So I have read scriptures referring to three different men who illustrate those whose way and doings are a comfort in three different spheres.

1. Daniel is presented to us as moving in the sphere of God’s government, and that is the sphere in which, in the main, we have to render our testimony.

2. Ezra is moving in matters relating to the house of God,
   • and we can understand what a comfort he was to the brethren at Jerusalem; he arrived some sixty or seventy years after the original move when Joshua and Zerubbabel went,

   • but what a comfort he must have been to those who were seeking to hold and to maintain the service of God’s house – his very name being suggestive, because the word Ezra means ‘help’.

3. Then the instruction culminates in Nehemiah because his name means ‘comfort of Jehovah’.
   • All three would be a comfort – their way and their doings would be a comfort – but it culminates in Nehemiah who came to Jerusalem twelve or thirteen years after Ezra and, in away, completed the comfort of the saints.

Now of course, we must not limit these features to certain persons because if you look at these three men you will find that all three features marked each of them;

• and we should be exercised that, in some measure, each feature should mark each one of us; yet certain features become more prominent in certain people.

So Daniel stands out as an example for all time since his day of how believers are to conduct themselves in the sphere of God’s government and testimony down here.

• If we are to conduct ourselves so that our way and our doings are pleasing to God and a comfort to the saints in that sphere, we need to have an impression of the greatness of God.

• That is what marked Daniel and his companions.
  • Daniel’s name means ‘God is judge’,

  • Hananiah’s name means ‘Jah is gracious’ – Jah is the most exalted name of God –

  • Michael means, ‘Who is what God is’,

  • and Azariah means ‘Jah is keeper’.

• So that you find with all four a great impression of God.

Well, dear brethren, one feels, speaking for oneself, how much one needs help as to conduct in the sphere of God’s government and of our testimony.

• How we need to be marked by courage and wisdom; and if that is to come about we need to have a very great impression of God:
  • “God is judge”.

• The word ‘judge’ is not the thought simply of a penal judge passing sentence on evil, but it is the same word as in Psalm 68: 5,
  • “A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation”,

  • and in Psalm 9: 8, “He will judge the world in righteousness”.

• The thought in it is the supreme and sovereign Ruler, the One who has the final word in everything, not only in punishing what is evil, although that is involved, but in upholding the good.
  • So it says in Hebrews 12, “Ye are come … to God, the judge of all”.

Now Daniel, in this outburst of praise that goes up to God when the vision is revealed to him, gives us an idea of how great God was in his sight.

• He begins with a note of worship; he says,
  • “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever”, or “from eternity to eternity”.

• One of the highest notes of worship in the Old Testament is involved in that expression, indicating his knowledge of God in connection with purpose and counsel.

• He brings this knowledge into the realm of God’s government for he says,
  • “wisdom and might are his. And it is he that changeth times and seasons; he deposeth kings, and setteth up kings; he giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding”.

• Now one feels we need to know God in this way and to be bowed in worship before Him as the supreme and sovereign Ruler; it is He who changes times and seasons, Daniel says.

• It links on with what the Lord says to the disciples in the beginning of Acts:
  • “It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority”.

• In one way, there is no more exalted view of God than this; God would keep in His own hands and knowledge the times and seasons. What a great thing to know a God like that!

• He has determined every dispensation, when it should begin and when it should end. As to the end of the present age the Lord says,
  • “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father”, Mark 13: 32.

• How great God is in this character, keeping times and seasons in His own hand!

• In the epistle to Timothy, which refers to the saints here in public testimony as the house of God, this side of the truth is brought out in a remarkable way.

• It speaks of God as the “King of the ages”, that is, every age is in His hand:
  • “the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God”.

• Then in the last chapter Paul speaks of Him as
  • “the blessed and only Ruler … the King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship”.

• He is speaking of God, the supreme and sovereign Ruler, the God whom Daniel knew.

• He also refers in the epistle to times in connection with the testimony; as to the present testimony he says,
  • “God is one and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be rendered in its own times”.

• God has fixed those times; we in measure, are entrusted with that testimony, but God has fixed its times. Later in the epistle he speaks of
  • “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in its own time the blessed and only Ruler shall shew”.

• God has determined when the present dispensation, that which is called “its own times” in connection with the testimony of God as Saviour, shall cease,
  • and when another time shall begin, ushered in by the appearing of our Lord Jesus.

• God has it in His hands, the Father has determined it.

Then, in addition to that, Daniel says that He removes kings and sets up kings.

• Now dear brethren, that applies in a practical way at the present moment. He is the blessed and only Ruler and has His own way at the present time.

• So that whatever kind of person has power at the moment we can look behind that person and bow to the hand of God in it. We can humble ourselves under His mighty hand as to what He allows in that respect.

• I believe we need to be grounded in this truth if we are to be truly bold and free in testimony.

• We need to be on this bedrock, that the One whom we are representing holds the whole reins of government in His hands, although not publicly but behind the scenes, and they never get out of His control.

• It would enable us to be restful as well as courageous in testimony.

• No doubt in the past many have known and held it, and it has enabled them to suffer unto death. In quietness of spirit Daniel’s three friends could face the fiery furnace because they had this knowledge that
  • “he deposeth kings and setteth up kings”.

• To bring it down to our day, we know it is our Father who is controlling things, and even if He permits a Nebuchadnezzar to be on the throne and bring persecution on His people,
  • it is He who sees fit to do so in perfect wisdom and love, both for the sake of the testimony and for our own sakes.

• It would give us a very great sense of the majesty of the Person we represent in this world.

• So we would be enabled to stand before authorities, if called upon to do so, in a subject yet not a servile spirit, recognising that
  • the One whom we are representing and with whom we stand in near relationship, is the One who has entrusted that power into their hands;

• so that while not afraid of the men who exercise it yet we are subject to them.

• We see that coming out in a marked way in Daniel. He and his companions knew just how to commend their God and to carry themselves in public testimony.

• They had a sense of the majesty of their God, and they knew how to
  • “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”.

Much more could be said of this; the Lord Himself has marked out the path; He witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession – a remarkable thing.

• He could say to Pontius Pilate, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above”, John 19: 11.

• There was the Lord Himself, the Son of the Father, recognising that the authority wielded was from God, and therefore subject to that authority even though unjustly applied, and yet
  • at the same time witnessing to the truth before Pilate’s conscience, bringing home to him that, as having received the authority from God, he was responsible to God for the way he exercised it.

• It is spoken of as “the good confession”.

• Also, in 2 Timothy Paul emphasises that it is in the realm of government we are called upon to witness for God, for he says,
  • “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion. Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner”, chapter 1: 7-8.

• Paul was imprisoned by the powers that be, but he held himself as the Lord’s prisoner, looking beyond them, and
  • was thus able to commend the testimony even in prison, and to encourage others not to be ashamed of it.

• So Daniel, at the close of his prayer, says,
  • “I thank thee, and I praise thee, O God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might”.

• If we are to represent the God to whom wisdom and might belong in His supremacy as Ruler, we need to have wisdom and might ourselves, and God is prepared to give it. Daniel says He had given it to him.

• In a moral way, how it shines out! Physical might belonged to Nebuchadnezzar but moral might belonged to Daniel and his friends, because they knew the One to whom belongs honour and might, 1 Timothy 6: 16.

• Whatever feature of Gentile rule comes out, it is ordained of God; whether gold or silver, brass, iron or clay – the whole image is, so to speak, standing today, and every feature is for our good.
  • Silver, no doubt suggests how God can use them in our favour to give us liberty to respond to His rights in redemption;

  • brass speaks of the way God can use them in discipline;

  • iron indicates the strength of ordered government, affording a sphere in which His testimony can go forward;

  • and iron mixed with clay shows that even the most degraded form of government – democracy – is allowed to give us liberty of conscience.

• You can see as to the whole thing that God’s hand is in it, so that we might be free to glorify God.

Now to pass on for a moment to Ezra; I suppose all of us would like to be a help and a comfort to the saints, and Ezra shows how we can be a help – his name means that.

• Well, we all have to tread our path in the realm of God’s government here, and we also all stand connected with God’s house. These things bear closely on one another.

• In the realm of God’s government He has
  • “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”, and

• the book of Daniel shows how that kingdom, which saints are, is going to break the image and fill the earth.

• But then, we also have part in God’s house and in God’s city. The kingdom, the house and the city are closely connected.

• What gives the house its importance is that it is the dwelling-place of God, the King;
  • and what gives the city its importance is that it is the place whence the light and administration proper to the kingdom is exercised.

We would all, surely, desire to be a help in connection with the house of God, and Ezra comes in in that connection.

• He was not a pioneer; Joshua and Zerubbabel and others were pioneers years before.

• None of us here can exactly claim to be pioneers – others have done that kind of work, and the truth of the house has been recovered to us.

• But we can all come in as helps, and the Lord would encourage us to move on on this line. How can I be a help? In taking character from Ezra!

• First of all, he was a priest and he could trace his genealogy right back to Phinehas, Eleazar and Aaron. The way a person can prove his genealogy, spiritually today is by being marked by the features of priesthood.

• No doubt Ezra, in his measure, was marked by features which marked Phinehas, Eleazar and Aaron. Then it says of him in verse 6:
  • “This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Jehovah the God of Israel had given”,

  • and again in verse 10: “For Ezra had directed his heart to seek the law of Jehovah and to do it, and to teach in Israel the statutes and the ordinances”.

• One would seek to encourage the brethren to be marked by the features of Christ.

• The most distinctive feature of a priest is that he considers for God; he always puts God first and His portion in connection with His house. God would have us begin there.

• But He would also have us each to be
  • “a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Jehovah the God of Israel had given”.

• The Lord Jesus speaks in John 14 saying
  • “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”.

• He would challenge our hearts as to whether we have the commandments. Are we concerned to be intelligent as to what is suitable to God in His house?

• If we are to have divine Persons abiding with us, we must provide conditions suited to Them, and this requires intelligence as to the commandments of the Lord, and His word.

• Ezra was a ready scribe; it suggests one not only intelligent but accurate in his intelligence.
  • A scribe is an accurate man; and that is what is called for in these days – an accurate knowledge of what is suitable to God in His house.

• It is all livingly set forth in the Lord Jesus Himself. His commandments are set forth in Himself:
  • “this is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you”.

• John’s epistle refers to walking as He walked, being righteous as He is righteous, pure as He is pure, loving as He loved.

• The law of God is thus set forth livingly in Jesus, and the Lord would lay it upon us to be accurately acquainted with what is suitable to God.

• What a pleasure a study of that kind is! – to study One who is supreme in our affections! It is a question of being occupied with Christ so as to become intelligent in the mind of God.

So Ezra went up and took his companions with him, and they brought much treasure with them. What was in Ezra’s mind was to beautify the house of God.

• Others have done the pioneering work, but God would have each one of us add to what is there. So they brought up gold and silver and golden vessels and two vessels of shining copper, precious as gold.

• They were carefully carried by the Levites and brought to Jerusalem and handed over by weight and number.

• One would suggest that the quantity of silver and gold brought up would convey the appreciation that Ezra and those with him had of God’s rights and grace expressed in redemption; and of God revealed in love.

• Then the vessels would refer, no doubt, in our day to the persons themselves. The greatest addition I can bring to the house of God is myself –
  • myself as a person formed in love, the divine nature, owning the claims of God over me in redemption,

  • and as a person walking in separation.

• The gold would suggest what we are as in the divine nature,
  • and the vessels of shining copper precious as gold, what we are as separate from evil;

• and these vessels were brought to the house of God and checked in by weight and number.

• You feel that we need to know how to weigh as well as to number, dear brethren.

• If we look at the saints from the point of view of number, we are all on one level, we are those for whom Christ died.

• We all like to come in on the ground of number; but this challenge, as it were, comes up in Ezra’s day as to the weight of the vessels brought –
  • what I am really worth in moral formation as formed in the divine nature.

• We need to be prepared to face that matter ourselves as well as to be able to regard the brethren in that way
  • – loving all the brethren as numbered, yet having a just estimate of weights.

• All this is needed if the vessels are to be in suitable perspective in the house of God, if the house of God is to be truly beautified.

• I am not suggesting weight with a view to belittling one another, but how apt we are to undervalue the brethren, failing to give them their true spiritual and moral value.

Before Ezra could achieve the full desires of his heart he had to await the coming of Nehemiah. You will notice it says,

• “For Ezra had directed his heart to seek the law of Jehovah and to do it”,

• which corresponds with having the Lord’s commandments and keeping them,
  • “and to teach in Israel the statutes and the ordinances”, Ezra 7: 10.

• If you read the history of these two books you will find that it was not until Nehemiah had come and his work was done, that Ezra’s opportunity came to teach Israel the statutes and ordinances;
  • it was then that they made the pulpit of wood for Ezra, and day by day he read out of the law to the people,

• and it was then that the remnant, having learned the statutes and ordinances, were moved in response, and the covenant, to maintain the whole service of the house of God, was entered into and sealed.

It was a wonderful recovery; there is nothing like it elsewhere in Scripture, and it was the result of Ezra’s reading the law day by day in the ears of the people.

• Finally, it led to the two choirs that went round the wall and finished in the house of God.

• Ezra is the help and Nehemiah the comfort, and until the hearts of the saints are comforted and knit together in love, there will not be an atmosphere to take in spiritual ministry.

• Ezra had to wait for these conditions before the people could take in spiritual ministry and respond in the beautiful climax that is recorded in Nehemiah.

• Well, what brought about that state of comfort? I believe we need to take in this matter carefully; we may not have thought of Nehemiah as one who particularly brought comfort to the saints, but that is what his name means.

• He was concerned about the wall of the city, and you can be sure of this, dear brethren, that those who are most necessary for the comfort of the saints are those who are concerned about the wall,
  • those who are concerned to maintain the principles of fellowship in integrity.

• As such they may not be the most attractive kind of people; sometimes they have to be rather lonely men.

• Ezra, bringing wealth to the house of God had companions with him; but Nehemiah was alone and no one knew what God had put into his heart to do,
  • but he was determined at all costs that the principles of fellowship should be maintained inviolate, and not only maintained but restored.

• The wall was in ruins and the gates burned with fire. There will be no comfort to the saints unless the wall is rebuilt and the gates functioning,
  • because there will be no sense of security – an enemy can come right through and desecrate the whole position; and Nehemiah felt it.

• So when the news reached him that the gates were burned with fire and the wall down, it says that he mourned and fasted and wept for days.

• He represents a man concerned about the public position in Christendom where the wall is down and any enemy, any feature of the flesh, is allowed in; and where, consequently, the gates are not functioning.

• The sheep-gate, the fish gate and the gate of the old wall are not functioning, and there is no room for the operations of the Spirit, which the fountain-gate suggests.

• Similarly, the deep meaning of the valley-gate, speaking of the death of Christ, is not understood and therefore the dung-gate, where everything should be judged and rejected which is not in accord with the death of Christ, is unused.

• Nehemiah, on hearing it, was filled with sorrow and prayed to the God of heaven and confessed his own sins and the sins of his fathers, and obtained permission to go to Jerusalem to revive out of the rubbish the stones of the wall.

• Men are proving today that salvage work is hard work – and so it is.

• What is required today, if the wall is to be rebuilt, is salvage work to revive the stones out of the rubbish. Judah said later,
  • “The strength of the bearers of burdens faileth and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build at the wall”.

• The minds of many believers in Christendom are filled with rubbish, doctrines and ideas that are simply rubbish, and it is hard work to bring them to recognise that the wall is necessary.

• But God in His mercy has wrought through men like Nehemiah so that there are a few walking together who recognise the principles of fellowship.

• There is no real spiritual comfort for the saints when the wall is down, there is a sense of insecurity and uncertainty; but once the wall is up and the gates functioning then the saints are comforted and they are ready for Ezra’s ministry.
  • “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God”, Colossians 2: 2.

• Unless the saints are comforted they will never be able to go on to full knowledge.

• So although Nehemiah’s work may seem a rough kind of work, and you may not, at first, be attracted to that kind of man – yet it is most essential work if the saints are to be in a condition to take in spiritual ministry.

So the passage read in Nehemiah is very fine. You may be feeling the condition of things but you do not rush into matters; Nehemiah waited three days – that is an important point; it marks Ezra and Nehemiah.

• Ezra twice over waited three days – once at the river Ahava and once at Jerusalem.

• We are apt to hurry too much when we feel the urgency and importance of what is on hand. The flesh loves to be active and ‘useful’, but three days gives time for us to realise that the flesh profits nothing.

• I believe it is the time in Scripture which represents waiting for God:
  • “I waited patiently for the Lord”, Psalm 40: 1

• – not merely ‘on’ Him but ‘for’ Him. It is the time that Christ waited for God in the grave.
  • “I waited patiently for the Lord”. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock”.

• However urgent the matter, it is a great thing to wait for God, so that we are moving with God in the thing.

• So Nehemiah moves with God and surveys the ground, and the result is that he carries all the brethren with him.

• Before the end of chapter 2 he has all the brethren with him, showing how God will help those who are prepared to stand for principles.

• Thus he is able to face the enemy, for if you are out to maintain principles you will find plenty of enemies.
  • So we have “Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Gesham the Arabian”.

• Sanballat was probably a Moabite, and he and Tobiah had been allowed an honoured place in the city of God, in Jerusalem – it is what is all around us.

Moab refers to family pride and status;

• the Ammonite to national pride and status,

• and Geshem – the Arabian would be an Ishmaelite – to religious pride and status, although professing the name of Christ.

• It is an abomination for family status, national status or mere religious status to be recognised in the assembly.

• Spiritual values should alone count there.

• In Deuteronomy 23: 3 it states that an Ammonite or a Moabite should not come into the congregation of Jehovah forever.

• We recognise family status and national status in their proper spheres, for we are not socialists, but they have no portion nor right in Jerusalem.

• In Jerusalem spiritual values alone count, and it is beautiful to see the way Nehemiah can face this question.

• These men knew that the moment the wall is up their influence in Jerusalem will come to an end, and they therefore resist the work; but Nehemiah boldly says,
  • “Ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem”.

• Thank God, there have been men like this! To them, under God, we owe what we enjoy today.

Well, I have covered what I had to say. I wish to leave an impression of what is open to us and what God is working for at the present moment:

• that is, to bring to pass sons and daughters whose way and doings please Him, and are a comfort to the saints.

• The scriptures we have looked at give their way and doings,
  1. first in the realm of government and testimony,

  2. then in relation to God’s house,

  3. and finally in relation to the city and the principles of fellowship.

May He help us in these matters, for His Name’s sake!

God has had the assembly before Him since before time began.

• Paul always had the assembly before him in his service. He was the minister of the assembly and his desires for the assembly, as it were, consumed him.

• It was said of the Lord,
  • “The zeal of thy house devours me”.

• The house of God now is
  • “the assembly of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth”.

• Zeal for the assembly was the consuming zeal of Paul.
  • He said: “I rejoice in sufferings for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh, for his body, which is the assembly”, and again,

  • “I shall most gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls, if even in abundantly loving you I should be less loved”.

• It was his objective all the time that the saints should understand that they belonged to this august vessel, the assembly, that they should apprehend their calling in this respect.

• Our calling includes the great truth that we belong to the assembly. Our calling of course involves sonship:
  • “Out of Egypt have I called my son”.

• No one could be in the assembly who was not among the sons of God; it is composed of such.

• It is only in the liberty of sonship that we can properly fill our place in the body.

• That is according to the order of the truth in Romans. Romans 8 brings us experimentally to the truth of sonship; Romans 12 to the truth of the body.

While sonship is a primary matter in the Christian calling, the very word ‘assembly’ also involves the idea of calling:

• it means a called out company.

• God has called us out to have a functional part in this great vessel, the assembly.

• So even in addressing the Thessalonians, who had only been converted a short time, Paul says,
  • “the assembly of Thessalonians”.

• He would give them an impression that they had been called out with a view to being set together assembly-wise.

I have referred to the versatility of the assembly. When God was bringing out His thoughts of old, He had to use many types to illustrate the various aspects and functions of the assembly.

• In addition to the types representing the wife and the bride, there was the tabernacle, the city, and the house that Solomon built.

• In all these things the assembly was in God’s mind. That is what I mean by the versatility of the assembly.

• She fills out every position, for she is the city of God, the tabernacle of God, the temple of God, the habitation of God, as well as the bride, the Lamb’s wife.

• In Revelation these things are identified: the word to John is,
  • “I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife”.

• But what does John see?
  • “The holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God”.

• Think of the versatility of such a vessel! The bride, the Lamb’s wife, is the city of God, the holy Jerusalem. And in the eternal viewpoint, where he saw
  • “the holy city, new Jerusalem … prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”,

  • he “heard a loud voice out of the heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men”.

• The very same vessel is the tabernacle of God. You can understand in the light of this what a great vessel the assembly is.

• How worth while it is to spend and to be spent for such a vessel! God and Christ have taken a lead in that way. You can never measure what has been spent on the assembly.
  • “Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”.

• And in the last passage we read,
  • “the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”.

• What has been spent on the assembly surpasses human comprehension. Even what Paul spent on the assembly is beyond our measure to take in, and, in our day, how much some have spent!

• The assembly is worth it all, and God would bring us more and more into His appreciation of the assembly.

You may say, ‘How do you link these thoughts of the assembly, the bride and the wife, with the city and the habitation?’

• They are essentially linked. The very versatility of the assembly lies in the fact that she is the body of Christ.

• If we think of the Lord Jesus, every divine thought as to man was expressed in perfection in Him.

• He is the perfect embodiment of the whole mind of God. The very title “the Word” means that.

• If we think of administration, we see it in absolute perfection in Christ.
  • We find it now in His body, the assembly, and that is why the assembly is the city. She will perfectly represent Christ in administration in the coming day.

• Again, Christ spoke of the temple of His body. All the light of God was there when He was here.
  • Where is the light of God to be found in testimony now? It is in the assembly. Because the assembly is Christ’s body, the light of God is there; and thus the assembly is God’s temple at the present time.

• The basic constitution of the assembly lies in the fact that she is Christ’s body. Because she is His body she can fill out every position to God’s glory and for His pleasure.

We can understand, too, Christ loving the assembly. He loves the assembly and has delivered Himself up for it.

• The assembly loves Christ because she sees in Him the ideal Man,
  • “the root and offspring of David”.

• We see in Jesus the Man of God’s purpose, the Man in whom God has found His delight,
  • “my beloved Son”, as He says, “in whom 1 have found my delight”.

• And the soul of the assembly finds its delight in Christ. Our very soul is moved as we think of Him. We delight in the Man who ever considered for His God.

• According to Psalm 22 He went into the depths for His God; He sacrificed Himself completely in consideration for His God.

• The assembly loves the Lord Jesus in His perfect Manhood. She is in accord with God, who says,
  • “my beloved in whom my soul has found its delight. I will put my Spirit upon him”, Matthew 12: 18.

• Honours rare are placed upon that blessed Man.
  • “I will make him firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth”, Psalm 89: 27.

• The assembly says “Amen” to all that.
  • He is “the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star”.

• The more the assembly loves Christ, in that bridal way, the more the other features proper to the assembly develop in her.

• The more Christ is enshrined in our affections, the more we become in a practical way the habitation of God.

• What is the habitation of God? The place where Christ is enshrined, where the Ark is. You think of the tabernacle, of the house; it was the shrine for the ark; where the ark is, God is.
  • “Arise, Jehovah Elohim, into thy resting-place, thou and the ark of thy strength”, 2 Chronicles 6: 41.

• The truth is one whole. The bride, the Lamb’s wife, is the city, and the vessel prepared as a bride adorned for her husband is the tabernacle, because in that vessel Christ is enshrined.

• He dwells in our hearts by faith, and it is in such a vessel God finds His rest.

Paul had the assembly always before him and he addresses the youngest Christians as

• “the assembly of Thessalonians”.

• He is not developing the assembly yet, but he reminds them that they are the assembly of the Thessalonians, that they are called out for a purpose.

• If we are to be free to take on these great thoughts of the assembly, which relate to what Christ has and what God has, we need to be satisfied as to our own portion, settled as to our own affairs, so that we are free to be engaged with God and His affairs.

• And so he speaks to the Thessalonians in the way of comfort because we need comforting. It is a comforting epistle. He speaks of their having received
  • “eternal consolation and good hope by grace”.

It is remarkable that, when Paul’s feelings are deeply stirred, he says,

• “Ye, O Philippians”.

• He says that when he was stirred by being ministered to by them twice in three weeks.

• When he wants to move the Corinthians, he says,
  • “Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians, our heart is expanded … let your heart also expand itself”.

• And when he is feeling intensely the position in Galatia, he says,
  • “O senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you?”

• I suggest that we need to look more upon one another from this aspect and not be afraid of these expressions.

• If we are Londoners, we are Londoners; if Parisians, we are Parisians. We are to think of the brethren in that way.

• Those in London have things to face that no one else on earth has, and so have the brethren in Paris;
  • God has planted them there; they are plants of the Father’s planting in that setting, in divine wisdom, because of what He is going to work out in them, which will shine in the eternal day.

• Nevertheless, unless they are comforted and helped in their actual setting as Thessalonians or Philippians or Corinthians,
  • with divine resources to meet local conditions, they will not move on to God’s great thoughts.

• And so a sympathetic outlook is called for in the way we think of, love, and pray for one another.

• How much do we think of one another, and pray for one another as thinking of what the saints in each locality have to face if true assembly features are to develop there?

• They were the assembly of Thessalonians, but what could be more comforting than that they were
  • “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”?

• We live in London, may be, but in another sense our life is not there; it is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • That is, wherever we may be, we are in the family and in the kingdom, and they are very comforting thoughts.

When we come to Corinth, it is a question of the universal features of the assembly, the assembly of God in Corinth, not the assembly of Corinthians.

• If we think of the assembly of the Thessalonians, we are thinking of the personnel in connection with their local setting and peculiar exercises; but
  • if we think of the assembly of God in a place we are thinking of the vessel that is marked by the same features everywhere – there is no variation.

• As we get help on the line of comfort, as maintained in the sense that we are in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, we become victorious in our local setting.

• We find sufficiency in the Father and in the Lord for all our matters, and we are able to take on the features of the assembly of God in a place.

• So now the apostle, while speaking of the assembly in a locality, in Corinth, is bringing out characteristics which are proper to the assembly universally.

• What is proper to the assembly of God in London, is proper to the assembly of God in Sydney or New York, because it is the assembly of God.

• It is therefore a question of divine order and what is suitable to God in a vessel which represents God in a place, a vessel where the light of God is, where the word of God is spoken, where the order of God’s house is seen. This does not vary from place to place.

• So, while the apostle is writing to a local company, he brings in the universal customs of the assembly,
  • what is to govern those who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place.

• The more we value the truth of the assembly, the more we shall be governed by the universal features of the assembly of God.

• The order of His house, the truth of His temple, the functioning of Christ’s body, are brought out so clearly in this epistle.

• All this is to provide a place for God in the cities of men. When I think of the assembly I think of a place for God.

• Scripture makes it clear that the Lord Jesus has prepared a place for us. The Father’s house is a wider thought than the assembly.
  • “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place”.

• God has considered for the needs of all the families. His house is great enough for them all.

• Our place is the best place; God has seen to that. We are well housed eternally. Even individually we are waiting for a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. God has provided for us;

• but when I think of the assembly, I think of a place for God. The assembly of God in Corinth meant a place for God in that unclean city.

• There was the heathen temple, and the Jewish synagogue, but the assembly of God was the place where God was,
  • “God is among you of a truth”, 1 Cor. 14: 25.

• It is an immense thing that we should have that before us, a place for God.

• The assembly is essentially and in the fullest degree a vessel suited to be the abode of God in testimony, whether now or in the world to come, or in the eternal state.

• Of course, we have to say on the other hand that no creature vessel could ever contain Him. Solomon says,
  • “The heavens, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee”.

• Yet it is the divine purpose to have a vessel in which God can dwell and place Himself in contact with the whole created sphere.

• He will have a vessel adequate for that, not that it could contain Him, yet God is dwelling in it.

• The Scripture makes clear two great thoughts. We dwell in God and God in us, and that works out in its fulness in the assembly.

But then, if God was to have His place in Corinth, it involved Christ having His place as Lord and as Head.

• In fact the apostle says of that local company,
  • “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”.

• That is the local company. I am certain the apostle had nothing less in his mind for any local company, than to espouse them to one Man, to present them a chaste virgin to Christ.

• How wonderful! In a city like Corinth there was to be a company in whose hearts Christ was enshrined; and, if Christ was enshrined, God would have His place there.

• The bridal thought, as making way in our hearts for Christ, prepares the way for the divine habitation.

Now I pass on to Ephesians. We have spoken of the assembly of the Thessalonians, and the assembly of God in Corinth, the local assembly,

• but in Ephesians 3 the apostle speaks of the assembly in Christ Jesus.

• I suppose that is the greatest view of the assembly, the assembly viewed in its place according to eternal purpose in its full status, the assembly in Christ Jesus.

• As we answer to the truth of Corinthians and make way for God in a practical manner in the local setting, in the Spirit’s power, we are privileged to touch the Ephesian setting.

• The Lord’s supper is in the setting of Corinthians, but it is the doorway into the truth of Ephesians,
  • and in the Spirit’s power we are privileged to taste something of the assembly in Christ Jesus,

• outside time and locality, the full divine thought and conception of the assembly in its eternal setting.

• What a wonderful thing it is to touch this, and in the assembly in Christ Jesus the thoughts I have sought to express are found substantially.

• This vessel is the object of the love of Christ, but on the other hand Christ is enshrined in it.
  • “That the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”.

• He is enshrined in this vessel; it is the abode of the divine glory. The apostle continues,
  • “and to know the love of the Christ, which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”,

• a vessel capable of being filled to all the fulness of God. Then he says,
  • “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”.

• It is the eternal residence of the divine glory, the vessel through which God will put Himself in touch with men throughout the created universe throughout all eternity, the final word being,
  • “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God”.

• As we get the gain of this prayer, the functioning of verses 9 to 12 takes place. I do not think it takes place in the full sense in any other way.

• There are other aspects of divine wisdom, but in its fullest sense I believe divine wisdom is seen as we touch, in the Spirit’s power, the full service of God’ under the headship of Christ.

• The liberty with which the service of God proceeds in that vessel is a marvellous thing for heavenly intelligences to look upon,
  • a vessel composed of men, creatures in a lower order of creation than those heavenly intelligences;

• yet having boldness and access in confidence to God in a way those heavenly intelligences will never know.

• Perhaps we little conceive what is going on at the present time in that respect.

• The heavenly hosts which celebrated the incoming of Christ, saying,
  • “Glory to God in the highest”,

• see that glory rendered now in the assembly in Christ Jesus, a vessel in which Christ is enshrined and which is under His headship and impulse, deriving wisdom from Him.

• Just as the whole service proceeded under Solomon in wisdom, the whole service ordered under the headship of the king,
  • so now the Christ in His active love sustains all, directs all, and gives impulse to all.

Think of the love of the Christ –

• “I love my master, my wife, and my children”

• – a love that flows in all directions and stimulates in all directions, and makes way for the fulness of God to fill our hearts so that there is an answering response,
  • “glory to God”.

• And, of course, this shines out too in the city. She comes out having the glory of God, and in a moral way there should be that reflection now in the assembly.

• We can speak but feebly of these things, but it may be the Spirit of God will leave on our hearts a sense of the greatness of the assembly, that it is
  • the masterpiece of divine operations, a vessel adequate to be filled even to all the fulness of God, and to render glory to God through all eternity under the headship of Christ;

• His complement, His counterpart, a vessel entirely amenable to His impulse and touch. Christ is enshrined in it, the true Solomon, the true Ark.

• Features of the truth are presented separately in type in the scriptures, but the Spirit of God would help us to put them together in a spiritual way so that the truth as to Christ and as to the assembly may be one whole in our minds.

As we understand the greatness of this vessel, I would raise the question, How much are we prepared to spend on it?

• Paul is leaving – who could measure what Paul spent? He is leaving, and he calls the elders of Ephesus, and
  • he says, “Shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”.

• Think of what God has spent on the assembly! The idea of purchase is to convey the intrinsic excellence of that which is being bought.

• If we think of redemption we have to think of the price needed to meet the liabilities,
  • but if we think of purchase, we are thinking of the price the buyer is prepared to pay because of the value He puts upon the vessel.

  • “The assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”.

  • An extraordinary statement!

• There is an extraordinary statement, too, as to redemption,
  • “Redeemed by precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish”.

• It is the same blood, of course, the blood of the Christ
  • who “offered himself spotless to God”.

• But “the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own” is intended to give us an idea of the preciousness of the assembly to God.

• And Paul is really challenging us in Acts 20 as to how much we are prepared to spend upon it.
  • He says, as it were, ‘I have spent everything’. “These hands”, he said.

• He had laboured and spent everything, and he brings before them what God had spent, and he commits the assembly to their care
  • and in a way it is committed to us.

• The assembly is still in a scene where it needs care and shepherding. “Shepherd the assembly of God” is the most exalted idea of shepherding.

• Those who sought a place for God in the Old Testament were shepherds.

• Jacob was concerned about a place for God, and Moses, and especially David. He would not give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids until he found out a place for Jehovah.

• That place now is the assembly. It is the only place for God at the present moment on the earth, and shepherding is needed.

• It has come down to us in our day.
  • “Shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”.

One has felt that the Lord has been stressing the thought of union with Himself, the church’s union with Him, but

• it seems to me if that is to be realised it raises the question first of all of unity amongst ourselves.

• In other words it bears in a very practical way on our local conditions and relations with each other, because
  • unity precedes union, that is, the unity of the vessel to which Christ is united.

• It is true there is the individual thought of union –
  • “he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”

• – that is a blessed thing; but the full thought of union is that of Christ and the assembly, as it says,
  • “we are members of his body; we are of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife”.

• In the individual setting it says, “he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”, but
  • in the assembly setting it does not put it that way; it speaks of Christ being united to the assembly.

• The assembly is attractive to Christ and He leaves other things to be united to the assembly.

So all that raises a practical question as to unity in our localities, whether there are the features attractive to Christ which result from that unity.

• John 17 has persons in view, the men given to Christ out of the world, and appears to be the highest thought of oneness.

• Both Ephesians 5 and John 17 indicate the importance the Lord attaches to these two sides of the truth. In Ephesians 5 it says,
  • “for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife”,

• that is, you have the idea of the Lord leaving other interests for the sake of the assembly; and in John 17 you have a similar thought,
  • “for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth”,

• that is, He sets Himself apart. I suppose John 17 brings out the truth of what man is before God in Christ. That is the full thought of the truth. So manhood is in view in that chapter.

• One felt that Ephesians 5 and John 17, both exalted lines of truth, have a great bearing on our local relations;
  • first in relation to the truth of the one body and

  • then as to our personal relations as brethren in following after love, which would enable the truth of the one body to work out.

I.R. Would Psalm 133 suggest the conditions in which it would work out?

• “How good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

G.R.C. I think so.

W.S. The precious ointment referred to there is reflected in the Song of Solomon where the bride is attractive because of her perfumes. Throughout that Song the bridegroom is drawn by the perfumery.

G.R.C. That is, as we learn to follow after love in our localities and walk in love, the perfume goes up from the assembly.

W.S. It says that “ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel”, Proverbs 27: 9 – connecting the very perfume with friendship. I think that supports your point.

G.R.C. Yes. So it seems that in our local setting there are two practical lines of exercise –

• one is to be right in our relations as brethren, in our personal relations with one another, and

• the other is to function in the organism, the one body.

• The organism exists as a great spiritual reality whether we enter into it or not.
  • “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”.

• We have not to work up to it, it is an existing reality; but if we are to move in the light of it and get the gain of it, we must be right in our relations with one another as brethren, both in and out of the meeting – able to face things together in love.

• So that manhood comes into 1 Corinthians; the apostle ends his epistle by saying,
  • “be vigilant; stand fast in the faith; quit yourselves like men; be strong”.

  • Also in chapter 14 he says, “in your minds be grown men”.

• So that our personal relations with one another are intended to develop spiritual manhood, and personality as formed in love, and the more that develops the more we shall be able to function in this great organism which exists.

E.C.M. Is that why the apostle connects a brother with him in the first epistle?

G.R.C. Yes. So in John 17 it is a question of persons; the Father and the Son are presented in Their own Personalities, and the Lord prays,

• “that they also may be one in us”.

• The line of exercise connected with our personal relations as brethren finds its culmination in John 17,
  • while the line connected with the organism, the body, culminates in Ephesians 5 – union with Christ.

• Both lines work out in our local setting as regards our practical enjoyment.

P.B.D. Is there any connection between this and the rings and boards in Exodus? The boards were joined together beneath and linked together by one ring at the top.

• Our relationship together, as joined together beneath, is to correspond with the fact that we are joined together in one ring at the top.

G.R.C. You mean there is the lower and the upper.

P.B.D. So that the tabernacle is one whole as bound together by a golden bar going right round the whole.

G.R.C. That is helpful. So the boards would suggest how we become indispensable to one another practically, each board being a cubit and a half. But it leads on in Corinthians to the practical working out of this great truth of the body.

H.F.R. Why did you read verse 27 of chapter 12?

G.R.C. Because of the change in the pronoun. In verse 13 it is ‘we’, and it is emphatic:

• “in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”.

• But in verse 27 there is the emphatic pronoun ‘ye’:
  • “now ye are Christ’s body”, the saints were that in character, “and members in particular”.

• That is the test in working it out. Is it not important to see that the body is a great universal whole?
  • “By one Spirit we”, that is the universal ‘we’, all the saints on earth “have been baptised into one body”.

• But then it has to be worked out in our local setting, so it says, “ye are Christ’s body”.

H.F.R. That is very suggestive, so that we work out what is local in the light of the universal, and that is a great stimulus.

G.R.C. That is a most important point to lay hold of.

• We do not work up from the local to the universal.

• God has made us members of the universal body of Christ, and we bring the light of the universal into the local.

• It is the opposite way to which men work; men form local branches, and then a federation of local branches;
  • but the only membership scripture speaks of is the membership of the body of Christ – not membership of a local church.

• Having the light of that we are governed in our local setting by it.

W.S. So that to be a good Corinthian you must be a good Ephesian. It must flow down from the top.

G.R.C. God starts at the top, so He makes us members of the universal organism.

C.L. The pattern was shown from the top:

• “see thou make it according to the pattern shown thee in the mount”.

H.F.R. So in chapter 11 the apostle says,

• “if anyone think to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the assemblies of God”,

• putting it in the light of the whole universal position.

G.R.C. Quite so. I think the thread runs through scripture.

• The Levites had to encamp around the tabernacle, whereas the others encamped according to their tribes.

• While we all have a local setting corresponding with the tribal one,
  • from another angle we are all Levites and are all encamping around the tabernacle, that is the great universal whole.

• Unless we are true Levites encamping around the tabernacle we shall not be right in our tribal setting.

H.F.R. If we leave out the universal setting we get cramped and petty things come in; but having a universal outlook frees us from that.

G.R.C. The truth of the body helps us on two lines of truth:

1. it gives a right balance between the universal and the local,

2. and it enables us to reconcile sovereignty and mutuality.

• Sometimes, in seeking to work out the truth of the body, we are apt to become too local in the sense of thinking that our meetings are so much to develop what is local that we do not welcome a visitor coming in.

• I think the universal and the local would balance that; the body is universal and the gifts, especially ministerial gifts as set in the assembly, are in the universal setting.

• So the truth of the body would enable us to make room for a brother coming in, and not to be so occupied with the idea of developing what is local that we cannot make room.

H.F.N. Would the visitor on his side, however great and gifted he may be, learn in the light of what you are saying, to merge with the brethren?

G.R.C. I am sure of that, so there is the balancing in both directions.

H.F.N. The question of sovereignty and mutuality are very real tests.

P.B.D. Would you open that out a little?

G.R.C. The human body is the figure used in 1 Corinthians 12, and we could not find a better illustration of sovereignty and mutuality.

• “God has set the members, each one of them in the body, according as it has pleased him”

• – that is sovereignty.

• It is God doing what pleased Him – He has not consulted us, and what He does is always best.

• So in the human body He has put in it a member called the eye and has given that member the power of vision; but it cannot speak. He has put in the body a member called the tongue, but it cannot hear.
  • But He has done it just as it pleased Him.

• On the other hand there is true mutuality because instinctively every member goes to the aid of the other.

• If the eye has work to do which it alone can do, the hands and the feet and every member will assist the eye; and the same with each member. All unselfishly assist each other to function – that is mutuality.

P.B.D. So the question of sovereignty involves that we are subject.

G.R.C. That is the great point in 1 Corinthians 12; the Lord is over everything. So you have an organism in the sensitiveness of the Spirit.

• If we are really in the gain of the body, there may be a pause in a reading which will make room for some member to function who would not function without a pause.

P.B.D. Is that the activity of divine love working inwardly?

G.R.C. That is how it works out; love is the great motive power.

H.W.E. Would the thought of the Spirit help in regard to the universal and local aspect of which you have been speaking? The Spirit is set in direction to the body; there is one body and one Spirit.

• The Spirit can be taken account of universally, it always is; but then, He comes to our aid locally in working things cut in the light of the universal position.

G.R.C. That is right. One main point in the first epistle to the Corinthians is to teach us to get the gain of the Spirit collectively, in our local companies.

• In Romans we learn the gain of the Spirit individually.

• We shall not get the gain of the Spirit collectively unless we are governed by the truth of the body.

H.F.R. Is your thought that following after love is a very practical thing? It might work out in many ways – perhaps a pause in the reading, as you suggest, and spiritual manifestations may result from it.

G.R.C. To get the gain of the body in practice we need sensitive restfulness; our wills judged as subject to the Lord,

• and then the sensitiveness of the Spirit, because there is one body and one Spirit.

• The one Spirit knows the members through whom He would manifest Himself.

• Men may say, ‘it is impossible, you must have someone in charge’. But the Spirit is present.

P.B.D. So this is a tremendous matter; everything hangs upon it.

G.R.C. It really underlies every meeting, and also our relations with each other in and out of the meetings.

• Take the ministry meeting: the truth of the body underlies it; are we able to wait in sensitive restfulness?

• Sometimes there is a brother with a word who, without a pause, would never get up.

• You have to guard against the forwardness of the flesh, always trying to ‘keep the ball rolling’, as we say,
  • and backwardness on the other hand – like Saul, who at one time was hiding behind the baggage and another time he could not wait.

H.F.R. Are these two things represented in Sihon and Og?

G.R.C. You mean, self-importance and laziness?

H.F.R. Yes, forwardness and backwardness. They are two great enemies to overcome if we are to enter into this thought of the body.

J.A.P. Is the great thing to drink into the Spirit – the enjoyment of things together?

G.R.C. Yes, it suggests that on this line there is satisfaction; we are all in it.

• If we have had a reading where the truth of the body has been realised, we go away with a sense of satisfaction, we have all been made to drink into one Spirit.

• Then of course, it underlies the supper, which in itself is the greatest expression of unity.

• In the supper symbolically we show our unity:
  • “we, being many are one loaf, one body”;

• and then we all drink into one cup. Without the body we cannot have collective response to Christ.

W.S. That lies at the basis of some of our exercises as to our morning meetings not being quite what we have expected.

G.R.C. So that at the supper we do not come together to bring about a kind of unity,

• we are there to express a unity which is always true from the divine side, and should be always true throughout the week;

• Christ’s portion depends upon this unity being maintained.

H.F.N. In Acts 10 it says they came together on the first day of the week to break bread. Does that involve that we have been together in heart and mind and affection through the week?

G.R.C. Quite. It is a beautiful expression,

• “they came together”.

H.F.N. In the feeding of the multitude it says they were satisfied. We cannot get any true assembly relationship or any true functioning in the assembly apart from the consciousness of that realm of divine satisfaction.

G.R.C. And does that not indicate why the cup must come in if the Lord is to have His portion? The cup suggests the satisfaction side.

H.F.N. And that is our side of it; we are baptised by one Spirit, so we have part in this great organism. But you are challenging us as to whether we do really drink into one Spirit.

G.R.C. Do we drink into this cup really – not merely symbolically?

• Then there is another point which it is good to keep in mind and that is that the truth of the body is to govern us out of the meetings as well as in.

• All the spontaneous services carried on by sisters as well as brothers need to be governed by the light of this.

• In our service to one another out of the meeting we may be governed by the self-importance of Sihon or the laziness of Og;
  • we may think we must have a hand in everything, or things may drop into the hands of a few;

• but the sensitiveness of the body should govern all these matters.

• Then the most suitable member will do the most suitable job. One has often thought, that when someone has grown cold
  • the most suitable person to visit them may be one newly converted, one with fresh affection for Christ;

• it is not necessarily the most established brother in the meeting.

• Our desire should be that each member should function in the most efficient way for the good of the whole.

H.W.E. Romans 12 speaks of our being members one of another; the saints in their responsible history are set in relation to one another as one body in Christ – unity is still maintained there.

G.R.C. So the Romans side deals with practical matters.

• “He that gives, in simplicity … he that shews mercy, with cheerfulness”

• – that is not in the meeting, necessarily.

F.G.H. There needs to be co-operation with one another.

I.R. If we knew what it is to follow after love we would understand all this.

G.R.C. So spiritual manhood comes in. The apostle does not put activity first, or gift of service, but

• “follow after love”, and then, “be emulous of spiritual manifestations”.

P.B.D. It is a question of being of one mind in the Lord, as the apostle had to exhort Euodia and Syntyche – Phil. 4: 2.

S.S. In order to function more in this way at the right moment we need to know more of what it is to live in the Spirit, to have right discernment.

G.R.C. You feel we are often concerned about getting the gain of the Spirit individually according to Romans 8,

• but I think we should be more concerned as to getting the gain of the Spirit collectively, which is the burden of this epistle.

H.F.N. We have been in danger of looking at the commencement of this epistle in regard to the truth of the cross and the Spirit, taking it up on individual lines, whereas

• it is the exclusion of man in relation to the assembly, and the saints being in the living gain of the Spirit.

G.R.C. That is most important. It is really the brazen serpent – the word of the cross – but shown as standing at the doorway of the assembly.

• Romans 7 is the brazen serpent as applied to the individual.

• So chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians brings in the Spirit in its collective setting:
  • “the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God”.

• It is like Numbers 21:
  • “assemble the people together and I will give them water”.

• It is what the Spirit is in the assembly.

• But in connection with our scripture in Ephesians, all this underlies the enjoyment of the truth of union, and that is what the apostle had before him, for he says in the second epistle,
  • “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”.

H.F.R. Your thought is that these features will all make us attractive to Christ.

G.R.C. I thought so. “Ye are Christ’s body”. The Lord begins to see Himself in a practical sense in the saints.

• He could own the saints at the outset when He said to Saul of Tarsus,
  • “Why persecutest thou me?”

• You feel how delightful the saints are to Christ, as in the unity of the body, what precious features mark them as they move together, so that they are delightful to Christ.

• The assembly is so delightful to Christ that the scripture says as to Him,

• “for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife”.

H.F.R. I have often wondered why it is put that way round.

G.R.C. It stresses how precious the assembly is to Christ: He leaves other interests to be united to the assembly.

H.F.R. Do you think the two different aspects of the church are involved? While there is the Eve side, yet there are the other features of the church such as Rebecca who sets forth its attractiveness and grace and beauty.

G.R.C. I think Rebecca links with Corinthians; she represents particularly the local company moving in the truth of the body.

P.B.D. You mean she is being prepared to “follow the man”.

G.R.C. It is a question of making room for the Spirit in the local company. Are we prepared to be wholly available to the Spirit?

• The Spirit is referred to in that chapter as typified in the well and the ten camels and the man.

• All has reference to the availability of the Spirit to the local company, and Rebecca as moving is made delightful to Isaac. The Spirit – the man – puts the ornaments on her.

C.L. So he seals the suitability which is seen in Rebecca by the tokens put upon her.

G.R.C. Rebecca is the answer in us to Christ’s movements.

• On His side He leaves father and mother to be united to the assembly, and Rebecca on her side leaves her father’s house.

• We do not get that in Genesis 2, where the woman is brought to the man; but Rebecca is our side; it is the way it works out in localities now. We are prepared to leave our natural setting.

H.F.N. Would it not be confirmed by what the apostle says in the second epistle,

• “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”?

• That would be what we get in Rebecca.

G.R.C. I think so. There were other men great at Corinth, but he says, “I have espoused you unto one man”, and the truth of the body brings that about.

• It disposes of clericalism and makes room for “one Man”.

• One would link Rebecca with the local setting because it is provisional – took her into his mother Sarah’s tent, which could only apply to the present time when the church is in local companies.

F.G.H. You would allow for this thought following the supper? The Lord has been helping us lately to see that there is something for Him personally as following the supper. This would help us.

G.R.C. It would, and what would affect our hearts is

• “for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife”.

• That would profoundly affect our hearts if we let it in, and help us to forsake our kindred and father’s house to be wholly available to Christ.

E.C.M. It is in line with Psalm 45,

• “so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty”.

G.R.C. Think of the great interests which Christ has left for the time being, that which attaches to Him as Son of David, Son of Abraham and Son of Man. He has left these things for the moment to be united to the assembly.

E.C.M. How does Matthew fit in,

• “when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had”?

G.R.C. It seems to be a co-relative line.

E.C.M. The Lord, for the moment, laying aside all that He legitimately had.

G.R.C. Yes, it is “all that he had”.

W.G.C. So in John 17 it says,

• “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me”.

G.R.C. Yes. It is a similar thought in John 17, although a different line.

• It indicates how much it means to the Lord that we should answer to the truth of our place before God in Him.

• He set Himself apart for this purpose; it is another reason why He has left other interests, He has set Himself apart that we might be set apart by the truth.

W.G.C. Is it the truth as to His place in heaven in glory?

G.R.C. I think so. The great truth of man before God as in Christ, the eternal purpose of God for man.

H.F.N. In John 17 the first reference to the thought of unity, oneness, flows out of the mutuality of divine affections which exist between the Father and the Son.

G.R.C. How does that work out?

H.F.N. The spring of the oneness in John 17 is the holy mutual relations which exist between divine Persons.

• When we think of the mutuality of affection existing between the Father and the Son, it is productive of unity, whether in testimony or glory.

G.R.C. Is that illustrated in what the Lord says,

• “All mine are thine, and thine are mine”,

• as though They had no exclusive property?

H.F.N. You were saying in connection with Ephesians 5 that it is a great thing to see that the Lord has no other interest than the assembly.

• Is that seen in the thought of a man having a whole year in which to be entirely devoted to his wife?

G.R.C. You mean that the year is applied to the present time.

H.F.N. Yes. His affection is such that He is wholly devoted to the assembly today.

G.R.C. That would make us long to give Him what His heart seeks; and what a lever that would be in facing exercises amongst ourselves – practical matters!

H.F.R. You said something earlier about it being ‘persons’ in John.

G.R.C. You get divine Persons Themselves,

• “that they also may be one in us”.

• “All mine are thine, and thine are mine”.

• I wondered whether it had in view the saints as persons relative to Them.

• It brings in the fullest thought of God’s purpose, that is, His eternal purpose for men in Christ.

H.F.N. It all culminates in the heavenly – those united. This oneness culminates in the city as coming down out of heaven from God.

G.R.C. I think so, “that they may be made perfect in one”.

W.S. The idea of the family rather emphasises the individual members.

G.R.C. Yes. The assembly as a corporate body is an eternal thought. It is seen in the eternal setting prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

• But there are also the persons who compose it.

• So there is the line of our spiritual history as persons involving our personal relations with the Father and the Son,
  • and our personal relations with one another.

• It runs alongside this thought of the organism, but it seems that we begin with these personal relations and end with them.

• We begin our history with God by a personal touch with God and with Christ, and in our personal relations with one another we have to learn to be brethren.

E.C.M. Would chapters 1-9 of this gospel develop that line of truth – the woman in chapter 4, and the man in chapter 9, having to do with Christ personally?

G.R.C. Yes. The whole of John’s gospel has this personal side in mind, personal relations with Christ, with the Father and the Son, and with one another;

• and it all culminates in this wonderful thought
  • “that they may be one in us”.

W.S. The sheep are known by name.

G.R.C. Yes.

F.G.H. This thought of “one in us” seems to bear on the testimony, for following that the Lord says,

• “that the world may know that thou hast sent me”.

G.R.C. After all, the world cannot enter into the idea of the body, the organism – it is a mystery; it is involved in the truth called “the mystery”. We are initiated into it,

• but what the world can see is unity in practical personal relations.

F.G.H. Which makes the matter one of vital importance.

A.L. So the testimony would be from this side in John’s gospel.

H.F.N. I suppose we get a wonderful exhibition of unity in testimony in the early part of Acts. We get the thought of men illustrated in Peter and John going up to the temple. Would that be a figure of manhood?

G.R.C. It would. You mean the beauty of their personal relations. All this line culminates in our being before God for His pleasure.

• Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren; this leads on to the highest truth.

• But then, in a practical way, if we are to enjoy our place with Christ as His brethren in the presence of God we must be brethren amongst ourselves.

• Just as on the other line, we must be in the unity of the body to enjoy union,
  • so we must be together as brethren if we are to enjoy practically what it is for Christ to call us His brethren and to be one in the Father and the Son.

H.F.N. So John 17 is the highest thought of unity.

G.R.C. It would help us to lay hold of the greatness of the “truth” as referred to in this chapter.

• “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth”.

H.F.N. It must be unmeasurable. The Lord is the divine standard.

W.S. Is not the sanctification referring to the fact that He has gone to the Father? He has left this scene and gone into the holiness of all that is there.

G.R.C. And He has set Himself apart from other interests that we might be brought into the truth in its fulness –

• “the truth as it is in Jesus”.

• The Lord wants us to come fully into that, into the enjoyment of the place that man has now before the Father in the Son.

W.S. To come into all these heavenly relationships which are eternal in character, in time. All else will for ever pass away.

G.R.C. I believe we shall get help in meditating upon the truth – Jesus now in the Father’s presence.

• The truth is there in all its fulness and the Lord has set Himself apart in order that we may be brought into it.

E.C.M. Christ is found as Man now before God, and we are associated with Him in that position.

G.R.C. So He goes on to say,

• “I will that they … be with me where I am”.

• First “that they may be one in us”,

• united, and then that we may be with Him where He is in fullest association.

W.S. I suppose there has to be education that we may apprehend Him in His place there, spiritually.

G.R.C. Ephesians implies the need of instruction:

• “Ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus”.

W.S. “Sanctified through the truth”. I take it that is subjection.

G.R.C. I think so.

J.A.P. So the Spirit is not mentioned in the chapter but lies behind it in regard to sanctification.

G.R.C. I am sure it does.