The passage in Corinthians gives light as to how that final state is brought in

• – “then the end”.

• It is the eternal state – the eighth, the last, the great day of the feast.

• And then we have the affecting verse,
  • “then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”.

The passage in Revelation enlarges on the eternal condition.

• The narrative does not pause to develop the world to come, because the day of God is the great objective.

• It was the great objective to Peter. In his second epistle he, similarly, does not pause to develop the world to come; he just speaks of the day of the Lord as introducing the day of God.

• And so the narrative in Revelation 20 and 21, whilst speaking of those who live and reign with Christ a thousand years, hastens on.

• We know it returns to a description of the city in its millennial glory, but the narrative itself hastens on to the great end, when the One on the throne says,
  • “It is done”.

  Those words again imply sabbath. The words on the cross,

  • “It is finished”,

• involve a great sabbath, the completed work of Christ; but these words,
  • “It is done”,

• mean that all that God purposed, and which was to be based on Christ and His finished work, is fulfilled.

• And so the eternal rest is introduced, God having ceased from His labour because “It is done”.

Ques. Does John 17: 4 speak more of the Lord's manhood, and what He did in the body prepared; and verse 5 bring in His Deity?

G.R.C. The passage in Hebrews 10,

• “Thou hast prepared me a body” and “Lo, I come   to do, O God, thy will”,

• also refer to His Deity, in that He was speaking in pre-incarnate conditions.
  • He was saying, “Lo, I come”, not ‘I am sent’.

• It was His own act, an act which no one could have imposed upon Him, although in keeping with eternal purpose.

• But having come to do God's will, He was here as the sent One, because He had committed Himself to that will.

• He committed Himself to it in pre-incarnate Deity, where no obedience could have been imposed upon Him. But having said,
  • “Lo I come   to do, O God, thy will”,

• then having come, there was nothing for Him to do other than the will of God.

• And we have to note too, that in that passage He is visualising all the offerings by fire.
  • “Sacrifice and offering thou willedst not … thou tookest no pleasure in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin”.

• There are the four offerings called offerings by fire. There is the sacrifice of peace offerings, the oblation, the burnt offering, and the sin offering;
  • and it is a wonderful contemplation that, in pre-incarnate Deity, the Lord took it upon Himself to accept the body prepared,

• in order that, in the offering of that body, He might be the antitype of all four offerings by fire.

• I am stressing the fire; and who knew what the fire meant like He did? And that is what is involved in this word,
  • “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”.

• It was a great sacrificial work, involving the fire, in all that the fire meant.

• Only One who was a Divine Person could fully appreciate what the fire meant.

Ques. Is the work here the same as that referred to in chapter 4, when He says,

• “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”?

G.R.C. Chapter 4 may have more in view the bringing about of a completed product, a finished work in the sense of a worshipper, the woman being a sample.

Rem. The Lord goes on to speak of gathering fruit to life eternal, does He not, as if that were an objective, a completion to the work He had in mind?

G.R.C. So that, while we could not exclude from it the sacrificial work, it seems to have the harvest in view, do you think?

Ques. Would it have to do with the Father seeking worshippers – what the Father was doing, His work?

G.R.C. Yes. But I think in chapter 17 the Lord has primarily in mind the sacrificial work which was the basis of all else.

• It could not be excluded from what is said in chapter 4, because there could not be a worshipper, worshipping in spirit and truth, but for this basic work.

Ques. May I enquire as to the difference between this in chapter 17, which I take to be anticipative of His death, and in chapter 19: 30 when He was actually giving up His life? In each case He speaks of a finished work.

G.R.C. The two are closely linked. In one He is speaking to His Father anticipatively; and in the other He is speaking publicly, making a public pronouncement.

Ques. In finishing the work that the Father gave Him to do, did the Lord remove everything which was offensive, and bring in that which was for God's eternal pleasure?

G.R.C. That is what I understand. So typically, in Aaron going in, the blood having met all that was offensive, he goes in in a cloud of incense.

Ques. Would you say a word as to the oblation being referred to as an offering by fire?

G.R.C. In Leviticus 2: 9, it says,

• “The priest shall take from the oblation a memorial thereof, and shall burn it on the altar, an offering by fire to Jehovah of a sweet odour”,

• and in verse 10, “It is most holy of Jehovah's offerings by fire”.

• So that, not only was it tested in the various ways in which it was prepared – in the cauldron and the pan and so on – but the memorial of it was burnt on the altar, “an offering by fire to Jehovah of a sweet odour”.

Ques. In regard to the distinction between chapter 17 and chapter 19,

• you said chapter 19 was a public pronouncement; but would this be more for the intelligence of those whom the Lord calls “men” –
  • “the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”?

G.R.C. Quite so. I suppose we should include the whole service the Lord did on the earth, leading up to the great sacrifice.

• But from the outset His death was in mind: He came for that purpose. I think we have to keep before us the main thing.

• Other things were involved in His service, and He completed everything that the Father had given Him to do.

• But His committal,
  • “Lo, I come … to do, O God, thy will”,

• stood related to sacrifices and offerings and burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin; and without that basic work, nothing else could have stood.

• And all He did in the way of helping and securing men, had in view the fact that He was going to undertake this primary mission for which He had come.

Ques. The greatness of the hour is in mind here –

• “The hour is come”.

• He had referred to it in chapter 12,
  • “Father, save me from this hour. But on account of this have I come to this hour”.

• Are we to be impressed, as hearing the Lord speaking to the Father, by the magnitude of what is in mind to be accomplished?

G.R.C. That is important; the magnitude of this hour, the sacrificial hour!

Ques. Have you any thought as to why He should speak of it as completed in anticipation? He does not say, ‘I will complete’.

G.R.C. I think it is in the same way as He speaks anticipatively in chapter 13: 31;

• “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”.

• He is anticipating the cross.

Ques. Does that bring out the greatness of the Person who is speaking? If Divine Persons undertake to do something, it is as good as done, is it not?

G.R.C. Exactly. I think what you say as to the hour has to be kept in mind, lest we weaken this verse.

• It includes the completing of everything which He came to do; but do not let us lose sight of the immensity of the transaction of that hour,
  • and which was the primary purpose of His coming – “Lo, I come”, standing related, as I have said, to the four offerings by fire.

• That was the primary purpose of Christ's coming, and on which the carrying out of the purpose of God depended – “In the roll of the book it is written of me”.

Ques. That reference in chapter 12,

• “Father, save me from this hour”,

• would bring out the immensity of what was involved, would it not?

G.R.C. We need to take our shoes off our feet. It is holy ground to hear the Lord speaking to the Father thus –

• “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?”

• And then there is the cry from His heart – do not let us read it just like a sentence in a book –
  • “Father, save me from this hour”.

• It was a cry from His heart, an anguished cry. He meant what He was saying; He was feeding things deeply. “Father, save me from this hour”, He was facing the fire.

• And then He says,
  • “But on account of this have I come to this hour”.

• That again gives us the primary cause of His coming,
  • “On account of this have I come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name”.

Ques. Does that bring us back to the word, “now”, in chapter 13: 31? I was thinking of what is being stressed as to the hour;

• “Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him”;

• He was looking on to the moment when the work would be completed.

G.R.C. So a all these chapters are connected with the hour, as it says in chapter 13,

• “Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father”.

• It is that hour which is in mind.

Ques. Why is the thought of authority brought in in chapter 17, verse 2 –

• “As thou hast given him authority over all flesh”?

G.R.C. In view of the fulfilment of the purpose of God, I would say. The Son was given authority over all flesh;

• and in virtue of the completing of His work, He would have a free hand,

• so that as to all the Father had given Him He should give them life eternal. The purpose of God was going through.

Rem. The work could only be completed as the Lord Jesus went to the altar of burnt offering.

G.R.C. Quite so; by the eternal Spirit he offered himself without spot to God.

Ques. Does, “the hour”, stand in a certain contrast with the three hours of darkness in Matthew and Mark?

• The three hours of darkness on the cross in Matthew and Mark are the sufferings in an extended way,

• whereas we have here the concentration of Divine purpose in what was about to be accomplished.

G.R.C. The Lord speaks of this hour – “save me from this hour” – as covering it all.

• But then the next verse is remarkable, because it says,
  • “And now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the dory which I had along with thee before the world was”.

• He is asking for what is properly His – the glory of Deity.

• He is asking to be re-instated in the glory of Deity along with the Father, but basing it on the fact that the mission is fulfilled.

• He had said, “Lo, I come”; now the mission was fulfilled.

Ques. Would verse 4 emphasise His mediatorial glory, and verse 5 the glory which is proper to Him?

G.R.C. Quite so. Verse 5 is very important. Why should the Lord have said that in our hearing?

• It may be a glory which we cannot behold; but it is said in our hearing so that we might know that
  • Jesus is now glorified along with the Father with the glory which He had along with Him before the world was.

• For one thing, it helps us, in the understanding of the day of God, to know that Jesus is there.

Rem. So the footnote is, ‘Along with, as to presence and place’.

Ques. Does this link with the beginning of the gospel,

• “The word was with God, and the Word was God”?

G.R.C. Yes. There He was in pre-incarnate Deity; now He is glorified along with the Father, yet as retaining glorified manhood; and the work is finished.

• Verse 5 is introduced in a remarkable way, so that we should have no doubt about it. Though He is asking for things, He leaves us in no doubt as to His Deity.

• It would guard us from thinking that His expression,
  • “that they should know thee, the only true God”

• excluded Himself. As a man here it was right that He should address the Father as the only true God;
  • but the only true God there involves the exclusion of false gods, not the exclusion of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Rem. So that you have designedly said, “reinstated in the glory of Deity”, not ‘reinstated in Deity’.

G.R.C. Yes. The Lord Jesus never left Deity;

• “Subsisting in the form of God”, Philippians 2: 6.

• It does not say that He left the form of God.

Rem. So that before opposers in this gospel He says,

• “Before Abraham was, I am”.

G.R.C. That is an illustration of what is meant in Philippians 2, when it says,

• “Subsisting in the form of God, he did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God”.

• It is referring to the attitude He took up in manhood as seen in John's gospel – that He did not esteem it an object of rapine to assert that He was God; and His opponents knew that He was making that assertion.

• They tried to kill Him because He made Himself equal with God; but it was not an object of rapine on His part to do that; He was perfectly entitled to do it.

Ques. Does this link on with your last scripture, Revelation 21: 3,

• “God himself shall be with them, their God”?

• Does it give fulness to the mediatorship of Christ?

G.R.C. That is just what I thought. It helps us as to God Himself, and the fulness involved in that expression.

Rem. In the epistle, John says,

• “He is the true God, and eternal life”.

G.R.C. Yes, exactly. Now in chapter 19, there is the reference to the blood and water.

• While we are intended to get from it full comfort for our souls,
  • yet the Lord having said, “It is finished”, and the blood and water being the witness to a finished work,

• it will help us greatly to see what the blood and water mean for God.

Rem. So that, “It is finished”, goes farther than expiation as meeting the need of the sinner.

G.R.C. What is finished at this point is this great sabbath of atonement or reconciliation.

• He has made peace by the blood of His cross – made peace for the Fulness of the Godhead.

• John shows how the Fulness was moving. The Lord says,
  • “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me”,

• and the Spirit was abiding on Him. The Fulness was moving towards the cross, and the Fulness has made peace,
  • “by the blood of his cross”, Colossians 1: 20.

Rem. What the bowing of that head – verse 30 – must have meant for God!

G.R.C. Yes, “having bowed his head, he delivered up his spirit”, “having made peace by the blood of his cross”.

Ques. Why this remarkable word,

• “Jesus, knowing that all things were now finished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, says, I thirst”?

• I wondered if it disclosed something of the inward feelings of this blessed Person, looking, perhaps, for an immediate glorious answer from God.

G.R.C. Would it imply that He knew all that His soul had passed through; and that what He had passed through meant that the work of reconciliation was finished? Who could know it but Himself and God?

Ques. And is there not a suggestion of all the expectation as to the fruit of that work, in saying, “I thirst”?

Ques. Would the word in Isaiah 53 come in here at all,

• “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied”?

G.R.C. All He received at this time was vinegar. But then He is to receive, is He not, the full answer?

• Give me to drink”, He says in chapter 4.

Rem. And no one would know the full answer, like He did, in His outlook upon the blessed fruits of His incarnation and the completion of the will of God.

G.R.C. So that we have to keep in mind that,

• “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied”,

• involves in its fulness the great eternal sabbath.

Rem. I would think that.

G.R.C. The Lord does see of the fruit of the travail of His soul now, but let us keep the fulness of it in mind.

Ques. So that the great idea of Divine satisfaction is in mind here, is it not?

G.R.C. Yes; and it is remarkable that, in the last scripture we read, the word from the throne is,

• “I will give to him that thirsts”,

• as though God expects that, as He presents His testimony to men, and the Spirit works in them, thirst in accord with His own will be produced in the soul.

• It is not just the thirst of a perishing sinner, but a thirst which is in keeping with His own longings.

Rem. Thirsting for the full result!

G.R.C. That is it, thirsting for the new heaven and the new earth, thirsting for the day of God; and God says,

• “I will give to him … of the fountain of the water of life freely”.

• The One on the throne virtually says, ‘If your thirst is in accord with My thirst, then I will give you present satisfaction in the power of the Spirit. I will give you a present entrance into it’.

Ques. Is that the joy that was set before Him?

G.R.C. How can we limit that to anything short of the day of God, and love divine at rest?

Rem. “Blessed they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled”.

G.R.C. Quite so. Surely that is in accord with Divine thirst –

“new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness”.

Ques. Is there not a wonderful answer to Christ in the assembly now?

• “He shall drink of the brook by the way”.

• As He awaits the day of His rights being fully acknowledged, He has a present answer, and is Himself stimulated by it.

G.R.C. That is a great comfort; and that is where the Spirit's service comes in, that Divine Persons should not have to wait for the actual end.

• We think of ourselves getting a foretaste of eternity, but the Spirit is here that God Himself might have a foretaste of eternity –
  • that the Father and the Son and the Spirit might each have a foretaste of eternity.

• That is the great thing to have before us: we shall then certainly get our foretaste.

• The Spirit is here to make eternity present to us, so that God might Himself have a foretaste of it.

Ques. What is the force of the blood and the water being a witness of a work completed for God?

• Have we not thought that the blood is for God and the water for us? Could you help us on this?

G.R.C. The blood and the water both witness to a work completed for God, a complete work of atonement, or reconciliation.

• The water is essential for God as well as for us.

• The water puts out of God's sight for ever the man that is offensive to Him. The flood was water only, but Jesus came by water and by blood.

• In the flood, the end of all flesh came before God; and that man was submerged and put out of sight, except for those who were saved through water. They were saved through water.

• But in the cross of Christ, what was typified in the flood has taken place in actuality; and that man has gone from before the eye of God in judgment, never to be revived.

Ques. Why is the water put first in the epistle of John?

G.R.C. Because it is our side there. It is the witness to us in a special way in the epistle.

• “There are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood”.

• The witness is that God has given us eternal life.

• But the gospel is setting things out from the Divine side. Jesus says,
  • “It is finished”,

• a public declaration, but surely having in mind things finished for God.

• He had completed the work which God had given Him to do; and then the blood and the water bear witness to a work finished for God – a completed work.

• The work would not be complete without water, as well as blood;
  • the blood meets the claims of God's nature and throne, and the demands of His righteousness,

  • but the water for ever puts out of sight the man that was offensive.

Ques. Does Ephesians 1 show how the blood fits into the scheme of Divine purpose?

• “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences”.

• Is that the solution for God, in regard to how man was found in actuality, that is, the blood enabling God's purpose to stand and go through?

G.R.C. Even there it is on our side – what we have. But Colossians 1 is,

• “Having made peace by the blood of his cross”;

• that is peace for the Fulness; and even our reconciliation in Colossians 1 is for the sake of the Fulness, that He might,
  • “present you holy and unblamable and irreproachable before it” – before the Fulness.

• So that Colossians 1 is specifically what is done for the Fulness, and, I believe, links with this passage in John. It is the only epistle which gives, “the blood of his cross”.

Rem. In Acts 20 there is the thought of purchasing the assembly with,

• “the blood of his own”,

• and that is the 'middle voice'. The glory is reflected back on God; purchased for His own glory, really.

G.R.C. Very good.

Ques. Would you please say why the blood and the water come from a dead Christ? Does it accentuate the thought of what is finished?

G.R.C. I think it does. The blood and the water flowed from the side of a dead Christ, a witness to a work completed.

• We know that burial was also necessary in the vicarious work, but what is said here has in view the completed work.

• The water links, in a way, with burial. Our baptism is connected with the water. It is the man put out of sight.

Ques. And was it not essential that the life was given, and not taken?

• “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself”.

• So that the blood was the witness to a work already accomplished.

G.R.C. Quite so. The blood and water coming from His side is one of the signs of John's gospel.

Ques. Would you say a word as to that wonderful sentence,

• “He delivered up his spirit”.

• In Luke He says,
  • “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit”.

• Is it here essentially His own act?

G.R.C. I think so, linking on with John 17 – who the Person is, why He had come, and that His mission was completed.

We ought now to pass on. I do not think we need enlarge on Ephesians 1: 10;

• “the administration of the fulness of times”

• gives a link with the full harvest. God acquires fruit from every dispensation, so the word is in the plural, “the fulness of times”.

• The harvest from every time is, as it were, gathered in and displayed. It links with the feast of tabernacles.

• In the world to come God will display the harvest of every dispensation.

• But then, the feast of tabernacles merges, typically, into the eternal state, and I believe that is involved in Ephesians 1, verses 9 and 10.

Ques. Would there be a link with the “age of ages” in chapter 3?

G.R.C. The “age of ages” is eternity, is it not? It is an age composed of ages.

• I think we need to see that what is displayed in the millennium, the fruit of all the work of God from the beginning of time, passes into the eternal state.

• So that you can understand the feast of tabernacles embracing both ideas.

• The seven days of the feast link, no doubt, with the millennial day of display;

• and the eighth, which is called in John's gospel,
  • “the last, the great day of the feast”,

• would represent the eternal day.

Ques. As to the world to come merging into the eternal state, I was thinking of 1 Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter, and the transference from conditions in the world to come to eternal conditions.

• Does 1 Corinthians 15 describe the resurrection power by which this transference will be made?

G.R.C. Yes. As to the families blessed on earth in the millennial reign, some change would have to take place,

• because it says in that chapter that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God,

• and there will be those blessed in flesh and blood conditions on earth in the millennial day.

• Scripture does not enlighten us as to how and when the change will be, but it is evident that every saved company will be transferred into the eternal condition where flesh and blood has no place.

Ques. Would you understand that we will be taken into eternal conditions when the Lord takes us? Hence the assembly will be in eternal conditions in the millennial day?

G.R.C. Yes. There is no further change in the assembly, so far as one apprehends, from the time the Lord comes, as to which it says,

• “Thus we shall be always with the Lord” 1 Thessalonians 4: 17.

• The assembly reaches her eternal condition before the millennium; and I think that is another reason why the narrative in Revelation runs right on to the eternal state,
  • and then describes the city as displayed in the millennium, because we of the assembly reach eternal conditions before the millennium.

Ques. Does that not raise an interesting matter as to God bringing eternal things forward into time, anticipating the coming down of the city in testimony at the present time?

G.R.C. It is remarkable that the great objective is the day of God.

• While in the scene of testimony here, we are looking for Christ's appearing, and are holding the ground until He come, and longing for the time when He will be vindicated on this earth where He was rejected;
  • yet the outlook of the Christian is to the day of God, as manifested in Peter's writings.

• You might say, Peter is a kingdom man, he would surely be looking for the millennium; but when he comes to the end of his life,
  • he passes over the millennium and speaks of the day of God, and the day of the Lord as introducing the day of God.

• He regards the millennium, which is included in the day of the Lord, as just on the way to it; and he says
  • we are “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God”. He says

  • “We wait for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness” 2 Peter 3: 13.

Ques. Is that what the Spirit of God has in mind in introducing the first five verses of Revelation 21 before the millennial day?

G.R.C. Yes. We are to have that as our objective.

Ques. In John 7, when they were going up to the feast of tabernacles, the Lord said,

• “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready”.

• Does, “My time has not yet come” refer to the millennium?

G.R.C. Yes, “the fulness of times” is the anti-type of the feast of tabernacles, and the millennial side of it will be Christ's time, or Christ's day.

• The millennium is the day of Christ. Christ, in His greatness, and in His official glories, will have great prominence.

• But, in the day of God, the official glories of Christ will recede. Everything will give way to the glory and greatness of God Himself.

• The mediatorial kingdom, in other words, comes to an end.

Ques. Is that 1 Corinthians 15: 24?

• “Then the end, when he gives up the kingdom to him who is God and Father, when he shall have annulled all rule”.

G.R.C. I think that.

Ques. Do you carry the thought of the day of the Lord through the millennium?

G.R.C. As I understand it, the day of the Lord begins when the Lord appears and deals with the man of sin; so that it begins with judgment,

• and includes the reign of peace, the day of Christ, the thousand years reign;

• and it also includes the period following that, which is again a period of judgment.

Rem. So that it says,

• “In which the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise”, and so on – 2 Peter 3: 10.

G.R.C. Yes. Peter is not distinguishing between the judgments before the millennium and the judgments after the millennium.

• He is just looking at the day of the Lord, as a whole, as a preliminary to the day of God.

• Actually, that period – the day of the Lord – includes a thousand years reign of peace under Christ.

Rem. All prepares the way for the day of God – “then the end” – the day of the Lord running through.

Rem. Where the term, “day of the Lord”, is used, it is usually in a judicial setting. And so it emphasises the period from just prior to the setting up of the millennium to the day of God.

G.R.C. And included in it, as a comprehensive period, is the day of Christ, a day of peace.

Rem. 1 Corinthians 15: 25 would confirm that –

• “He must reign until he put all enemies under his feet”.

G.R.C. That is just it, so that this passage would be an inclusive idea.

• He establishes His kingdom. He also gives up the kingdom; but not until He has annulled all rule, all authority, and power. 1 Corinthians 15: 28.

• The Lord will complete the matter.

Ques. I was going to ask a question as to 1 Corinthians 5. It speaks there of

• the “day of the Lord Jesus”.

• What would that be, and what would it involve?

G.R.C. I would say it is the way a Christian views the day of the Lord.

• He views it as knowing the Person, and having Him in supreme affection in his heart.

• And the fact that it says that the spirit of the one who had sinned might be saved in that day shows that the day of the Lord Jesus includes the judicial idea.

• Even we have to appear before the judgment seat of the Christ, and Paul says,
  • “the Lord, the righteous Judge”

• will give him a crown of righteousness in that day.

• But then the judicial activities of the Lord usher in the day of Christ, the reign of peace, when all Christ's official glories as Man, vast as they are, will be in full display;
  • all that He is, as the Christ, the Son of man, the Priest of the Most High God, the Son of David – all the great offices which He fills will be displayed in resplendent glory.

• But then the time comes when He gives up the mediatorial kingdom to Him who is God and Father – the One who gave it to Him; and it says further down,
  • “when all things shall have been brought into subjection to him, then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him”.

• That is to say, as I understand it, the Son is no longer prominent as filling those great offices. He remains the great Mediator, the One in whom God is expressed, but the mediatorial kingdom is no longer needed.

• The great offices have fulfilled their function; and so His robes of office, as it were, are no longer occupying the gaze of the universe.

• All now gives way to what He is as representing God.

• It is the same Person, but what He is as the Image of the invisible God, the effulgence of God's glory and the expression of His substance; so that God is all in all.

Ques. Would you say a word as to “God's kingdom”? – verse 50.

G.R.C. I think that bears on what we are saying, because He gives up the kingdom to Him who is God and Father.

• It does not mean that the kingdom comes to an end; but He gives up the kingdom which He has received, that is, the mediatorial kingdom, to Him who is God and Father;
  • so that it becomes, in a particular way then, God's kingdom. God is the great King.

• And it says flesh and blood cannot inherit it, which shows that, in that verse, it is not referring to the millennium, because flesh and blood will be inheriting things in the millennium on the earth.

• But it is looking on to the eternal kingdom of God, as we see it in Revelation 21: 1-5.

• There is the Great King on the throne, but from that kingdom flesh and blood is excluded.

Ques. Would you say a word, please, as to Hebrews 1: 8,

• “Thy throne, O God, is to the age of the age”?

G.R.C. I would say that primarily links with the millennium, because while the official glories of Christ as Man will be prominent in the millennium, all will recognise His deity.

• I think, really, that that is the millennial throne, but I speak subject to correction.

Ques. Would Revelation 21 help in regard to what you are saying? We have the title “Lamb” emphasised in the millennial day,

• but in the first seven verses of chapter 21 it is God who is emphasised, is it not?

G.R.C. That is important. In the first seven verses of Revelation 21, it is God – not God and the Lamb, but God.

• But when you come to the millennial view of the city, the throne of God and the Lamb is in it.

• While God and the Lamb are so linked that, sometimes, only a singular pronoun is used
  • – without distinguishing which One is being referred to, because it is never forgotten that the Lamb is God –

• yet the glories of the Lamb are prominent in the millennial clay.

• But, in the eternal day, it just says in verse 5,
  • “And he that sat on the throne said”.

• You will notice how these things are put in Revelation. It is just “He”. It does not say, “the Lamb”, because that would bring out a personal glory of Christ.

• It just says, “He that sat on the throne”. We know Who He is, but nothing personal to Himself is brought forward.

• He is sitting on the throne, as we may say, as the great Representative of God.

Ques. Do you think the thought of God in representation, must be equal to God in revelation? It brings us, does it not, as near as possible to God sitting on the throne.

G.R.C. It does, because we know that it is Jesus there. But it is just “He”.

• No glory personal to Himself is brought forward, so that there may be nothing to obscure the glory, majesty and greatness of God, as God, expressed in that blessed Person.

Ques. How does the manhood of Jesus bear on all that is now being said?

G.R.C. “He that sat on the throne” is a Man. It says, in the previous chapter,

• “From whose face the earth and the heaven fled”.

Ques. So you are just stressing that it is the official glories of Christ which recede?

G.R.C. Yes, the official glories of Christ, which we delight in. We shall never forget them.

• They will ever be cherished by the assembly, but will no longer be in evidence in the same way.

• The glorious Man is unchanged; but He is the great Representative, or Image, of God; and the majesty of God is expressed in Him, as well as the glory of God, in such a manner that it says,
  • “From whose face the earth and the heaven fled, and place was not found for them”.

• What majesty is implied in that statement!

Ques. Is that borne out somewhat in verse 6 – the absolute sovereignty of this glorious Person?

• “He said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega”.

• You would be connecting that with what is finished?

G.R.C. Yes; that is the great sabbath.

Ques. Does it include all that is operational now – not only what is sacrificial, but every kind of operation?

G.R.C. That is what I had in mind. It is not only now what is sacrificial, but all the operations which are based on what is sacrificial, the whole of the new creational operations.

• The One on the throne says, “It is done”. God is speaking; but He is speaking in the Person of Jesus.

Ques. Do you regard the new heavens and the new earth as the last of the new creational operations?

G.R.C. It looks like that. God is already preparing the personnel to fill it.

Rem. It is rather different from the first creation. He began with the heavens and earth, and then man on the sixth day, as we know, and the woman.

• But in regard of the new creation, he has all the men who will fill that new heavens and new earth before He brings it in, it would appear.

Ques. Would you mind saying what you would include in the expression,

• “the world to come”?

G.R.C. I had thought of it as the millennial age.

Ques. While we were speaking of these wonderful days, and wonderful unfoldings of what God is doing, I was wondering what you would include in that expression.

• It is spoken of as the age introduced by the Messiah, is it not? I wondered if you would include more than the millennium?

G.R.C. It is worth thinking about. It is undoubtedly the millennial day which Hebrews has primarily in mind –

• “the world to come, of which we speak”.

• But when you think of the feast of tabernacles typifying the millennial age as merging into eternity, it may be we should not be too limited in our thoughts as to the expression, “the world to come”.

Ques. How can we hasten the coming of the day of God?

• I thought that if we were found here now in full accord with the thoughts and mind of God, and with the spiritual formation in us which will come out in that day, we would be hastening it on.

G.R.C. I am sure that is so; and we would get foretastes of it. We would hasten it even in that sense.

Ques. Does verse 7 bear on that?

• “He that overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be to him God”.

G.R.C. Yes. It is a present foretaste of eternity.

Ques. Keeping sabbath would fit into what has been said about hastening the day, would it not?

G.R.C. I think it would. The great end in view, in this series of readings, is that we may all, without fail, observe and keep God's sabbaths.

There is no greater privilege for young people than to have this objective before them. There is nothing like it worth living for.

• Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit nor tempt God by having any less objective in our lives. But let us move on to the full apprehension of God and of His purpose.

• Let every young person commit himself to this.

If you want an example of it, look at Joshua, the son of Nun.

• The word ‘Nun’ means continuance, and Joshua was a man who continued with the testimony from the beginning to the end.

• He was a man in whom was the Spirit, and yet he had not the Spirit in the way you have Him. In your day the Spirit is not given by measure.

• You are more favoured than Joshua, more favoured than Solomon. Would to God that every one here realised how favoured he is!

• As having the Spirit, you are capacitated in a far greater way than Joshua to follow the testimony through.

• When Moses pitched the tent outside the camp, it is said he
  • – Joshua – “departed not from within the tent”, Exodus 33: 11.

• Think of a young man like that! The testimony was there, and he would not leave it.

• And when the first warfare occurred in the wilderness, Moses knew whom to turn to. He said to Joshua,
  • “Choose us men”, Exodus 17: 9;

• yet he was a young man. Do not let the young people think that they have a secondary place in the testimony.

• Youth according to God, including young men and young women, is always in primary demand in the testimony.

• It was the youths of the children of Israel in Exodus 24 who, under Moses' direction, though not appointed priests, initiated the service of God, offering up burnt offerings and sacrifices of peace offerings of bullocks to Jehovah.

• It is always God's way to bring forward young men and young women whom He approves and to present them in testimony. It is such that He would present to the world, to show what He has got.

• So we would say to every young man and young; woman here, The Lord has need of you in the testimony;
  • and on your side, if you commit yourself to the testimony, you have a glorious prospect before you;

• not a wasted life, but a life filled out, every day bringing its own privileges and wealth. Every day counts in this glorious pathway.

• The apostles taught daily in the temple and Paul taught daily in the school of Tyrannus. Christianity is a daily matter.

• Assembly matters are weekly, but matters of the testimony, and matters of movement, are daily.

• And so the Holy Spirit is speaking;
  • He says, “Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”, Hebrews 3: 7.

• Joshua was a young man who heeded the voice all along the line. He was Moses' attendant, as others in the New Testament are spoken of as
  • “eye-witnesses of and attendants on the Word”, Luke 1: 2.

• They were those who kept as close to Jesus as they could. Joshua was as near to Moses as he could be, even on the mount with God; no wonder he went right through.

• Keep near to spiritual men; above all keep as near as possible to the Lord Jesus.

• The Holy Spirit is drawing attention to Him.
  • “Today, if ye will hear his voice”

• – that is the voice of the Son over God's house, the voice of God through the Son. God is speaking all the time.

• I would press upon myself and my brethren the need for what is daily – we cannot afford to miss a day – time is too precious.

• The goal to be reached is too attractive; we do not want to lose a day in moving on to what belongs to full growth.

So, it is a question of today. You may say, ‘How does the voice reach us?’ Well, it reaches us through ministry from the ascended Head:

• “He has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints … with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ; until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man”, Ephesians 4: 11-13.

• So we need to have our ears open to what God is saying to us in the ministry.

But then, there is what is exceedingly precious, the voice from off the mercy-seat.

• Moses went in to speak with God, and he heard a voice speaking to him from off the mercy seat, from between the cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony.

• So, dear young people, frequent the holiest; be often in the presence of God – be ready for divine communications there. He says,
  • “There will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee”, Exodus 25: 22.

• What will God speak to you about there? He will speak to you about Himself, and His thoughts and purposes, all of which centre in Christ;
  • He will give you great enlargement as to the end to which He is leading His people.

• That is a daily matter: “Today, if ye will hear his voice”. As I said, Joshua departed not from within the tent.

But then, there were those who were not prepared to move on. You will notice that I have been speaking of moving on with the testimony because that is what is in mind.

• Hebrews 3 and 4 have in mind the movements of the tabernacle in the wilderness, the tabernacle of testimony.
  • “Christ, as Son over his house”

• means the tabernacle. It merged eventually in the house Solomon built, but it is the tabernacle that is initially in mind –
  • “Whose house are we”;

• and the tabernacle of witness is on the move. There are periods when it is stationary, but we never know when it is going to move.

• In Numbers 9, where it speaks of its movements, a number of periods of time are mentioned: If the cloud abode one day or two days, or if it tarried from evening till morning, or if it abode a month, or many days.

• We never know, therefore, when the next move will be. You may say, ’I think all the truth is out’. But we cannot afford to say that; God unfolds fresh things to us –
  • “What the Spirit says to the assemblies”, Revelation 2 and 3

• – which involve a movement of the cloud, and the Levites set to work and the tabernacle is taken up and moved. What a busy time it is! all the Levites occupied in moving the whole system a stage forward in the truth.

• Then the tabernacle is set up again, and the saints are serving God again as priests according to the fresh unfoldings given.

• All the Levitical work is done in order that the priests may be able to serve according to the fresh aspect of the truth that God is emphasising.

• The tabernacle is set up again and the service proceeds enriched by the new move.

• And you say, ‘Well, we must have reached finality now’. We cannot afford to say that. The cloud may move again. It may only stay from evening to morning.

• Tomorrow it may move again, or it may stay two days, or it may be a longer time, so that we have to be on the alert. It is
  • “Today, if ye will hear his voice”;

• our eyes open to see the cloud, and our ears open to hear the trumpet bringing the command to move. How alert we need to be spiritually!

• There are those who, as we know, have not been prepared to move, all through the history of the revival.

• As one phase of the truth after another has been opened up, there have been those who have said, ‘No, we are not prepared to move any further. We believe we know all that there is to know, and we will not move from here’.

• And they are left behind. The camp moves on. The tabernacle of witness moves on.

• You may say to me, ‘Do not those persons belong to the house of God?’ Well, I am not going to say they do not, but Scripture says,
  • “whose house are we, if we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end”.

• That is, the house, the tabernacle, is moving on, and I am to maintain the boldness and the boast of hope and move on with it – proving thus that I belong to it.

• In this dispensation, we form not only the military men encamped around the tabernacle, and the Levites who encircled it, and the priests who were closer still,
  • but we as among all those true believers in Christ who have the Spirit are the tabernacle itself, – “whose house are we”.

• And how can I prove that I am part of the house if I have allowed it to move on and have stayed behind myself?

• If I am to be here as a testimony for God, I am to be here in a manner which proves that 1 am part of it; I am moving on with it, and I would not consider dropping out.

• How could I, if I understand that word, “whose house are we”? How can I let the house go on and I remain behind – an integral part of it left behind!

But then there is something worse than that involved.

• If I allow the tabernacle of witness to move on, and do not move with it, I am turning away from the living God.

• God is dwelling there. God is going before His people.
  • “When thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness”, Psalm 68: 7.

• God is going through the wilderness, in His house.
  • “I will dwell among them, and walk among them”, 2 Corinthians 6: 16.

• God is walking through the wilderness. God is moving on. He is moving on in relation to His house, His dwelling. So we are told:
  • “See, brethren, lest there be in any one of you a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God”, Hebrews 3: 12.

• If I turn away from the latest phase of God-given truth, the voice of God at the moment, it is not simply that I am turning away from the saints, nor only that I am turning away from the tabernacle of witness.

• I am turning away from the living God, as it says,
  • “Ye are the living God's temple”

• – that is the temple of the tabernacle –
  • “Ye are the living God's temple; according as God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among them”.

Let us then, dear brethren, watch ourselves and one another, to see that not one of us develops

• “a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God”, a most dreadful thing!

• We know of some who, with the glorious prospect before them of a life lived in relation to the testimony, as part of the tabernacle of testimony in which the living voice of God is heard every day,
  • have turned aside to the vain things of the world, having developed “a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God”.

• God hates idolatry.
  • “I, Jehovah thy God, am a jealous God”.

  • And in Exodus 34: 14 He says, “For thou shalt worship no other God; for Jehovah – Jealous is his name – is a jealous God”.

• We have to do with such a God as that! It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; it is a fearful thing to set up a rival in your heart to the living God whose name is Jealous.

• He will have the last word, and beware as to what that last word may be!

I have spoken of young people, but then, alas, we have known of older men and women, long in the testimony, refusing to move any further. Why?

• “A wicked heart of unbelief” the scripture calls it.

• It is not just a question of turning away from the saints of God, nor even turning away from the tabernacle of witness, serious as that is, but from the One who dwells in it; turning away from the living God.

In the light of all this, God would bring home forcibly to us, through the inspired writer of this Epistle – Paul –, the exhortation,

• “Wherefore, leaving the word of the beginning of the Christ, let us go on”.

• That is, let us be ready to move with the living God in every movement of the testimony, every movement of the cloud.

• God is going on to completion, and we are to move with Him to the completion of all that He has in mind to bring out in this time of testimony.

• Let us go on, dear brethren, to the end.

I would say a word as to food. He speaks of some who were such as had need of milk, and not of solid food.

• One would desire that every one of us might become capable of assimilating solid food.

• When we are young we need milk, and, of course, milk is suitable in human affairs at any time of life. We do not despise milk, but we do not want to live on milk only; you cannot do a man's work on milk.

• For adults, milk alone is invalid diet. God would encourage the youngest believer to move on to solid food.

• Even in human affairs a babe does not limit itself to milk for very long; it soon begins to take solid food. And I will tell you the difference spiritually between milk and solid food.

• Milk is Christ in relation to my need. I need Him as my Saviour, my Shepherd, my helper; let me appropriate Him thus.

• But solid food is Christ apprehended in relation to God, and what He has done for God.

• The writer desired these Hebrew Christians to appropriate Him thus; he longed to speak to them of the work of Christ from the standpoint of what it had effected for God.

• We think so much of ourselves; thank God that Christ died for us! Thank God He bore our sins!

• But, in going on to full growth, it is a question of apprehending the full scope of the work of Christ; what He has done for God.

• Again, we often think of what He is to us – most blessed – but think of what He is personally to God!

• Think of Him also as the Centre of the great anointed system in which God will rest for ever! So God would have us to appropriate solid food.

• I think perhaps the Spirit of God has been giving us some solid food these three days, and I trust the youngest believer here has been able to assimilate it.

• Solid food, strong meat, brings strength into the soul to continue in the path of testimony.

Now I pass on to the test of the word of God. It says,

• “the word of God is living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword”.

• You might not have thought that. The example I have read is the word of God as it came through Caleb and Joshua. That is what is referred to in Hebrews 4,
  • “we have had glad tidings presented to us, even as they also”.

• The actual reference is to the glad tidings of the land, the glad tidings of the purpose of God, preached to the people by Caleb and Joshua.

• And what is Caleb's word? In Numbers 13: 30 it says,
  • “Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up boldly and possess it”.

• That was the word of God at the moment, coming through a brother, one of whom it says,
  • “my servant Caleb – hath another spirit in him, and hath followed me fully”.

  • “The word of God is living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword”,

• and it exposed the state of the people. It penetrated to the joints and marrow. There were still Egyptian tastes with them.

• They had not yet apprehended the greatness of the God Who was in their midst. It exposed their whole state to the very roots.

• So positive ministry, as based on the scripture, though containing nothing harsh but only encouragement, yet cuts right down to the depths of our being, because it is the word of God.

• It tests what is there, whether God is really supreme, whether we really give Him credit for all that He is as God; because, if God is amongst us, we should fear nobody.

• The other spies spoke of the difficulties; but God is among us. God is marching through the wilderness; God is going before us.

• There is no excuse for not moving if God is with us. It is just that wicked heart of unbelief that has no taste for the land nor confidence in God.

• At the end of Romans 8 Paul says,
  • “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature …”.

• We have to remember that, whatever may be against us, it is only a creature, all the opposition is simply creature opposition.

• And who is with us? The living God! What is creature opposition compared with the living God?

So let us give heed to the word of God tonight. God is saying to us,

• “Let us go on to full growth”.

• You say, ‘Oh, you do not know my difficulties’. I do not mind what the difficulties are. If you want to go on to full growth, if your heart is set that way, there is nothing that can stop you.

• Nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then in chapter 14 of Numbers Joshua joins with Caleb;

• it says: “They spoke to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it out is a very, very good land”.

• Now here are two full-grown men, who had their senses exercised to discern good and evil – Hebrews 5: 14 – men who had partaken of solid meat. These were not men who had fed only on milk.

• They had some apprehension, typically, of Christ as the Centre of the scene of glory, and therefore their senses were exercised to discern good and evil.

• It puts the good first. And Joshua and Caleb testified that the land was very, very good.

• Men who are with God can speak of what is good, and what is very good, and what is very, very good. Such is their discernment.

• And so the word of Joshua and Caleb in Numbers 14 was also the word of God for the moment, but the people rebelled, and when they rebelled it says,
  • “The glory of Jehovah appeared in the tent of meeting”.

• The God who was dwelling and walking amongst them manifested His presence. He it was they were sinning against; He it was they were doubting.

• It was His objective that they were not prepared to make their objective, in spite of the fact that
  • He went “before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night”, Numbers 14: 14.

• What a favoured people! Yet they refused to go forward with such a God!

May the Lord help us not to refuse the word. Hebrews 4 refers to this very incident when it speaks of those who fell through not hearkening to the word.

• Let us, then, go forward, beloved brethren. If we go on, we are going on with God, and filling our part in that house of which it says, “whose house are we”.

• As we go along with the testimony thus, we have access to the holiest every day. So it says,
  • “We enter into the rest who have believed”, Hebrews 4: 3.

• We are going on the full rest of God, but day by day we have access to the holiest, as we move along with the living God.

• In the holiest we anticipate that rest, according to the measure of our growth at the moment. It should be characteristic of us thus to enter into rest.

• We should be continually going into God's presence, getting His viewpoint, and anticipating with Him that full and final rest to which we are moving. What a favour to be moving on thus with the testimony!

One word more as to arriving at completion, or full growth. God does not rest short of completion.

• If we stopped at the fourth day of Genesis, the Pentecostal testimony, the sun, the moon and the stars, we would not arrive at God's full thought. We have to go on to the sixth day.

• We carry along the Pentecostal truth with us; we do not leave it behind; but we have to go on to Paul's ministry, Christ and the assembly;
  • Christ as the Image of God, and the assembly as His counterpart, His fulness, before we can apprehend the rest of God.

• So that going on to full growth involves going on to Paul's ministry – Paul's ministry as supported by Peter and confirmed by John.

Similarly if we take the sabbatical years, to arrive at completion we have to go through the seven sevens to the year of jubilee,

• typical of God resting in His love and rejoicing over His people with singing; every one in his place in the inheritance.

• And if we take the feasts, we have to go on to the seventh month. It is not a question of stopping short at the feast of weeks,
  • but of moving on to the seventh month – Paul's ministry, the whole counsel of God, the full scope of the work of reconciliation typified in the day of atonement, and finally the feast of tabernacles.

I read the scripture in 2 Chronicles 5 because it says,

• “And all the men of Israel assembled themselves to the king at the feast, that of the seventh month”, 2 Chronicles 5: 3.

• That is the feast of tabernacles. They had arrived at the seventh month, and you get here what you could not get in Leviticus 23, the bringing up of the ark.

• It happened at the feast of tabernacles, the full rest of God typically.
  • “This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it”, Psalm 132: 14.

• What a feast of tabernacles this was!

• You will notice this is the last movement of the tabernacle of testimony. It says,
  • “And all the elders of Israel came; and the Levites took up the ark, And they brought up the ark, and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent”, verses 4-5.

• The tabernacle of testimony was merged in the splendour of the house that Solomon built. It was the last move. We see the anti-type in Revelation,
  • “The temple of the tabernacle of witness in the heaven was opened”, Revelation 15: 5.

• We see there the tabernacle of witness as having reached heaven, and later the holy city comes down out of heaven. The one merges into the other.

What a scene of completion! The ark and the whole tabernacle system brought up; the tent of meeting and all the vessels in it incorporated in the glorious structure upon Mount Zion, as to which God says,

• “This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it”.

• And Solomon's word is, “Jehovah Elohim”. He thus refers back to Genesis 1 and 2 to the God who brought in His rest there, a rest that was marred by sin;

• but the use of the title Jehovah Elohim here implies that, in what is represented typically, God has achieved His end. Solomon says,
  • “Now, arise Jehovah Elohim, into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, Jehovah Elohim, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in thy goodness”, 2 Chronicles 6: 41.

As we move along with the living God and His tabernacle of testimony down here, we shall find that,

• concurrently with our wilderness experiences, we shall get experiences of the seventh month, the rest of God in glorious conditions.

• In our histories, wilderness and land history to some extent run on concurrently,
  • and the more we follow the tabernacle of witness, and follow up every fresh unfolding of the truth with God in the scene of testimony,

• the more we shall grasp the great thoughts of God as to finality.

May the Lord help us. May we, both old and young, leaving the word of the beginning of the Christ, go on to what belongs to full growth. And I would say again,

• “Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”.

And now as to the question of growth: it is evident that although babyhood is a normal stage in growth, God does not intend us to remain in that stage.

• And in the writing to the little children, John writes in a very encouraging way: he says they had an unction from the Holy One and they knew all things.

• Now, that is the first great aid God has given us with regard to growth: we must all begin as babes, but even babes in the family of God have received an unction from the Holy One.

• We all have the anointing from the Holy Spirit; the word unction means anointing, but John is speaking of the inwardness of the anointing.

• Other writers usually speak of the public side of it; the priests were anointed of old – it says
  • “your anointing shall be to you an everlasting priesthood”.

• God had anointed His priests so that all they did might be marked by holy fragrance, the holy anointing oil, the perfume after the work of the perfumer; so that they might be worthy of Him as His priests.

• That is only typical, of course, but the Holy Spirit affords the holy anointing to us so that as we move, act and speak in the power of the Holy Spirit,
  • there is fragrance and a dignity marking the movements, the actions and the words

• which prove to those who hear and see that they are in the presence of those who represent God; there is the fragrance and the dignity of the anointing.

But what is outward must spring from what is inward, and John has in mind the inwardness of it, because

• inwardly the Holy Spirit affords to each one of us holy and priestly sensibilities which are the effect of the anointing.

• The priest has discernment; we can think of spiritual sensibilities as corresponding with our normal or physical sensibilities. There are five senses, but the Spirit would give us those sensibilities in a spiritual way.

• It says of God that He smelt a sweet odour of rest; the Spirit would give us the sense of smell; and every Christian who has the Spirit has it, we have received the unction from the Holy One.

• The babes in the family of God have a true sense of smell; they know whether what they are hearing or seeing is marked by a sweet odour; in their measure they have the sensibilities of God Himself.

• So there is the smelling, the hearing, the seeing and the tasting and the touching; and however young we may be in the faith we have an unction from the Holy One, and in that sense we know all things.

• That does not mean that we know all things in the sense of doctrine; we may know next to nothing, but we know all things in the sense of having the capacity to test everything we see and hear, to say whether it is of God.

• The idea of it is
  • “We have an unction from the Holy One”;

• we do not need anyone to teach us. And so he says further down:
  • “Yourselves, the unction which ye have received from him abides in you and ye have no need that anyone should teach you”.

• That does not mean that we do not need teachers to teach us the doctrine; what it means is that the youngest in the family of God does not need anyone teach him or her what is true and what is a lie, what is good and what is bad.

• You get the illustration in a human babe. When a human babe is born you present milk to it; it knows straight-way – it does not need anyone to teach it that that milk is good; it is what the child needs at that age and it takes it readily.

• But if you present something else to the child it rejects it; nobody has taught it to do these things, God has taught it. God has given the babe in a human family the sensibilities – the babe knows what is good for it and what is not good for it in that sense.

• And so spiritually we have an unction from the Holy One and we do not need anyone to teach us; and so it goes on to say:
  • “and as the same unction teaches you as to all things”.

• We need teachers to teach us things, but the unction teaches us as to all things; that is it enables us to discern in effect what is of God and what is not of God.

• The youngest believer, if he relies upon the Holy Spirit, is protected; you may say ‘How are all these young people going to get on – there are so many misleading doctrines in the world?’

• Well, if the young people rely on the Holy Spirit – for they have an unction from the Holy One – and not on their minds, but just rely upon the sensibilities that the Holy Spirit gives them, they will be preserved.

• The cleverest sermon, if it is not according to the truth and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they will reject it; they will say, ‘Well, I could not refute what the speaker was saying as I do not know enough of the scriptures, but I know it was wrong’; that is sufficient and that is how a young believer is protected.

• He does not need anyone to teach him in that sense, he knows what is right and what is wrong.

One would encourage young believers here; do cherish your links with the Holy Spirit; you have received from Him the unction, the capacity to discern what is of God and what is not of God, what is the truth and what is a lie.

• You have the capacity to discern everything that is presented to you which purports to be ministry and to judge of it.

• But then it is not God's mind to leave you there; He wants you yourself to become intelligent, so that later on if you hear something taught that the unction tells you is wrong,
  • because of the very spirit that marks the man, because of the very odour,

• God expects you as time goes on not only to be able to detect that it is wrong, but to be able to tell the one who speaks where he is wrong.

• That is, the young men – you: it says
  • “I write to you young men because ye are strong and the word of God abides in you”.

• If a babe in the family of God relies on the holy unction, he is preserved from all error. I am preserved from all error, and I am taking in the truth always
  • – I am taking in the pure and mental milk of the word – and as time goes on I get to know the doctrine and the word of God abides in me,

• and now if someone comes along with error, not only that I reject it because of the unction, but I know where the man is wrong.

• I can go up to him and say ‘That is where you are wrong; what you are saying is not according to scripture’; that is a great thing, and God expects you to develop like that.

• It is not a question of gift in that respect, but we should all be guardians of the truth in our localities in that way.

• I am not proposing to go any further with the passage in John; the idea of growth goes right on to the fathers and we should not put off development in fatherhood too late; it is not only for the old brothers.

• The Apostles were not old men, but they were ‘fathers’; they looked after three thousand converts in the most fatherly way. They were not old men then; they knew Him that is from the beginning.

Now I pass on to Ephesians, because we come there to another divine provision for our growth, and that is the ministry.

• And it is remarkable that this passage is prefaced by “to each one of us”, lest we should become clerical; there is no such thing as clergy in the Divine thought.

• So the passage begins with
  • “to each one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ”.

• Everything is measured, as we had in Romans this afternoon:
  • “God has dealt to each a measure of faith”;

• everything is measured so that the body is perfectly balanced from the Divine standpoint.

• “To each one of us”; you will find that every time it speaks of each one, the body is in mind; no one is out of it.

• And so it says in Romans 12:
  • “each one members one of another”

  • and in 1 Corinthians 12, “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for profit”.

• Each one, the Spirit is not going to leave you out; He has some function for you to fill. It is a body idea,
  • he is “given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ”;

• that involves the power of the anointing – the anointed Man – each one of us is given grace.

• After bringing that as a guarding thought, showing that the body is the great idea, it goes on to speak of the special gifts.

The special gifts are very essential for our development, our growth; that is what the babes in John's Epistle need;

• they have the unction and they need the gifts now to build them up so that they
  • “may be no longer babes”,

• as it says in this passage in Ephesians 4: 14.

• So we need the ministry; and as having the unction we can tell what is really ministry and what is not; and then not only shall we have milk according to Hebrews, as helped in ministry, but we shall be ready for solid food.

• The Hebrews were hindering the minister, for he wanted to give them solid food and they were only ready for milk; but the ministry includes the whole thing.

• It is wonderful where the gifts come from; it says:
  • “He that descended is he that has also ascended up above all heavens”, verse 10.

• That is where the gifts come from. We can never go there, but the One Who went there has given the gifts from that altitude.
  • “He has ascended up above all the heavens that he might fill all things”;

• and the way He is filling the assembly at the present moment in one way is through the gifts.

• He is going to fill all things, but He is already filling the assembly, that the assembly may be filled with fulness – good food as we may say – and that it may develop full stature. And so it says,
  • “He has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints”.

• That is the whole matter; that completes the picture in its overall view – for the perfecting of the saints.

• The perfecting of the saints covers everything; it covers my individual development, my body development, my place in the body and in the assembly; it is the whole thing – the perfecting of the saints –
  • “with a view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full grown man”.

• This scripture makes it perfectly clear why the gifts are given in connection with growth – until we all arrive; things cannot be completed until we all arrive;
  • because the assembly is one whole and if certain ones are defective matters cannot be complete.

• Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ.

• I take that to mean that we arrive at the full stature of sonship and the knowledge of the Son of God, and we arrive at full stature assembly-wise.

• The assembly is the fulness of Him Who fills all in all, and it seems that corporately we arrive at His stature – the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ.

• Arriving at it in a sense that the assembly is truly His confidant, His helpmate, His like.

So you see what a vast work is on hand, the work of the ministry right up to this point; so that it goes on to say that “we may be no longer babes”.

• But what I want to press is that these gifts are for the edifying of the body; we have to keep in mind that they are subservient to the body.

• Upon the true edifying of the body depends Christ's portion, because we are His body; it is because we are His body that we are fitted to be His bride, His wife.

• That is because we are His body that we are God's temple, God's habitation, God's shrine. When He was here He spoke of the temple, His own body.

• The gifts are given for the edifying or building of the body of Christ; so that this has to be kept in mind all the time – what the gifts are for; are they effecting the end for which they have been given?

• Are the gifts really building the body of Christ? because it is possible for the gift to be used in such a manner that it has the very opposite effect.

• It has been quite customary in the history of Christendom for gifted men to gather people round themselves; that people derive all their spiritual strength through the gifts.

• Souls are fed in some way, but never grow up to Him in all things as the Head, never.

• They are only growing up to the gifted man, and they can never get beyond him; and therefore in that respect they always remain babes; they always want spoon-feeding.

• Whereas the idea of the body is that it is self-supporting; gift is needed to build up the body, but
  • the measure in which the gift is successful lies in the fact that those that are being ministered to through body-formation are self-supporting.

• They can go on without the gift; naturally nobody likes people to get on without them; they like to feel that other people are dependent on them, but that is not the service of the ministry.

• The service of the ministry, if it is successful, makes people independent of the minister, because they have grown up to Him in all things Who is the Head.

• And that is why the Epistle that brings out the headship of Christ with such distinction – Colossians – does not mention gifts at all;
  • it shows what is available for a local company in the Head if they are set together body-wise, if they have learnt to function together body-wise, if they have been edified and built up body-wise.

• Of course those who are set together body-wise will always be glad of gifts. It has been said, in that connection, that if there is body formation the gift comes in as excess.

• Everybody is glad of some excess; but we need to keep in mind that the end in view in gifts in ministry is to build up the body of Christ.

• The portion of Divine Persons depends upon the body; Christ's portion in the assembly, God's portion in it depend on that.

• Well, I have spoken of the way we need to keep that before us; so that the gift is always used for the end for which it is given.

• I am speaking of it as a means of growth, and on that line we need to encourage one another all we can with what is coming from the Man Who has ascended up above all the heavens.

• What comes from Him is irresistible, it carries its own authority with it. They said to the Lord
  • “By what authority doest thou these things? and Who gave thee this authority?”

• They looked around to see what other men have given the authority; they think they ought to have some man behind you, to be ordained by other men.

• But the Lord says the baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men? The great point of ministry is just that, is it of heaven or of men?

Ordained ministry is just of men in itself; an ordained man may have a certain amount of gift from God, I am not saying anything against that,

• but ordination in itself is just the idea of something from man.

• True ministry is from heaven, and not only from heaven but from
  • “above all the heavens”;

• according to the Psalm from which it is quoted it is
  • “for the rebellious also”.

• You see it has subduing power, it subdues the mind of men, and we all need our minds subdued by the word of God brought home in power;
  • everything depends upon our minds being regulated by God's word – the living word of God – so that all darkening thoughts are dispersed

• and our minds are in the full light of God and of His mind and will.

• So that the gifts are even used to subdue the rebellious, and as it says
  • “for the rebellious also for the dwelling there of Jah Elohim”.

• Now that shows, you see, that chapter 4 of Ephesians is essential if you are to have chapter 3.

• Chapter 3 is a parenthesis; the Apostle shows what the great objective is, the assembly as the great vessel of Divine wisdom functioning and rendering glory to God:
  • “To Him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus”.

• But if that end is to be reached, you must have the gifts, you must have the body edified so that we are set together in body formation and we understand our links with Christ as Head, through union with Himself;
  • and therefore there is the dwelling there – Jah Elohim – the habitation of God, where the praises of God resound.

• Therefore chapter 4 is essential, if we are to reach what is set out in chapter 3. To function in chapter 4, we need to be full grown, or well on the way.

• I am not shutting out normal growth in young people, we all have had our part in it.

• But there needs to be a measure of growth; and there needs to be some in the company, at any rate, who are to some extent full grown, if these things are to be realised.

• It shows the importance of growth, growing up to Him in all things. And it goes on to say
  • “from whom the whole body fitted together and connected by every joint of supply according to the working in its measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self building up in love”.

• We shall never arrive at that finally while we are down here, and so the gifts are always needed; but that is the objective.

The great point about the body is mutuality, mutual love, but there is no socialism in it.

• One great feature in the body is the sovereignty of God.

• In a human body every member has a function to fulfil and no other member can do it in the same way.

• Every member is different, and that is the sovereignty of God; an organism in perfect unity where all the members work together in harmony and yet every member is different; that is like the human body, and that is the body of Christ.

• Every member is different; it does not bring all down to one common level, not a bit.

• It is working in its measure of each one part and every part has its measure; the thing is to learn our measure and other people's measure and to fit into this wonderful organism.

• It is in the liberty of sonship we can do it; in the liberty of sonship we can happily accept Divine sovereignty in connection with the body, the place given to us in the body.

• So as I say again, chapter 4 underlies chapter 3. Chapter 4 is the body building itself in love, chapter 3 is that same vessel functioning in relation to God which is the great end in view, called in that chapter the assembly, for that is what it is.

Well, now I pass on to Hebrews, because we come to the third provision for growth and that is exercise.

• We talk a lot about exercise; if you had a baby and you fed it on the best of food and it never had any exercise, it would never grow properly; its members would never develop as they should do; exercise is essential.

• We have received the unction; we have the ministry, and now we come to something which does depend upon yourself – and that is exercise. It says,
  • “Solid food belongs to full grown men who on account of habit have their senses exercised for distinguishing both good and evil”.

• I want to press that word “on account of habit”. Exercise is not of much value unless you make a habit of it. I may go out and have some exercise physically, but that is not going to help me much unless I do it every morning.

• To be of value, exercise must be regular, sustained; it must be a habit, and that is what we need to form – spiritual habits.
  • “Exercise thyself unto piety”;

• it has to be a spiritual habit every day to bring God into everything.

• So that in everything I touch I am before God with my senses exercised to learn both good and evil; everything we touch in our responsible lives affords an opportunity for our senses to come into exercise.

• ‘Is this of God, is it pleasing to God? If not let me leave it alone’. Let us be simple as to these things; wise as to what is good.

• Joshua said it is a very, very good land – Numbers 15 – that is his senses were so developed that he could tell you what was good and what was very good and what was very, very good.
  • I wonder whether your senses are developed like that!

• Both Joshua and Caleb were men whose senses were exercised to discern good and evil; they readily discerned the evil that the people were murmuring about.

• But they were occupied with the good, and Joshua could describe the land as a very, very good land.

• Some things are good, others are very good and others are very, very good. If you have the choice of the three, you go in for the very, very good.

• You judge of and approve the things that are more excellent, you go in for the truth of the mystery, you aim for the top.

That is the way to become full grown; you use the unction, you avail yourself of the ministry and take all the food you can, but you make a habit of exercise every day –

• the morning and evening oblation, what an exercise! Entering the holiest, what a healthy exercise!

• Not to do things with a spurt and then leave them, but to make a habit of things –
  • “who on account of habit have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil”

• – and, such persons are ready for solid food.

• Milk is the truth, as presented, to meet my need; solid food is the truth, as presented, to meet God's need. Solid food is what God has done by and for Himself.

• Milk is good at all times; you can always include it in diet. But the child can never grow up properly on milk alone; thousands around us never grow up properly because they are on milk only.

• Milk diet is all right for invalids, but this is not an invalid, it is full grown man. We do not want to be invalids, not fit for a good day's work spiritually; the thing is to be full grown men.

• You have received the unction, the ministry comes to you; but now it is your side of it.

• Exercise is a very good habit; some think of exercise as self-occupation; that is a very poor exercise, there is nothing in that.

• If you attempt to get into self-occupation, ask the Lord to help you to get into the 7th of Romans and to get out of it.
  • Many retain a measure of self-occupation because they never properly have been through that experience.

• But we must not think that exercise is brooding over ourselves; the thing is to go through with that and then go with these positive exercises, bringing God in.

• A positive exercise is a priestly service – the evening oblation and so on; they are the things to go on with. That is how we shall develop, and so I leave the matter with you at that point.

• You have the unction and you have the ministry, get on with the exercise.

May the Lord help us for His Name's sake!