The Assembly in Acts – Part 11
Early Ministry by G. R. Cowell

We have begun with Matthew 28: 19 because it brings in the full Name of God as now declared, to which we have all been baptised, and to which, in a peculiar way, the assembly stands related.

• The assembly both apprehends and responds to the declaration of God in a much fuller way than any other creature vessel.

• It is of the utmost importance, therefore, as approaching the subject of the assembly, to have in our minds the name of God as declared.

• It comes in the assembly gospel and the words are the words of the Lord Jesus Himself.

• But while in Matthew 28 He brings out the full name of God as declared, in Acts 1
  • He greatly stresses the Person of the Holy Spirit;

• and you will remember that in Luke 24 His last words before leaving His own relate to the Holy Spirit.
  • He says, “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you”, Luke 24: 49.

• So that according to Matthew 28, Luke 24 and Acts 1 the apostles were left with a very powerful objective presentation of the Holy Spirit.

• While the Lord Jesus in Acts 1 presents Himself living and also gives the Father fully the place that is His,
  • yet He puts great stress upon the Holy Spirit,

• and we have to remember that He is dealing with what is foundational to the assembly.

• The names of the men to whom He is speaking appear in this chapter and their names appear in Revelation 21 on the foundations of the city.

• So the Lord is dealing with what is foundational, and therefore it is important from that standpoint to consider the stress the Lord puts upon the Holy Spirit, because
  • we shall never understand the assembly at all apart from an appreciation of the Holy Spirit.

• So at the beginning of this chapter it says,
  • “having by the Holy Spirit charged the apostles whom he had chosen”, verse 2.

• He would leave them with an impression that everything they were to do was to be by the Holy Spirit.

• The whole charge that He committed to them was to be maintained in the power of the Holy Spirit alone; nothing was to be done except by the Holy Spirit.

• They were to shut out every other thought from their minds in the matter of activity relative to the assembly.
  • Then He says, “For John indeed baptised with” – or in – “water, but ye shall be baptised with” – or in – “the Holy Spirit after now not many days”.

• In water baptism we are baptised ‘to’ the Holy Spirit, but here He speaks of being baptised ‘in’ the Holy Spirit, which John himself had borne witness to.

R.W. Is that why in John great stress is laid upon the Spirit’s coming,

• “that he may be with you for ever”, John 14: 16,

• and then Paul labouring as he did in the Corinthian epistles, reminding them that their bodies were the temple of the Holy Spirit
  • and developing the idea of the Spirit dwelling in them in view of the service of God and the truth of the assembly being understood?

G.R.C. The apostle lays great stress in 1 Corinthians on the Holy Spirit.

• The more we think of it, the more we can see that the very existence of the assembly depends upon the presence of the Holy Spirit.

• There would not be such a vessel had the Holy Spirit not come.

H.P. Is there any significance in the fact that in the typical scripture, Exodus 23, prior to the setting up of the tabernacle,

• great stress is laid upon the place the Angel should have, of whom it says, “my name is in him”, verse 21?

G.R.C. It is an interesting suggestion as bearing on our subject. And so the Lord here lays great stress on the Holy Spirit in view of the setting up of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.

E.C.L. Would you say a word about the end of Luke, the idea of power from on high?

• I wondered if there has been difficulty in some minds as to the place the Spirit has because they think only of power instead of the Person of the Godhead with power.

G.R.C. The Lord says, “Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you”, Luke 24: 49 – and instructs them

• “to await the promise of the Father”, Acts 1: 4.

• The idea of promise is carried forward by Peter,
  • “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit”, Acts 2: 33.

• The Lord says much in His ministry as to the blessedness of the Father. He mentions the name of the Father about one hundred times in John’s gospel and about forty times in Matthew.

• If we want to learn about the Father fully we have to go to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself and
  • the more we appreciate the blessedness of the Father, the more we shall value His promise.

• The apostles would await with keen expectation the promise of the Father, the Father Himself being so blessed.

• If an earthly father promises something to his children with what anticipation they await the fulfilment of the promise.

• All that the Lord had told them of the Father would lead them to await the coming of the Holy Spirit with great expectation.

F.W.T. Would they know the actual day on which to expect this, according to Leviticus 23: 16? They were to count fifty days.

Ques. I was thinking of the word in Luke, “till ye be clothed with power from on high” – the idea of being clothed.

• Does it not suggest that every member and every servant is completely covered so that all that appears is the Holy Spirit?

G.R.C. Quite so. Each allusion of the Lord to the Holy Spirit carries its own instruction; first in Matthew as to His co-equality in Deity –

• “the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.

• There is the right order in that Name, but nevertheless the name implies coequality in Deity, an objective view of the Holy Spirit.

• The beginning of Christian experience lies in accepting the truth of baptism, involving this objective view of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

• But then in Luke the Lord gives another touch as to being clothed with power from on high, not power from below.

• We have to beware of the democratic principle in our Care Meetings. Power according to God is from on high.

A.H. The coequality that you referred to is subsisting equality?

G.R.C. It is, so that while they would await with keen anticipation the promise of the Father, which suggests all the blessing that would flow into their souls through the gift of the Holy Spirit,

• they were also to understand that the One coming was no less than a Person of the Godhead, coming in all the greatness of His Person and His own rights.

G.F.S. Would you be free to say a little more as to the democratic principle with regard to the Care Meeting?

G.R.C. We have to guard against power from beneath which would be Satanic. The democratic principle – power from below – makes way for that.

• The world is governed today largely on the principle of power from below; but the Lord says,
  • ye shall “be clothed with power from on high”.

G.H.B. Is Matthew 28: 19 sufficient to command our worship and praise to the Holy Spirit personally?

G.R.C. I am sure it is. It is the name of God as declared, as I understand it. It is the Jehovah of the Old Testament.

• The Jehovah of the Old Testament in the full sense is the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

• Each is separately called Jehovah in the New Testament – see 2 Corinthians 6: 18; Luke 2: 11; 2 Corinthians 3: 18.

• The Father is Jehovah, the Son is Jehovah and the Spirit is Jehovah.

• Therefore the full name that corresponds with Jehovah of the Old Testament is the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
  • and that Name demands our worship; and also each Person – because the Persons are referred to separately – demands our worship.

W.S.S. I was thinking of what is said about the promise of the Father. Should that not touch our affections?

• There is no doubt that that is very much like the Father sending the Son. How our affections are touched by that; and is it not necessary for us to come into these things by means of our affections?

G.R.C. It does indeed touch our affections. The Father has done the very best for us.

C.R.W. I do not feel that we have fully entered into the glory and wonder of the Father’s gift. Christ was here personally, but He was not available to His people in the same way that the Spirit is now available to the saints as His body. Would you agree with that?

G.R.C. I would. So the Lord says,

• “It is profitable for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you”, John 16: 7.

• We are in a day that is marked by the very best, the Father has sent the Son; but then the crowning matter is that the Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit.

W.S.S. I have been greatly impressed with the thought of the Father sending the Son. Now we need to be impressed with the thought of the Father sending the Spirit.

G.R.C. And then also to be impressed with the greatness of the Spirit in His own Person.

A.H. No position a Divine Person is pleased to take in humiliation could ever affect His own Person, and are we not to have that adoringly in our hearts?

G.R.C. Exactly. The first and second of Acts, as well as Matthew 28: 19, would help us to have a great appreciation of the Person of the Holy Spirit.

• Our brother has referred to the type of the Angel of God’s presence who went before the children of Israel. They were to be careful in his presence.

• And how careful we should be in view of the greatness of the Person who is with us and dwelling in us.

Eu.R. Is the end of verse 8 of chapter 1 important in that connection? Is the Spirit’s coming attributed to His own act

• – “ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you”?

G.R.C. We must ever keep before our souls the greatness of the Person of the Spirit that He never ceases to be who He is in the Deity.

C.C.I. Would the expression

• “the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father”, John 15: 26,

• be expressive of His own prerogative and His moving in His own volition?

G.R.C. I think that. While He has come to us in virtue of Jesus being glorified and therefore He takes the place of being sent by the glorified Man,

• for on moral grounds He could not have come to dwell in us apart from the finished work of Christ and His consequent glorification,

• yet that does not alter the truth of His Person. He goes forth from with the Father; He is coequal with the Father.

C.W.O’L.M. Referring to your remark that the Father would do the best for us in the gift of the Spirit, is not that a primary thought of the Father and Son, sending the Spirit that They might have response to Themselves?

G.R.C. The response is certainly secured by the sending of the Spirit.

• But in the way the Lord speaks in John He is sent for our sakes as the Comforter and to guide us into all the truth.

• So the Lord says that it is profitable for us that He should go away so that the Comforter should come to us.

• Yet, as you say, it is through the Spirit’s service that all response in the assembly towards God is secured.

J.P.H. The rightness and appropriateness of worshipping the Spirit lies in the truth of His own Person, who He is?

G.R.C. And we should be concerned, should we not, according to verse 2, to do nothing apart from the Holy Spirit?

• He should be the source of all thought and word and action in the assembly.

A.B. Is it not affecting that the Lord Jesus Himself, after He had risen from the dead, even on the day when He was taken up, charged them by the Holy Spirit? Would He not be an example in that way?

G.R.C. He would. We are confronted at the present time with evangelical activities with which are linked methods and associations which are not of the Holy Spirit,

• so that it is well to remind ourselves that the divine thought in this dispensation is that every feature of the testimony should be carried through wholly and entirely in the power of the Holy Spirit;
  • that He should be the source of every thought, every word and every action;

• that there should be no admixture of any kind in the bringing in of worldly methods.

• You could not think of these heavenly men in Acts bringing a single Egyptian method into the praises of God or the testimony of God.

• In chapter 2 the company as a whole speak as the Spirit gave them to speak forth. Then Peter standing up with the eleven speaks forth.

• But there is no admixture of any worldly method at all, the whole matter is entirely in the power of the Spirit.

F.W.B. Is that confirmed by chapter 1: 16, when Peter speaks about the scripture being fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke?

G.R.C. That is why I suggested that verse being read. Does it not show the effect of the Lord’s words upon the apostles that Peter should say this?

• The Holy Spirit had become a living Person to Peter although he had not yet received the Holy Spirit.

• Through the Lord’s words the Spirit was objectively before Peter’s soul in such a manner that he speaks of the scripture being fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David.

• The Holy Spirit personally was thus before Peter’s soul and. in result, the scriptures had a place they had never had before in his soul.

W.J.T. Does scripture confirm that?

• “Holy men of God spake under the power of the Holy Spirit”, 2 Peter 1: 21.

G.R.C. Quite so.

W.W.S. Is it not an evidence of spirituality when we are able to refer to what the Holy Spirit may say? In verse 1 attention is called to Jesus and in verse 2 to the Holy Spirit, stressing the great need for spirituality.

E.C.L. Would not the verse referred to, and also the way the Lord Jesus came in and went out amongst His own, be the way we should look for things to be done if the Holy Spirit is given His place?

• You were referring to the methods used in evangelisation.

• Do you think we have to be governed by the way the Lord moved and the way He is moving if the Spirit is going to take us on?

G.R.C. I am sure that is right.

W.J.T. You spoke in prayer of the Spirit of God taking every place given to Him in Christendom to continue His sovereign operations in grace. Would you enlarge on that a little?

G.R.C. I think it endears the Holy Spirit to us, that He should be prepared to take whatever place is given to Him, however small it may be, and to go on patiently with His work in Christendom generally.

• However much things are brought in to grieve Him, He will still pursue His patient work; but that must not in any way cause us to fail to recognise what is due to Him in the assembly.

• Our concern would be, as of the assembly, to give Him His full place, allowing no admixture at all.

• The assembly’s very existence depends upon the fact that the Holy Spirit has come; and every motive, thought, word and action should find its source in this blessed Person.

A.J.R. In Acts 5 there is a challenge in the admixture that Ananias brings in. Is that why Peter says,

• “Why has Satan filled thy heart that thou shouldest lie to the Holy Spirit”?

G.R.C. At the beginning any admixture was judged unsparingly.

H.J.M. Do you think this objective view of the Spirit which you have been presenting would help us to be prepared to wait for His movements and direction?

• Would waiting upon Him be continuous in the assembly?

• And would the Lord’s ministry relative to the kingdom of God, verse 3, help us to make room for the Spirit?

G.R.C. I think so, because the truth of the kingdom as known at the present time really involves the Spirit having His place in all the saints individually.

• According to Romans 8, God secures the believer fully for Himself in virtue of the presence and indwelling of the Spirit. And so it says,
  • “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”, Romans 14: 17.

H.J.M. I was thinking of the subjection that the kingdom would produce in us, so that we would be ready to accept things as they are presented to us by the Spirit.

G.R.C. I think that is right. The kingdom of God involves that we are secured individually as vessels of the Spirit and thus we are ready for the assembly.

• We need the truth of Romans, therefore, in order to be available for the truth of Corinthians.

D.S.H. Have you something more in mind as to the difference between being baptised

• “to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”

• and being baptised with the Holy Spirit?

G.R.C. The first is water baptism, we are baptised “to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, but here the Lord says,

• “ye shall be baptised with” – or in – “the Holy Spirit after now not many days”.

• Is not baptism in the Holy Spirit fundamental to the truth of the assembly? Does it not show how fundamental the truth of the Spirit is to the formation and constitution of the assembly?

D.S.H. Does it connect with our being merged together?

G.R.C. It does, and I think it implies that we are all moving in the current of the Spirit; we are baptised in the Holy Spirit. Paul says,

• “For also in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”, 1 Cor. 12: 13.

H.B. Is there not something very positive about that?

G.R.C. It is a very positive matter because we are all baptised in one Spirit. That is how the one body comes into being. You can understand what a reality the body is, as all the saints are in the flow of the Spirit and immersed in it.

H.B. Is that not what we want to get all the saints into, this positive current?

G.R.C. It is indeed. And Paul says,

• we “have all been given to drink of one Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 12: 13.

• There is drinking as well, meaning that I open my inwards. I have no reserves as merged with the brethren; I have no reserved compartments – I open my inwards to the Spirit. I think drinking implies that.

W.S.S. Would you say a word as to verse 5 and its link with verse 8,

• “ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you”?

G.R.C. Verse 8 has the testimonial position in mind.

• Verse 5 is really the formation of the assembly, what is constitutional to the assembly. We are baptised in the Holy Spirit. That is how the body is formed.

• But then alongside of that, and complementary to it, is the idea that we receive power, the Spirit having come upon us.

• We are baptised or immersed in the Spirit, but then the public position is that the Spirit has come upon us and we thus receive power to do all that is needed in the testimony.

E.J.B. Are these two sides linked with verses 2 and 3 of chapter 2?

• Verse 2: “filled all the house”;

• verse 3: “sat upon each of them”.

• I was thinking of what you were saying as to the formation of the assembly.

• The filling of the house would be more inward, and then sitting upon each one would secure them all in this same power, the power of the Spirit.

G.R.C. It would, and so in chapter 2 further features are in evidence. First there is what is heard,

• “a sound out of heaven”,

• then what is seen,
  • “parted tongues, as of fire”,

• and then, I think we may say, what is felt,
  • “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”.

• In result the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off; indeed a greater joy than had ever been known in Jerusalem before. So the mockers say,
  • “They are full of new wine”.

G.F.S. You have spoken of what is inward on our side. Does the violent impetuous blowing involve what is inward from God’s side?

G.R.C. There came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of hard breathing – see J.N.D.’s note.

• I think it suggests the inwards of God, the inward feelings of God; and how He would breathe into and thus take possession of them in the highest way.

• The human organs are used as figures to help us. The idea of the lungs being filled is to convey spiritually the imparting of life in the highest sense, involving power of intelligent response Godward and testimony manward.

• Then there is the idea of the lower organs being filled with new wine. We need wine to stimulate us and give us joy and strength in testimony, but first of all there is hard breathing.

• Does it not indicate how God Himself in the Spirit was waiting for this moment.

• All through the Old Testament God was waiting for this moment, and now the time had come and here was a suitable vessel formed through the ministry of Christ Himself.

• The feelings of God enter into this. There was hard breathing. The moment God had waited for had come; there was
  • “a habitation of God in the Spirit”, Eph. 2: 22.

W.W.S. You referred to what was heard and seen and felt. Might that suggest, speaking reverently, the substantiality of the Spirit as a distinctive Personality?

G.R.C. That is very good. Why should we not know something now of the deep feelings of God in the Spirit?

E.J.F. Would you say a word as to the parted tongues of fire? Does it raise with us the question of holiness if we are to enjoy what the presence of the Spirit really means?

G.R.C. It does. And does it not show the importance of the tongue, and that the tongue should be controlled?

• The tongue is the unruly member, and thus if the tongue is controlled the whole man will be under control and secured for God.

• The Spirit is given not only to control us in other ways but to make the tongue the most serviceable of our members, because the tongue is the most important member in the service of God.
  • David said, “Awake my glory; awake lute and harp”, Psalm 57: 8.

• “My glory” appears to be a reference to his tongue – see Psalm 16: 9 and Acts 2: 26.

F.W.T. Stephen’s tongue was serviceable. He was filled with the Holy Spirit.

G.R.C. It is the intention that the tongue of all that compose the assembly should be used in the high praises of God and the testimony to men:

• “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand”, Psalm 149: 6.

A.P.A. David said, “The Spirit of Jehovah spoke by me, and his word was on my tongue”, 2 Samuel 23: 2.

J.P.H. As regards the personal side, would you say something on the words,

• “it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”?

G.R.C. “Each one of them” is the body idea. The doctrine of the body awaited Paul. He says, we are

• “each one members one of the other”, Romans 12: 5,

• and he develops that in 1 Corinthians,
  • “But to each the manifestation of the Spirit is given for profit”, 1 Corinthians 12: 7.

• In Acts 2 the body was formed by the baptism of the Spirit and there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them.

• Does not that show that in the assembly each one of us has his own place sovereignly given by God. He has set for Himself the members in the body as it has pleased Him.

• “Each one” would refer to each one of the one hundred and twenty. The twelve were there, but the whole vessel is in mind, each one of them, and they
  • “began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them to speak forth”.

• It would include brothers and sisters.

J.P.H. I was thinking of that, and I wondered whether the Spirit sitting would imply that there were receptive conditions for Him with each one of the brethren.

G.R.C. That is very good and would raise an exercise with each one of us.

C.C.I. Does Romans 8 raise the question of the Spirit with each one of us?

• Would the reference to the Spirit of Christ raise the question as to how we stand in relation to the body,

• and God’s Spirit dwelling in us as to how we stand in relation to the house of God?

G.R.C. Very good. “If anyone has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of him”.

• It is the body thought, Christ being in the believer,

• whereas the Spirit of God dwelling in us would fit the individual for the house.

A.L. Would it maintain a balance in our minds between what is collective and what is individual? I may have the Spirit, but it does not make me independent.

G.R.C. It says, “God has set the members, each one of them in the body, according as it has pleased him”, 1 Corinthians 12: 18,

• and then it says, “Now ye are Christ’s body, and members in particular”, verse 27,

• and to each the manifestation of the Spirit is given for profit, verse 7, so that we are in no wise to individualise ourselves;
  • and yet it is a question as to whether each of us individually is available to the Spirit, so as to fill out our place in the body.

J.W.G. Does this stress the personality that is proper to the assembly – the one hundred and twenty names? Would it really refer to heavenly personality?

G.R.C. The fact that we are merged in one body does not in any way rob each individual of his distinction; in fact it enhances the distinction of each.

• Individual distinction is seen at its very best as each merges in the body and fills out his place in it.

R.S.W. Is there a certain glory connected with the sovereignty of the Spirit? Does that run right through?

• I was thinking of the sovereignty of the Father and the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus,

• and there is also the sovereignty of the Spirit in imparting what He will to each.

G.R.C. There is. 1 Corinthians 12: 11 asserts the sovereignty of the Spirit, dividing to each in particular as He pleases. And so in our scripture it sat on each one of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

F.O.W. So that, whilst we should be happily conscious of the presence of the Spirit, if we use our tongues we should in some way understand the up-springing of the Spirit within. I was thinking of the two sides,

• the happy consciousness of being together in the presence of the Spirit viewed objectively,

• and then, as we use our tongues, we are conscious of voicing our expressions by the Spirit dwelling within.

G.R.C. Quite so. He is dwelling with us not only individually as in Romans 8 but collectively,

• “Ye are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3: 16.

• He is in each one of us and we are together as indwelt by the Spirit.

W.W.S. The end of verse 4 of chapter 2 says,

• “as the Spirit gave to them to speak forth”

• – does that bring in regulation, and would the impulse of the Spirit imply the great need for soul sensitiveness on our part to answer to that?

G.R.C. I am sure that is right. We are to be dependent on Him so that what we say is of this character –

• “as the Spirit gave them to speak forth”.

A.G.B. Could you say in that regard why the speaking is manward here and we have to wait for the filling out of the service Godward for Paul’s ministry?

G.R.C. Do you not think that in Acts the public testimony is primarily in view?

• Nevertheless it is not only speaking manward. At the end of the chapter it says,
  • “And every day, being constantly in the temple with one accord, and breaking bread in the house, they received their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people”.

• The praises of God were going on just as at the end of Luke where they were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.

• As soon as the Lord went on high and the Holy Spirit was poured out, the service of God began; not yet in the full light of Paul’s ministry, and yet it was a service worthy of God at that time.

• There was also the breaking of bread. The service Godward was therefore proceeding, but testimony manward is primarily in mind, and so the first thing said is, “as the Spirit gave them to speak forth”.

W.W.S. In that connection is there a sense in which the service of God has a public bearing?

G.R.C. I think the service of God is really the highest form of public testimony; that is the confessing of God’s name in a sacrifice of praise.

• That is why it is so important that exercised souls should come to the Lord’s Supper.

H.B. So a man who came to the morning meeting said it was the most impressive thing he had ever been to.

G.R.C. It should be the most impressive. The high praises of God are proceeding, but you will find the two-edged sword there, too.

• There will be the testimony manward which has its own effect. Peter wields the sharp two-edged sword.

J.P.H. Does not what you have just said as to the service of God and the preaching bear on what you mentioned earlier as to certain popular preaching which does not connect with the assembly?

• Is not the service of God behind the public testimony in Acts, and is not the public testimony rendered with a view to the enrichment of the service of God?

• I am thinking of chapter 13. They were ministering to the Lord and fasting, and the testimony goes out from such conditions and has such conditions in view.

• I think a good many of the young people amongst us are thinking of what is going on and we need to be balanced about it.

G.R.C. That is very important. There was conflict in 1905 at the time of the Chicago notes as to the relation between

Now this afternoon we have before us the light out of heaven. In chapter 2 it is a sound out of heaven.

• In chapter 9 it says, “there shone round about him a light out of heaven”,

• and this light is the greatest light that has ever shone.

• We may say it is the greatest light that ever will shine for men; and men, we need to remember, are the most blest of any creatures, men in Christ, but this is the greatest light that will ever shine.

• The Spirit of God would help us as to this greatest of all light revealed to Paul. He says,
  • “God … was pleased to reveal his Son in me”, Galatians 1: 16,

  • and “by revelation the mystery has been made known to me”.

• Those two revelations constitute the greatest light that has ever come to men, and, if understood, enable us to be in the assembly at the full level of intelligence and response that God desires.

I suggested reading Revelation 3 as an afterthought because the Lord says He is the One who has the seven Spirits of God.

• That is, the fulness of the Spirit is available with a view to our going on to completion. Paul’s ministry involves completion.

• If we do not go on in our souls and enter into this greatest of light we shall never reach completion according to God, and
  • Sardis, which represents Protestantism, has never moved on to Paul’s ministry of the assembly.

• Protestantism, as such, is ignorant of Paul’s gospel and of Paul’s intelligence in the mystery.

• Rome claims to be the assembly, but she is a complete travesty of it.

• Protestantism has never apprehended the assembly in any sense at all, and one reason why Protestantism has failed is because in her evangelical zeal she has allowed herself to be defiled.
  • Therefore she has become dead; death and defilement go together.

• Defilement may spring from evangelical zeal, but in defiling ourselves we do it at the expense of our lives, we become dead as to the truth of the assembly and to all that is really living according to God.

• So the Lord is speaking to those who have not defiled their garments. I mention that as an afterthought as bearing on current exercises.

• If we are led away, even, as we may think, with the best motives, to defile our garments as Protestantism has done, by using worldly means and methods in testimony, we are disqualified from moving on into this greatest of light.
  • We are disqualified from ever apprehending Paul’s ministry.

• Such a course not only results in disqualification but will lead to moral death. But we will get help, no doubt, in pursuing the positive side.

• The seven Spirits of God suggest the full availability of the Spirit, so that we might, as giving Him His place, take in this greatest light and thus arrive at the complete thoughts of God.

J.O.S. Would verse 14 of Ephesians 5 bear on this matter?

• “Wherefore, he says, Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee”

• – I was thinking particularly as to what you said as to Sardis, whether this is a general word to the saints with a view to coming into the greatest things.

G.R.C. I am sure that is right, because, as you say, the word

• “the Christ shall shine upon thee”

• involves what we have spoken of as the greatest light that has ever been vouchsafed to men.

• The Christ shining upon us involves the truth of the mystery and Paul’s intelligence in it.

C.R.W. God and the Lamb are the light of the city – would that cover very much what you are saying? I was thinking of Christ, the Lamb, Christ in His manhood;

• but ‘God’ would cover the three Persons of the Godhead, as being the full light of the city.

G.R.C. Quite so. It says,“the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb”,

• and then it says, “for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb”, Revelation 21: 22-23.

• What is shining through is the glory of God, but the vessel of that glory is the Lamb; so that the glory is shining in the face of Jesus – that is where we see it.

• I take it all that will ever be expressed of God is expressed in the Lord Jesus.

R.M.B. Would the mention of light in Matthew 4, the assembly gospel, have this great light in view?

• “The people sitting in darkness has seen a great light, and to those sitting in the country and shadow of death, to them has light sprung up”, verse 16.

• I wondered if that had this great light in view.

G.R.C. Well, I think it helps, because that speaks of the light which is shining down, the great light.

• “The people sitting in darkness has seen a great light”.

• Then it speaks of the light that has sprung up.

• There was the light of God shining upon them in Christ, like the sun in the heavens.

• On the other hand, the light had sprung up, which refers, I suppose, to the light of life seen in Him as a Man living in all the favour of God.

• Is that not seen in the assembly? The light springing up today is in the assembly.

G.H.B. In the passage in Ephesians 5 there is a reference to Isaiah 60: 1,

• “Arise, shine! for thy light is come”.

• Is that our light you have in mind?

G.R.C. Yes. That is exactly what I have in mind – it is a light out of heaven; and Paul says later that he saw this light at midday, and it was above the brightness of the sun.

A.B. Is it important that the light is from heaven? Does it have in mind that believers are linked with this blessed Man in heaven? They are linked with Him in the Spirit.

G.R.C. I am sure that is so. He is the Second Man, out of heaven, and according to chapter 1 He was taken up into heaven.

• In chapter 2 there is a sound out of heaven, and now in chapter 9 a light out of heaven;
  • so that heaven dominates the whole position.

• A Man has gone into heaven, and the result is a sound out of heaven as the Spirit comes, and now a light out of heaven.

G.F.S. Does the sense of that light increase with him, because in chapter 22 he says, “a great light”?

G.R.C. And in chapter 26, “a light above the brightness of the sun”.

R.W. Is there a psalm which says, “in thy light shall we see light”, Psalm 36: 9?

G.R.C. How do you understand that?

R.W. I wondered if it worked out in the way Saul of Tarsus responded to the Lord. He is brought into the full light and outshining of all that God is.

G.R.C. I am sure that is right. Paul was brought into the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus, which set him free;

• and also into the light of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, because

• this light includes what he calls “my gospel”, and the first thing he does, according to verse 20, is
  • “straightway in the synagogues he preached Jesus that he is the Son of God”.

• God had revealed His Son in him. Then finally, in the Lord’s own words,
  • “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?”

• – the mystery was revealed to him.

• I believe all that is included in the light out of heaven,
  • the light of the glory of God,

  • the light of sonship,

  • and the light of the mystery – “Why dost thou persecute me?”

A.H. It says, “as I could not see, through the glory of that light”, in chapter 22: 11

• Paul is calling attention not only to the light but to the glory of it. Would that have in mind this vast range?

G.R.C. It shows how it moved his whole being, and thus he can speak of the glory of that light.

S.H. Does he bring this light to bear upon the Galatians? When they had departed from the truth of the gospel he refers to the revelation of the Son of God in him. He is moving in the greatness of this light.

G.R.C. Very good. We may get help in speaking of Paul’s ministry in its two parts according to the end of Romans,

• “my glad tidings, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery”.

• Paul’s ministry was composed of two parts, as it were: he was minister of the gospel and he was minister of the assembly. It is one ministry in two parts.

• I do not see in scripture that Paul, in the ordinary course of things, separated the two.

• In Galatians he refers to the gospel only, because the truth of his gospel was at stake;
  • but generally, as in Romans 16, Colossians 1 and Ephesians 3, he links the two together.

• He does not separate the two parts of his ministry, because both are essential.

• Whether we have apprehended how the two parts of his ministry bear on each other I do not know.

F.W.T. Is it significant that the two expressions you quote, Paul speaking of himself as minister of the gospel and minister of the assembly, are put together with scarcely a verse between? The Spirit of God puts them together in that way in Colossians.

G.R.C. That is very interesting; and similarly in Ephesians he says,

• “to me, less than the least of all saints, has this grace been given, to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ, and to enlighten all with the knowledge of what is the administration of the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God”, 3: 8-9.

• So that both in Colossians and Ephesians and in the end of Romans the two are brought together.

• The two together form the great light, the light out of heaven, the light above the brightness of the sun, and we should learn to hold these two lines together
  • – they are complementary – the truth of sonship, which is Paul’s gospel, and the truth of the assembly.

J.O.S. If Paul had taken off what we might speak of as the top-shoot of his ministry, that is, his ministry as to the mystery, he would never have gone to Rome.

• I was thinking of the verse in Acts 22 that he quotes,
  • “Go, for I will send thee to the nations afar off. And they heard him until this word, and lifted up their voice, saying, Away with such a one as that from the earth, for it was not fit he should live”, verses 21-22.

• I was thinking how the top-shoot, you might say, the mystery, was really a great test, and whether that is a great test today?

G.R.C. I am sure that is true. I would not say sonship is the test exactly, although it is always a test in another way – it was a test in Galatia.

• So that we have to be on our guard to maintain the truth of sonship.

• But generally the truth of the mystery is what tests us, because the truth of the mystery involves intelligence in the highest degree, and the deepest exercises of soul.

• But it is normal for sons to be intelligent. God would give His sons intelligence to enter into the most secret thoughts of His heart –
  • “the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God”.

• Paul was, therefore, both minister of the gospel and minister of the assembly.

• The separation of these two ministries results in defectiveness as to the whole scope of the truth.

A.L.B. Is it not particularly important at the present time when things outwardly are in great confusion that these two parts of Paul’s ministry should be held as one?

G.R.C. I think it is, and the Spirit of God may help us on this particular occasion to see how the two parts of his ministry are complementary and necessary to each other.

• It is not a question of setting one against the other, or saying that one is greater than the other. Such comparisons are pointless and damaging.

• The point is that both lines are absolutely essential, and only those who are in the liberty of sonship can ever find their place properly in the assembly.

• On the one hand the intelligence and liberty of sonship are necessary if we are to find our place in the body and function of the assembly;
  • and on the other hand, the more we enter into the truth of the assembly the more we provide a setting where the sons are seen in service at their very best.

• The two things are necessary to each other.

A.B. Does Paul present the mystery enticingly in Romans 16: 25? He presents it as something to go in for.

G.R.C. I think so; and is not the word “according to” important?

• “Now to him that is able to establish you, according to my glad tidings and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery”.

• That is, one is according to the other. It is not a question of setting one against the other, or comparing; one is according to the other, and essential to the other.

A.McG. Did not Mr. Stoney say that the gospel of the Son of God was the gospel of the glory? Would that not govern the whole position? Is not Paul the minister? He says, “according to my glad tidings”.

G.R.C. Quite so. On that line what could be greater than the truth of sonship and our association with Christ in all the favour of the Father’s affections?

J.C.T. Is it not a great exercise as to the kind of ministry that souls come under? I was thinking how Paul is supremely affected by the light which reached him initially.

• It is important that the full gospel should be presented, the gift of the Spirit and some light as to the assembly coming into the presentation of the glad tidings.

G.R.C. It is of the utmost importance.

W.W.S. Is it right to think that in Romans it is God who is in view, and “my glad tidings” and the preaching of Jesus Christ, and the revelation of the mystery. is all in view of God being served?

G.R.C. Yes, and Paul is an example, is he not, in the very fact that what he is saying there forms part of the doxology?

• He is a worshipper; he is worshipping God in relation to eternal purpose.

• In chapter 11 he worships God in connection with His ways, but he closes Romans with a note of worship to God relative to eternal purpose, referring to the eternal God,
  • “according to the commandment of the eternal God, made known for obedience of faith to all the nations”.

W.W.S. It would help us in that way, therefore, to understand that the preaching of Jesus Christ has in view the securing of persons for the pleasure and service of God.

C.R.W. So the apostle lays a glorious basis here, preaching

• “Jesus, that he is the Son of God”,

• and Christ becomes Son that He might bring in a company of sons, a suitable people to worship God.

A.H. Who would you have in mind as to verse 25 of Romans 16,

• “to him that is able to establish you”?

G.R.C. The eternal God, the only-wise God. Who would you have in mind?

A.H. I thought it embodied the Persons of the Godhead that you referred to in Matthew.

G.R.C. It must do, because the eternal God is now made known in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Rem. Would you say why the prophetic scriptures are brought in here?

G.R.C. You will note that it does not say ‘Scriptures of the prophets’ because the mystery was hidden and formed no part of their testimony in Old Testament times, but it says

• “prophetic Scriptures”.

• Paul says in connection with his ministry of the mystery in Colossians that it was given to him according to the dispensation of God towards them to complete – or fill full – the word of God.

• I think in the light of Paul’s ministry many scriptures, which in themselves are historic, become prophetic of the mystery.

• We can now include New Testament scriptures; but they were not written at the time Paul was writing, so he would have in his mind Old Testament scriptures.

• Not that those who uttered them understood the truth of the mystery – they did not.

• The mystery was hidden throughout the ages in God, but the One who indited the scriptures knew the mystery of God and He used men of old to write down prophetic scriptures.

• Once we have Paul’s ministry as a key whereby to unlock their meaning, they become prophetic as giving light about the mystery.

• We need to see that Paul’s ministry fills out or completes the word of God.

• Completing does not mean that he added the last section to scripture, because we know he did not; John wrote after Paul.

• The idea is that Paul’s ministry fills out the whole plan of scripture and is thus like the key of knowledge to the whole of scripture. So that, having Paul’s ministry, Genesis 2 becomes prophetic.

• Genesis 2 would not be prophetic as to the mystery without Paul’s ministry, but having Paul’s ministry we can see that Genesis 2 is a prophetic scripture. God brings the woman to the man and the man names the woman.

• Genesis 24 also becomes a prophetic scripture as to the mystery.

• So also do the scriptures relating to the tabernacle system and the house which Solomon built for Jehovah.

• Having Paul’s ministry, which completes the word of God, scriptures in the Old Testament open up to us and provide marvellous wealth.

• The revelation of the mystery was to Paul, but the prophetic scriptures confirm and give fulness to it; so it says,
  • “by prophetic scriptures, according to the commandment of the eternal God, made known for obedience of faith to, all the nations”.

A.L.B. Does what James says in Acts 15 help:

• “And with this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written”, verse 15,

• and then, “the Lord, who does these things known from eternity”, verse 18?

G.R.C. Quite so. If the mystery was hidden throughout the ages in God, the Spirit of God inditing the scriptures would have this matter ever before Him,

• and so the Old Testament is replete with prophetic scriptures relating to the mystery;

• but until the mystery was revealed to Paul no one understood these scriptures.

Eu.R. You have in mind that this word to Paul, “why dost thou persecute me?” is the filling out of Genesis 2 – the man and the woman?

G.R.C. In Acts 9 the Lord Jesus names the woman.

• We have to keep in mind that scripture does not repeat itself; so that Genesis 2, the prophetic scripture, stands in all its glory by itself.

• There Jehovah Elohim brings the woman to the man and the man names the woman in that setting, God having brought her to him.

• In the New Testament we get something additional, and that is that the Lord from His exalted position owns the suffering assembly on earth as His body. Just as Adam said,
  • “this time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”,

• so here the Lord owns the assembly as His body.

• He names the assembly to the elect vessel that He had sovereignly taken up to be the minister of the assembly.

• You can understand the Lord naming the assembly to Saul of Tarsus – “Why dost thou persecute me?” I do not think anyone else could name the assembly except the Lord Jesus.

Eu.R. Then in Genesis 24 we have three Persons of the Godhead active through the dispensation to bring about response to the Son of God in view of the service of God.

A.G.B. How would the expression “made known for obedience of faith to all nations” work out?

• I notice in Acts 26 Paul says there in recounting this matter before Agrippa,
  • “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision”.

G.R.C. Is it not meant that not only is the gospel “made known for obedience of faith to all the nations”, but the mystery, too? The mystery is not optional.

• That is how it is regarded, if it is regarded at all, in Protestantism; it is really not understood at all. Paul’s ministry generally is regarded as optional.

• But the gospel is preached for the obedience of faith to all the nations, and alongside of it the revelation of the mystery is made known for the obedience of faith to all nations by commandment of the eternal God.

Ques. Does the way that this great light affected Paul and took possession of him become a pattern?

G.R.C. If we truly apprehend the light above the brightness of the sun, it will take possession of us. The truth of Paul’s gospel and the truth of the mystery as made known by him will completely control our beings and our lives, and that is what God is after.

J.J.McC. Is it helpful to see that in Ephesians 5, where the truth of the mystery is developed, Paul commences by speaking of the saints as those who were

• “once darkness, but now light in the Lord “, and then refers to them as “children of light”,

• as though it is only such persons that can come into the gain of what he can speak of in relation to Christ and the assembly?

G.R.C. That is very important. I am glad you referred to Ephesians 5. We are now light in the Lord; Saul of Tarsus became light in the Lord, and we are all to become light in the Lord. In that chapter he says,

• “This mystery is great, but I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”,

• and preceding that we are called members of His body. That is the light which came to Saul here.

• He had seen the members, he had dragged them off to prison – Acts 8: 3; he had seen Jesus expressed in those members. So that when Jesus owns the vessel and names her, saying,
  • “Why persecutest thou me?”

• Saul of Tarsus understood. He had no difficulty in taking in the idea immediately; and it grew with him.
  • “We are members of his body; we are of his flesh, and of his bones. Because of this a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be united to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great, but I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”.

• That is the great mystery of the present moment, that Christ, the glorified Man, has left interests which are very precious to Him because of something that is most precious.

• It is what He has done now. He has left precious interests for what is most precious, to be united to His wife. How much do we know of the truth that Christ is united to His wife?

E.C.L. Are we not tested by the fact that that position is outwardly one of suffering and reproach? Do you think in Christendom generally it is not accepted? We turn aside from it, but Paul’s first impression was that it was in suffering and in reproach.

G.R.C. So Acts 9 has its own setting, and Genesis 2 stands in its own setting.

• There is no suffering or reproach in Genesis 2.

• Saul of Tarsus saw the vessel here in suffering and in the greatest reproach.

• The vessel linked with Jesus the Nazarean as to the public position was really the wife of the glorified Man.

D.S.H. Does the reference to Ananias and his coming into the matter show how the Lord is able to coordinate things?

• He is working with Paul and He is coordinating things in regard to His people who were already suffering, so that they should be intelligent, not only as to the one who was to be an elect vessel but as to the place he was to have amongst the people of God.

G.R.C. So that the title “Lord” is prominent in this chapter, which bears on what was referred to earlier,

• “for ye were once darkness, but now light in [the] Lord”.

• The title “Lord” in Ephesians goes a long way. It may, in certain passages, merge into Deity, corresponding with ‘Adonai’ in the Old Testament.

• We know that Jesus is made Lord, but the title Lord may sometimes imply more than this. It says,
  • “be strong in the Lord, and in the might of his strength”, Ephesians 6: 10 –

  • “for ye were once darkness but now light in the Lord”, Ephesians 5: 8,

• and this chapter stresses light right through.

• It is the Lord acting, because unless we are subject to the Lord as Saul was here, we shall never come into the light of the Christ. Saul says,
  • “Who art thou, Lord?”

• and he never withdraws his complete surrender to the Lord. As one who was light in the Lord he says,
  • “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee”, Ephesians 5: 14.

• It is as the Christ that the church is linked with Him. We need to be subject to the Lord if we are to apprehend the Christ and all that centres in the Christ.

A.M. Would lordship link on with the obedience of faith?

G.R.C. It would. We are called on to obey the Lord and as we said earlier Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

• May the Lord grant that none of us here may be disobedient to the heavenly vision. The Spirit would give us heavenly vision at a time like this.

F.W.B. In Acts 9: 17 Ananias says,

• “the Lord has sent me that thou mightest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit”.

• Is it necessary to be filled with the Holy Spirit if we are to enter into the full light of the truth?

G.R.C. I am sure that is right. We should know what it is to be filled with the Spirit. Of Saul of Tarsus the Lord says,

• he “is an elect vessel to me”,

• and we know he has a peculiar place; but then he applies the idea of a vessel to all the saints in Romans 9: 23, saying,
  • “that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy”.

• So that all the saints are vessels from that standpoint, and the idea of a vessel is that it is to be filled. God has no thought of a vessel that is not filled.

• If we apprehend that we are vessels individually it makes room for the great vessel, the assembly, the great vessel that is to be filled to all the fulness of God – Ephesians 3: 19.

J.O.S. Is it not to be noticed that in Ephesians 5: 17 we have the understanding of what is the will of the Lord, and then in the next verse,

• “but be filled with the Spirit”?

• I wondered if we shall ever be filled with the Spirit if we are not subject to the Lord.

G.R.C. I am sure we shall never be filled with the Spirit unless we are subject to the Lord.

W.J.T. Have we not thought that being filled with the Spirit was left to certain kinds of persons, but it should be normal to us all?

W.W.S. Involving the displacing of every feature that is not pleasing to the Spirit, every feature that is not seen in Christ?

G.R.C. Is not that very important because Protestantism has taken on all sorts of extraneous things to help them with evangelisation, and so on?

• Actually it disqualifies persons completely from these higher levels of the truth, which we cannot enter into apart from the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

• The Holy Spirit is prepared to help anyone as far as he finds any room at all, but we need to be filled with the Spirit for the higher levels; and it is open to all of us to be filled with the Spirit.

• The word is, “be filled”, and Paul would not say that if it were not a possibility.

F.W.T. In Acts 6 they had no difficulty in finding seven men filled with the Spirit.

G.R.C. Can we find them in our localities?

G.H.B. Paul says, “If anyone think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord’s commandment”, 1 Corinthians 14: 37.

• Is it because of the relationship in which the assembly stands that we need to be governed in the wilderness position by the Lord’s commandments?

G.R.C. I am sure that is right, otherwise we shall not be free to enter into the higher levels, but the Lord’s commandment governs us fully in the wilderness position.

E.J.B. Would the passage in Romans 16 help, not only in the matter of evangelisation apart from the assembly, but also in the matter of mixed marriages,

• that the commandment involves subjection both in relation to the glad tidings and in relation to the assembly?

G.R.C. Say a little more.

E.J.B. I was thinking of “the commandment of the eternal God” – in seeking a partner in marriage.

• It is essential according to the commandment to have one who is not only in the light of the glad tidings but also in the light of the assembly.

G.R.C. That is very good. How could we be moving in the light of the assembly otherwise?

• The truth of the mystery involves, as to Christ and the assembly, that the two shall be one flesh.

• How can there be complete oneness between two persons when one is holding the truth of the mystery and the other is not?

E.J.B. I was thinking of that and the commandment of the eternal God making it essential.

G.R.C. There is nothing more damaging, and nothing hinders the saints more from entering into the higher levels of the truth, than mixed marriages and other evil associations.

C.C.I. Is all this to have a bearing on the local assembly, the light of it being received at Damascus, and the truth of it being worked out in Paul’s ministry by the local assemb1y at Ephesus? Is there a danger of divorcing the great truth of the mystery from what is practical in the loca1 assembly?

G.R.C. We must not do that. When you come to the local assembly as in the two epistles to Corinthians,

• Paul finishes them by saying, “I have espoused you” – that refers to the loca1 company at Corinth –
  • “I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”, 2 Cor. 11: 2.

• So that the light Paul had in his soul as to the assembly in its completeness as espoused to Christ governed him in his activities and ministry.

• In every local company he had nothing less in his mind than that each local company should be espoused to one Man.

Eu.R. So just now we are facing serious exercises in India, and we are sharing deep sorrows in Australia. It is all because we belong to the “me”.

J.W.C. The light that shone for Saul is shining now for us to embrace and the Spirit would help us on that line.

G.R.C. The Lord saying “he that has the seven Spirits of God” shows that all is available now. The seven Spirits of God stand re1ated to the seven lamps.

• The Spirit in His faithfulness is available to the assembly so that the full light may shine.

Eu.R. This co-relation would make it a very serious thing to embark on any independence in relation to the glad tidings.

• The gospel is the gospel of the glory, and it needs the glory of the assembly behind it.

J.L.W. Is it helpful to notice that the gift of the evangelist is in a special setting in Ephesians 4,

• coming down from the ascended head, a Man in the glory, and in the place of Deity, all with a view to certain things being worked out in the saints?

G.R.C. Very good. The gift of the evangelist is given, just as are the other gifts, from the Man who has ascended above all the heavens.

• He could not have ascended above all heavens if He had not been God, yet He is truly Man.

• The gifts, including the evangelists, are with a
  • “view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ”.

H.W.T.S. Paul speaks at the end of Ephesians of

• “opening my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the glad tidings”.

• Did not Mr. Stoney say that the gospel might be known while the mystery of the glad tidings is wholly unknown?

G.R.C. So that he desires prayers specially for the opening of his mouth to make known the mystery of the glad tidings.

J.P.H. Is it contained in the word to Timothy,

• “who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Timothy 2: 4?

G.R.C. Yes, because the word ‘knowledge’ there is really “full knowledge”.

J.P.H. I was thinking of that – the full knowledge of the truth – and I was wondering if it would help in that connection to see Andrew in John 1.

• He wanted to see where the Lord abode and he abode with Him that day; and then he goes out and finds his own brother Peter and brings him to Christ.

• I wondered whether privilege and our part in the service of God, and in association with Christ where He is, gives background to our seeking of souls?

F.D.W. Is an evangelist one who has been captivated by the light out of heaven and becomes a bondman?

G.R.C. We all need to be captivated by this light.

A.H. Is it not a sorrowful matter that all the reformers fell short of the mystery and the light of the church?

G.R.C. It is, and it makes it very imperative that we should hold fast today and be intelligent as to the mystery of the Christ.

• It is not only a question of the one body, that would preserve us from independency, but also that we are Christ’s body; and then that He has left other interests to be united to His wife.

• This is a great matter because when you think of a wife how much is involved in that, a vessel that is competent to be with Him in every sphere of interest in which He moves.

• Whether we think of administration, what is downward, or whether we think of what is upward in the service of God, the Lord has secured a vessel of which it is said,
  • “the two shall be one flesh”,

• a vessel that moves in the current of His own thoughts and affections in every way.

H.J.M. Is Paul’s work at Antioch helpful in that connection? It says that he was with them for a whole year and

• “they were gathered together in the assembly and taught a large crowd; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch”.

• I was thinking of the time given to work these things out both in privilege and in administration.

G.R.C. Very good.

W.W.S. Would the mystery as alluded to here at the end of Romans greatly contribute, and if rightly apprehended,

• lead to deeper and richer response to God as expressed in this choice doxology?

• As you know, there are four of them in Romans, but is not this the greatest?

G.R.C. I think so, because of the references to the eternal God and the only-wise God. It is an ascription in worship of glory to God in relation to His purpose.

W.W.S. If the truth of the mystery were better understood we should find ourselves using expressions that have “doxology” character.

G.R.C. I believe so. The purpose of God includes what Paul speaks of as “my gospel”; that is, it includes sonship.

• We were marked out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself.

• But then the purpose of God also includes
  • “the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times”, Eph. 1: 9.

• Purpose embraces both ideas: the truth of sonship and the truth of the mystery.

• They are both included in the purpose of the eternal God, the only-wise God, and both are needed;
  • and the relation between each needs to be understood if worship in the way you are speaking of it is to ascend to God from the assembly in Christ Jesus.

• We need to understand both sonship and the assembly, including the relationship between Christ and the assembly. I do not know how far we have apprehended that.

C.W.O’L.M. I was just wondering whether you would explain the difference between “my glad tidings” and “the preaching of Jesus Christ”.

• Does that not form a certain basis for the apprehension of the mystery?

G.R.C. I think so. “My gospel” particularly refers to the truth of sonship,

• and then “the preaching of Jesus Christ” is foundational because the whole structure is patterned after Jesus Christ, from the foundation to the corner stone; and He Himself is the Corner Stone.

• No other man has any place or footing there at all. So that the preaching of Jesus Christ lays the basis for the truth of the mystery.

A.B. Would the preaching of the Son of God involve Christ as known outside of this world and having another world of His own, and would not that result in deliverance practically from this world’s system?

G.R.C. As you say, sonship takes us outside the world and involves great liberty with God, the Spirit of His Son being in our hearts.

• From the standpoint of experience we arrive at the liberty of sonship in Romans 8: 14-15, and in this liberty we find our place in the body according to Romans 12: 4-5.

• F.E.R. said that no one finds his place in the body apart from the liberty of sonship. Romans 8 thus comes before Romans l2 –
  • “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”, verses 14-15.

• Persons such as that can happily accept divine sovereignty as to their place in the body.

• Thus Paul’s gospel is needed before we can begin to touch the assembly. Unless we are in the liberty of sonship we shall quarrel with God’s sovereignty.

• Indeed, it is only sons who apprehend God’s great plan as to the body, the assembly; and it is only sons who are prepared happily to accept the place His sovereign will has given them in that great vessel.

• As we apprehend what the assembly is and accept our functional part in it we become available in it as sons to serve God, because the assembly is the place where sons serve.

• The assembly has to be distinguished from the family.

• The Father’s house is the place of liberty where the sons are at home;
  • the assembly is the vessel of service where each one has a place divinely given and where all function under the impulse of the headship of Christ.

• So it is in the assembly setting where the sons are seen serving; in the Father’s house they are at home and at rest.

• Unless we understand union with Christ we shall never understand the assembly as a vessel of service Godward.

S.H. Would you say, in what you are referring to at the moment, that there is some instruction for us in Acts 9 as to the Lord Jesus saying in verse 5,

• “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest”,

• and then Ananias saying to him later,
  • “the Lord has sent me, Jesus that appeared to thee in the way in which thou camest”,

• and then his reference to his being Son of God,
  • “Jesus, that he is the Son of God”?

• Do you think that there is something in what you are saying as to the charm of it in these two references:
  • the light as to the assembly and then the distinctive light as to the Person, the personal name being used?

G.R.C. What charm, indeed, in the personal Name! According to verse 20, he preached Jesus that He is Son of God, but in verse 22

• he “increased the more in power” – note that!

• He is going on to the mystery in principle – not that it was yet developed – and he increased the more in power, for that is what is necessary with regard to the truth of the mystery.
  • “But Saul increased the more in power … proving that this is the Christ”.

• The mystery centres round the Christ. Paul in his ministry begins with the Son of God and goes on to the Christ – “the Christ” occurs nearly twenty times in Ephesians –
  • whereas John begins with Christ and goes on to the Son of God.

• We need both ministries. The mystery centres round the fact that Jesus is the Christ, and the church is united to Him.

S.H. The Lord, even Jesus, appeared to him on the Damascus road. The charm and greatness of the Person and the liberty of sonship would dawn upon the soul of the apostle, do you think?

G.R.C. The liberty of sonship would be known as the glory of the Son of God dawned on him.

• But then he goes on to prove that Jesus is the Christ.

• So that the wonderful truth is that the Son of God is the Christ.

Then just a word as to verse 28,

• “and he was with them coming in and going out”.

• He is a real assembly man. He does not come in with any self-importance, saying that the Lord had appeared to him and that he was a chosen vessel; nothing like that about Paul, once Saul.

• He has the light of the assembly, which precludes any self-importance at all.

• It is wonderful that in the case of the Lord Jesus Himself, who is the Person of all-importance, it is said of Him
  • “the Lord Jesus came in and went out among them”.

• He, who was God over all, Blessed forever, of Him it says that He came in and went out among them. It does not say He came in as over them, though God over all.

• Saul immediately takes character from the Lord –
  • “he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem”

• – a real assembly man.

E.T.H. “Saul, brother”, was not that an excellent start?

G.R.C. We need a family start. The family lays the basis for the assembly.

D.S.H. Did Paul come into the benefit of Ananias there? Was Ananias appreciating the hard breathing, and did Paul come into the benefit of that?

G.R.C. What feelings marked Ananias! The feelings of God and of Christ were expressed in him in the power of the Spirit.