

R.W. Is not verse 36 interesting?

• “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him”.

• So that in these bodies there should be a portrayal of all that Jesus is, should there not?

G.R.C. Quite so, and all begins in appropriating Him in death. He gave His flesh for the life of the world,

• so that eating His flesh and drinking His blood, brings before the soul the great reality of Jesus going into death and what He expressed in His death,

• the expression of His own love and perfection in death and the expression of the love of God.
  • “Hereby we have known love because he has laid down his life for us”.

• It evidently provides the way for us to dwell in Him and for Him to dwell in us.

R.W. Does it in any way establish a relationship with the Father? It is an interesting section, because it says,

• “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”.

• It seems to establish a relationship with the Father which is challenged in John 8.

G.R.C. In actual fact the truth of the Father underlies this chapter, because it says,

• “Everyone that has heard from the Father himself and has learned of him comes to me”;

• and He calls Himself the bread of God. That is, He is God’s food; He is the Man of the Father’s pleasure and delight.

B.D. Did He not say, “No one comes unto me except the Father draw him”?

G.R.C. That is right, so the Father would teach us to value His own food as it were. The Father’s own food becomes our food.

• “This is my beloved Son in whom I have found my delight”.

• We find our delight in Him, and we eat the food of the mighty. Well, what food! We can say reverently, He is God’s food in that connection, and our food.

• Then in death, what there was for God in His death! There is what there is for us in it, and our need. But what there was for God in His death and what went up from the altar!

• From God’s point of view the death of Christ provided what we might call the altar food.

• The manna did not involve death but the altar food went up as a sweet odour on the altar.

R.W. It is interesting because every creature of God has to be sustained by food. If everything can be divinely regulated by such food to control such a sphere, what about Jesus, as the bread of God? It ought to have a controlling and regulating and a satisfying effect on each one of us.

G.R.C. What satisfies God, should satisfy us.

H.H. Is the prophet Isaiah’s challenge interesting in that respect? He asks,

• “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and labour for that which satisfieth not?”, Isaiah 55: 2.

G.R.C. Yes, quite so. The Lord says,

• “Work not for the food which perishes but for the food which abides unto life eternal”.

• The great point here is satisfaction, just as we had yesterday, the living water is in view of satisfaction. Living water brings satisfaction in its own way, bringing to us the light and love of God;

• but then we need satisfaction, in the sense of being sustained in the joy of things.

H.H. So that it could be said of certain disciples, “They recognised them that they were with Jesus”. Should that mark us too?

G.R.C. It should. Physically, we need both the drink and the food. We could not be satisfied with one without the other. The living water prepares the way for us to appreciate and to assimilate food, something solid, which builds us up.

D.V.W. Is it the Spirit that is in the believer that makes him appreciate Jesus? Naturally we do not appreciate Him, do we?

G.R.C. That is the point at the end of the chapter. The Lord says,

• “It is the Spirit that quickens”.

• It is He that brings every living impression of Christ with quickening power into the soul.
  • “The words which I speak to you”, He says, “they are spirit, and they are life”,

• and I think that is how these living impressions, which become food to our souls, come to us; they are spirit and life, and they come in the power of the Spirit. That is like the manna on the dew again.

E.E. Would it be right to draw a parallel in the case of the woman in John 4? The question of the thirst is there first;

• but, towards the end of the chapter, she is recorded as saying, “Come, see a man”. Do you think she had found the Person by then, and was feeding on the Person?

G.R.C. That is good, her soul was feeding on that Man.

E.E. According to the first verse you read, it says, “He that believes on me shall never thirst”. There may be a distance in believing, but in coming to the Lord, there is no distance, is there?

G.R.C. Very good. Think how Paul said, “The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. That is appropriating His death.

• But then, how he fed upon Him in every way. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.

R.J.M. You spoke earlier of constitution. Do all these things we have been speaking of help to build a spiritual constitution?

G.R.C. They do.

R.J.M. So it is not only that you do not labour for the bread that perishes, but there may be a time to refuse it. I was thinking of how Daniel had to refuse the king’s dainties, for he was one who had a real spiritual constitution.

G.R.C. Well, I hope this reading will help me, if it does not anybody else, to limit myself to this kind of food, not to go on with the food that perishes,

• but to appropriate Christ in every way in which He is presented as food. We need an ‘all-round’ diet, you see.

• We were speaking of the camp just now. In its normal spiritual setting the manna fell around the camp to help us in camp relations with one another and with God, to sustain us in those testing relations.

• But if you look at the other view of the camp, we have to go forth to Him without the camp; yet the manna still fell around the camp in that sense.

• God supplies manna to all Christians, whatever their associations, or systems – manna in His faithfulness.
  • “If we are unfaithful, he abides faithful”, 2 Timothy 2: 13.

• And so the manna never ceased from the camp, and the water from the rock did not cease. Otherwise the camp as a whole would have perished, when the tent of meeting was pitched outside.

• Some brethren have been so surprised to find manna in the camp, they think the camp must be right, and they have gone back into the camp.

• They find certain believers in the camp, in ministerial positions, who can supply manna, and they think this is wonderful. They never thought there was anything in the camp, but it does not surprise me at all.

• I knew it was there all the time, because God is faithful and He does not withdraw the manna. That is why believers in the systems around are sustained in their measure in the path of individual devotedness.

• They still have manna which should strengthen us in the path of personal devotedness to Christ, but they have no more.

• It you look around Christendom for the food of the altar you will not find it there. There was an abundance of food of various kinds at the altar. And if you want to find the old corn of the land, you do not find it there.

• There is nothing in the ministry of those who remain in sectarian positions which touch those things at all, as far as I have experienced it. Not at all.

• You come to the manna and it stops short; I am not belittling the manna. It was the food of the mighty. Some of those men in Christendom, who are real believers, are mighty men in their way. And they have the manna.

• But as going forth to the Lord without the camp, every kind of food becomes available – altar food, not only the passover, but the death of Christ in all its varied aspects as seen in the altar food,
  • as well as His life here in the meat offering, and then the old corn of the land, and then even the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

S.W.H.R. I was wondering at the way the Lord speaks here. He has a mixed audience, and when He comes to the matter of what is flesh and blood, He makes this very emphatic,

• He says, “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”.

• I wondered if that might be prophetic of the 2 Timothy state of affairs, where things are taken up professionally as to eating His flesh, the One come down out of heaven, well known as such, without doing the other.

G.R.C. Yes. You see if the flesh and blood of the Son of man are not appropriated, people try to imitate Him in the flesh, and they never get the manna;

• they cannot appreciate the One who came down from heaven to do the will of God.

• They just think of Him, the Man down here, a wonderful Model; but the spring of the matter is missing in their souls.

• What made the Lord as Man what He was in one sense, was that He lived on account of the Father. That was the spring of His life.

• It is not until we come to feel our need of His death to meet what we are as sinners and appropriate the passover, that we have any life in ourselves to appropriate the manna in its true meaning, which is not just the effort of the flesh to imitate Christ.

• So that is the necessity to begin with. We cannot even start unless we have eaten the flesh of the Son of man and drunk His blood.

R.W. Does it suggest in any way that the persons who are feeding on Christ in that way are going through, “Him will I raise up in the last day”.

• It is essential for us to be feeding aright if things are to go through. We are going through; but what is going through? It is that order of man, is it not?

G.R.C. So John says in his epistle, “He that does the will of God abides for eternity”. This kind of food keeps us on the path of the will of God.

R.W. So the Lord raises a challenge, “Does this offend you?” I think we need to be searched over matters like this as to whether we are really taking on the truth, as it is in the mind of God for us. Are we being offended by it?

G.R.C. Well, that is what bears on what was in my mind as to the walk. You see, they walked no more with Him, and He says to the twelve,

• “Will ye also go away?”

• Simon Peter answers. It was a question of walking with Him.

• In Revelation, where the tree of life is mentioned there are also the river and the street;

• I wonder whether the test for the moment is as to whether we are prepared to walk with Jesus in the path that He marked out so clearly and that others have followed, like Paul – to walk in the light of the street of the city!

E.E. What did you have in your mind about the street of the city particularly?

G.R.C. Well, it says, it was of pure gold, as transparent glass. I thought it was really what we would speak of as the path of fellowship or communion, just as it was here.

• In John 6 the circle of fellowship becomes very narrow. There were many not prepared to walk with Him.

• One feels that what we need is this bread from heaven, which builds up a constitution so that we are prepared to walk in the path of God’s will.

• It is the test of the moment. “Will ye also go away?”

R.W. If we are feeding rightly it would call for transparency.

G.R.C. Yes, it would. That is what the street was, a street of gold as transparent glass.

R.W. I do feel that we lack in the knowledge of the truth of the body and the truth of the house of God.

• I feel that if we could become educated, if we could feed rightly, all that is due to the body would be carried through by us, and every feature proper to the house of God would be ever with us at all times.

G.R.C. That is what the walk is. Our walk should be in accord with the truth of the one body and the truth of the house of God. That is the test of the moment.

• The point is, “will ye also go away”.

• We are thankful when we find that some, whom we thought might go away, are not going away.

• But it seems to me that those scriptures on food, both here and in Revelation, indicate that one element in the food is to give us power to walk in the right way, power here to walk with Jesus, and power to walk the golden street. There is the tree of life,
  • “In the midst of its street, and of the river, on this side and on that side, the tree of life producing twelve fruits, in each month yielding its fruit; and the leaves of the tree for healing of the nations”.

• We are still in the place where the diseases of the nations can affect us, and so there is not only food, but there is healing available, in order that our feet might be kept in the street.

• The street of the city is the place where God walks with men. In the beginning God came into the garden; He walked in the garden in the cool of the day.

Here you have paradise secured at the end of Revelation beyond the reach of breakdown,

• ‘Where deceiver ne’er can enter’.

• It is a paradise which cannot be intruded upon, and there you have the tree of life and the river – the water of life clear as crystal.

• And the throne of God and of the Lamb, from which it comes, is sure and stable. Nothing can intrude into that paradise.

• There is a street there where God will walk with men, in unclouded communion forever. But the point is to bring that into the present by the Spirit’s help.

B.D. So we really ought to live in the purpose of God more? We sometimes live in His mercies.

G.R.C. Yes; I am sure we do.

R.W. I think we do well to digest Ephesians 1 and see what the Spirit of God has recorded in the seven ‘accordings’ that are recorded in that chapter. I think there is fulness in it. We should see who the great Operator is in the way of purpose, the Father, and live in the purposes of God.

G.R.C. The tree of life would sustain us in that.

B.D. Is not that where many in Christendom fall short? They have little idea as to purpose.

G.R.C. Quite so; if we have an impression and know more as to what it is to live in the purpose of God, sustained by the tree of life, our feet will be steady in the responsible path down here.

• We shall value the manna and be preserved in the responsible path down here. Walking with Jesus and in spirit as we come together, we shall touch the golden street.

S.W.H.R. It says, “in whom we have redemption through his blood”.

• But here we have the clarity and transparency which is connected with the measure in which I have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the Son of man. Is this connected at all with the fellowship of His blood?

• I was only thinking of the sad amount of self-assertion going on – ‘what I think’, and that sort of thing. But the man of flesh and blood is gone forever.
  • “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, says Paul.

• This truth of eating and drinking is a matter of getting it into our soul. I was interested in the reference to Ephesians 1, that Colossians does not mention the blood, but in Ephesians it does.

G.R.C. Does not that confirm that the appreciation of Christ’s death grows? The greatest presentation of the blood to our affection is the blood of the Beloved.

• “He has taken us into favour in the Beloved; in whom we have redemption through his blood”, Ephesians 1: 6.

• It is what Acts 20 speaks of as, “the blood of his own”. It is the most precious view of the blood. So the nearer we get to God, the more precious the view we have of the blood.

S.W.H.R. Yes, and the tremendous price that has been paid. Why should I hang on to what is according to my law, that is what it comes to, my present life here. Flesh and blood is finished really, is it not?

G.R.C. I think what you say is important. Eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood is the end of flesh and blood conditions, and all that men boast in relative to themselves.

• I believe eating would mean that I accept that, and that I accept the end of the man of flesh and blood. Paul says he knew no one after the flesh. He had finished with that.

R.W. Does this passage in Revelation 22 suggest that the millennium is in view? There is only one tree there that God has in mind, and that is the tree of life.

G.R.C. I would like to know more about the tree of life. It seems the very acme of food.

R.W. In the midst of the river on this side and that side, but it is only one tree.

G.R.C. What abundance of fruit, to sustain you in that path walking on that street! There is water too, living water, and living food, to keep your feet in the street.

R.W. It is interesting that the whole universe in the world to come will be sustained by one Man and that can be our portion now?

S.W.H.R. It is not only sustained by His power but what He is in Himself. The whole universe will be characterised by that. That is the beauty of it.

G.R.C. So that we are completely satisfied in one Man.