Colossians 2:1 - 23

F.E.R. I think God has found a way by which He may dwell: Christ has prepared a house for Him. We have our part in that, but it is not the purpose of God in it; the purpose of God in it in regard to us is to bring us into the sanctuary. There is great gain in being brought to the house of God, but His purpose is to bring us to the sanctuary; you are brought to the sanctuary when you are prepared for it.

D.L.H. Is not the house a kind of means to an end?

F.E.R. Yes, God dwells to make Himself known. It is not only that He may be revealed; He was revealed before the house was here at all. God was first revealed, then He establishes the house that He may be known by those in the house. You get no divine teaching until you are brought to the house.

W.B. When is a man brought there?

F.E.R. When he apprehends that God dwells here by the Spirit.

W.B. How do you come to apprehend that?

F.E.R. By faith. A man accepts testimony from God, but that is not what I call divine teaching. He accepts the testimony and receives the Holy Spirit, then it is divine teaching begins. If a man receives the Spirit he has come to the house of God.

W.J. By the sanctuary, do you mean the privilege of the house?

F.E.R. Not quite, the sanctuary is something within. The house is one idea, and the sanctuary another; how far they will be co-extensive in the eternal state I could not say. The gospel is really God's testimony. When you accept that you are brought to His house, in order to come under teaching which is divine. That is in principle the new covenant; you get the new covenant within the

house, and it means divine teaching. The new covenant does not belong to the sanctuary, but it forms you for it.

D.L.H. I had thought that covenant is that God instructs us as to His intention.

F.E.R. He instructs us not in His mind, but in Himself and hence it is said, "All shall know me, from the least to the greatest".

T.H.B. Is that the limit of the teaching?

F.E.R. The only limit is God Himself; because He is the Teacher. We do not strictly come under the covenant, but we must come under the principles of it, that is divine teaching, so the apostle says to the Thessalonians, "Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another", that is the effect of the love of God.

F.C. So in Romans 5, we have what is presented in testimony, and then teaching.

F.E.R. I think so, but you get the teaching even in chapter 5: "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts", verse 5, it begins there.

W.B. I thought that if any man learned any truth at all either about God, or himself, it was by divine teaching he learned it. Suppose I have learnt my state of guilt and sin, is it not divine teaching?

F.E.R. That is not what I should call divine teaching. Divine teaching is leading you into the light of God. The man who knows God best, knows himself best. New birth is not divine teaching, but it is divine operation. You cannot speak of divine teaching until the Holy Spirit is received.

Ques. When shall they all be taught of God?

F.E.R. It is the great point in the new covenant that people are taught of God.

J.B. What is "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" John 14:6?

F.E.R. Coming to the Father is coming to Christ really for light. All the light of God is in Christ. He was speaking to the Jews at the time, and no one came to Him except the Father drew him. It is akin to Matthew 11:28

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden".

J.S.A. The work of the Spirit is not the same as the teaching of the Spirit?

F.E.R. New birth is the work of the Spirit, but it is not the teaching of the Spirit. The object of coming to Christ is to be brought into rest by Christ revealing the Father. You come to Christ to be taught.

J.B. "Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me". John 6:45. Is not the Father the Teacher there?

F.E.R. God is the Teacher, but God draws to Christ that you may come under divine teaching. I am inclined to doubt if the Father's drawing to Christ is in itself divine teaching.

A.C. Has He not some instruction about Christ to give to the soul that feels its need?

F.E.R. You come to Christ to get living water, then it is you get teaching. You could not come under divine teaching until you get living water.

A.C. How do you know the living water is there?

F.E.R. You get it, it is not a question of knowing it is there, but if you do come to Christ you get living water. You are attracted by the operation of God, by the testimony, but the soul comes to Christ and receives from Him the gift of living water.

A.C. What is the difference between testimony and teaching?

F.E.R. The reception of the testimony is one thing, and teaching quite another. You must begin by the receiving of the testimony: faith must accept the testimony. God has set forth His testimony, and the first relation of the soul with God is the acceptance of His testimony. That is different from teaching, the idea of which I get from John's epistle: "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things, ... and ye need not that any man teach you," (1 John 2:20, 27), and in the last chapter the Spirit is the witness: "He that

believeth ... hath the witness in himself"

W.B. Where does the gift of the teacher come in?

F.E.R. Oh, but that is not the divine Teacher. There is the gift of the teacher as well as the evangelist. If you are lecturing, or if I am lecturing I am sure I have no idea that anybody is taught by me. One may be used of God to point things out perhaps to people, but pointing things out to me does not teach me. The Spirit uses me in a measure to keep the mind of God under the attention of the saints, but they do not learn from me. What I present to them may be used to exercise them, and if they are exercised they may get something out of it, because all teaching is the fruit of exercise. There are two elements with teaching: moral and intelligent, and you want both. The moral teaching is by the Spirit; the Spirit of God leads you in a way to the Scriptures, and you get intelligence in that way, but the great point is moral teaching. The Spirit enlightens you in the mind of God, but God alone can teach Himself to you.

D.L.H. What we want is to be exponents of the things about which we are enlightened.

F.E.R. I am perfectly sure of this that our enlightenment has gone a long way beyond our knowledge of God. It has been so with myself. I have put things out far beyond my moral stature. Take one single instance, and that is Mr. Darby: I never found a man who had the same intelligence in the mind of God, and power to apply it as he. Morally there was the stature of the man, and the intelligence corresponded to it. He was specially and divinely taught in the knowledge of God, and hence he acquired great intelligence in the mind of God.

The Spirit begins with righteousness and then you get to holiness in that way. You are led on and instructed. The moment you come to holiness you must bring in love. Righteousness connects itself with grace, and holiness with love. You get the knowledge of these things by the Spirit of God bringing your soul into direct contact with God Himself.

J.S.O. What about the gifts in Ephesians 4, do you separate that from divine teaching?

F.E.R. I would in a way; there it is that the body may be built up, that instead of being children and tossed about with every kind of doctrine, they might be able to stand as men. That is all connected with intelligence. It is divine intelligence but you cannot get divine intelligence except by the knowledge of God morally. What man wants is moral backbone, and then he gets divine intelligence, the two go together. I think if you examine the passage in Ephesians 4, it is intelligent growth, not moral. Do you remember an expression of Mr. Darby's? It used to puzzle me a good deal: he said that in divine things you learned the words by the things, and if you have not got the things you cannot learn the words.

J.S.O. I suppose the only revelation of God we have is in the scriptures?

F.E.R. Christ was the revelation of God whether the scriptures were there, or not.

J.S.O. But still Scripture is the inspired volume.

F.E.R. You have an inspired record, but the revelation of God was complete, even before the Holy Spirit came. I would not like anyone to think that I make little of the scriptures, but the real witness of Christ is the Holy Spirit: "When the Comforter is come ... he shall testify of me".

J.B. Was there any divine teaching in the past dispensation?

F.E.R. Yes, in anticipation of what has come to pass now. No one has a single bit of light until the entrance of God's testimony.

J.B. Teaching is on the line of love, not light.

F.E.R. Quite so, God begins by enlightening.

W. "That I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended", is that divine intelligence?

F.E.R. I think it is more apprehension of mind. The first thing that God works in a man is desire, and then He satisfies it. It is a wonderful thing to me what

you find in Psalm 132, the Spirit of God produces desires in David, and then satisfies those desires.

J.S.O. Have the labourers no part at all in forming the stature of the christian?

F.E.R. In a way; for instance, I have had thankfulness expressed for something I have put out, by those who have been helped by it, and I think in that way, the teacher gets the credit of it.

J.S.O. There is a very real link formed in that way, between those ministering and those ministered to.

F.E.R. In John's epistle there is the teaching in which he does not recognise man's hand at all and there is the teaching of the Spirit of God which forms a person's intelligence. A teacher may show you the mind of God, and it is an important service to have the mind of God expounded to me, that brings me into exercise so that I may get the good of it.

D.L.H. How did this discussion begin?

F.E.R. It began with the house of God, the place of divine teaching. The object of divine teaching is to bring us to the sanctuary. Very few people know the sanctuary because they are not prepared for it, and they feel it. The sanctuary is where God's glory rests.

D.L.H. With regard to the sanctuary, Mr. Darby's observation is very important, that unless you know the thing you cannot understand the word.

F.E.R. It is a great thing to get an idea of the sanctuary. It is certain to me that the love of God cannot rest in the house of God as it is now, but there is a spot in the house where it can rest; you could not touch the sanctuary except by the house.

W.B. Everyone who has received the Spirit has touched the house.

F.E.R. Teaching and discipline are going on in the house. That is not love resting, but there is a spot where God's love can rest, because everything is according to His glory. The great point for us is to reach that spot, but in order for us to reach it everything depends upon

our knowledge. We ought to grow in the knowledge of God.

J.S.O. But you do not make little of gift?

F.E.R. Oh no, I make a good deal of gift; I should not make light of it. If a man gets a ministry from the Lord, he has to fulfil it.

D.L.H. That passage quoted in Ephesians 4, really shows that the teaching comes from Christ, "He ascended up on high ... and gave gifts", it speaks of the present care of the Head for the body.

F.E.R. Yes, and the gifts are connected with the forming of the saints in the divine nature and intelligence -- you want both.

J.S.O. Does the Spirit of God work in connection with their being formed in the divine nature?

F.E.R. I am certain He does.

J.B. No servant could form them in it.

F.E.R. No, nor does any servant have the idea that he can really teach as the Spirit of God.

Ques. In what sense does the Spirit work in the teacher?

F.E.R. The Spirit produces very great exercise and that kind of thing. Let anybody try their hand at it and see the terrific conflict it is all along. You find that every influence is opposed to you, or rather to Christ I should say. Every influence is opposed to spiritual progress, hence if you try to maintain the mind of God before the saints, and are really concerned at all that they should make advance in the mind of God, you will find what a terrible power there is against it.

Ques. Why do you speak of the house and the sanctuary in connection with this chapter?

F.E.R. The object of the chapter is to prepare you for the sanctuary; we have the teaching and terms of it in Hebrews, but in Colossians we have the substance. It is written to the gentiles. You have to recognise your place as risen with Him. You are priests, the priestly company, and then you are quickened with Him, so

that you really have the antitype of Aaron and his sons substantially, not in terms. Jordan lies between the house and the sanctuary. You only get to the sanctuary through death and resurrection. As risen with Christ you are outside every order of man down here. A risen man is of a new order. It may be the same identity, but he is of a new order. It is not only that you are risen with Him, but you are quickened with Him, and thus participate in His life and you are qualified for the sanctuary. Colossians and Hebrews run together pretty much. Colossians brings you over Jordan to Gilgal. Risen and quickened with Christ corresponds to Hebrews 10. "By the which will we are sanctified", you are in association with the High Priest for the service of the sanctuary. He is the true Aaron and the Aaronic family are those who are risen and quickened with Him.

T.H.B. You do not get the assembly in Colossians?

F.E.R. You get the Head and the body and that is in connection with the sanctuary.

J.S.O. And philosophy and the like, would greatly hinder.

F.E.R. I would not like to offend anyone, but to me science and philosophy are all rubbish the moment you look at them from the moral point of view. What good will they be when you come to die? When you get above you will understand things better than men ever do by science down here.

THE SANCTUARY (2)

Hebrews 10:1 - 25

F.E.R. It is necessary to connect in the mind this chapter with the second.

J.S.O. There must be the understanding of chapter 2: 11 before you understand the sanctuary.

E.R. Chapter 2 is what is for Him; here it is our side?

F.E.R. The point in chapter 2 is Christ Himself. We only come in incidentally there. We come in when we are prepared for it as in chapter 5. Before you are prepared for the sanctuary, there must be a certain amount of acquaintance with Christ Himself

J.S.O. In His character as Priest.

F.E.R. You begin there, that is the first thing in connection with the house; then you get other functions connected with Him, as the Mediator of the new covenant -- the Minister of the holy place. There is a progressive acquaintance with Christ which qualifies people for the service of the sanctuary. God's mind for all saints is the sanctuary, but another question is, how far are we qualified for it?

D.L.H. The point is how we may approach and worship God as revealed.

J.S.O. You must have association with the Priest, and know the way in.

F.E.R. I think so. The idea of being sanctified is you are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ, the flesh is gone.

H.B. What is perfected for ever, in verse 14?

F.E.R. It only goes to purgation, when you have no more conscience of sins you are perfected. Conscience is the connecting link between the responsible man and the man in Christ, and the point is that the conscience should be purged. All is new in the christian, "If any

one be in Christ, there is a new creation", but there must remain a link with the responsible man so long as we are here, and that link is conscience, but it is perfected, and you have no more conscience of sins.

J.S.O. The light that acts upon the conscience brings in all the light of the new. The conscience remains in the light of it. You bring in another measure altogether.

F.E.R. Yes, nothing enters the sanctuary except what is according to Christ. The ideas of most of us are very indefinite in regard to the holiest.

Ques. Is entering the sanctuary collective?

F.E.R. We must all enter individually, but it is a question of state. The idea of worship is connected with the company in connection with Christ, and brings in a collective thought, but boldness to enter the holiest must be a question of individual suitability.

D.L.H. If we really had a sense of the holiest it would give a wonderful character to things.

F.E.R. Yes, but where there is a large company come together it is impossible that all there understand entering the holiest, so that they do not enter. Take the Corinthians or the Galatians, the company there did not enter.

J.S.O. Apart from state there can be no sense of being of the priestly company.

F.E.R. That is the progress from the house to the sanctuary. You are learning the Priest to prepare you for association with Him, that you may serve God in the sanctuary.

J.H.B. The Hebrews were no more in the enjoyment of privilege than the Corinthians.

F.E.R. I do not think they were, it is written to lead them into it.

J.S.O. As to their actual state they were low down.

F.E.R. There was a tendency among them to turn back.

J.H.B. How does the sanctuary stand in relation to reconciliation?

F.E.R. Reconciliation is preparation for it, and comes in at the end of chapter 9. He has made plain the way by which you enter. Reconciliation is deeper than a purged conscience, and refers to the removal of state which does not come on the conscience. You get it in the thought that we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ which means the end of us in flesh.

D.L.H. The idea of the body would appear in the Supper?

F.E.R. All that condition has been brought to an end in Christ's death, in order that we may live in the love expressed in His death. As far as I know the sanctuary depends to a certain extent upon God's ways being for the present hid. God's ways will not come out publicly until the new heavens and earth, until good and evil are solved. We contemplate God's ways in the sanctuary while they are hid. There you get a wonderful apprehension of God's wisdom and ways. I take up the thought of the way by which He gives effect to the purpose of His will. The millennium is God's ways governmentally, not morally. New heavens and a new earth are the moral result. Righteousness dwells there. God has before Him the ark of the covenant, the mercy-seat, and the cherubim, and if we have boldness to enter the holiest, that is what is before us.

J.S.O. We get into the knowledge of it all by Christ.

F.E.R. Exactly, what expresses infinite wisdom to me is that you should get the expression of God in a Man. The ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat have their antitype in Christ. God is perfectly expressed in One who is a Head for man, and hence you have the most unmistakable security for eternal blessing. Nothing can go wrong. God rests there, and we rest there because we are brought to moral perfection.

J.S.O. It is a mere question of time bringing it all out.

F.E.R. It is a great point in Hebrews that the Spirit

of God binds the two functions of Apostle and High Priest together. You have God expressed in One who is perfect on Man's side.

J.S.O. That gives depth to the epistle.

F.E.R. Hebrews and Colossians bring you to the same point of association. Neither takes you to heaven, It seems to me people have a poor idea of divine wisdom how it exceeds human wisdom which comes to nothing. Human wisdom cannot deal with man's state.

D.L.H. It is what is said in Corinthians that it comes to naught, and we speak God's wisdom in mystery.

F.E.R. If wisdom means anything it means resource, the light of God comes in. In Proverbs 8:20, it is said "I lead in the way of righteousness". That is Man. The One who leads in the way of righteousness is wisdom.

D.L.H. Is that the idea of His being made to us wisdom from God?

F.E.R. Yes, He is our resource because He is God's resource. The mercy-seat is the point where God puts Himself in communication with man, that is in Christ; and beneath the mercy-seat is the ark of the covenant, also Christ who could say "Thy law is within my heart".

J.H.B. Is eternal life enjoyed apart from the company?

F.E.R. It is not enjoyed apart from Christ. In John 4, the object of the well of water is to bring about in you attachment to Christ, and if you get that you come into association with Him.

J.H.B. Is eternal life linked with the sanctuary?

F.E.R. In the sanctuary you are really outside of death, and in association with Christ.

J.H.B. May there not be something in our individual experience that answers to that?

F.E.R. I think not. But supposing the service of God went on through the week, what then?

J.H.B. But that is not practicable is it?

F.E.R. I see no moral reason why it should not be continued all the week.

J.H.B. There might be the desire to recur to the sanctuary all the week.

F.E.R. But your individual path and life would take its tone from the sanctuary.

D.L.H. In that respect the priests lived too, though they had a good deal to do with natural life and relations. They had to remember they were priests.

F.E.R. And so have we, in our life we have to take care that we do not do anything unworthy of a priest. The bulk of christians today know nothing beyond individual christianity. You cannot get anything properly corporate except beyond Jordan.

J.S.O. It is important in ministering to begin low for the benefit of those who are there, though as to yourself you may be much further on.

F.E.R. I think so. I should suspect that the wisest way is to minister at the lowest point.

D.L.H. Ministering from the lowest point, would be from the point where the minister himself is.

F.E.R. Otherwise it would not be worth much. My fear is lest you get a kind of assumption on high ground without the necessary foundation. The effects of that may be some fearful apostasy, like going back to church and becoming a clergyman again or the like. I should think that sort of thing is because there is something rotten in the foundation. The foundation is important, and I daresay many were struck with Mr. Darby, he was always working away at Romans.

P.R.M. Would you say some more about the new Head for man?

F.E.R. You get that in the ark of the covenant: Christ is the testimony of God. You contemplate that in a way, and learn what characterises God's testimony. When you come into the sanctuary I think it is the glory of God that is before you; you apprehend God's glory,

everything is in perfect harmony, that is righteousness and love are in perfect harmony.

J.S.O. In a Man who is Head.

F.E.R. That is the point; righteousness is harmonized with love. The mercy-seat must be founded on the ark of the covenant. God could not put Himself in communication with man apart from a Man. You cannot conceive any other way, and that Man was One who was not under the judgment of God.

J.McK. God has spoken to us by His Son.

F.E.R. Exactly; prophets were only like conduits or pipes though they spoke by the Holy Spirit.

H.B. Is chapter 1, the antitype of the ark and mercy-seat?

F.E.R. The idea is there. God has spoken in Son, that is the mercy-seat.

D.L.H. Do you get the two ideas in John 17; the declaration of the Father's name, and then love in them?

F.E.R. Quite so, and also in John's epistle, "He is the true God and eternal life".

J.N. Does truth ministered objectively produce the subjective?

F.E.R. You will not get it otherwise. My idea of ministry is presenting God, and that brings in at once the moral element.

J.McK. Is it the object to bring us to the sanctuary?

F.E.R. To bring us to God.

P.R.M. What is the bearing of the blood in connection with the sanctuary? What about Christ's entering?

F.E.R. He did not require blood to enter, Aaron did. In connection with the consecration of the priests, blood was not carried into the sanctuary.

J.H.B. Did not Christ enter in the power of His own blood?

F.E.R. Oh no. That is not the connection. He has come in the power of His own blood and entered in having obtained eternal redemption. Everything is effected for God in the cross, and Christ goes in as the

risen Man of another order. The priest wanted blood to cover him as under death, but Christ goes in not as a Man under death, but as One who could not die.

J.S.O. Could you say a little more about the consecration of the priests?

F.E.R. The consecration of the priests gives the idea of priestly privilege, and was normal; what Christ has done is presented in contrast to the day of atonement, when the priest went in with blood.

J.S.O. How do you connect the boldness to enter with blood?

F.E.R. It is never applied to us in the holiest; we want it outside. There are three steps for the christian, (1) he comes into the court of the house; (2) he is part of the house; and (3) he is in association with Christ for the service of the sanctuary. Everyone begins with the court of the house, and there he learns the value of the blood. Next he is part of the house, a living stone; and then he is in association with Christ for the service of the sanctuary.

J.S.O. Responsibility was settled at the court.

F.E.R. Exactly; if you have anything to say to sin, it must be at the court not in the sanctuary. The bulk of christians never get beyond the responsible christian.

J.S.O. Do you think it is a question of entrance here?

F.E.R. Yes, the moment you pass that way, you are done with all that blood applies to.

D.L.H. You cannot connect sin or imperfection with association.

F.E.R. People are slow to accept this because they do not like the fellowship of His death, though they believe in it. They are not prepared to hate their life in this world. It is astonishing if you come to analyse your own thoughts at all, how much you are affected and influenced by different things connected with earth; we like to put everything in order down here. I find it so with myself. It is a great thing to be free and to have things suitable to Christ, not yourself.

B -- d. What is the living way?

F.E.R. Living always connects itself with God, and the world to come. I have been interested of late in relation to it. Everything is living and in contrast to a world dominated by death. There is the living God, Son of the living God, church of the living God, the living way: it presents God to us in relation to a living order of things. The living way is to the living God. The moment the Son came out He is the revelation of the living God. The moment He becomes Man He is the pledge of another order of things. All is living now.

D.L.H. All live to Him, to God.

F.E.R. Yes. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead for men, but for God they live. It is a wonderful advance when you apprehend the living God, and all connected with Him. He is the Saviour of all men, but all men are not in connection with the living God.

J.H.B. Christ could not be holden of death.

F.E.R. That is very important, it shews the glory of His Person.

B -- d. What is dedicated through the veil, His flesh?

F.E.R. It is the new and living way. He has come out that way, and we go in that way. He really comes out from the heart of God to the cross, to reveal the love of God, and we go back the same way as He from the cross to the heart of God. The veil is His flesh.

THE ARMOUR

Ephesians 6:10 - 20

J.S.O. What is the difference between entering into the truth of the sanctuary and being seated in the heavenly places?

F.E.R. I think you must come out in conflict from God but you must go in to come out. It is true of Christ; He has gone in to God and He comes out from God when He comes to take up His rights. The same must be true of us, we have to go in to come out.

D.L.H. Would you say a word about the heavenly places?

F.E.R. Oh, it is a question of entering into the love that would have me there; it is the soul getting a full entrance into the purpose of divine love. I think it is the idea of resting there. Nothing short of that will really content the love of God. I gather that from chapter 2: 4 "but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us" etc.

J.S.O. What is experimental is properly the conflict.

F.E.R. I think so. Entrance into divine love is experimental in a way. You enter into divine love which has its pleasure in having you with God in His own habitation.

Ques. What is the difference between the heavenly places and the sanctuary?

F.E.R. I think the sanctuary is connected with God's glory; it is entering into the secret of God. Take Stephen, he entered the sanctuary when he looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus -- he saw the sanctuary. The heavenly places is really God's own habitation. Divine love will have the saints there just as God will have Israel in His own land.

H.C.A. The heavenly places are usurped now by the powers.

F.E.R. In a way but they will be turned out.

J.S.O. Stephen as an individual saw the holy place whereas you would speak of heavenly places in connection with the company.

F.E.R. Not as to the sanctuary.

H.C.A. Conflict is not connected with the sanctuary.

F.E.R. With Stephen it was a question of being full of the Holy Spirit. I connect God's glory with the sanctuary. The way to enter it is in the secret of God. Heavenly places is an actual place, the sanctuary is not. The sanctuary is light on God's part and is moral. Heavenly places means heavenly places. John 14 is a place. Seated in heavenly places is put abstractly. It would go too far if the expression 'Christ Jesus' were left out. In Christ we are.

D.L.H. It is a question of the counsel of God.

F.E.R. It is counsel made good in Christ and in us in a sense; God has given us that place in Christ. As a matter of fact you are on earth in conflict but at the same time you have a place there.

W.J. It is the apprehension of that which brings you to the sanctuary.

F.G. Is the conflict heavenly life on earth?

F.E.R. Heavenly life is the equipment; conflict is that you stand here in the place of the Lord -- you take up the conflict which the Lord began. He set Himself against the devil to undo his works and the place of the christian here is to take up the conflict.

F.G. I was asked yesterday if the assembly was the conflict.

F.E.R. You would get into great confusion if you made the heavenly places and the assembly the same place.

J.J. It does not mean that the conflict is in the heavenly places.

F.E.R. No, the source of the power of wickedness is in heavenly places; we have to meet the influences down here. It is a question of Satanic influences on

earth, their seat is in heavenly places and they affect men on earth. It is a contrast to Israel in the land meeting carnal things, fighting the Lord's battles.

D.L.H. The effort of the spiritual wickedness is to shut people out of the good of the heavenly things.

F.E.R. I think so. You have to take the "whole armour of God". You begin with yourself.

T.H.B. Is the conflict individual, although you must be in the sense of the company to be in the conflict at all?

F.E.R. I think so, but it is spoken to them collectively. It is the whole christian company which is to be strong in the Lord and in His might. You cannot occupy the inheritance until you claim it. You see that in the Lord; He rode into Jerusalem on an ass as Zion's King. He claimed the inheritance in a way by testimony before He comes into the actual enjoyment of it. The same principle is true as to us; we have to claim it before we enjoy it.

J.S.O. The Lord has taken it already.

F.E.R. Quite so, and we have simply to stand there. It is wonderful to think that everything belongs to Christ -- He is Head of all principality and power. We are strong in the Lord, we take up what began with Christ. It is not that we are strong in Christ, but in the Lord; He is against the devil. If we are going to enter upon that ground here we must have the armour, the spiritual equipment.

W.J. Is the armour the state?

F.E.R. Equipment lies in state. You will not be able to avail yourself of the power of the Lord if you have not the equipment.

J.S.O. It is like the disciples who could not cast out the demon.

F.E.R. Exactly. If you lack equipment you will not have the power of the Lord.

T.H.B. Is equipment and state the same thing?

F.E.R. Spiritual equipment must be in state -- in

detail it is the breastplate of righteousness, etc., etc. -- it is all state.

H.C.A. Is chapter 6 the enemy disputing the entering of the heavenly places?

F.E.R. I think it is really the enemy seeking to keep Christ out and the rights of Christ.

W.B. Keeping Him out from where?

F.E.R. From all that belongs to Him. The climax of the enemy's effort is in antichrist. That is the point to which everything is working now to set up antichrist against Christ.

J.S.O. The question is what place is Christ to have?

F.E.R. The devil brings about a master stroke when he sets up antichrist and gets him the support of Babylon. The western world is used to back up antichrist.

T.H.B. The saints are set here to hold for Christ what He holds in heaven.

F.E.R. I think so; you have to stand for your own inheritance just as Israel had to do; they had to fight for their own inheritance, we have to fight in the way of testimony. Christ has got the inheritance as Head of all principality and power and we have to stand in the truth of that here.

J.S.O. It was the same with Israel, it was Jehovah's land they had to take possession of to hold for Him.

F.E.R. It is the same for us. Everything is gathered up in Christ and we have to stand in the truth of it. I have been greatly struck with the liar and the antichrist in John's epistle -- the liar denies that Jesus is the Christ and antichrist denies the Father and the Son. That is always the form of error. The unitarian will admit Jesus but not that He is the Christ. He was a man here -- the Son of Mary -- but John's point is that He was the Christ the Anointed, in whom the will and pleasure of God could have their full place. Antichrist will admit the fatherhood of God but denies the Father and the Son. You find both of the denials in the unitarian, they go very much together. If you admit the

revelation -- the Father and the Son -- you will be prepared to admit that another Man has come in, a Man of another order entirely and that is Christ. It is a new beginning, a new point of departure, and a new Man and order of Man. That is what 'The Christ' means and it involves the setting aside of man after the flesh.

W.J. Would you say a word about the armour?

F.E.R. The armour is all characteristic. Certain things are given to us in the way of light and truth, but then they become characteristic and they are armour when they become characteristic. You may apprehend righteousness but we are to be characterised by it and formed by the light. You apprehend it by faith but if it is a breastplate then it becomes characteristic. Truth is given to us as divine light, but, at the same time, you are to have your loins girt about with truth.

W.B. The breastplate of righteousness is practical.

F.E.R. It is practical.

H.C.A. Is armour state?

F.E.R. It must be to be armour. No holding of truth merely would be armour.

W.B. Righteousness would come out in practical acts.

F.E.R. Righteousness is the demands of rights on God's part and if you admit His rights you will carry it out and so you will the rights of your neighbours.

J.S.O. The instant the Babylonish garment was there Israel was without power.

F.E.R. There was failure of practical righteousness, God's rights were denied. Covetousness came in, and that always denies God's rights. Covetousness means that something that is not of God has the supreme place in the affections -- it is idolatry and greatly interferes with God's rights.

W.B. What is the preparation of the gospel of peace?

F.E.R. You have to walk in peace in a scene of moral confusion to which peace stands in contrast. The christian walks in peace. Feet refer to walk and mean practically

the sense in the soul that what caused the confusion has been removed from God's eye. In the offerings I see three things -- the burnt-offering, the meat-offering and the peace-offering. In the latter I see the cause of disturbance and confusion removed and we have to enter into that. I want to be clear of the man who has been removed and to walk in the light of it.

W.J. The contrast is in Romans 3 "and way of peace they have not known". Verse 17.

F.E.R. Exactly, there is a way of peace and it lies practically in the exclusion of the man who brought in disturbance; otherwise Jew and gentile could never walk in peace. Christ is our peace because both are gone in His death. Christ has made peace; He is our peace and He gives us His peace and we are to walk in peace here. When you look abroad and you see the confusion, it is a very wonderful thing to apprehend that the cause of it has been removed from God's eye.

J.S.O. It is only a question of time and God will bring in new heavens and new earth.

F.E.R. Exactly. Feet give the idea of walk; we become aggressive by the sword of the Spirit.

T.H.B. How does the sword come in as regards state?

F.E.R. The point is to be in the state to hold the sword. A sword is not armour, it is more than defensive. The armour is protective and the sword aggressive.

T.H.B. What is truth?

F.E.R. Truth puts everything in its place.

W.J. It is adjustment.

F.E.R. It is the expression of things as they are, everything in its proper size and proportions.

J.S.O. Christ is the truth and puts everything in its place.

F.E.R. Truth is summed up in two things, the revelation of God and the Man in whom God's will has its place. You see everything in the light of God and Christ. Stephen saw the truth in the glory of God and

Jesus.

W.J. You get that in Psalm 73 -- in the sanctuary.

F.E.R. There you see the glory of God, the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat. Nothing else is there to be seen except the light of God and Christ. If you take a very wicked man there is no truth about him; if he comes out in all his wickedness he is not the expression of things as they are; it is only for a moment for he will come into judgment some day.

D.L.H. What is the difference between truth and light?

F.E.R. They are very much akin. Light is more connected with exposure, it makes manifest and is objective. Truth is really the expression of things as they are, the revelation of God and Christ who is before Him and every one of us ought to be content with that.

THE WITNESS BEFORE CONFLICT

1 John 5:1 - 21

F.E.R. I suppose in a sense, the witness would come before conflict. The witness is the witness, and the conflict is to maintain it. The first thing is to understand what the witness is, otherwise you could not understand the conflict.

D.L.H. Is the witness that God has completely set aside one man, and brought in Another?

F.E.R. I think so. The point is that eternal life is in another Man, the Son of God.

D.L.H. So that the Spirit's work is on that line?

F.E.R. Yes; the introduction of the second Man puts aside the first, and not only that but when Christ was born into the world, He was a Head for man -- Head of every man. It comes out fully in resurrection, but in principle it was there when the Son of God became incarnate.

D.L.H. Does not the expression "This is he that came by water and blood" convey that thought?

F.E.R. I think so. He came in to remove what the first man had left behind him -- sin and death.

D.L.H. The moment He was there, He was God's Man, but He had to remove the first man.

F.E.R. Yes, headship is a place of pre-eminence, and He takes the first place. The best illustration I know of is the Speaker of the House of Commons: he is the first commoner. He is one of them, he belongs to the House, but he is the first commoner, the head of the House. If the Commons went into the Lords, they would be headed by the Speaker, but the Speaker is not lord of the House, he is head of the House, and is commonly spoken of as the first commoner. The recognition of the Head is by faith. Faith recognises Christ because He is the testimony, and faith recognises and receives the

testimony.

W.J. What is believing that Jesus is the Christ?

F.E.R. Christ is the testimony.

W.J. In what way was He made Christ in the Acts?

F.E.R. It is in resurrection He is made Lord and Christ. All is taken up in resurrection by Him. Jesus speaks about Christ in Luke 24. "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day". In resurrection He was vested with all the authority of God, but at the same time the Christ had to suffer. The only thing God had to say to man in Christ was "not imputing their trespasses unto them", because Christ was under His eye. Christ's presence was the final test for man, but there was no idea with God of His being accepted. He was born to be set aside. It is very remarkable what is said in Luke 2, "A light for revelation of the Gentiles," and then "the glory of thy people Israel". That shows what was in the mind of God in connection with the birth of Christ, at the same time light comes to man and he cannot help being responsible.

J.McK. It is the responsible man you preach to?

F.E.R. Yes, if you had grace to go and put the truth of the gospel before man, he must be responsible for what he hears.

J.McK. Would you present to man the headship of Christ?

F.E.R. You must. It is impossible to present the gospel without presenting His headship. If you announce the simplest things in the gospel, repentance and forgiveness of sins, it must be in the name of the Head. You must present the Head because God's overtures to man are all in the name of the Head of every man. Headship brings in the presentation of grace in His name. He had died to acquire repentance and forgiveness for every man, and it is preached in His name.

D.L.H. Is the idea of headship limited to pre-eminence or is there any thought of direction?

F.E.R. There is that thought morally, not authoritatively. My head does not direct authoritatively, but it is natural to it. The Speaker of the House of Commons gives guidance and direction to the House.

W.B. Is there also the idea of receiving from Him as in Colossians 2?

F.E.R. Yes, He is the medium of communication, "from whom all the body ... increases with the increase of God". Another, and scriptural idea is that of husband and wife. The husband is guide to the wife, and supplies come by the husband, he is pillar and guide.

T.H.B. Does headship involve mediatorial work?

F.E.R. I think so, because the One who is Head to man, is also the Revealer of God. The One who declared God, has become Pillar and Head of the universe. That is God's mind and thought about Him. It is His glory as Man, that He is that, and the consequence is all will be upheld by One who is competent to do so. In the Psalms you get "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it". (Psalm 75)

E.R.B.R. How do you take the headship of Christ to every man?

F.E.R. God addresses Himself to every man in the name of the Head. The real point as between God and man is Christ. Every man is responsible to hear God. He is a Saviour but He is that by a Head. Apart from Christ man has no Head at all. The introduction of a Head is to bring man within rule, and if he does not accept the Head, it only proves him to be lawless; and when lawlessness is headed up in antichrist it will only be to come under God's judgment.

J.McK. Could you go up to any man in the street, and claim him for Christ?

F.E.R. No, I should proclaim to him repentance, and forgiveness in the name of a Head. Christ is Head of every man, but I could not say that every man belongs to Christ.

J.McK. Is not man denying the Lord that bought him?

F.E.R. That is referring to a professed christian.

J.McK. How would a christian deny the Lord that bought him?

F.E.R. The passage refers to one who takes that ground, he may not be really a christian.

H.C.A. Lawlessness shews you do not approach God in that way.

F.E.R. It shews that man has not accepted God's appointed Head. The first thing is to receive the testimony of Christ in His name.

H.C.A. Is that why stress is laid on the name in John?

F.E.R. Yes, everything is in a name at the present time.

H.C.A. The Lord sets Himself as a ground of approach to God.

F.E.R. He is Head of every man, so that in Him God can approach man. I have been much helped in seeing that Christ's death was both declaratory and sacrificial, because God was declared, and He died for man. God's righteousness was declared, and the grace and love of God set forth. All came out in His death, but it was sacrificial for man.

H.C.A. What is the witness of the water and the Spirit and the blood?

F.E.R. The witness is that God has wrought to effect His purpose. John says "God so loved the world", Christ Himself was the witness to that. There was the declaration of God's mind. In the epistle John says "God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son". It is witnessed by the Spirit, but the fact is the witness. The witness changes character somewhat because Christ is not here bodily. The water and the blood shut man out; the Spirit brings in what is of God.

D.L.H. You get the same thing in the Son of man lifted up.

F.E.R. Exactly. The witness there was Christ Himself.

E.R.B.R. What is the difference between the water and the blood?

F.E.R. The water refers to moral cleansing, the blood to expiation.

D.L.H. You get the negative and the positive in the witnesses.

F.E.R. Yes, in the three witnesses. The water removes what is morally unsuitable and the blood is the removal of that for which man was responsible. It is death, the end of a man, to which the blood witnesses. You could not get expiation without the end of a man. The end of man was death "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh".

J.H.B. Is it right to say that the blood is for God, and the water for man?

F.E.R. The blood is the witness to man not to God. The water is cleansing from the world system, and the blood is expiation; you are clear as in Hebrews 10, "by one offering he hath perfected for ever", and the Holy Spirit is witness. The water means washing from the pollutions of the world, it is death to the world. Christ's death must involve our death, and it is that all may die as far as I understand it.

A.E.W. Atonement was complete before Christ died?

F.E.R. Atonement and sacrifice is that you might never come into judgment; you have to accept His death. The first thing for a converted person is baptism. The eunuch wanted to be identified at once with His death. The world to him was Jerusalem, and instead of going back to Jerusalem like the two on the way to Emmaus, he went on his way rejoicing.

J.N.B. Why is verse 6 put in that particular form?

F.E.R. To bring before us that the history of the first man is completely closed. There always had been in a sense, water, but Christ came by water and by

blood. By there being water before I mean, that all the communications of God had death in view.

D.L.H. In Hebrews 6, it speaks of the doctrine of washings.

T.H.B. Would you say a word about verse 9?

F.E.R. There is the witness, and it is that God has given to us eternal life, and it is in His Son. There is a company that have the Son, and are in the Son, and they are conscious of having eternal life: that is the witness for the moment. Christ was the Witness here, but now it is the church, and the witness of the church is dependent on association with Christ. The gospel is so very weak because the witness is such a failure. The gospel depends upon the church, and you get very little power in the gospel, if you have not got the church.

The church is the witness of the love of God. There is the conscious witness of the Spirit, and he that believes has the witness in himself; but then there is the public witness that God has given to us eternal life, and it is added "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar". The epistle is an advance on the gospel of John.

The Lord prays in John 17, for the unity of those who believe on Him, that the world might believe that the Father sent Him. If the saints were in the consciousness of eternal life, they would be the witness of God in the world, and if men did not believe the witness of God they make Him a liar. You see the immense importance of the church as witness. In Revelation the church fails and Christ comes in and says, I am "the faithful and true witness", but that is what the church ought to have been.

W.B. I should have thought the witness was found in the scriptures?

F.E.R. The witness was here many a long day before the scriptures were written. Unity was the witness, "That they all may be one ... that the world may believe that thou has sent me". The point to me is this, the gospel depends upon the witness. The gospel is

not the witness, but the church, and if the witness is a failure it must seriously hamper the gospel. Life is the witness and it is in unity, or not that exactly, but unity is essential to life. Life is in spiritual affections. The moral import of unity is the will is set aside and shut out, and life comes in in consequence. Life is in the Son, and it is put in the place of witness to the love of God expressed in the Son.

E.R.B.R. Where is the witness now, if the church has failed?

F.E.R. You will never get it much here now, but we want to get into the divine idea, from which you get great good.

D.L.H. There is great power there.

F.E.R. I would not have christendom or any part of it at any price.

W.J. Is "holding forth the word of life", the same thought?

F.E.R. Yes, only more individual there.

J.McK. The witness was not obscure at Pentecost. What is the gospel?

F.E.R. It is glad tidings, an announcement. It is not a moral witness, it goes forth from the church. If you could get the church in order, what an immense activity in the gospel there would be. The gospel is to enlighten, but then it is to bring people into the witness. The point for people today is to be in the witness, and that is by receiving the Spirit but the gospel is the means by which they receive the Spirit.

W.J. What is "we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world"?

F.E.R. That was apostolic. We could not say we have seen and do testify, but we take it up from the apostles. The gospel was first given to the twelve, but it has been deposited in the church, and the evangelists go out from the church.

D.L.H. The gospel we try to preach is in christendom, which we would not have at all if things were right.

F.E.R. No, christendom is confusion worse confounded.

THE GOSPEL

1 John 5:6 - 13, 18 - 21

F.E.R. The subject last time was the witness, I think.

D.L.H. Yes, had you not something on your mind in connection with the gospel?

F.E.R. Yes, I think it is the thought of God that the gospel should have the support of the living witness. The thought I take up from Matthew 16; before the Lord gives the keys of the kingdom to Peter, He speaks about building the church. The keys of the kingdom followed upon the living witness, and as a matter of fact until the assembly is there the gospel could not go out, it was dependent upon the church.

J.McK. What about Peter on the day of Pentecost?

F.E.R. The church was there before Peter preached; he went out in the testimony of the kingdom.

J.S.O. You get the principle in the Spirit saying, "...he that will, let him take the water of life freely". Revelation 22:17. There is the living expression as well as the proclamation.

F.E.R. Behind the proclamation there is the living witness. I do not think you get the gospel in power if there is not the living witness. The early days were days of power in the gospel, but behind and connected with that, there was the living witness.

W.B. How do you apply that today?

F.E.R. The great thing for us is, to look to what is within.

W.B. Do you mean that the assembly should be evangelistic?

F.E.R. If you have things right within, you will have a great deal of energy in that way. We have to look to the condition of things within -- the living witness in the saints -- and then the proclamation would take

character from that. The divine way has been to establish the witness here.

D.L.H. In verse 11 of the chapter from which we read it says: "And this is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son". Is it in that connection that you would speak of the gospel going forth?

F.E.R. Yes, Israel were God's witnesses; they had taken that place.

J.S.O. You would identify the Spirit with the living witness?

F.E.R. That is it.

D.L.H. That really creates a subjective condition in the saints?

F.E.R. That is really what we have to look for.

W.B. And when you do not find it how do you produce it?

F.E.R. You yourself have to become the witness. Israel were the witnesses that God was the true God, one God. The Son came in as the witness of the love of God, and was the expression of His love, and now the witness of it is maintained in the church, until Christ comes again, then He takes up the witness. He is the faithful and true witness, and in the meantime the church is the witness to the Son. The church has broken down, but if you had not the church, you would have no witness whatever here of God's love. The point is that God has come out in love now. He did not come in love to Israel, but as the one God in contrast to idols. The moment the Son of God comes, He is the witness and expression of God's own love, and that witness is continued in the church.

J.S.O. In spite of the external breakdown, the church is still the pillar and ground of the truth.

F.E.R. The body is here; the truth of the body runs with this chapter. Paul takes it up in his own light and connection, and John in his, but the truth of the body and what comes out here, go together. What comes out

here is the record that God has given to the saints eternal life and that life is in His Son. The body is the witness of Christ, it is His body. Christ lives in the body, the body lives in the light of divine love because it is the body of Christ. The body is the witness, not what the body does. You get the same thing coming out here in principle, God has given to us eternal life. The Son was the witness of God's love, and now the church is the witness because God has given to us eternal life in the Son, and on account of its place in the Son, the witness of God is livingly continued in the church.

J.S.O. How do you view the water and the blood?

F.E.R. They witness to us. The Spirit is the truth and we witness now. "He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself;" 1 John 5:10. We are become the witness, because God has given to us eternal life in the Son, just as the body is witness to Christ. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Acts 26:14. The body was witness to Christ, and eternal life in the saints is the witness of God concerning the Son.

J.S.O. It says "and the three agree in one". 1 John 5:8.

F.E.R. That is to one point.

W.B. What place do you give the scriptures in connection with the witness?

F.E.R. They tell you what the witness is.

W.B. You do not mean to imply, that the church is a teaching body?

F.E.R. No, but the testimony of the church has to be accepted; it is an element in the responsibility of man.

W.J. There is a difference between teaching and expressing.

F.E.R. The church is taught, but the point is what the church is.

J.S.O. It must have a testimony as well as Israel.

F.E.R. Yes, if Christ has come you must have eternal life, if there were not eternal life it would be a

proof that He had not come; eternal life must be somewhere. The prayer in John 17 describes it in the way of unity and affection. He prays for those who should believe on Him through their word that they may be all one, etc. The saints were one in the Father and the Son. There was a unity and reciprocal affection and that was the witness to the world that the Father sent the Son.

J.McK. The state of the saints must greatly affect the witness.

F.E.R. We want to come to the witness ourselves to get at the reality of eternal life. It is not that you can restore the witness, the witness is completely obscured and the only thing to be done is, individually to seek to return to the witness.

D.L.H. That characterises the remnant.

F.E.R. Yes, you return to all the characteristics of the original, you must get at the truth of these things individually, which would result at our being knit together. Not being able to restore the thing in its completeness, is no excuse whatever for not getting back to it individually.

J.S.O. To understand eternal life you must know the meaning of the water and the blood.

F.E.R. The Spirit is the positive side, the water and the blood are the cleansing and expiation side. The Spirit is the true relationship into which we are brought. If the witness to us is effective in us, we then become the witness to the Son. The water and the blood witness to man's state. The Spirit is truth positive, the expression and power of the relationship established by God in Christ. Each one has to know the witness in himself and if it was known in power we would be drawn together in unity and give witness to the Son. That is what God has established in the church here. The body runs parallel with it. It is a divinely appointed witness to the Son of God. That is the testimony. In the proclamation you have all the support of the witness and the power and vitality of it. It was so in early days, when the

church was in power, a living power according to God, in the reality of eternal life outside the world. You can understand what a support it was in the proclamation, because the reality of the love of God was with it, in the expression of it. Today the proclamation has to a very great extent to go out without it and is consequently weak. We have to get things right within.

D.L.H. The individual servant must be a witness.

F.E.R. Yes, Paul exhorted Timothy to lay hold on eternal life to which he was called. It was essential to Timothy, and is to every one of us. You cannot get the church restored, but nevertheless God's principles never vary and you cannot plead that a change of things here is sufficient ground for departing from divine principles.

J.McK. If we cannot get the church up to it, are we not responsible to get the local meetings up to it?

F.E.R. The point is to get oneself up to it. There is nothing more powerful than example. In 2 Timothy, and Titus, Paul is an apostle according to eternal life. When the witness has failed, that is the point to be reached and is of the greatest importance. It was pressed upon Timothy to lay hold of it: In Ephesus the church has failed as a witness, but the prominent idea in Smyrna is life; life really brings you back to the proper place of the church. We have to remember that this epistle was written when the church had failed as a witness.

D.L.H. John really wrote the last of all.

F.E.R. He speaks of many antichrists which existed even in his day; it was the last time. The great thing is to lay hold on eternal life.

J.S.O. You do not get the structure in John, but, the moral force and effect of everything in the church.

F.E.R. John 10 helps us greatly. As Shepherd of the sheep He leads them out; then He is the door of the sheep, whereby they are saved, and go out and in and find pasture. Then He is the good Shepherd that gives His life for the sheep that they might have it abundantly: then He is the one Shepherd, and then He gives them

eternal life. That is the witness, there is one flock and one Shepherd, which is really the heart of Paul's doctrine.

W.J. Does not the gospel in a way go with the epistle?

F.E.R. As to the application of the truth the epistle goes with the gospel. The gospel is that you may have eternal life, that is the setting forth of that which came out in Christ: the epistle is that you may be conscious that you have it. In the gospel it is what is true in the Father and in the Son; in the epistle what is true in Him and in us. John's writings come in confirmation of Paul's. Nothing came out in the ministry of Paul but what came out in the ministry of Christ. Paul added nothing in the way of truth. To maintain that it was so would be very serious, because the Spirit sealed a complete testimony, and nothing could be added to it. Christ did not leave anything unrevealed, all came out, but not in public testimony. John comes in late to shew that what was really descriptive of Paul came out in Christ. There was a great deal which came out in Christ which was not committed to the twelve in public testimony. I think that one would admit that the Spirit sealed a complete testimony.

H.C.A. Has not the testimony been limited to what is said rather than to what the church is?

F.E.R. The point is, not what the church says, it is not a teaching body. The witness is what the church was in. There are only two things to be witnessed to now, the love of God and the Son. All that is for man is involved in the two.

Ques. Can you witness to anything of which you are not conscious?

F.E.R. You do not witness to it, it is to be witnessed in you. Eternal life was set forth in Christ. He was the beginning of it; it is continued in the saints and it characterises the age to come. God has come out in the revelation of His nature, and eternity depends upon

that. Eternity is filled with the love of God, and love in the Son. When God's ways have been worked out, there is nothing but love.

J.S.O. That is the priceless treasure that the church is loved in the Son.

F.E.R. Quite so.

W.J. Are the three last verses a summary?

F.E.R. Yes, and a most striking one.

D.L.H. In connection with the scriptures as bearing upon this subject, how do, you take this, "Search the scriptures"? John 5:39.

F.E.R. He says "Ye search the scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have life eternal, and they it is which bear witness concerning me". All Scripture bore witness to Christ, and until He came they had nothing but the Scripture, but now things are there in Him and continued in the present day because He has come, and now the Spirit is here as the truth; but that is all very different from what it was before.

D.L.H. The testimony runs now in a living line.

F.E.R. It was living then in a sense. It was a prophetic testimony all the way and God maintained it. We have scripture still, but then you must not use it to displace the truth that the Son of God has come.

Ques. What is the word of His grace?

F.E.R. The word of His grace was the expression of it. The activity of the Spirit of God is really to bring us to obscurity, the use of the Spirit is to enable us to detect what is wrong. The Scripture cannot put us right, it is the work of the Spirit. The Spirit uses His own way. I cannot prescribe what the Spirit shall use.

The use of ministry is to enlighten, it cannot go further. Divine teaching is not by the Scripture. No one can describe what divine teaching is.

THE SPIRIT AS WITNESS

Acts 2:22 - 36

F.E.R. I suppose Peter could not carry out the commission which the Lord gave him until the witness was here. We have had the witness before us and this chapter is interesting in that way. Peter had a commission from the Lord, but in order to carry it out, he had to wait till the witness was here -- the Spirit of God.

D.L.H. And so it was in regard to John 20, as well as Acts 2, because there the Lord gives them a commission "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you".

F.E.R. Only you do not get the Spirit as witness there. "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father ... he shall testify of me". What took place in John 20 was not the fulfilment of that because the Lord speaks of sending the Comforter from the Father. The Spirit came to witness to the glory of Christ. What comes out in chapter 20, is connected more with chapter 4 than with chapter 7.

J.S.O. It is connected much more with their own personal state.

E.R. How do you understand the expression "Which proceedeth from the Father"?

F.E.R. It is in what has been accomplished; everything proceeds from the Father. The Son proceeds from the Father, and also the Spirit. "No one can come to me except the Father who has sent me draw him". "All that is in the world ... is not of the Father". Everything proceeds now from the Father.

J.S.O. Is the Lord's breathing on them in John to maintain them as a separated people, until the Spirit should come from the Father?

F.E.R. Mr. Darby said that the difference between John 20, and Acts 2, could not be at the present time. In

John 20, the Spirit is connected with life, and in Acts 2 with the body. In the introduction of things you are allowed to see the distinction of things.

J.S.O. In John 20, it was a divine Person bringing them into a new position with Himself.

F.E.R. I think so, The whole point of that passage is association with Himself, in the new position in which He was as Man. In Acts 2, there is no breathing on them. It is a very great point to see that the gospel is dependent on the church.

J.McK. In what way?

F.E.R. The Spirit testifies of Christ. You want the living witness for real power in the gospel. The preacher is not the witness to Christ; it is the church or rather the Spirit in the church.

J.McK. The apostles here were witnesses.

F.E.R. But the Holy Spirit was the witness. They were witnesses in detail; they had been with Him from the beginning.

D.L.H. Is the point on your mind that the individual testimony of the apostles was not separated from the witness of the Spirit in the church?

F.E.R. Yes, nor was it intended to be separated. Their witness really was dependent on the witness in the church.

J.S.O. You must abstract a good deal now because you must leave room for the church failing as a testimony in its witness; and yet look at it as it is under God's eye, in connection with the Spirit.

F.E.R. That is the practical difficulty. You must get abstracted from the outward state of things to get any idea of the witness at all. The Spirit of God is not the witness apart from the church. "We are his witnesses ... and the Holy Spirit also which God has given to those that obey him". Peter says that. The apostles were personal witnesses of the death and resurrection of Christ, and therefore they had a witness peculiar to them, their own witness, but you do not get them starting out until the

real witness was there. For instance they could not bear witness that God had made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ, that was dependent on the Spirit.

J.S.O. Would the knowledge of that preserve the preacher in accord with the church?

F.E.R. All the preaching is made dependent on the witness. When the tabernacle was in movement the Levites were entirely dependent on the priests. The priests had to go and cover up the vessels, and the Levites had to take their charge and directions from Aaron and his sons. That is a great point in connection with the testimony.

D.L.H. Would you say a word about the apostles not being able from their own knowledge to witness that God had made Jesus Lord and Christ?

F.E.R. It refers to the exaltation of Christ and they did not know that -- a cloud received Him out of their sight -- but the Holy Spirit came and reported that He was at the right hand of God. If you speak of the Spirit as witness, you cannot separate it from the company.

D.L.H. That is, the Spirit must have a vessel.

F.E.R. Christ prepared the vessel, and now you have the witness of the Spirit in the vessel. That was really the witness to the people at Jerusalem which substantiated the preaching of Peter. That is the place of the church as the pillar and ground of the truth.

D.L.H. The only thing is to get to see what the church is normally.

J.S.A. What is going on today is an attempt at great gospel effort but without the church?

F.E.R. Yes, and the whole thing is simply rotten.

E.R.B.R. Does the evangelist go out from the church?

F.E.R. He should be a real witness himself.

Ques. Is there not a sense in which the Holy Spirit is with the servant?

F.E.R. No service can be carried out but by the Holy Spirit. Every one ought to be an efficient levite,

and be directed by the church in a way. I do not mean that a man is to go and get his direction from the meeting, but I desire that every soul should be in the reality of Aaron and his sons for himself.

J.S.O. The preacher should be so in the understanding of what the church is in connection with the Spirit that his testimony might take character from it.

F.E.R. That is the point.

Ques. How do you understand "Separate me now Barnabas and Saul"?

F.E.R. That is very important because it is the Spirit in the assembly. It was all said in the assembly, and the assembly laid hands on them. If one wants to go forth in power, one must be in the reality and power of the church.

J.S.O. There is a character connected with the testimony, that has at the bottom God's mind.

D.L.H. An evangelist goes out to seek souls, but to seek them in connection with what is being done by the Spirit. It is not merely a question of getting souls saved from hell, and right for heaven, but of connecting them with what God is doing.

F.E.R. The evangelist wants to bring them into what he himself is in. You get the principle in Paul, "I would to God ... all that hear me this day, were ... altogether such as I am, except these bonds".

H.C.A. A free lance kind of preacher has no base to return to.

F.E.R. He is so extremely defective himself. Preaching is not the test of a man, but priestly service is, because you cannot bring the flesh into that. There may be a good deal of flesh and natural energy brought into the preaching. The point is, let us see what a man can do before God, not before man.

H.C.A. Levitical service is severed greatly from priestly.

F.E.R. Very largely. A great deal of the preaching

today is with a view to people being converted and then letting them drift off to anything.

D.L.H. Yes, the principle is they are all right for heaven.

F.E.R. The evangelist's work is to make them all right for earth.

Ques. What do you mean by what a man can do before God?

F.E.R. Priestly service is all towards God. The priest has discernment in regard to the leper, but at the same time priestly work is Godward and connected with the sanctuary. A man said to me -- a well-known preacher -- 'If I want help and direction in regard to my service, I should go to my brother evangelists', but I advised him that he would do much better if he consulted the most spiritual.

Ques. What is "inheritance among them that are sanctified"?

F.E.R. Inheritance of course is present. The way in which you get the inheritance now is by the Spirit, who is the earnest of the inheritance. The inheritance is really reigning with Christ. You are to be here now for the will of God. God brings you to the sanctuary, but the immediate object of the gospel is that men may receive the kingdom. In principle Peter preached the kingdom, the exaltation of Christ, not in terms but in fact, and they received the kingdom, and were baptised. They came under the moral sway of heaven in receiving the word of Peter. You cannot get an idea of christianity except in connection with the Spirit in the vessel, then you get an idea of the real power of christianity down here.

J.A. The gift of the Spirit has been lost sight of.

F.E.R. The apprehension of the Spirit's presence has brought us where we are.

Ques. Where does the evangelist's work end, and the teacher's begin?

F.E.R. The teacher comes in in the way of continuation, but it is very difficult to draw the line. The evangelist in a general sense would be more to enlighten souls at the outset, and further instruction would possibly be taken up by the pastor and teacher. The truth would be maintained before the minds of people by pastors and teachers.

J.McK. In the present state of things one has to be ready to do anything.

F.E.R. But I think you must maintain the reality of gift. The gifts are here in the distribution of the Holy Spirit and you must allow for the reality of gift. The great witness is the Holy Spirit. The apostle committed his gospel to the church. The testimony was handed down in the church, and it has been maintained by the church. Everything here for God is in the Spirit. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, though the Scriptures have authority, and we are responsible to test everything by the Scriptures; what we have to face now is where is the world?

J.N.B. To whom is witness borne now?

F.E.R. Well we are in the midst of christendom. The world was distinct when Christ was here. It meant the Jew, and the Jew all through John is treated as the world, and the world was convicted when the Holy Spirit came, but He came to those who were outside the world. What we have to come to today, is the judgment of things morally, you cannot judge of it as they did at the beginning when the Holy Spirit came. Everything outside the saints was the world, but we cannot judge in that way because we are in christendom and hence we have to judge morally, and that is the importance of John's epistles. All that is in the world is not of the Father.

J.S.O. John 16:8 is more connected with the Spirit, and His presence here.

F.E.R. It is the presence of the Spirit but the Spirit

must be in the vessel. When people come back to apprehend the church in its proper character, they get a sense of the position of the world.

D.L.H. In Acts 2, the presence of the Holy Spirit was taken note of by man, by what they saw and heard.

F.E.R. Yes, there is another important point: the witness which the Holy Spirit brings that Jesus is Lord and Christ. I think the idea of Lord is authority as against the power of evil, and Christ is the idea of Head; the Holy Spirit witnesses of both.

Rem. The acceptance of that testimony brings salvation.

F.E.R. It is a wonderful witness which is maintained here by the Holy Spirit not by us, not in doctrine but in power. We are to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. The witness of the Holy Spirit is efficient in the church, there is power there, and in addition to that there is gift, so that men go forth as heralds to preach.

D.L.H. Does gift connect itself with the title Lord?

F.E.R. Yes, because gift is established down here against the power of evil, and it is made good by the Spirit in man, so that they can stand against the power of evil.

D.L.H. Does the death of Christ bring in the counsel of God?

F.E.R. He has taken up the position of Head, that forgiveness in His name may be announced to every man, and that every man may get living water. Mr. Darby once said you could go up to a man in the street and tell him that he ought to be answering to the Head.

T.H.B. In what way ought he to answer?

F.E.R. He ought to believe in Him. Every man is not a member of Christ, still Christ stands in relation to every man, though every man is not in relation to Christ. Lordship as far as concerns the church is coextensive with the faith, and baptism, Ephesians 4. He is Head to every man as God is God to every man. Much of the

preaching has been carried on without the name; it has been left out too much; forgiveness is preached in His name. The evangelist has to enlighten souls. Adam is a type of Christ as Head.

POWER

Acts 31 - 26

F.E.R. In Acts 2 and 3 you get the two great principles of christianity, namely, the witness and the name. There is the witness of the Spirit and the power of Christ's name. What is connected with the name is power.

J.S.O. Does the name imply, that the One whose name it is, is present?

F.E.R. Yes, it is the power, or rather the renown of the One who is not here.

J.S.O. The name carries with it the faith of all that He was here.

F.E.R. You can anticipate all that will be known at His coming because His name carries everything. It is very important to apprehend where the power of christianity is, particularly in a day of departure such as we are in now.

J.McK. There was a display of power here which we have not now.

F.E.R. It is all a question of faith in His name. It was through faith in His name. If there is an apparent lack of power with us, it is because there is a lack of faith in His name.

J.S.O. Still you may have greater results morally than what are here in this miracle.

F.E.R. We must take the chapter as it stands. I have no doubt that lame man was a picture of Israel. It is the fulfilment of Isaiah; "Then shall the lame man leap as a hart". Before there was any act of power the Holy Spirit had come. The first point was to account for the presence of the Holy Spirit, which the apostle does in chapter 2. Chapter 3 is distinct from chapter 2: the point in it is the name.

J.S.A. Does the name go further than being made

Lord?

F.E.R. Every interest of earth is carried up to heaven in the person of Christ. Nothing has been let go, all is carried up to heaven.

Ques. What are the interests of earth?

F.E.R. The restitution of all things, of which the prophets have spoken. God had many interests on earth but they are carried up to heaven in Jesus glorified.

J.S.O. Every purpose of God has its centre in Him and therefore all power is committed unto Him.

F.E.R. Yes, he came down to earth to take everything up to heaven in His Person and therefore the heavens must receive Him until the time of the restitution of all things. Everything has now to come out of heaven.

D.L.H. Does faith in His name refer to Peter or the blind man or to both?

F.E.R. To Peter I thought. It was the apostle's faith in His name which brought about the raising up of the lame man.

D.L.H. The testimony was received by the man?

F.E.R. The point is it acted on the man. Peter and John really took the initiative, not the man.

D.L.H. The man had nothing to begin with; how do you apply that now?

F.E.R. My impression is this, that everything begins with faith in the name.

D.L.H. That would greatly characterise the preacher.

F.E.R. I think so. It is not only the faith of an apostle, it may be anybody's faith. The point in this chapter is really showing the secret of power, real power down here. After all what appears to be power in the world is not power at all. For instance, armaments, they are not really power, they only tend to destruction.

J.S.A. There is really more power in moral things than in material.

F.E.R. There is no real power outside the name of Jesus. What tends to destruction and to promote the

pride and glory of man is not power to me, I see no power in it.

J.S.O. The point at the moment was that the power was in the name of the One they had crucified.

F.E.R. Exactly, it was the glorified Man whom the heavens must receive until the restitution of all things.

J.S.O. Another thing in the chapter, is that it is power displayed in grace.

F.E.R. The lame man was a picture of Israel. He had been impotent from his birth and was about forty years old. The power of His name will be revived in Israel and they will be raised up.

J.S.O. In the same way as the remnant were added to the assembly in chapter 2.

F.E.R. Exactly, the power of His name will raise them up. 'Name' is the renown of the One in heaven whom God has glorified. The fact is this, that such a tremendous deal is gathered up in the name that it is difficult to give any definite idea in regard to it.

D.L.H. I suppose that this was all in the way of testimony here?

F.E.R. Yes, at the beginning of every dispensation you get set forth what would characterise that dispensation, and the two great principles characterising christianity, are the witness and the name. The witness brings in the church because the Spirit is given to them that obey Him, and the name brings in power.

J.S.O. Both necessitated by the absence of Christ.

F.E.R. Exactly, you see in them the true substance of christianity, what is abiding and cannot be touched. A man has no power in this world beyond his faith in His name.

J.S.O. It is very important to get an idea of the character of the dispensation.

F.E.R. That is a point of the last moment, and you get it set forth at the outset. The first thing for us is to be in the power of the witness -- you must be in the light of the church -- no man can really come out in power

without support, a man cannot do without support, and he must either have the support of the Spirit -- the witness -- or else he will lean on christendom. Take any man who has left us, a man who had the place of being a servant, and without exception you will find that every man falls back on the support of christendom. Somebody told me two days ago, that he happened to be going through the Strand and went into Exeter Hall, upon looking into one of the smaller rooms, he saw there a brother who had had a great name among us as an evangelist surrounded by some twenty young women and a harmonium being played. On enquiring he was told that this brother was conducting a mission in connection with Y.M.C.A. so that he had fallen entirely upon the support of christendom. Man must be supported in some way either by the Spirit or christendom, but you will not get the support of the Spirit if you ignore the church.

Ques. Will not the Spirit keep a man up to his light?

F.E.R. It will keep him toward the light. Our work is to enlighten. God can bear with a very great deal from people going towards the light, but it is another thing altogether when they are going away from it. If a man wants to be in real power, the power of the Spirit, he must recognise the church.

D.L.H. It is perfectly obvious that the Spirit would support such as had God's interests near their hearts.

F.E.R. I cannot conceive of a man getting the support of the Spirit who does not recognise the vessel of the Spirit, the Spirit is not here apart from the vessel.

J.S.A. And he could not have the Spirit without being connected with the church.

F.E.R. The fact of having the Spirit brings him into the church.

J.S.A. So that practically he denies the church.

F.E.R. Exactly, he is denying the truth of his own existence. Where people carry on their work by the support of christendom they help on christendom and not what is for God. People are converted and they go to the

systems and give their light to the systems, that is to christendom.

J.McK. I suppose you can only have the Spirit's support as we are going on with the Lord.

F.E.R. You must be in that which the Spirit has come here to form and to maintain here, the house of God and the body of Christ.

J.McK. Take those gone out from us, had they the Spirit's support while they were with us?

J.S.O. They were responsible for the light and position in which they were.

F.E.R. Exactly.

T.H.B. They might have the light of the church at one time, and be judicially blinded.

F.E.R. It is very difficult to say. A man may go very far in a way, and yet turn away as did the Hebrews.

A.E.W. Light is no evidence of power.

F.E.R. You will not get power without light.

J.S.O. God will yet accomplish in the remnant what was accomplished in this man.

F.E.R. Exactly. "Then shall the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb sing". The point for us, is what have we got? there is no hope for Israel for the moment. It is remarkable what comes out in the end of the chapter "Ye are the sons of the prophets" etc., and "in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed". What He did to Israel was really the beginning of His purpose in regard to all the families of the earth. Peter says "To you first". It was first to the Jew, but the testimony was to go out to all the families of the earth, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem".

J.S.O. And so Paul was converted with that object "I will send thee to the nations afar off".

F.E.R. The resurrection has placed Christ in relation

to all men. After the flesh He was limited to Israel in a sense. That is what the apostle means by saying to Timothy "Remember Jesus Christ raised from among the dead, of the seed of David, according to my glad tidings". Resurrection put Him in relation to all men.

Ques. Do you take raised up in verse 26 as resurrection?

F.E.R. Oh no, but the point in the verse is 'first', "To you first". The presence of Christ here among the Jews was really only the beginning. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself".

J.S.O. And in the death of Christ everything closes with the Jew, on that ground as regarded the promises, they had forfeited everything.

F.E.R. God carried out His purpose in the raising of Christ.

J.S.O. Christ is never spoken of as head of a race, though He is head of all men.

F.E.R. He is head and centre of every circle and the church is His body. In Romans 5 He is put in relation to all men.

Ques. "... such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones". Is it head?

F.E.R. I think so in a way, the heavenly are all in the body.

D.L.H. Would you say a word about the head?

F.E.R. I cannot understand for a moment how God could approach man in grace apart from a head, apart from a head there is an impossible barrier between God and man because God's judgment lay upon man and God could not ignore His own judgment. The way God has set to work is to introduce a head, and that head has taken up every liability of man, and now in the name of a head, repentance and forgiveness of sins is preached to man.

D.L.H. When it says "Through our Lord Jesus Christ" is it on God's part manward?

F.E.R. Yes, authority, administration and lordship,

is all against the power of evil and we stand in His power, Righteousness comes in with His position as head, Lord brings in salvation.

Ques. Do you connect "Power over all flesh" with Him as head or as lord?

F.E.R. As 'last Adam' He is head to all men, but all men are not in Christ as in 1 Corinthians 15, there it is the saints. He as priest stands between the living and the dead. The head is the priest, but He represents the living not the dead. He is head of every family, every circle.

D.L.H. God has now a man entirely to His own satisfaction.

F.E.R. In preaching you have to bring a man to righteousness, the gospel proposes righteousness for God, and a man's first necessity is righteousness and salvation follows upon that.

J.S.O. Righteousness is in view of salvation.

Ques. What is "Firstborn of all creation?"

F.E.R. He is pre-eminent, the beginning.

J.S.O. He is judge of living and dead too.

F.E.R. The same One who carries righteousness to all men, is appointed judge of living and dead. I should like to be here in the faith of His name, in the import of it, what is set forth in Him.

THE SUBDUING POWER OF THE LORD

Acts 9:1 - 22

F.E.R. It seems to me that you get here a new point of departure, a starting point, which is Christ in glory.

D.L.H. Stephen's death brings things to a crisis.

F.E.R. He sees every divine interest of earth carried up to heaven, and chapter 8 is the completion of it. In chapter 9 you get the new starting point -- Christ in glory.

J.S.O. In what sense does chapter 8 complete it?

F.E.R. Stephen's testimony was, that Christ was Son of man and he saw every interest carried up to heaven; but in chapter 8 His life is taken from the earth, and the curious thing in regard to the eunuch, is that he gets light going away from Jerusalem, and not when he is going to it.

J.S.O. In seeing the glory of God and Jesus, Stephen got as much for his own soul as Saul did afterwards.

F.E.R. I think he did; he saw everything secured in Jesus and carried up to heaven.

J.S.O. He saw things beyond the testimony he bore.

F.E.R. Yes, that was the case with the apostles too. Peter had more light than he bore testimony of. This chapter brings in and is full of the activity of the Lord. You get the idea of it in Philippians 3:21, you get the Lord who is to subdue all things to Himself. All the order of things which would have had its climax in the glory of Israel is displaced, and the Lord begins afresh. The first thing is the church and He takes up Paul to be a witness to the gentiles. They come in first.

D.L.H. Saul was really a witness to the propensity of the Jew.

F.E.R. He comes in to show that the best thing on earth is antagonistic to Christ. The best thing was hostile to Christ, which is very humiliating.

D.L.H. It is interesting the way in which the eunuch perceived the force of baptism as connecting him with the One whose life was taken from the earth.

F.E.R. In baptism you leave the world, you are buried out of sight. His affections were reached and he was willing to follow; he saw that every hope connected with Israel had really died with Christ.

H.C.A. Hence there was no way but to look to heaven.

F.E.R. The cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop were all cast into the burning. Man gets contaminated with the things of the world and death, and it is exceedingly difficult to go through the world without being contaminated with them, the water of purification comes in to cleanse a man. If a man were always up to his priestly functions, he would not want it, but we sometimes drop down to the level of common people by coming into contact with things in the world.

Paul immediately preached in the synagogue, Christ, that He is the Son of God. God Himself in that sense is the point of departure. He is no longer dealing with the responsible man, and trying to get anything out of man; the beginning now is God Himself, He is the source of everything for man.

T.H. "To reveal his Son in me", is the idea there that Paul was to be the vessel of that revelation?

F.E.R. I thought that was peculiarly Paul's testimony.

T.H. Does it convey the thought of the purpose of God -- sonship?

F.E.R. It seems to be the principle of what is set forth for man in Christ as Man.

T.H. He was not simply the vessel of revelation, but it is what is set forth in the Man. He announced as glad tidings, what was really God's mind for man.

J.S.O. It gives a wonderful character to christianity.

F.E.R. It involves a very vast extent of testimony when you consider what was set forth in Christ as Man,

He has fully set forth the mind of God. It was set forth in Christ as Man. It is not exactly revelation; the revelation of God is distinct from that though connected with it. The mind of God was set forth in the presence of the revelation of God.

J.S.O. The One who set forth God's mind is the One in whom He is revealed.

F.E.R. You get the two things in Hebrews 1 and throughout John continually. Sonship comes out in Galatians as the mind of God for man.

T.H. The aspect of the church comes out here as the body of Christ.

F.E.R. I think it is Himself, Christ, in the saints. One thing is perfectly certain, that the body of Christ must take precedence over everything else. The body must come in before Israel, from the fact of its being the body and His body. This chapter is the unfolding of Christ down here, His activity and administration. It is not authority, but administration, and in connection with it His subduing power. Authority brings in judgment; administration brings in the Lord's subduing power. Saul is subdued, and Ananias, and at the end of the chapter you find whole cities turning to the Lord. The incident in the latter part of the chapter points to the time when Christ comes in, it is in that way more dispensational.

T.H. There is a special tenderness in the repetition of Saul's name.

F.E.R. In the case of Saul, religion connected itself with a tremendous strength of will which would not permit of any divergence from what was right and orthodox. The mind of man in the things of God may work tremendous mischief. Here the apostle of persecution becomes the apostle of the truth. It is administration coming in to subdue. In the samples given in this chapter there is no resistance. When the Lord sees fit to put forth His power nothing can stand against it.

D.L.H. If one had the sense of that it would give one

great quietness in regard to the testimony.

F.E.R. I think so. Though the Lord takes up nothing of earth -- no place in regard to the world -- there is great activity going on.

J.S.O. Results seem very small at present.

F.E.R. The results in this chapter are not very great; they are simply in one man until the close of the chapter. Saul was a chosen vessel, and he becomes an instrument in the hand of the Lord for the conversion of great numbers. It is accounted for in the present day by our being in the end of the dispensation. When you consider the state of the church, where is the 'Me' now? It is here but where can you distinguish it? There was no difficulty in distinguishing it then, but where is it today?

D.L.H. It cannot be found except morally.

F.E.R. It is obscure and hid in the mass of christendom, but we ourselves want to be in the 'Me'. The small results of the testimony at the present time are because brethren are not up to the mark.

E.R.B.R. Is not the 'Me' like the 7000 in Elijah's day in Israel?

F.E.R. They were quite hid; the Lord knew them. But it was not so with the 'Me' referred to here because it was known. The 7000 are hid today, but it is not God's mind that they should be hid. The difficulty of today is that we have not got the witness. The witness is here and it is essential to testimony, but it is very obscure. The living expression of Christ was here in the early days, and if it were here today the testimony would be entirely incontrovertible. By testimony I mean Christ in the saints; that is the only collective testimony. In the early part of the Acts, the first thing God did was to establish the witness, then you get the preaching going out; but there was no preaching until the witness was here. I quite admit the difficulty of the present time, but you have to hold to that principle.

J.S.O. There is nothing else to encourage one.

F.E.R. When there was a great work in regard to

brethren, it was in their early days because there was something of the witness there. If you take our meetings, many come to them just as they would go to church or chapel. They see things are a little more scriptural perhaps, but there is very little faith really. Take the prayer meeting, you do not find the men all praying and it indicates a lack of spiritual energy.

J.McK. One has proved that the condition of the local assembly has greatly affected the testimony.

F.E.R. That is the case. If you really want to have real power in the preaching, it would be when the meeting is right; that is the principle of the thing. When a meeting is right there is a real expression of Christ in the saints.

J.S.O. On the other hand, do you not think that at the end of a dispensation things are very low, and that the ministry of the Holy Spirit would be very much characteristic of the close?

F.E.R. It is at that point that God would come in and help the saints to awaken them to their calling. Any activity of the Spirit of God would begin from within and work outward.

W.B. When you speak of the saints you speak of a large company.

F.E.R. After all the Spirit of God has wrought among the saints, but very many of the saints have refused the activity of the Spirit. It has been very greatly refused in our day. Things are going very much to the bad in Protestantism because they have refused the light which God has brought in.

J.S.O. You get the principle of it in the Judges.

F.E.R. Yes, God has raised up men to awaken the saints afresh to their proper place and calling. As a matter of fact there cannot be a doubt that the present state of things in christendom is entirely apostate from the Holy Spirit, and what can God do but bring us back to what is really in the Holy Spirit?

W.B. It is a happy thing when a good many are led

to pray at the prayer meeting.

F.E.R. It is very striking to me the way the Lord deals with Ananias, he in a way resists the Lord when he gets his directions, but the Lord says to him "Go thy way"; I do not think you can resist the Lord.

J.S.O. He is like Peter, "I have never eaten anything common or unclean".

F.E.R. All must have sounded very strange to Ananias.

W.B. May there not be on the part of the unsaved the resisting of the Holy Spirit -- divine power?

F.E.R. There may be on the part of a christian. The will of man always resists the Holy Spirit; the flesh lusts against the Spirit, but there is a subduing power with the Lord which breaks down all opposition. With Ananias it was not will, it was hesitation. I think there is one principle which has to be accepted, namely, the sovereignty of the Lord. He is sovereign in the choice of instruments and vessels. I cannot tell who the Lord would use, because He does not act in accordance with my mind, He takes up very often very intellectual men. Paul is a special case and initiates the principle.

D.L.H. One sees what a deep work of God there was in him, he did neither eat nor drink for three days.

F.E.R. Every thought and feeling in Paul was completely revolutionised; it was a moral earthquake; all the foundations gave way and the whole edifice came toppling down about his ears. It reveals to us how far religious zeal leads a man.

D.L.H. It is tremendously opposed to God.

F.E.R. Yes, and nothing else would do for him but the subduing power of the Lord. What we have to meet today is the administration of the Lord and His subduing power.

T.H. In 2 Corinthians 10:1 he speaks of the meekness and gentleness of the Christ, do you think that came out here?

F.E.R. I think so. Take the religious fanatic of today,

he does not appreciate the meekness and gentleness of Christ. When the Lord was here He said "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart". That is not at all appreciated in the world. They do not appreciate the qualities which are of God. The moment you get a divine Person become Man, He says "I am meek and lowly in heart". That is very strange because the world does not appreciate it, but what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God. There is a power in the Lord which is able to subdue all things to Himself, and if the Lord is to have sway, every sentiment appreciated in the world, patriotism, loyalty and the like, will have no place at all. No sentiment which had its origin in departure from God can have any place with God. God approves an entirely different line of sentiment to that.

J.McK. This is not a sample case of conversion.

F.E.R. I do not think so, though every man is subdued by the grace of the Lord. The Lord has come forth in divine goodness, not only to accomplish righteousness for God, but to establish salvation for man, and that breaks man down. The Lord has come in grace to deliver man out of the power of darkness, Satan and the world.

CHRIST AS HEAD

Romans 4:22 - 25; Romans 5:1 - 21

D.L.H. Does not the thought of Lord convey the idea of administration and authority?

F.E.R. I should think so. Even in the ministry of the Lord here on earth, the devils had to acknowledge that authority, and they came out. Power and authority were identified with Him. He brought the kingdom. There was power and authority in regard to all that was opposed to God. Man shared in the power and authority: they believed in Him as the Christ, not quite as Lord, and then the power and authority became available to them.

D.L.H. Is it that they got the good of it?

F.E.R. I think so, they cast out devils in His name; so far from being overcome by the power of evil, they overcame it in His name. In Luke 10, the disciples came to the Lord and said that the devils were subject to them through His name. One essential difference between the "Head" and the "Lord" is this: righteousness is connected with the Head, and salvation with the Lord.

E.D. Would you explain in what way righteousness is connected with the Head?

F.E.R. It is essential to Christ being Head that he should have taken up all that lay upon man as under the judgment of God. If He is to be put in the position of Head of every man, I cannot see how He could be if He had not taken up all that lay upon man.

E.D. Is that the force of accomplished righteousness?

F.E.R. I think so, through one righteousness toward all men to justification of life. He took up man's liabilities that He might be the Head of every man.

W.B. How far would you say that went?

F.E.R. Everything that lay on man as under the judgment of God, Christ entered into.

Ques. Did these things come upon man consequent

upon the fall?

F.E.R. Yes, all men are under death. Christ entered into all the state of man, hence the reconciliation of the world in connection with it.

H.C.A. Christ having taken up everything is the basis of the gospel.

F.E.R. I think so, it is the only way by which He could be set in the position of Head of every man. The point in this chapter is the "one man".

W.B. When you say He took up all the liabilities of man you do not mean by that He bore all their sins?

F.E.R. No, I do not go quite so far as that, but in the name of that one Man, forgiveness of sins is announced to any man upon earth, not to every man; that is going very far. "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem". He died for all, and entered into all that lay on man, on every man, in the eye of God.

E.D. Is that propitiation?

F.E.R. I think it is: He is the righteous One, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world, says John in his epistle. Substitution carries with it the thought of election, but the headship of Christ is not a question of election but of the relation in which He stands to every man, and every man is responsible consequent upon His having been put in that position of Head of every man.

E.D. You can proclaim the gospel to every man on the ground of the headship of Christ.

D.L.H. Where does the Lord come in, because in the end of chapter 4, you get "Who was delivered for our offences".

F.E.R. Faith claims Him. There is the recognition that He is Lord, but that His rights are in abeyance. You claim him as Lord for salvation; that is the position of things now. The moment you recognise Him as raised

from the dead, He is Lord, and you claim Him, but His rights are in abeyance.

E.D. In Romans 10, you get the Lord connected with salvation?

F.E.R. Yes, you confess Him with the mouth and that is salvation.

D.L.H. When it says "Who was delivered for our offences", would that be in the light of headship?

F.E.R. I should think so, it is in resurrection you get Him as Lord, "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living".

W.B. Do you think that headship in Romans 5, goes quite as far as "head of every man"?

F.E.R. I thought so. Adam was the figure of the One to come, he died out of headship, but I think he was the figure of the One to come. Christ has come in, and His headship is as wide as that of the first Adam.

E.D. Verse 18 shows that.

F.E.R. All through the passage the oneness is as wide in its bearing in regard of Christ as of Adam. The bearing of what Christ has brought in is towards all men.

F.C. Adam accomplished sin before he was head of a race, and the Second Man accomplished righteousness.

F.E.R. As a matter of fact; but in either case one or other must be the head. In our chapter Christ is head of the same race as Adam, that is the argument in this passage.

F.C. In what way is He Head to us?

F.E.R. The difference is not in the headship of Christ, it lies in that you live in the Head, and an unconverted man does not.

Ques. Do we not derive from the Head?

F.E.R. Yes, in living by Him. Every one who accepts Him as Head, lives by Him, because He is a life-giving Spirit. He communicates living water to the believer, and he lives by Him, and derives from Him.

E.D. And that brings in the body?

F.E.R. It brings in the body, but He is Head to the man in the street.

H.C.A. God has produced a new Head for the race.

F.E.R. It is the same race, the one man has died out of headship, but he was the figure of the One to come. Christ has come and accomplished righteousness, and the bearing of it is justification of life towards all men. Whatever Adam might have been, he is not head now, he is dead, and he has to stand on the footing of his own responsibility.

D.L.H. The Lord stands as Head somewhat differently from Adam in having taken up the liabilities; that idea could not come in in regard to Adam.

F.E.R. No, it is the contrast between sin and righteousness. Adam brought sin, Christ brought righteousness, and that being the case, men are responsible in regard of Christ as Head.

D.L.H. Would you say that everybody has a responsibility to Him as Lord?

F.E.R. I think not. Philippians 2:11 is when He asserts His lordship, then every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord.

D.L.H. It means that He is our Lord.

F.E.R. That is the thought there.

F.C. Would you not seek to reach the conscience of a person by pressing that on him?

F.E.R. No, unless he were a professed christian; I would not in regard to a heathen. A professed christian takes the place of owning Christ as Lord and does not do the things He says.

D.L.H. No one can say Lord to Jesus, but by the Holy Spirit.

F.E.R. The Holy Spirit gives the sense of His glory, then you confess Him as Lord by the Holy Spirit. Salvation is connected with Him as Lord, and involves deliverance from the power of evil, therefore the thought of lordship comes in.

Ques. How do you connect the thought of administration

with the Lord?

F.E.R. You get that in the Acts. He takes up Saul and Ananias for a special service in subduing power, but connected with the thought of Lord there is the thought of authority, power and judgment. All that comes in in connection with the Lord. You believe in Him as the Christ, and having believed, you claim and confess Him as Lord, and get the gain of it; practically it means salvation to us. The effect of it is that you have to say to nothing that does not come under His authority. I have no fellowship with what does not come under His authority.

D.L.H. You would apply the authority of the Lord to a person who said he was a christian?

F.E.R. I would. I am not called upon to judge a person's profession; if he takes the ground of being a christian he is responsible to own the Lord. Profession is christianity. No man gets salvation apart from the Lord.

D.L.H. That is important because it is a question of deliverance from opposing forces.

F.E.R. I see the disciples here on earth, instead of being overcome by the influences of evil, they overcame them, and they cast out devils. If we were to stand here in the power and authority of the Lord, we would overcome evil. Peter says you grow unto salvation, if so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. He is a gracious Lord to us, but He has power and authority against evil. The thought of Lord brings in the kingdom.

D.L.H. Does the thought of Lord come in here in relation to the Lord's victory over death?

F.E.R. Practically. In this chapter you get salvation, power and authority connected with the Lord spiritually. It is all "our Lord" but the Lord's authority and power holds in abeyance the force and power of evil in order that you may get the good of all that is in the thought of God for you. Christ being Head is not simply on the ground of creation, because it involves that He is become

Man. God could not have been the Head of Christ until He became Man.

D.L.H. You get the order from God downwards. It is man and woman; it is not a question of christians, He is head of every man.

F.E.R. Romans 5 is a wonderful chapter, and if we could understand the way the authority and power of the Lord are exercised we should have very much more comfort and stability. It is not in a public way, but there it is. This is the great chapter of salvation, you have peace with God, access by faith into the grace wherein we stand, you rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and in tribulations, and you joy in God. At the close of the chapter it says "so also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". There are influences of evil here, but there is the power of the Lord who holds these powers of evil in control on behalf of christians, that they might be in the power of the good that is in the heart of God towards them.

Ques. Is this chapter the summing up of what Christ has elected?

F.E.R. Everything in the mind of the Jew, was connected with the law and covenant, but things are now put on a wider basis, on the ground of headship, which brings in every man.

D.L.H. Does faith come in with the recognition of His headship?

F.E.R. Yes, it is not exactly the Lord that is preached, it is Christ.

E.D. What is "we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord"?

F.E.R. The apostle lays out the whole title, but the subject of the preaching was the Christ. Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit and therefore He must stand in relation to every man. The Jew had a very limited idea about the Messiah, and the true thought in regard to Christ is that He is head of every man.

F.C. Is Christ Jesus, Lord, parenthetical?

F.E.R. It is descriptive; we preach Christ Jesus, Lord. The antichrist denies that He is the Christ, that He is head of every man. The unitarian will not object to Jesus but he objects to the Christ. It is to me the expression of infinite wisdom from God. Men were under death and judgment by the word of God, and how could God address man in that state? God brings in a Head who charges Himself with that which lay on man, and who is now set in the position of head of every man. God addresses every man in Christ, who is the wisdom and power of God.

D.L.H. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

F.E.R. Exactly, not simply the Jew. A vast number of people have got a far too limited thought of Christ, He is the Christ, the anointed Man, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit abides on Him, He baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Ques. Where does the responsibility of man come in?

F.E.R. To accept Him as head, because He is head.

W.B. Why do you not say Saviour?

F.E.R. Because scripture does not, and scripture is wiser than we are.

D.L.H. God is a Saviour God.

F.E.R. I do not object to Saviour, but at the same time I was thinking of the position in which God has set Christ in regard to men.

H.C.A. What about the Father sent the Son the Saviour of the world?

F.E.R. The point in John is that you learn that Christ is the Son of God, the last Adam is the Son of God. You get a wonderful passage in John 17, "As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him". John is very interesting in that way, because he gives additional light to Paul and is confirmatory of him, that Christ is the Son of God.

Ques. Do you connect that authority with the Son of

God?

F.E.R. Yes, as the last Adam. It is a most wonderful thing to think that there is One in authority before whom all the powers of evil quake, and if we had the sense of that we would not be in the least afraid. You have to become conscious that in the Lord there is a mighty power and authority, greater than all the authority and power of evil; whatever the world or anything else may be, there is a power and authority superior to it.

D.L.H. You have to learn that for yourself.

F.E.R. And then you become strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and you take up the whole armour of God. But you must learn it for yourself. I really would like to see a christian who is really in the full gain of the head; conscious that He has got living water from the head, and in full confidence in the Lord on the one hand, while on the other, entirely independent of all that is down here upon earth. It is a very important point in the gospel to see clearly the point where you can fix responsibility upon every man.

Rem. If Christ is the head of every man, you can fix responsibility upon every man.

F.E.R. You cannot be effective in the gospel unless you can fix responsibility upon every man.

Ques. Is it in resurrection He becomes head of every man?

F.E.R. He could not take up that position until He was in resurrection, He had to bear what lay on all men first.

D.L.H. The force of His name, I suppose, brings that in?

F.E.R. It is the head. It is plain enough in Luke 24, forgiveness of sins is preached in His name. It is plain in Romans 10 that the lordship of Christ is connected with salvation.

Ques. What about "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"?

F.E.R. The apostle was not putting the gospel to the Philippian jailor, he answered his question.

D.L.H. What was before the jailor's mind in saying that?

F.E.R. Oh, there was an earthquake, and he fully thought that every foundation was gone. The state of the man's mind was indescribable and he appealed to two men who were not in that state.

Ques. Does Paul set forth the head in Acts 13:38?

F.E.R. Yes, it is the Man Christ Jesus, the one Man of Romans 5. The revelation of grace is in the one Man. Mediator is intimately connected with the Head, much more so than with the Lord.

D.L.H. As Mediator He brings in all the good of God to man.

F.E.R. The truth is this, that the Mediator is God.

E.D. He approaches man in the Mediator.

F.E.R. Yes, He approaches man in a Man. The wisdom of God raises up a head who is capable of bearing the liabilities of man, and also of imparting living water to him.

E.D. What is saved by His life?

F.E.R. Salvation at the present time is in the life of Christ. You grow up to salvation in the life of the head.

C. Do you get the head and lord typified in Joseph?

F.E.R. He was head to his brethren, but lord to the Egyptians, his lordship was universal.

C. He was saviour for the Egyptians, as well as for his brethren.

F.E.R. But you could not say he was head to them.

ADDRESS ON MARRIAGE

Proverbs 31:10 - 31; 1 Peter 3:1 - 7

I think it is a mistake to suppose that marriage as it is now has reference simply to the interests of this present life. It is a relationship connected with this present life, I quite admit, but we take up marriage now, not from Adam and Eve, but from Christ and the church, and that brings into it very much more of the moral element; it places it, in that sense, in connection with what is above and beyond this present life. I think it is very important to have marriage in that connection.

Marriage is the crucial point in the history of a man for good, or for evil. It may work disastrously or otherwise; experience has shewn us that often enough, and we have to look to it that it may turn to good.

Now my object is to seek to shew how marriage may connect us with what is eternal. It may become an occasion in the grace of God, for those bound together in marriage, of forming special spiritual links, which are beyond all that is present. There may be a result of marriage which goes beyond all question of happiness, or of natural joy in the present life. I think it would be well indeed if the natural were sacrificed to the spiritual, if present gain were sacrificed to the spiritual and eternal; and if marriage be taken up in that light, I think we would gain great good from it.

Now you find Peter speaking to the husband and wife here as "heirs together of the grace of life". That could not have been said to Adam and Eve, but now another element has come in, and husband and wife are "heirs together of the grace of life". It is wonderful to look abroad in the world, and see the traces of the goodness of God still. You get something of that kind brought out in the passage I read in Proverbs. You could not fail to see traces of the goodness of God in existing relationships:

you see it in parents and children, and with husband and wife. While man on his part has become lawless, and turned to sin, yet you find certain traces of God's goodness remaining. I think that is perfectly evident, and as I said, you get a wonderful picture of it in Proverbs. All that was of the wife, and all her doings, and energies, were to be contributory to the husband. Mischief began by the woman losing the sense of the head; she got on on her own understanding, and lost the sense of the head, and that has never been recovered. Now the great point evidently in regard of marriage is that the wife must be prepared to sacrifice her own individuality, and her own interests, and all that, and her part is to be contributory to her husband. She must not seek to glorify herself; she has accepted a head -- for that is what is done in marriage, the man is the head of the woman -- and her energies and her doings are to be contributory to the man.

In the care of the household, and the bringing up of children and all that, she is to be the glory of the man. She was not to shine in her own glory, the woman is the glory of the man.

Now when you come to christianity, what I want to point out is this: we do not stand properly in relation to this world, but we stand in relation to the living God, and you cannot connect the living God with a scene which is dominated by death. That is a point of the last moment to my mind. God stands in relation to a scene of life. He is the "preserver of all men", I know, but the very idea of the living God is that He stands in relation to all that is life; and all that is of life stands in relation to a living God. If we accepted that, it would tend to separate us more in mind and spirit from the scene of death. We have to take up many things in connection with this scene of death, but at the same time, a man may be dissociated from the scene which is dominated by death, and we may all be conscious of being in relation with the living God. He has not yet come out publicly in that character, but when He comes out as the living God, the

whole scene will be filled with life -- it will be a wonderful day! Many of us have come to be fairly well content with this scene, when things are fair, but we have to remember that it is a scene dominated by death; no one can doubt for a moment that it is so. But if you have to do with the living God, He connects us with all that is of life, and all that is of life connects itself with the living God. The church is the church of the living God, and Christ is the living stone, and we, coming to Him as living stones, are built up a spiritual house. I believe it is a point of the last moment that God should give us some apprehension of the living God, and of all that stands in relation to the living God. In result all will take its character from the living God, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob all stand in relation to the living God and the church is the church of the living God. I want us to recognise that more and more. If people give themselves up to present proprieties and the amenities of life, they are acting to a very large extent in the light of a world that is dominated by death. People are to a great extent governed by it, you can see it by their appointments, their homes, and in their dress -- they make it manifest that they are more or less dominated by the scene which is under death. But what we want to make manifest in all that we are, and in the way too in which we carry out our natural relationships, is that we stand in relationship to the living God.

Now husband and wife are to walk together as heirs together of the grace of life. There was no question of their being heirs together at the outset, but it is a very important point now in regard to the marriage tie, and the practical result is that spiritual ties are formed, which are not for time but for eternity. It is not a question of mere natural happiness, or of what is agreeable to us in this life, but as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. I am sure it is a most important point to see, placed together in such close

relationship as husband and wife, that there should be the formation of spiritual links which are connected with the living God. The relationship itself must of necessity come to an end with the life down here, but in regard to christians, God allows it to go on so that it might become the means of forming special and spiritual links which are for eternity. It is of all moment that our beloved brother and sister should take their light from Christ and the church. Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, and the church is subjected to Christ. So with the wife, she does not shine in her own light, but she is contributory to her husband, and the husband gives direction to his wife, he is head over her. I do not mean in the sense of lording it over her, but he brings in his influence in connection with all that is right, he directs her. And we who are husbands have to look to it that we lead our wives aright so that headship is seen.

Then the place of the wife is evidently that in the detail of life she is to be contributory to her husband. The great point is that the husband should go right, for then as a general rule you may say that if the husband goes right, then the wife will go right too. I believe if you trace it fairly you will find that the real reason why things have not gone right with many is that the husband did not go right. He is to take the initiative -- he is to direct his wife, and she on her part is to be subject to her husband, and if they carry that out they will walk together as heirs together of the grace of life, and will increasingly know what it is to stand in relation to the living God, and all that stands in relation to the living God is eternal. All that issues from the living God to us is what stands in relation to the living God, and which must therefore subsist eternally, because it has the blessed character of life in contrast to the death that dominates here in this scene of death. I would desire then that they might take their light from Christ and the church, and that they might stand in relation to the living God not merely in future relation, but in present relation to the living God, and

that their relation to one another as husband and we might be used to form those spiritual links which remain for ever.

THE WORD OF GOD

1 Peter 1:23 - 25

I want to say a little with regard to "the word of God". It is important to understand, the idea which is intended to be conveyed by it. Reference was made to the way in which, in Luke 24, the Lord spoke to the two disciples. No doubt in that chapter the Lord, in a sense, took the place of the Spirit in expounding the Scriptures to His disciples. We must enter a little into the position they occupied, and indeed into that of all the Old Testament saints. What they had up to then, "the law and the testimony", was everything to them, but in Luke 24 the point is, that while everything previously spoken was confirmed in Christ, it was He Himself who then spoke to them. He was the 'Yea and Amen' of all. And He was going to the Father to send to them the promise of the Father. Not merely was it that everything that God had purposed had its confirmation in Christ, but the power of all was to be down here in the Spirit.

That is the Spirit in which He blessed them, and "he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven". He went up to heaven to send on them the promise of the Father, and we have now, in contrast to what saints in previous times had, Christ, and every thought of God, everything spoken in anticipation, now established in Christ; the reality has come in, and, at the same time, the power of it down here in the Spirit. In every way you will find a correspondence in the Spirit to whatever has come out in Christ. The Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of Christ, but also as the Spirit of God and even the Spirit of the Father. Everything is now witnessed and maintained here in the Holy Spirit. Christ went back to the Father that He might send from the Father the promise of the Spirit. That is what we get in Luke 24. I call attention to the contrast between what had been,

what men rightly held to, and what marks this moment: Christ gone to the Father, every thought of God having its establishment and confirmation in Him, and He having sent down from the Father the promise of the Father, the Spirit.

To make things clear, I would notice a distinction between "the truth" and "the word of God". God's word is truth. Scripture says, "Thy word is truth". But there is, I think, a distinction between "the truth" and "the word of God". Scripture appears to make the distinction. "The truth" is the revelation of God. On the other hand, speaking in a general way, "the word of God" gives the idea of the revelation of God's thought and mind in regard to men. It may indeed go wider than man; but in general it is the expression of His mind with regard to man; and His word is ever truth characteristically. But at the same time there is "the truth", and that is a great thing to hold by. Christ is "the truth", and the Spirit is "the truth". These are statements made in Scripture, and entirely incontrovertible. It is remarkable that while the word of God is the expression of His thought and purpose with regard to man which comes out in a sovereign way, yet the revelation of God has come out in relation to man's state and necessities. If you go through Scripture I think you will find such to be the case.

The name 'Almighty' came out in connection with the weakness of Abraham. God had made far-reaching promises to Abraham in connection with himself and his seed, and yet Abraham was under the common liability of death. All these promises depended, as far as Abraham was concerned, on resurrection, and it is in that connection that God made Himself known as the Almighty God who quickens the dead. You have only to read Romans 4 to see that "he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were". That was in connection with the fact that Abraham was under the power of

death.

The same principle is true with regard to Israel. In taking up Israel, God knew that He was taking up a people after the flesh, who, though they might be impressed by God's dealings for the moment, would be entirely incapable of remaining in faithfulness to God.

Everything precious entrusted to them they would certainly lose. That is met by the revelation of the name of Jehovah, which indicates the eternal faithfulness of God to His own engagements. That comes out in contrast to the weakness of the people who were sure to surrender all that God had given to them. The people soon forgot the promises, these lost power with them, they had the law, but the living promises of God were lost sight of; but after all God had revealed His name as Jehovah, and that secured the eventual blessing of the people, and their getting the promises in the sovereignty of God's mercy. You get that brought out in Romans 11. In chapter 4 you get the Almighty, in chapter 11 Jehovah. Both names come out in connection with the weakness of man.

If I go further and speak of the name of Father under which God has now revealed Himself; what has been the occasion of that? Why the sending of the Son to be the Saviour of the world. "God is love", and "we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world", 1 John 4:14. We have the revelation of the love of God; but the immediate occasion of that revelation is the condition of man as down here under liabilities in regard to God from which be cannot free himself. The case could only be met by God coming out in self-sacrificing love. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all", Romans 8:32. The condition of man becomes the occasion of God coming out in the full revelation of Himself in the Son. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love,

not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins", 1 John 4:9, 10. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," John 3:16.

In all that, as far as I understand it, you have the truth -- Christ is the truth -- and nothing comes up fully to the idea of the truth except the revelation of God. And I think you must distinguish between the revelation of God and the word of God, that is, the expression of His mind toward man, and yet the one depends on the other; the word of God takes its character from the revelation of God. You cannot understand the one apart from the other, though one may distinguish between them. All His thought and purpose in regard of man takes its character from the revelation of Himself. That is the point I want to make plain. Everything hangs together. His mind as to man hangs upon the revelation of Himself; on what He is, and the necessity of man has brought this to light. The more you look at it the more you see that the word of God wholly depends upon the revelation of God, but the revelation of God is the truth. It is a point of moment. Christ is the truth, and the Spirit is the truth. You could not say the Father is the truth, because He is not the expression. Christ is the truth as being the expression of God, and the Spirit subjectively in believers is the truth, perfectly answering to the revelation.

I come now to the word of God, and I look upon it as being the expression of God's mind and purpose in regard of man, and Christ is that. All the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and at the same time Christ is the Word, the expression of God's mind in regard to man.

I venture to put it in this way: I should lay it down as a principle, that whatever has been expressed in Christ as Man is God's mind for man. I ask you to judge this. It is clear enough to my mind, and I would like to make

it clear to all. I am not now speaking of revelation. Of course everything which has been expressed in Christ as Man takes its character from that which Christ is. Nothing could be expressed in Christ which was contrary or unsuitable to Himself. Everything expressed in Him must take its character from that which He is.

I refer to three points: the first is righteousness -- it was the first thing that it was necessary for God to establish; the next is sonship; the third is eternal life. I take up these three things as having been expressed in Christ, and I want to shew you that they are the mind of God in regard of man down here. These thoughts come out in the Old Testament. They are not new. We shall see this if we go back to Abraham for a moment. What came out in him was righteousness; promises were given him, but the great point in regard to him was righteousness by faith. Abraham was accounted righteous. He stood in the account of God in righteous relation to Himself. You get the great principle of righteousness established. He is the father thus of all that believe.

In Israel we get another expression of the mind of God. God's word to Pharaoh was, "Israel is my son, my firstborn". "Let my son go, that he may serve me". Exodus 4:22, 23. You get here the idea of sonship, I admit, in regard of the nation; but anyway there is the idea of sonship and service. Sonship implies that there should be a point where the love of God could rest, so that He might be served. God could not be served where His love could not rest. The great idea was a point where love could rest. If divine love could not rest in you and me and we be conscious of it, we could not serve God. It is an impossibility that He could be served otherwise. You are familiar with the passage in Zephaniah: "He will rest in his love; he will exult over thee with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17) -- and that here upon earth.

Why are we so defective in ability for the service of God? I think it is because we have so little apprehension of sonship and divine love resting there. We have so little

apprehension of the calling.

I pass on to the third point -- eternal life. It is curious that the thought of eternal life comes out in David. Righteousness in Abraham, sonship in Israel, and David is the first to speak of eternal life. He speaks of it in Psalm 21 and again in Psalm 133, which is "A song of degrees. Of David". "There hath Jehovah commanded the blessing, life for evermore". These things were all in anticipation, for the reality could not come out then either with regard to Abraham, or Israel after the flesh, or David. David never came into eternal life down here, but it is evident that these things were the mind and thought of God in regard of man.

Now all has come out. The Son of God has come forth. He says, "Lo, I come ... I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart". Psalm 40:7, 8. The Son of God takes a path. The moment He takes a path as Man He is necessarily the righteous One. He was the righteous Jehovah, the righteous God, but the moment He becomes Man, He takes a path He never did before. God prescribes a path; man takes a path, and Christ becomes Man and He takes a path to fulfil all righteousness. He undertakes the responsibilities under which man lay that we might stand in relation to Him as the Sun of righteousness, like the moon to the earth or the earth to the sun. That is the relation in which we stand to Christ. Sonship is evident and everything takes it character from what Christ is Himself. He is Son. And eternal life has been manifested in Him. In Christ down here upon earth there was an energy of life which rendered impotent the power of death and the forces of evil, and that is what eternal life means in its principle.

Every thought of God in regard to man has its full and perfect expression in Christ. He is the truth, the revelation of God, but He is also the Word, that is, the expression of God's mind in regard to man, and the one hangs upon the other. There could be no thought in

regard of man except what depended upon the truth, what is consistent with it and taking its character from it. When we come into the apprehension of God's mind we find that we are in the full and blessed light of the revelation of God. All our blessing -- every element of it, brings us into the full light of the love of God. He has brought us out of darkness into His marvellous light. We walk in the light as God is in the light. God has shone out and our blessing is in the presence of the glory of God.

We have righteousness, we have sonship, and God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

One word more. We have come into the full light of God's thought in regard of man, and Israel too will come into it. Even the nations will participate in righteousness and in a certain way in eternal life.

I hold it to be an incontrovertible principle that what has been set forth in Christ as Man is God's mind for man. It is a great thing to get hold of a principle that can be carried through. We have now been brought into the light of God's word and it is Christ, and we have the answer to Christ in us. Christ was bent upon gathering those to whom He could impart His Spirit. From the outset you see this. He gives living water springing up in the recipient to eternal life -- that is in divine, quickening power in affection, so to fill us that the believer rises up to the full light of Christ, and in getting into the full light of Christ we come into the full light of God's mind with regard to man. It is not God's thought about any particular people, but about man; every man may have it, but through grace we have been brought into it, and we get it made efficient in us by the Spirit. We come into righteousness efficiently by the Spirit of God. I quite admit a man is justified by faith, but we come into righteous relation to God and to Christ by the Spirit. The Spirit is the seal of righteousness. The new man is created after God in righteousness and true holiness. You may apprehend that God can justify the ungodly,

but I do not think you can come efficiently into righteousness but by the Spirit. The Spirit is life, too, in regard of righteousness.

I need hardly say it is in the same way we come practically into sonship. The Spirit so makes us acquainted with the love of God in Christ that we come into the sense of it. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit. The Spirit in us cries, Abba, Father.

And so, as regards eternal life. It is a question of proximity to Christ. If you get close to Christ you come into eternal life. "God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son". It seems a simple question of being brought by the Spirit into proximity to the Son. We get under the influence of that which marks the Son. "He is the true God and eternal life". 1 John 5:11, 20. Thus Christ is the Word of God, the perfect expression of His mind in regard of man. All is in connection with the light of which we have heard this morning. The immediate occasion of the revelation of God has been the weakness of man through sin. If that be the case, do not you think that man might trust God? It is not my strength or my suitability which has brought out the revelation of God, but my helpless condition -- and God in Christ has taken occasion to make known His thoughts in regard to man. His communications are livingly expressed to us in the Son of His love. It is not in terms but in a Person. Righteousness, sonship and eternal life we apprehend in a Person, and not only so, but that Person is represented in us by the Spirit. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death".

I had a good deal of diffidence in attempting to speak at this time, but I feel it is important to make clear what the word of God is in its moral sense, and how it is substantiated in the people of God by the Spirit of God.

THE HEAVENLY CITY

Revelation 21:1 - 27

Ques. Are the two chief thoughts in connection with the city light and government?

F.E.R. Yes, I think so.

Ques. Is there any connection between the two?

F.E.R. I think the light of the city becomes really the glory of the kingdom.

Ques. Is there any difference between the heavenly city in the kingdom and in the eternal state?

F.E.R. You will find a number of details in regard to the city in the latter part of the chapter which you do not find in the city in the former part. There is no allusion to the throne or to government in connection with the eternal state. In verse 8 the narrative is brought up to the end, and then some details of the city in the millennial age are added.

Ques. Does the heavenly city come out twice?

Rem. It descends out of heaven from God; that is characteristic.

Ques. But is there such a thing as a city in the eternal state?

Rem. No; what is connected with the eternal state is the tabernacle.

Ques. What is the difference?

Rem. The tabernacle is more the dwelling where God manifests Himself. The tabernacle of God is with men. The city is for administration and rule.

Ques. Is this the city that Abraham looked for?

Rem. I believe he will find what he looked for in this city.

Rem. The communications he had from God must have led him to the world to come in his expectations.

Ques. Do you think this 'looking' was the comment of the Spirit on what his expectation was?

Rem. The point was that he would not have anything which was not of God. He had been called out of all that was of men; he would not have any of the cities of Canaan, but only one whose builder and maker was God. The light may have been dim, but he had that thought, and it is an immense thing that we have what is of God.

Ques. I suppose the heavenly Jerusalem would be necessary to the earthly city, for what is alluded to in the Psalms could not be carried out without?

F.E.R. I think so. You do not get the introduction of a city on the part of God till it has come in on the part of man. You first get Babel, and then Abraham sought a city; so, too, at the end you get the angel first shewing to the apostle Babylon, the idolatrous city, and after the destruction of the idolatrous city the holy city comes into view. The first city was for the glory of man, and was to carry the name of man. In the heavenly city, God has a name, as the earthy Jerusalem is the city of the great King, so the heavenly city is the city of the living God.

Ques. I thought it was the revelation of the name of God that led Abraham to look for a city?

F.E.R. Yes, and that revelation was made to him when he was separated from man. Man looks for a certain kind of stability, and a name in connection with it. The idea of a city is connected with imperialism. Nebuchadnezzar says, for instance: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built ... for the honour of my majesty?" Daniel 4:30.

Rem. In Germany they are trying to improve Berlin to make it worthy of an empire.

F.E.R. So, too, in England. London is the great imperial centre. People are not now content with a kingdom.

Ques. What is the idea of a country?

F.E.R. Extent or expanse.

Ques. Is the heavenly city the church only?

F.E.R. I thought so, because it is the bride.

Ques. Why then are the names of the twelve tribes in the gates?

Rem. Because everything gets its character from the church. Israel's position by and by as the centre of God's government on earth hangs on the church being the vessel of heavenly rule. They have nothing until the co-heirs are in glory with Christ. The church is, so to speak, that which fills up everything which God has brought in. The heavenly city is the crown and keystone of all God's ways. You could not get the fulfilment of the promises to Israel unless the church was in glory. It is from the heavenly Jerusalem that the water of life flows out, and in it are the leaves of the tree for healing. All the hopes of Israel are held in the church in the present interval. You would not get government in grace apart from the heavenly city.

F.E.R. It is a great point that at the present time the hope of Israel is maintained in the church. The church has that place when apparently all is gone for Israel. Israel has given up its own hope and place, and it is maintained in the church.

Ques. How?

F.E.R. The first-fruits of Israel were gathered into the church. That remnant was the beginning of it. They did not give up the hope of Israel, and it is still maintained in the church.

Rem. Paul said he was standing for the hope of Israel.

F.E.R. And so are we. We do not get, or claim, the elder brother's portion. England has, in a sense, taken up the place of Israel in regarding herself as nationally a special object to God. We have to be content with the church's portion, and we can then stand for those who, for the time, have lost their hope. God does not allow anything of His to be lost. He maintains the truth of Israel in the church. The great mistake is connecting the idea of nationality with christianity. The church has no part on earth. It is of the elder brother that it is said,

"All that I have is thine".

Ques. Is it maintained in our having the cup of the new covenant?

F.E.R. Yes.

Ques. Does all distinction cease in the eternal state?

F.E.R. Yes. The prominent idea there is the tabernacle of God, and it is with men, not with a nation. That goes back to God's original intention, God and man together. There will be no more sea, no more division of men into nations.

Rem. Heaven and earth will touch very closely; they communicate with each other in the eternal state.

Ques. What are the principal features of the city?

F.E.R. You get glory, light, walls, gates. And these are things that ought to characterise us now, for where the church has failed we never get its witness restored, and faith goes on to what is to come; there is no good in looking back, but if you go on to the future you return to original principles and get power to hold what God set up at the outset; you are effective in the present, for you seek to maintain in the present what will come out in the future. In principle there can be no difference between what will come out in the heavenly city and what marked the church at the outset as witness. You get the glory mentioned before you get the light, and the light before the other details which are characteristic.

Ques. What is the thought connected with the glory of God?

F.E.R. You get it in 2 Corinthians 4. "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ". It is the effulgence of God shining out in all that God is, in His own moral lustre and perfection; not merely the revelation of God. It includes the fulfilment of prophecy. It is like what you get in Hebrews 1, of the Son. It says, "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of

his power".

Ques. What is "Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal"?

F.E.R. "Her shining" would be a better word, it is her reflection. It is a moral idea; when God comes out He sets aside all the glory of man and brings out His own glory. It is no longer God acting under a veil of providence, He comes out as to all that He is.

Ques. What is "her shining"?

F.E.R. The glory of God lightens it, for the shining of it forth. A precious stone only reflects light, it has none in itself. Put it in a dark place, and you see no shining. It is the same word as in Philippians, "Among whom ye shine as lights in the world".

Ques. Will the shining of the city be expressive of God?

F.E.R. Yes, that is what it is, it is reflected light.

Ques. Is that the glory of the Father?

F.E.R. It is more the thought of God, the glory of God. Each Person of the Godhead has His own glory. It is a great thing to "rejoice in hope of the glory of God", and what follows on that is, that all before Him must be according to His glory. We can rejoice in hope of the glory of God, but we are not prepared for it save as we are according to it. There is a great deal in us which is not according to that glory, and so we come under discipline, and the fact that we come under discipline proves that we are not according to God's glory; when we are, there will not be any more discipline. When the heavenly city comes out, all in it is according to God Himself. Adam in Eden was not unsuitable to the glory of God, but he was hardly according to it. I anticipate the glory now though I am not yet according to it, and if I did not cherish the expectation of it I could not rejoice in it. The knowledge that we shall be according to the glory of God enables us to rejoice in the hope of it. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall

see him as he is". It is certain that if God displays His glory what is before Him must be according to it. We have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, which is the source of all, and God is working now that we may be morally according to His glory. Israel will be lightened by the glory of God, so too the nations, but the church is that which alone has the glory of God, because it alone is completely suitable to it.

Ques. "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages". Is that because all in her is suitable to it?

F.E.R. Yes. That is what is seen in the city.

Rem. In Old Testament times the glory was concealed behind the veil, no one could walk in the light of it, and the priests were driven out, for things were not according to that glory.

Rem. All that is to be known of God by and by will be known through the church.

Ques. Is that the fulness of Him that filleth all in all? Ephesians 1:23.

F.E.R. That is connected with Christ and the bride idea. "Gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all". Afterwards we see the church filled unto all the fulness of God. The point is to be in the light of the city now; God is going to display His glory and the church will be according to it, and we ought to be deeply exercised to be according to it now. There is no use in speaking of rejoicing in hope of the glory of God if we are not exercised as to being according to it now, which means having the light of the heavenly city before us. We wait the appearing of that glory. (See Titus 2:12, 13.) "We should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ". Man's glory -- everything of man is really childish in a moral point of view. When you take a moral survey of things, all here -- all that is connected with the

glory of man seems very poor.

Ques. How will the glory be manifested by and by?

Rem. It is really the church which forms the wealth of God's glory. It is wonderful to think of that when God speaks of "the riches of his glory". Romans 9:23.

Ques. What are the walls of the city?

F.E.R. The idea in them is that of exclusion, it does not mean security; the city is exclusive by the very nature of it; all worldliness, all impurity, all that is contrary to God is excluded by the very nature of what the city is. If you want holiness that is how you get it. Holiness is to be promoted because of the fact that we are to be "holy and without blame before him in love". And again, "You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and un-blameable and unreproveable in his sight". Colossians 1:21, 22. We want the walls great and high to be before God holy and un-blameable.

Ques. How is that promoted now?

F.E.R. By the knowledge of God's holy love. No other way is possible. Love is exclusive because it is holy.

Rem. The walls are part of the city, not encircling it, and in the very nature of things it excludes all that is not of God.

F.E.R. People are slow to get hold of great divine ideas, what they do is to take up texts of scripture and sentiments.

Ques. Do not you think that the glory disperses all that is contrary to it?

F.E.R. Well, I should not like to be dispersed then, I should rather the dispersion took place now.

Ques. How is what is contrary dispersed?

F.E.R. By discipline. God disciplines us now to remove what is not according to His glory. There will not be discipline then. Discipline is the expression of perfect love. No one would desire to be without it, because so conscious of needing it.

Ques. Is it in view of light?

F.E.R. It is to make room for it. It is children whom God chastens, there is no chastening for sons. The distinction between children and sons is extremely nice, one merges into the other, but there is a shade of distinction. We are children now and in the light of sonship. Sonship is connected with the divine purpose. In the sanctuary you are come to the place of sonship. Children come under the discipline of God, and God does not pass over anything in His children, and no right-minded child would want to escape discipline. It is that we should be "partakers of his holiness".

Ques. In Hebrews 12 it asks, "what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"

F.E.R. That is a quotation from the Old Testament. "Let my son go, that he may serve me" is the idea of a son -- "that he may serve me".

Ques. Is this cry for imperialism a sign of the times?

F.E.R. It cannot come out fully until the church is gone. God started with the rule of the heavens, and nothing will be right here until the rule of heaven comes in morally. Then everything will be set right on earth. You will not have one bit of the glory of man there. The appearing of the glory of God will wither up all the glory of man.

Rem. With regard to the new Jerusalem J.N.D. has said that it is remarkable that you do not see any one. You see the city and the glory of God. Though the names of the twelve apostles are there, not one of the names is given. So we are told that the names of the twelve tribes were on the breastplate of the high priest, but we are not told their names.

F.E.R. The fact is, all is so perfectly balanced of God, there can be no room for human prominence.

Ques. How does the promise to the Philadelphian overcomer come in here? Revelation 3:12.

F.E.R. It is remarkable that in the last three churches Christ presents Himself in characteristics which are

either moral or are connected with the kingdom, and carry you on to the kingdom. In Thyatira you come to the end of the church, and from that point onward Christ presents Himself in other lights. In the promise to the overcomer in Philadelphia we get, "will I make a pillar in the temple of my God ... and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God". The church has failed, and therefore there is the looking forward to the kingdom. What enables any one to maintain now is seeing God's idea. One wants to be characterised by "the city of my God" now.

Ques. Why is there no temple in the city?

F.E.R. There is nothing to enshrine because God is everything. One part is as holy as another. It is wonderful that we shall be able to bear God's glory, and shall be in the presence of that glory with exceeding joy. We ought to be under its power now, and nothing less than that satisfies the new man.

Ques. What is the force of the expression, when the kingdom is delivered up, "that God may be all in all"? 1 Corinthians 15:28.

Rem. When everything is subdued God morally will fill all. He will fill His own creation.

Ques. Is that the idea in "the tabernacle of God is with men"?

F.E.R. Yes.

Ques. What is the force of God being all in all -- is it power?

F.E.R. It is nature, life, and that is love. God is all in all. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son is subject, the Spirit is pervading, as Mr. Darby says, 'By the Spirit all pervading'.

Ques. What is the force of the kings of the earth bringing their glory to it?

F.E.R. I think they recognise the church in its own proper place in relation to God and the Lamb. It is in

that way that God connects Himself mediately with the world to come, and the church has that place as the vessel of the glory.

Ques. Do the nations derive their glory from it?

F.E.R. I do not know; you cannot separate the church from Christ. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him". But the Lamb's wife shares all that belongs to the Bridegroom, and that brings in an important point -- that as the bride we ought to be faithful to the Bridegroom, and properly to lose our own interests in those of the Bridegroom. The "husband is known in the gates" in that day, and He should be known there now. Union is with the exalted Man, association is with the Son of God.

Ques. Is union future?

F.E.R. Not altogether. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come" now. The sanctuary brings in the thought of association with Christ, and is in one sense a greater thing than union. Ephesians 1 is association -- sonship. (See verse 5.) In association you are with Him as the Son of God. You never can be united to the Son of God as such. Union is with the exalted Man. Mr. Stoney brought that out: I did not see the force of it at the time. Sonship brings you into association with the Son of God.

Rem. Then association must be something higher that what we get here.

F.E.R. Yes; Mr. Darby pointed out that to be placed in association with Christ is greater than what you get here -- greater than to be the bride, the Lamb's wife, though there could not be association without union. In the bride idea you are united to Christ, but in sonship you are with Him as His companions in the presence of the Father.

ETERNAL LIFE

John 7:37 - 39

W.R. I think you said on a previous occasion that "eternal life" is a sphere of blessing -- 'it is not a possession and belongs properly to the world to come'. I made that remark to someone, and he politely said that he did not believe it. Will you please make it clear to me?

F.E.R. If you trace it through Scripture, to begin with, the first allusion to it is in Psalm 21, "He asked life of thee and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever".

Then I think the next thought connected with it is in Psalm 133, "There the Lord commanded the blessing (which, I take it, refers to Zion) even life for evermore". The next allusion to it is in the last chapter of Daniel (verse 2): "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt". It is perfectly evident that all these passages have to do with the earth and that they undoubtedly refer to the millennium: The difference between Psalm 133, and the last chapter of Daniel is this: in the former I take it that eternal life is connected with the Jew, and the last chapter of Daniel carries the thought out to Israel.

I think the point to which I should next refer is Matthew 25, the last verse: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal". The importance of that passage is that it carries the thought out to the gentiles; you get the Jew in Psalm 133, Israel in the last chapter of Daniel and the gentiles in Matthew 25 -- eternal life having its application to all. The question was raised with the Lord: He speaks of eternal life and says "In the coming age eternal life".

These passages make it perfectly clear that eternal

life is in the coming age -- the millennium. The coming of Christ brings it in, that is, for the world to come, but we get it in anticipation now, as risen together with Christ -- we come into what is properly characteristic of the age to come. You may speak of many other things which we anticipate in the same way -- things which properly belong to the world to come, but we anticipate them. We are risen together with Christ now, we have not to wait for the millennium; and thus we come into eternal life now. That is the way I understand it. With the Jew the thought is always connected with eternal life on earth.

Rem. Eternal life was usually looked upon as the portion of the christian which he took possession of as soon as he believed.

F.E.R. That I cannot understand, for the Lord says, "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life", and the Spirit is "a well of water springing up into everlasting life"; "grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life". It is a point to be reached in the soul, "He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting".

Ques. How do you understand John 17:3?

F.E.R. That shows the character of what it is; christians according to the mind of God are risen together with Christ, brought into association with Him on the ground of resurrection, and their privilege is to "know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent". That is how we come into the good of it now -- brought into sonship, into association with Christ as a priestly company, and it is in that way we come into eternal life. A kind of conventional teaching may spring up amongst us which really comes to be very often astray from the truth. Many of these things were meant right enough at the outset, but they have got fixed and stereotyped, and have come to be conventional, and the moment they get into that shape, the moulds are too rigid to hold the truth, and the truth breaks them. You must get rid

of the mould in order to keep the truth very often. It may serve very well and be useful for the moment in order to present the doctrine and that kind of thing, but sooner or later you find the moulds are too rigid to hold the truth and you get rid of the mould and get hold of the truth.

Rem. I suppose these passages do not militate against John 3:16 and John 5:24?

F.E.R. Not at all. We come into things by anticipation -- things which properly belong to the world to come.

Ques. "He that ... believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life". It is true now?

F.E.R. That is the kind of person that has it.

Ques. How is eternal life obtained?

F.E.R. By the Spirit: "He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting".

Ques. When is one prepared for it?

F.E.R. When the Spirit springs up, and they are prepared to let everything in the way go. It springs up into everlasting life.

Ques. Is a man specially conscious of reaching this stage?

F.E.R. Yes. The first thing is, he comes into the fellowship of Christ's death, and it is in that way he gets to the other side of Jordan, into the land of promise, where Christ is. You cannot bring Christ into the wilderness -- and a great part of our christian experience has to do with the wilderness.

Ques. What is the difference between "Life forevermore" in Psalm 133 and eternal life which is our portion?

F.E.R. There is none. The general idea is the same, only we get it in a different shape, from what they do. They will get it in connection with the presence of Christ here and temporal blessing. That is the meaning of the words "There the Lord commanded the blessing" -- God ordained it. I think you get an allusion to it in

John 12:50, "I know that his commandment is life eternal". He ordained the blessing, appointed it. Any appointment of God is His commandment.

Ques. I suppose it is in John the links are broken?

F.E.R. Yes, I wonder how many people are prepared to let all go, to reach Christ. Take what is going on at the present time: it only proves to me that they mind earthly things -- I know it in myself -- the Englishman asserts itself a bit. The apostle wept over people minding earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven. Many people do it thoughtlessly, it is not exactly purpose that they pay attention to things here unheavenly. But the apostle was very strong about it -- "Of whom I have told you often, and now I tell you even weeping", and one great point was, "they mind earthly things". In contrast to that he says, "our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens".

Earthly things are the political things which are going on on earth, and when I see saints pretty much occupied with newspapers and having a keen interest in things which are going on in the world -- which need not affect them one bit -- I say, they mind earthly things.

These verses (John 7:37 - 39) complete the teaching of chapters 5, 6, and 7. I spoke of these chapters as being the evidence of christianity: chapter 5 presenting the Father and the work; chapter 6 brings in the Son of man and the ministry of bread, and chapter 7 the living water flowing out of the believer, which brings in the Holy Spirit. All these go out of the church at the present time: men that were dead are made to live -- that brings the Father in; there is the ministry of bread for believers, and there is the water flowing out of the belly of the believer. So you have evidence of the Father, of the Son of man and of the Spirit down here.

Rem. We have usually looked at the living water flowing out of the believer as the gospel.

F.E.R. I think it is too limited altogether. Properly speaking living water will flow out of Jerusalem, i.e.

health-giving influences. And it is the same with the believer: all that flows out of him is really helpful and ministers life, it has that character by the Spirit, and it is for the benefit of men. What will flow out of Jerusalem when it is established will be for the benefit of the whole earth. So it is now, that out of the belly of the believer shall flow rivers of living water, there is an overflow.

Ques. In that way I suppose the need of souls is met?

F.E.R. Yes, my feeling about it is that in every circle in which I am placed, all the influence which goes from me should be healthful and savour of life.

Ques. It is individual then?

F.E.R. Yes, I think you come to what is collective in chapters 9 and 10. I feel condemned for myself very much in the face of this scripture: like a kind of well or pump, the water is there but does not come to the surface.

Rem. This supposes a good previous history, because what flows out of the belly is what the man is.

F.E.R. It is what the man enjoys. It is all connected with Jesus glorified. The point is that in going to heaven Christ has carried every divine interest for the earth up with Him. It is a great comfort to me to think that God has plenty of interests here on the earth and that they are secured in Christ in heaven, and we are in the secret of it.

Ques. This carries a good deal more in it than being able to give helpful answers, when questions are put to us?

F.E.R. Yes, I think so. It means that you are able to give something helpful apart from that.

Ques. Do you connect 2 Timothy 2:21 with this? "If therefore one shall have purified himself from these".

F.E.R. That is preparatory. I think the thought in John 7 goes beyond that. The Lord is speaking more of what is normal in John 7 and does not contemplate all the evil in christianity that you have to purge yourself

from -- "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive".

It is a great point with me that the earth has no future in politics.

Ques. Do you mean that it will all be stopped?

F.E.R. It may be stopped at any moment. Then again no politician can tell what is going to take place. It is a remarkable thing, but William Pitt, who was a pretty cute politician, on the verge of the country going to war, said, 'There never was a moment when the state of Europe so guaranteed the continuance of peace'. And within 12 months the country had to enter upon a war which lasted some 15 years. That shows you what politics are.

Ques. Is there any reason why one should take no interest in it?

F.E.R. All I say is this -- there is no future for the world in politics. It is the power of affection that carries our hearts out of earthly things. I like people to take an interest in the earth in right things, but the great point is, there is no future for the earth in politics. There is a future for the earth, and the future lies in the promises of God, which centre in a Man, who is at the right hand of God. The world has turned that Man out, so that we could not rightly have any interest in politics. It is of the deepest interest to me that Christ has carried to heaven every divine interest down here.

Ques. Will they come back again?

F.E.R. Yes, all will come out in Christ and we shall reign with Him.

Ques. So you would encourage the study of prophecy?

F.E.R. As to the general idea of it, yes; I like to go through Scripture to get every purpose of God. You get all the interests of God down here, but Christ has been here and has carried every interest up to heaven -- therefore, every interest of mine is in heaven. The effect of that down here on the earth is that out of my belly

flows "living water". As regards the promises and prophecies of God connected with the Jew, the Jew does not cherish them. He has turned to money-making and what not, but the church is holding the ground of the Jew.

Ques. The history of the Jew is completed for this moment, is it not?

F.E.R. Yes, but there are many things belonging to them -- there is a portion for the Jew, but that portion is cherished in the church, because the church is in the light of Christ. The church knows that their portion hereafter is secured, and cherishes it; and that accounts for the names of the twelve tribes being inscribed on the gates of the heavenly city.

Ques. When you say that Christ has carried every interest into heaven, is there no interest for Him down here?

F.E.R. There is no interest in connection with the earth now; there is the church and that is heavenly.

It is of profound delight to me to think that every purpose and promise of God is secured to God's glory in Christ; that is, in the Man that is in heaven. There is another point connected with it, and that is, the church is united to that Man, so that the church will participate in His glory. By the very fact of the Spirit being here there is a restraint on lawlessness. So long as the Spirit of God is here you will undoubtedly find a certain respect maintained for the authority of God.

Ques. And would that not be the Spirit working with the world?

F.E.R. No. It is consequent upon the Spirit being in christians.

Ques. The restraint is increased or decreased according to the number of christians?

F.E.R. Exactly!

Ques. Will you tell me what that scripture means -- "My spirit shall not always strive with man".

F.E.R. God was going on with a testimony of

righteousness, and that was in view of the flood, I take it.

Ques. And do you not get the long-suffering of God today?

F.E.R. I do not think God is dealing with men on that ground. All that kind of thing came to an end in the death of Christ What God does now is to present the idea of 'Head'. He presents to men the testimony of Christ, but does not strive with man. I think the whole state of things was entirely altered after the death of Christ.

Ques. "Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit", would that refer to the gentiles as well as the Jews?

F.E.R. It would not have quite the same application. The fact is this, that the gentile has to a certain extent accepted the testimony of God, which the Jew resisted.

What God said was that the word would be preached to the gentiles and they would hear it.

Ques. Does not the Spirit of God reprove the world?

F.E.R. He did when He came, by the fact of His being here. He convicts the world of sin, because they believe not on Him. Christ is the test, the Spirit was not the test.

Ques. What does the Spirit come for really?

F.E.R. To conduct a company to Christ and all the other is incidental to that.

Ques. Is that not made good in the assembly?

F.E.R. Yes. The Spirit does not bring us to heaven, Christ brings us to heaven, but the object of the Spirit is to conduct us to Christ now.

Ques. What did you mean just now, when you said that Christ does not come to us in the wilderness?

F.E.R. We must get to Him, where He is, that is the meaning of the passage in Colossians, "Christ in you the hope of glory". I think that is all the other side, it is the mystery connected with the body.

Ques. Does chapter 6 correspond to the Jordan more?

F.E.R. No, chapter 6 is on the way, and is connected with the wilderness; it would not run with Colossians and Ephesians. In chapter 6 the great point is the "Son of man" and the evidence of the Son of man is that there is the ministration of bread down here. Verse 53 is the appropriation of His death. It is not the way of life, it is through the life.

Ques. The words "Ye have no life in you" would hardly be true of one of God's children, would they?

F.E.R. No. It is death come in as a test, and if they do not eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, it is a proof they have no life in them. What I understand by it is this: it is the soul's appreciation of the grace which comes to us in the death of Christ and it continues. The fact of it all is, that there is bread for the believer, and you cannot prevent believers having the bread. I believe there are two things in which you find bread, you find it in His death, and you have it in His priesthood. With regard to the latter, we are at the throne of grace, and obtain mercy and find grace to help in times of need.

Rem. I think somebody was saying just now that eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood is habitual?

F.E.R. Yes. You never get out of the sense, and should not, of the grace which has been expressed in the death of Christ. I want to have my soul kept in that as long as I am down here. Another thing comes in, and that is, that the One who died is really living at the right hand of God. The practical result is that we can go boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help.

Ques. Will you give us a few practical hints as to how verse 38 of chapter 7 can be true of us?

F.E.R. I do not know, except that it can only come to pass through the soul taking up and entering into every interest of God which belongs to the earth, and seeing that all is secured in Christ in glory. My citizenship

is in heaven -- that is the idea of it to me. It is all centred in Christ. Believing on Christ in John's gospel means believing on Christ to the exclusion of everything else. I have faith in Christ and have faith in nobody else, so that you turn to Christ before friends. They may be good enough, but I have faith in nobody but Christ.

Ques. Was there anything in the Lord saying this at the feast?

F.E.R. Yes. Chapters 6 and 7 cover the entire ground of the feast. Chapter 6 is the passover, chapter 7 is the feast of tabernacles; and He shows that what would come in connection with Himself would entirely surpass the feasts. You get the flesh and blood of the Son of man in chapter 6 in contrast to the passover. In chapter 7 what the Spirit would do in connection with the glorified Christ surpasses the feast of tabernacles.

The two chapters cover the entire ground of the feasts. The feasts began with the passover and ended with the feast of tabernacles. What answers to the feast of tabernacles is the fact that Jesus is glorified. It is not that you have all the interests of God brought to pass upon the earth, but you have them secured in Christ in heaven. So that if we had a sense of what God was in Christ, we should not want anything. "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water". It is not a point of what He has for us, but what He has for God. It is glory to God by us.

Ques. Is that the object of priesthood -- that we might be brought into these things?

F.E.R. Well, I think that the object of priesthood is that you may never lose the sense of grace.

Ques. These truths that you have been bringing before us should not make the christian idle?

F.E.R. I think we should benefit those we come in contact with very much more, because out of my belly should flow living waters. It ought to be an exercise to everybody that he should be in this world beneficially, he ought not to stagnate. There is something for everyone to do -- a man may show mercy with cheerfulness.

Ques. Is it the same as being the salt of the earth?

F.E.R. Yes, quite so. It is a very great comfort to me to think that there is a future for the earth and that there will be an accomplishment of everything that is for God.

Ques. Is that the sum and substance of our hope -- that all God's interests for the earth are centred in Christ?

F.E.R. Yes, and the fact of it is "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come". The more we comprehend that everything is bound up in Christ, the more evangelistic we should be down here.

Ques. What would you say is being 'evangelistic'?

F.E.R. To bring before men's minds the head. "The head of every man is Christ". All evangelisation is summed up in that.

Rem. We generally present Christ as Saviour.

F.E.R. I do not think that goes quite far enough, because you want to present Him as head, that bringing in the idea of living water.

Ques. How would you explain to me that Christ is the "head of every man"?

F.E.R. "Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations". He is the head of every man and repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be preached among all nations.

Ques. What is "among all nations"?

F.E.R. I do not know except what it says. It is put in an abstract kind of way, so that anybody can take it up.

Ques. Is it not the work of the Spirit of God to form Christ in us?

F.E.R. Yes, I think so. It is the well of water springing up into everlasting life. The Spirit of Christ works in us attachment to Christ, and deliverance from the world. Ishmael goes out and Christ comes in. It is only

in that way that you make any progress. You get the appreciation of Christ and that produces attachment to Christ.

Ques. Would you say that the effect would be, that we should be more Christ-like in our ways?

F.E.R. No doubt it would result in that, but the first thing is that we should answer to the mind of God, and I have no doubt whatever that Christ should be seen in us.

Ques. "I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you". He comes to us and we go to Him. Is that when we break bread?

F.E.R. He will only come to us on condition that we leave the world. That is the idea of the assembly to me -- we leave the world and He comes to us. In that sense we are orphans, we find ourselves in that way in a sphere where divine affection flows.

Ques. What is meant by the expression, 'being prepared for the assembly?'

F.E.R. The question which arises in my mind is this: are you prepared for the fellowship of His death? That is the first great thing as to the preparation for the assembly, because if you accept the fellowship of His death, you will give up every interest here. Of course you are committed to His death in baptism; but the fellowship of His death is that you will give up every interest here -- for Christ has no interest here now.

Ques. Is not that the great idea of eternal life?

F.E.R. Yes, it is out of death into life. So far as my experience goes, it does not seem that people are so particularly eager to surrender every interest on earth. That is what fellowship with the death of Christ is.

Ques. Do you think that we find very few 'crucified men'?

F.E.R. I do not think a very great many enter into it. That man would have no interest here. He has accepted what you may call an ignominious death; and one who takes sides with the Lord would have to go

into death. If a man does not accept the death of Christ, he does not reach Christ where He is.

Ques. What is the difference between 'dying daily', and being dead with Christ?

F.E.R. They are two entirely different things. 'Dying daily' was that he was daily exposed to death at the hand of man, but 'The fellowship of His death' is the state of the christian's mind -- the mind of the christian is in accord with the death of Christ.

THE WITNESS

Revelation 1:17; 3: 11

I have no thought of attempting an exposition of these addresses to the churches; I want to speak of what the church is as witness, and what succeeds when it fails as witness. In the first of these addresses we get the church in its normal place, the place of witness. It is the only address in which allusion is made to the candlestick. When it ceases to be a witness here it is never restored. So far as the actual fact is concerned, the candlestick is hardly taken out of its place yet. The church is still responsibly in the place of witness, but you read no more of the candlestick. But then another order of things follows: not exactly witness, but life. Life comes in, and you can always fall back upon that, and it is a great thing to fall back upon. You will find the same principle pervading the writings of the apostle Paul. When things were normal, we get the epistle to the Ephesians, and that is the church as witness; but when the church has failed, the apostle has to look the failure in the face, and he falls back upon life. We can make nothing now of witness or testimony, but we can fall back upon life, and that is very important. It is what comes out in these two addresses. The great point in the present day is life, and life must, in a sense, be individual.

Now I will speak a little about witness, and the place of the church as witness. You cannot give up a right thought, even if you see that a right thought can never again be realised down here: a right thought is ever your standard. I think that is one great reason why Scripture has been given to us, that we might have a perfect standard. In days of defection people are led back to the standard, and the effect upon them is they depart from evil. It was so in the time of Josiah; the king was brought back to the standard, and the state of things was judged

by it. The same applies to the present day; when any kind of revival has occurred amongst saints, they have been led back to the standard, and were thus able to judge the defection. But then, the standard would not build people up; for that you want the power of the Spirit of God. Life can only be by the Spirit of God. Doctrine is not life; the Spirit is life. The well of water springs up in the believer into everlasting life; saints are built up in the energies of life. That is a great thing in a day of departure. It was pointed out years ago that in the later epistles, where the apostle is addressing himself not to churches but to individuals, he takes the ground of an apostle according to the hope of eternal life. There was no hope of the restoration of the church; and eternal life becomes to a large extent the point in the epistles to Timothy and Titus.

Now one word in regard to the witness. I think there was in the ways of God a kind of continuation of witness. So long as Christ was upon earth He was the great witness here of divine love: He declared God. Now when Christ comes in again He comes as the faithful and true witness; you get that lower down in the third chapter. But in the meantime the church is the witness, and expressions which were used in regard to Christ Himself are used in regard to the church. The Lord speaks of Himself as the light of the world; the church is the light of the world. He was the witness; the church is the witness: that is its normal place, a witness for God here, a living witness. It is the living expression down here of the love of God -- that is the true place of the church; and not only witness of the love of God, but of the wisdom of God.

Now I will just ask your attention to a scripture or two in that connection -- John 17:20, 21. There you get the unity of the saints, and that as a proof that the Father sent the Son that the world might believe. Now pass on to Ephesians 3:14 - 21. I think this prayer brings before us not simply the thought of unity, in which the saints were

the witness that the Father sent the Son, but the competency of the church as witness. Nothing could go beyond this prayer in regard to witness. Now I call your special attention to the way in which divine persons are connected in this prayer with the church. The saints are to be strengthened of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, with might in the inner man, the object being that the Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. Now, the subject of all testimony in Scripture, beyond contradiction, is Christ: "They are they which testify of me". So in 2 Corinthians 3"who has also made us competent, as ministers of the new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit"; and then, following upon the parenthesis which succeeds, you get, "The Lord is the Spirit". I am warranted in saying that Christ is the subject of the Scriptures. You will admit that the source of the Scriptures is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the immediate power by which the Scriptures have been indited is the Spirit, and the subject of the Scriptures is Christ. Now, the saints were to be strengthened with all might, that the Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith, that they, being rooted and grounded in love, might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, that they may be filled unto all the fulness of God. What I want to point out in that is the competency of the witness. They were to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. You can get no further. That was the competency of the church, and the end of it was that they might be filled unto all the fulness of God. What I understand that to imply is that the church was an adequate witness of God here in the world; it was not simply a witness by word of mouth, but morally. I could not give an exposition of the prayer in Ephesians 3 but it is one of the most remarkable passages you can find; it brings before us the mind of God in a most wonderful way.

I refer to two other passages -- 1 John 4:11 - 14 and John 1:18. In the gospel of John, Christ was the witness

who declared God; in the epistle it says, "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us". We are thus the witness here of the love of God. Then the apostle says, "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world". That is, the saints are here, the love of God is perfected in them if they love one another; and He has given them of His Spirit, and they bear witness.

There is one more passage -- 1 John 5:10, 11. The apostle says, "this is the witness, that God hath given to us eternal life". Read that in conjunction with what comes out in the previous verse: it is the witness that God has given of His Son. The church is looked upon as being in eternal life, and that is the witness which God has given of His Son. God has accomplished His purpose, the purpose for which the only-begotten Son came into the world (John 3:16), and the accomplishment of that purpose is the testimony that God has given of His Son. Now you see the place of the church in witness here upon earth: witness to the Son of God, the love of God, the wisdom of God -- an expression of all the fulness of God. No one can speak about it at the present time with any great amount of power, because the witness is so obscured; but you can get the divine idea of it, and the effect will be that you will not care to have fellowship with anything that tends to obscure the witness. The witness will never come out in clear light again down here; it will come out in the heavenly city. I do not believe the candlestick will ever be brought back to its place, but I get the idea of the candlestick, and anything which tends to obscure the light I would seek to be apart from. As to the christianity current in the present day, I would not have anything to say to it; every day I live I desire to be more apart from it, because it is a great veil which obscures the witness of the church.

If you have followed the passages I have quoted, I beg you not to let them drop with the occasion. Try and gather up the idea of what the mind of God was in regard to the witness of the church down here upon earth.

Now I turn to Revelation 2:2 - 7. You see the departure there from the place of witness. The proof of it is plain, in that the Lord threatens to remove the candlestick out of its place unless there is repentance. I need hardly tell you that the church at Ephesus has long since ceased to exist; so has every other church in Asia Minor. The whole country was overrun by Mohammedanism, and the light of the church there extinguished. But that was only local. You may look at things in a broader way than that, that is, as to the church in general, for Ephesus is only a sample of the church in the place of witness. You will readily connect what I read with the prayer in Ephesians 3, which gives the idea of the church in the place of witness. Here the church has lost its witness, and the secret of it is that it has left its first love. When the church lost the sense of association with Christ, then, I do not doubt, it left its first love. I believe the idea of the church is set forth in figure in Aaron and his sons. There might not be any particular link of affection between Aaron and his sons; but in Christ and the church the bond is affection. His pre-eminence is the pre-eminence of affection. The bond of affection is in power in the sense of our being risen with Him according to the mind of God, and quickened together with Him by the work of God. So long as that was maintained the church was the witness; when the Head was let go the church ceased to be a witness. I have no doubt the secret of His being let go was unwatchfulness. People came in unawares, even unbelievers, and in that way spirituality declined, and eventually the witness was obscured. The church increased in worldly importance, but the influence of earth and of the world came in, and the witness was obscured. It has been said that the purest water spilt upon earth becomes mud. You get an idea from the passage I have read as to

the mind of God in regard to the church; but when the church came under the influence of earth everything became mixed; the witness was obscured, and the Lord takes account of this. Nothing escapes the eye of the Lord, and to my mind this is a great comfort. There never was a phase of the church as to which the Lord had not His particular mind. It is a great comfort, for it brings the sense to me of a living Head, who has His mind as to every moment and in every phase of the church's history. If I apprehend that, I shall desire to be in the secret of His mind, and then I would seek to be faithful to His mind, not to thwart it or to go on with anything which is not in accordance with it. He has His mind in regard to the church at this moment, as much as He had at the beginning. Laodicea is a very evil phase, but Christ has His mind in regard to that. If anyone there heard His voice and opened to Him they would come into accord with His mind.

Now I have tried to make clear what is before me, and that is, to give an idea of the place of the church as witness, and its suitability for it. The witness was competent and suitable, but as a matter of fact the church left its first love, and when it did so, it ceased to be a witness. When it left its first love, human order came in; and that was, I suppose, almost the first sign of departure on the part of the church. The power of the Spirit declined, saints lost the sense of association with Christ, and then there was nothing left but to establish human order. When human order came in, the church ceased to be the witness which God intended it to be down here. Of course it has the responsibility of being witness until it is taken out of the place of witness, but morally it ceased to be witness when it left its first love; and although the Lord admonishes to repentance, yet, as a matter of fact, the church has never regained the place of witness which it lost.

Now if you pass on to Smyrna (verses 8 - 11), the striking points in regard to this church are as to death and life --

life out of death. Christ brings Himself before the church in that way -- "... which was dead, and is alive". I want to show the present application of that. The state of things then was analogous to what is here now. When the Spirit of God began to work at the beginning of the present century, there was restoration, in a small way, to what was seen at Ephesus. The saints were devoted and unworldly; they were largely in the reality of first love. But even that little bit of witness declined. You will never see it restored. There has been such a state of things even in the present century, in the power of the Spirit of God. And what about us? We come in for a good deal of what is written to Smyrna, "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty". It is a time of tribulation and poverty, not a time of honour. There was a moment in Ephesus when the witness was in honour; but the present is a time of tribulation and poverty. There is no great energy amongst us; I think you will admit that we deplore the loss of vitality. And I think, too, there is the endurance of 'blasphemy'; those who have come out from all that is around, and have sought to get to the Lord, are not well spoken of; they are the subject of blasphemy from the synagogue of Satan. There is a synagogue of Satan still: people whose confidence is in earthly order and succession here upon earth. They would speak evil of all that is really in the Spirit of God. "Ye shall have tribulation ten days". You get tribulation, only the tribulation is limited. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life". This is a great principle; death is the true way to life. Faithfulness unto death gets its answer in the crown of life. It was a time of real persecution in that day, though limited, when saints needed to be faithful unto death, and the Lord would give them the crown of life. But we, too, want to be faithful unto death, and death is the test of faithfulness. People do not like death. If you saw the great gain that lies on the other side of death, you would be faithful unto death. I think we shirk it; we want to go on more or

less in conformity with the world. Many who would not go to theatres and such like want a certain amount of worldly recognition, and go on with the amenities of the world. The point is, "Be thou faithful unto death". I do not want to give a curious or fanciful interpretation to the passage I only take it up as a principle -- faithfulness unto death is the way of life according to God. If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him. We reckon ourselves to have died indeed unto sin. If a man takes the ground of being alive in the world, I can hardly understand how he can be alive unto God. The principle of being alive unto God is that you have died -- "died to sin"; and when Scripture speaks of sin, it implies the world, for the world is dominated by sin and lawlessness.

Now one word as to life. I think life practically is the enjoyment of the relationships in which it has pleased God to place us. In one sense, it is the power to enjoy the relationships; in another sense, it may be spoken of as the enjoyment of the relationships. If I speak of business life, I mean the associations and connections of business. Family life is in the affections and associations and connections of the family. And so in divine things.

Life according to God is the enjoyment of the relationships and associations in which it has pleased God to place us -- not the natural relationships, but the spiritual ones; and if we are to enter into the enjoyment of these spiritual relationships there must of necessity be the fellowship of the death of Christ. If we are not prepared to accept that, we are greatly hindered in the enjoyment of the relationships of life.

Now it is a great thing to be in the enjoyment of eternal things. We have a great deal to do with temporal things, but they are all transient; the great point is to be living in the relationships with which life according to God is connected. There is no single relationship of earth but what is dominated by death, but the relationships which God has been pleased to establish are all connected with a living God. It is impossible to connect

the thought of a dead world with a living God. All the relationships which God has been pleased to establish in grace are living, because they are of the living God, and the point for us is to accept the fellowship of the death of Christ, to be faithful unto death, so that we may lay hold of that which is really life. The point is, to lay hold on that which is in connection with the living God. There is no thought in Scripture which is more suggestive to my mind than the expression, "the living God". We read of the Son of the living God, the Spirit of the living God, the church of the living God, the service of the living God, the word of the living God -- all is living. Now the great thing for us is to be faithful unto death, to accept the death of Christ in regard to the world system around us, that we may lay hold of that which is really life. The crown is the consummation; you cannot get that until the Lord comes, but there is such a thing now as to be past death. We are quickened with Christ, in order that we may enter upon the domain of life, but the region of life lies on the other side of Jordan. I do not want to distort the passage, but I think you may accept the principle. You cannot make much now of the witness of the church. People have talked about "our testimony". I have no sympathy with any such expressions. A servant of the Lord once said, if we were a testimony to anything, we were a testimony to the ruin of the church. The witness is obscured, and I would have no fellowship with what obscures it, but we have something to fall back upon, and that is, the great and blessed realities of life. We may be reviled and blasphemed, but the point is, "Be thou faithful unto death". Imagine what a thing it will be to receive the consummation from the hand of Christ. You have accepted the fellowship of His death, and He gives you the crown of life.

Then you get an important word to the overcomer, and that is, that he will not be hurt of the second death. I look upon the second death as moral death. Of course it is the lake of fire, but those in the lake of fire are shut

out for ever from the light of God and all that flows from it. There is nothing to succeed it; it is final, "the second death". May God give us grace that we may be prepared to accept the fellowship of Christ's death, that we may come now into the blessed region where the Son of the living God lives.

THE LOVE OF GOD IN ACTIVITY AND IN REST

John 1:12; Ephesians 1:3 - 6

I desire to make a few remarks on the difference between divine love in its application to us as saints on earth in our individual path, and in its application to us as privileged to be in association with Christ in a scene where God can rest in entire complacency, all being suitable to His glory. The first connects itself with our position as children in the presence of God, and the second with sonship and the assembly. A difficulty in understanding the matter may arise from the fact that, though both thoughts cannot be realised at the same moment of time, both are true now of believers.

The first thing to be apprehended is our present recognised place down here as before God. We are evidently in the kingdom of God, justified and under the sway of grace. The same will, I apprehend, be true of Israel hereafter, but this does not fully describe the position of christians, they are "children of God". The children of the Queen are in the kingdom, and subject to its ordering and laws, but they are none the less the children of the Queen -- and christians as begotten by the revelation of God's nature, and partaking of that nature, cannot be less than children of God -- when the world knew not its Creator, and "his own" received not the light which had visited them; then it was that God saw fit to set forth His children. I judge that the object was that there should be those here who were morally according to Christ. I think that any careful study of the Lord's ministry on earth must end in the conviction that the purpose of His teaching was to lead the minds of those who listened to Him into the sense of being children. This is summed up in John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he the right

to be children of God, to those that believe on his name". In accord with this we have in 1 John 3:1, "See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God;" and in Romans 8:16, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God".

The great point in reference to children is that they are in the light of divine love, and able to appreciate and enjoy the light because begotten of that love. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him". If we apprehend that God began, and not we, then we can understand our place as children; a new generation, called out of darkness into light, to shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. Now the relationship of children, though connected with the idea of perfectness in practice -- for we are to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect -- hardly conveys the idea of perfectness in point of state. Hence it is that such thoughts as discipline, purging, divine care, and exhortation to obedience are brought out in connection with it; and these thoughts are perfectly consistent with love. Discipline is an expression of a parent's love, and the absence of it would indicate rather the contrary. On the other hand keeping God's commandments is the evidence we give of love to God, and to talk of love apart from it would be vain on our part. A reference to John 15 and to Hebrews 12 will shew the way in which the Father's love is exercised in regard of us, and the end which it has in view. It is vigilant and active -- for God withdraws not His eyes from the righteous -- it humbles us in exposing tendencies in ourselves of which we were probably unaware and our own inability to overcome them -- but all in view of the peaceable fruits of righteousness as the end of exercise, and, in result, of our becoming partakers of God's holiness. But concurrent with that we have the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit -- our hearts are

being divinely instructed in the disposition of God towards us, and thus we are led into the enjoyment of liberty and confidence toward God. But all this, vitally important as it is to us, does not speak of love in rest -- but in vigilance and activity. In connection with it comes in also the service of priesthood, as in Christ's intercession for Peter that his faith should not fail. I think that I have said enough to indicate the relation of love towards us in the place of children here. It is made perfect in the day of judgment in that as Christ is, so are we in this world.

But I desire now to touch for a moment on the thought of love in rest -- and this I judge must connect itself with perfectness in the state of those who are the objects of that love. It is in this connection that we can apprehend Christ as the centre of the throng in a scene filled by divine glory, and in which all is according to that glory. I suppose that sonship is that in which this is fulfilled in regard of us. Sonship properly belongs to heavenly places, and connects itself with a state which is entirely of, and according to, God. He has chosen us to be holy and without blame before Him in love. Now love can rest here, where all is suitable to God's glory.

The question naturally arises how far can this be realised by us now? The answer is that we are encouraged of God to accept the truth of association with Christ; perfected for ever as to conscience. We are risen with Christ, and the work of God in us has been with the view that we might be capable for the holiest, at least in the point of affections. On the other hand it is in the power of God through Christ's death to view saints simply in the light of the holy affections which He has wrought in them, as in the case of the prodigal, apart from all that is connected with responsibility, or that would call for the exercise of discipline. Such things do not come into the thought of the holiest -- where all is necessarily of God and according to His glory.

'Glory supreme is there,
Glory that shines through all;
More precious still that love to share,
As those that love did call'.

It is properly the privilege of heaven, though enjoyed now, in assembly, by those who have through grace been led to accept the truth of the calling, have forsaken all that they have that they may be disciples of Christ. It makes nothing of us, for we must feel how small we are in regard of these things, but it is none the less the proper inheritance of the feeblest saint, and to enter into it gives us a foretaste of God's eternal rest.

CHRIST AS HEAD OF EVERY MAN

Romans 5:12 - 21

F.E.R. We get here the mode in which God's grace has reached man; it is by one Man, and what has come in at the present time by the gospel is the test of all men; the gift of grace by one Man.

Ques. In what way?

F.E.R. In the sense that everything is resolved by it -- what is for God, and what is not for God is all resolved by the question of the grace of God, and His gift by grace. It fills up responsibility.

Ques. The "true Light, which lighteth every man", Is it like that?

F.E.R. Yes. "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God". Christ is become the test of man; the state and condition is exposed. The final result is brought about by it. "For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit". 1 Peter 4:6.

Ques. What does that verse mean?

F.E.R. It presents an alternative; it is the effect of the gospel. On the one hand it completes the ground of responsibility, but on the other its reception results in living according to God in the Spirit, the judgment is accepted on what they are as men in the flesh. "Them that are dead", that is, they had filled up their course on earth either for good or for evil. It is a great point to apprehend that Christ has become the test. Everything is brought to an issue over Christ. If God has introduced all blessing through one Man, the question is, how men receive the testimony of it. "One righteousness towards all men for justification of life".

Ques. Is there not an alternative headship? An unconverted

man would be under Adam as head?

F.E.R. There is no headship of Adam, Christ is head of every man. Adam was the figure of Him who was to come, it is no longer the figure, but the One figured.

The grace of God, and the gift by grace is by one Man Jesus Christ. He is Head of every man; "Lord" expresses authority. Adam had not authority exactly over his fellow men, but all took their character from him. The head stands in relation to all, and his acts have their bearing upon the whole family. Man was left without a head when Adam died; eventually nationality came in, and confusion -- there was no head.

Ques. But the head transmits his qualities to the race?

F.E.R. The bearing of what takes place in the head is toward all. Christ has taken up that place in regard of man, and so the bearing of all He has brought in is towards all. "The many" is in contrast to the few who were under law. As far as I understand the matter, headship was the only possible way in which God could approach man in grace. Reconciliation could not take place except by the introduction of a Head.

Ques. Is that what comes out in the beginning of Luke?

F.E.R. Yes. The instant the Head was there, reconciliation was in principle there. Man under the judgment of God could not as such be reconciled, all that God could do was to judge him. It was a moral impossibility for reconciliation to take place in him; there was nothing for that man but death; reconciliation comes in, in the introduction of a Head.

The thought of reconciliation between man and man is very different from reconciliation as between God and man, because man is the creature of God. Think of the condition in which man was by the fall! Under sentence of death, and therefore it was an impossibility for that man to be reconciled. The righteous judgment of God

must have its place, and reconciliation involves the introduction of another man; that is where the truth of the Head comes in. You must have a Man who is great enough to take up the liabilities of every man: that all may have their part in that death and receive life from Him. God finds His pleasure in one Man, and that Man stands in relation towards all men; believers stand as objects of the pleasure of God in that Man. "We are making our boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation".

It is possible to preach to men the benefits of the death of Christ without preaching Christ Himself.

There can be no illustration of reconciliation in human things, because in human things you can never have the relation that exists between God and man.

Ques. When did man come under the new headship?

F.E.R. When the new Head came in. You now present the Head to man; you testify of reconciliation. When Christ came, there was a point of complacency in man for God, and the One in whom the complacency rests stands in relation to all men; all that is in the Head is available for men. "To him give all the prophets witness", &c. -- the Head.

Ques. What is the difference between presenting the Head and the Saviour?

F.E.R. The Head is the Saviour. In a general way in the New Testament, God is presented as the Saviour.

Every man is under the Head, but all do not acknowledge the Head; they do not care to accept the truth; but Christ is the test of every man.

There cannot be two heads. The one head has died and passed away; if men do not accept the headship of Christ, they virtually claim to stand on their own platform; they refuse to stand on the new platform.

Ques. What is the difference between Head of every man and Head of the church?

F.E.R. The church stands in relation to Christ, not only He in relation to her. The moment you accept the

Head, you stand in relation to Him.

In Romans 5 it is not a question of a new race, but of the Head that has come in. Reconciliation in the bearing of it is towards all men, "Be ye reconciled to God". It may be a long time before a christian is prepared to enter into reconciliation, but the bearing of it is towards all men. So, too, as to the new covenant. There is nothing in the new covenant but what is the disposition of God towards all men; not towards a special people, though He may make the covenant effective in special ones.

The governing thought in all preaching should be to present Christ. Philip "preached Christ in Samaria". "By him all that believe are justified". It is not a question of a new race, but of the grace and blessing that are by one Man towards all men. J.N.D. has said: "You could go to a man in the street and tell him he ought to answer to his Head".

Ques. What is denying the Lord who bought them?

F.E.R. Those who do so are apostate. Christianity is death to the old condition, and you count yourself alive in Christ. You accept Him as Head, you get the Spirit -- living water from the Head; you count yourself alive in the Head. Only a man who has the Spirit can do that.

In Romans 6 you may note the change from "through" to "in" Christ.

It would have been useless for a head for man to come in, if he could not impart life to man. The qualification of Christ to be Head is that He can impart life to man. He is a life-giving Spirit. This is seen in the breathing in John 20.

Everybody ought to see that it was impossible for God to approach man as man, in grace, apart from Christ, because he was under His judgment.

The wisdom of God is that He brings in a Head who can impart living water to man after having taken up the liabilities of man. You are now alive in the Head, and dead to all you were once alive in.

In that Man God can address every man. Christ is

the test; souls come in contact with a Person, not simply with a doctrine. The great end in view on God's part is that man might live. Christ must take up the question raised in the tree of responsibility that He may become the tree of life.

John 3:16 presents the divine thought of eternal life for man.

John 4 is the way in which the believer is to come into it. The person who is to have it is the believer, but he does not get at it by faith. The question of good and evil is solved in the cross (chapter 3), and then (chapter 4) Christ is a life-giving Spirit.

He is, too, the Sun of righteousness, and it is by walking in relation to Christ that you walk in the path of God's will. It is not possible that man is going to be without rule, the law of Christ. It is as moving in relation to Christ -- as married to Him -- that you can walk in the path of God's will down here, and bring forth fruit to God. In the gospel man is called upon to accept the Head; it is the divinely-appointed relationship, and God could not approach man in grace in any other way. He might have approached him in judgment.

You accept Christ as Head, you appropriate Him as Lord. Salvation is connected with the Lord. Romans 10 is on that line; you confess Him as Lord; it is the habit of the person, and in this way you are delivered from every other lord.

In connection with lordship you get two lines -- administration and subduing power on the one hand, and authority and judgment on the other. If you confess Christ as Lord, you get deliverance from the power of evil.

Acts 9 is full of the administration and subduing power of the Lord, it is magnificent. He subdues Saul to Himself; He directs Ananias; cities turn to the Lord; it even goes on to a kind of millennial picture at the end of the chapter.

In Romans 10:9 you believe that Christ is raised from

the dead, and you confess Him as Lord. Salvation is connected with the Lord.

With Israel in Egypt you get righteousness in connection with the blood on the lintel and side-posts. Being brought through the Red Sea was salvation.

Romans 10 brings into prominence salvation rather than righteousness. It is in submitting to righteousness that man gets salvation. Israel did not go the right way for salvation. The way to salvation is to believe to righteousness; you submit to the righteousness of God.

Baptism is in the name of Jesus as Lord.

The "heart" (Romans 10:10) connects you with the Head; the "mouth" with the Lord. Confession is the proof of faith.

Christ was a life-giving Spirit when on earth, but He must take up man's liabilities before He could give life to man. Christ's presence was in anticipation of His work, and God could take up things as though the work were accomplished. God could go on different ground. Why did He not impute trespasses? Because Christ was going to take them up. The thought of eternal life hardly connects itself with heaven, but you lose nothing by going to heaven.

Ques. "To know thee", &c., John 17?

F.E.R. That is not heaven; knowledge is always in measure and passes away; when we get to heaven there is no knowledge.

Eternal life is the energy of life and blessing in Christ, which renders impotent all the forces of evil.

The energy of life in Christ brings profound relief and blessing to man.

THE PRESENCE AND OPERATIONS OF THE SPIRIT

John 14:1 - 27

E.C. I should like to know a little more about what you said regarding the Spirit as truth, and His operation in the christian -- such as we get in John 14 in connection with His presence.

W.W. What was that? will you repeat the suggestion?

E.C. Some further light as to the presence of the Spirit and the manner of His operation in the christian and in the church starting from that expression, "The Spirit is the truth". Some further development as to the way it is to be understood.

D.L.H. Did I understand correctly this morning that the thought of the Spirit of truth is the revelation of God manward, and the word of God the other way -- man to God?

F.E.R. Nothing short of the revelation of God comes up to the idea of the truth. There is "the truth" and "truth," but nothing short of the revelation of God could be designated as the truth. When Christ is spoken of as the truth and the Spirit as the truth, both are connected with the revelation of God. I think you get light on it in 1 John 2:20, 21: "But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth". The truth seems bound up with the revelation of God.

F.H.B. Would it not embrace the idea of our relationship with the Father and the Son?

F.E.R. I doubt it. It says, the Spirit is the truth.

F.H.B. But I thought that Christ in glory is the expression of the mind of God as to man?

F.E.R. Yes; but He is also the truth.

Ques. Where is it said, "The Spirit is the truth"?

F.E.R. In 1 John 5. It is a proposition which is reciprocal. The Spirit is the truth, and the truth is the Spirit. Christ has come as the revelation of God, and the Spirit bears witness. He bears witness to the truth, but He is Himself the truth.

F.H.B. The Spirit is to witness of Christ in glory.

F.E.R. Yes; He bears witness, but He is also the truth.

P.C. Is that because He expresses what is revealed of God?

F.E.R. Yes.

E.C. Is that in Himself or in the christian?

F.E.R. He dwells in the christian to affect him by all that has come to light in Christ. No one can enter into the knowledge of God save by the Spirit. Christ is "the truth" objectively. The Spirit is "the truth" subjectively, that is, in the believer. The first work of the Spirit in the believer is to establish the revelation of God in him. He brings home to us the way in which that revelation has come out.

Ques. Is it done by ministry?

F.E.R. No; by divine power. No ministry can effectually lead you into the knowledge of God. You can only know God by the Spirit. The Spirit establishes the revelation of God in our hearts, so that they may be governed by what God is. I could not tell you how, but divine love is made effectual in us by divine power.

Ques. Then what is the good of ministry?

F.E.R. It brings the mind of God under the attention of saints, but it does not by itself effect any result in us. It is a mistake to suppose that it effects anything in itself.

Ques. What does?

F.E.R. Ministry tends to bring about exercise, and it is by the exercise the Spirit works to bring something about in us.

G.G. Is the exercise produced by the Spirit?

F.E.R. Yes; there is no result wrought in anybody until there is exercise; ministry may occasion exercise,

but the Spirit must make it effective.

A.S.L. You say the Spirit is the truth in the believer?

F.E.R. Yes. Every believer in having the Spirit has the truth in himself, only he may not be prepared for it.

The babe has the truth in its entirety in having the Spirit, but it may be that he has but little of it wrought in him. There growth comes in.

A.H. You have said somewhere that it took God to reveal God, and it takes God to make God known in us.

F.E.R. It takes God to make us know God, but the truth in its entirety is in the christian because the Spirit is there, all else is growth in it. Most people are content to have the truth in the Spirit, and are not anxious about its being wrought in themselves. It is the difference in a sense between Romans and Ephesians and Colossians. In Romans 5 and 8 we have everything in the Spirit. In Ephesians and Colossians the language is changed. It is "you hath he quickened". In Romans there is nothing about quickening as in the present or putting on the new man, but there is in Ephesians and Colossians.

D.L.H. Ministry is for the perfecting of the saints?

F.E.R. Yes; but as a question of intelligence. Gift keeps God's mind under the attention of the saints; but having the Spirit you are independent of man. You have everything in the Spirit. "Ye need not that any man teach you". The Spirit is the truth in the saints.

Ques. "Thy word is truth?"

F.E.R. That is characteristic. There is a shade of difference between truth and the truth.

Ques. "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest". What is that? Is it confined to the beginning?

F.E.R. No; any one practising truth cometh to the light that his deeds might be made manifest. Christ was in that way the test. The truth came as light, and brought out where every one was, and the one who did truth came to the light. When a man is acting with regard to God

he is doing truth. Old Testament saints who acted in reference to God as far as He was known, were doing truth.

Ques. "The same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him". Was not this always true?

F.E.R. You could not say that the truth was here until Christ came. Truth came by Christ. He is the truth. But the truth having come, it has to be maintained, and the maintenance of the truth now is by the Spirit. The revelation has come, and the power that maintains the revelation is the Spirit of God. The maintenance of the revelation is entirely dependent on the Spirit, and nothing can sweep it away. Christianity is maintained by divine power; there is no cause for any fear as to it. No power could get rid of the Spirit, even if the Scriptures could be got rid of.

F.H.B. The Spirit is here, and maintains the truth in spite of all opposition.

W.B. How is the church the pillar and ground of the truth?

F.E.R. The Spirit maintains the truth in the church in a public way. What was revealed in Christ is maintained by the Spirit. Everything in the way of public expression or witness depends on the church.

H.H. You said we had the truth objectively in Christ and subjectively in the Spirit. How?

F.E.R. It is in this that the difference between the gospels and the epistles consists. What was presented in Christ is realised by the Spirit in the saints.

H.D'A.C. Spirit of truth?

F.E.R. It is the spirit of truth in contrast to the letter.

Ques. What is "as the truth is in Jesus"?

F.E.R. That is what is characteristic in Jesus. The truth is the revelation of the Father and the Son. In John 14 the Spirit is looked at as the Comforter, the

Paraclete. Further on the Lord says of the Spirit, "he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you".

T.H.R. All this is to enable the saints to take the place of Christ down here morally, when He is absent. Christ was the truth here, and now the Spirit is the truth.

F.E.R. The revelation of God is what is to characterise christians morally. Christians are the fruit of the light, and are to display God. "That ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God".

Ques. Would it be right to say that the Old Testament saints had truth, but when Christ came there was the truth?

F.E.R. There were true things, but that does not rise to the idea of the truth. You must, I think, distinguish between truth and the truth; the latter is the revelation of the Father and the Son.

F.H.B. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ?

F.E.R. That is more characteristic, it is in contrast to law. That would mean christianity. Verse 17 says, "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ". You get two nouns, but the verb is in the singular.

H.H. How does the Spirit effectuate the truth in us?

F.E.R. I think the work of the Spirit is to quicken the saints in spiritual affections, to bring them into the full light of Christ, which is God revealed, but I could not tell you the mode of His working. We have all to come under divine teaching, and we are brought into the house of God to that end.

W.W. What does "Comforter" mean in John 14? Is it the same as in the epistle -- the advocate who undertakes the cause of another?

F.E.R. Mr. Darby used the word solicitor or patron.

F.H.B. John speaks of the truth abiding in us. I suppose that is by the Spirit abiding in us?

F.E.R. Yes. It is not enough to take account of the

fact that the Spirit is in you, but what does He abide in you for? The first object is that the revelation of God may become effectual in us, so that we may come under the influence of the light that has been brought to us in Christ.

Ques. Is it to form us by it?

F.E.R. Yes; the only formative principle is the knowledge of God. We are defective because we have come so little under the practical effect of the knowledge of God. Nothing else is effective.

T.H.R. Nothing else would be real in us apart from the Spirit.

F.E.R. Nothing affects a man really save the light of God.

Ques. You spoke of quickening in Ephesians and Colossians in contrast to Romans?

F.E.R. We do not get quickening in a present sense in Romans. It is true you have everything in having the Spirit, but then you have to be formed in all. There is the difference between having the things and being formed in them. Take a newly born babe, what has it got?

G.G. Life?

F.E.R. I should say not in an intelligent moral sense.

Ques. What then?

F.E.R. The thing it has is sensibilities.

W.H. Then it has life?

F.E.R. If you speak of life merely physically, so has an animal, but I am speaking morally; what comes to pass with a babe is, that it finds itself in connection with relationships and affections, and by these its moral sense is formed. It finds itself the object of care and affection, and these produce affections in it; that is, life comes in in a moral sense through its surroundings. So, by the knowledge of God we are formed spiritually, and in Ephesians and Colossians the apostle can say "hath quickened us together with Christ".

T.H.R. That brings us to the assembly. Where

quickening and affections are brought in, they are assembly epistles.

Ques. Why?

T.H.R. Because that is where divine affections flow.

Ques. Is that why you say we are brought into the house of God to be under divine teaching?

F.E.R. Yes, and that is effected by making us acquainted with divine affections and care.

W.A.W. Being "born of God" is -- I have been affected by the revelation of God.

F.E.R. Yes; you have been morally affected by it. You know God and love God.

Ques. In what way would you say that a babe has sensibilities?

F.E.R. A cry is an expression of sensibility. What I meant was in connection with new birth. But the "babe" in christianity has more than sensibilities. It has been affected by the revelation of God, and can thus be said to be "born of God". That corresponds to 1 Peter 1:23.

G.G. Are the sensibilities produced by the Spirit?

F.E.R. Yes. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit", thus the sensibilities are spiritual sensibilities. Life in a moral sense results from being brought into circumstances which act upon one. J.N.D. defined life as 'The ability to enjoy the position in which God has set you'. That is life in a moral sense. How is one to enjoy the position in which we are set as sons? It can only be as having been divinely taught -- instructed in divine love. You may tell a person he is a son, but you cannot make him enjoy it. It is impossible for him to enjoy it unless he is acquainted with the disposition of God towards him, and nothing but the Spirit of God can teach you God's disposition towards you. No amount of ministry can do so. The new covenant is really divine teaching.

W.H. "The Lord give thee understanding in all things". Is that by the Spirit?

F.E.R. Yes.

A.S.L. What is the operation of the Spirit in connection with John 7? Is chapter 4 the fountain, and chapter 7 the flowing out of the living water? Is it the activities of the Spirit?

F.E.R. In John 4 the gift is connected with the Son of God. "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water". In John 7 the Spirit is given in connection with Jesus glorified. In the former the Son of God had come down to make known divine love, and the Spirit was to be given to make it effective. He takes possession of the affections of the christian so that they spring up to eternal life.

Ques. Do you connect that with worship? would the effect of the springing up to eternal life be worship? Is it realised in worship when in assembly?

F.E.R. I think so. You do not really get worship till you reach eternal life.

Ques. What is the difference between eternal life here and in John 6?

F.E.R. In John 6 all is seen on the experimental side. In John 4 it is on the other side-the giving of God and its character. Romans 5 is the Spirit's work on the divine side, He makes God's love effectually known to us. In chapter 8 He acts on our side. One is going up, and the other coming down.

Ques. And in John 7 what is it there?

F.E.R. The Spirit is connected with Jesus glorified and He brings in the new Head. It is the sense of Jesus the glorified Man there as Head.

T.H.R. It is what characterises the new Jerusalem there. You get rivers flowing out. The river flows from the new Jerusalem. In John 7 it is blessing coming from heaven, in contrast to the Jew's feast of tabernacles, which was blessing on earth. We know Christ in heaven, and as having the Spirit we are to be contributors to this

scene, we do not want anything from it. The new Jerusalem does not receive anything from the earth but contributes to it. That is the idea of it. So we anticipate the heavenly city. Living waters flow through the belly. It is all real -- they come out through the affections. You are so in the sense of Jesus glorified that you are a source of healthful life -- inspiring influence to all around. You get the idea of a river all through Scripture. Rivers flowed out of the garden of Eden. Here it is flowing out from the affections of the believer. Mr. Stoney used to say that we are contributors to this scene.

Ques. To whom do they flow in John 7?

T.H.R. It is the love of God flowing out to this scene.

Ques. What would be the difference between the springing up of the water, and the flowing out? Would the latter be ministry?

F.E.R. No. I do not think so. It is what was to characterise every saint, the soul being in such a sense of what has come out in the love of God that all that comes from a man is characterised by it, and has a healthful influence on others. Out of his belly flows rivers of living water. You cannot give out the good if you are not in the sense of it yourself. Everything about Christ and all that came from Him had a holy life-giving influence, all came from another world, not one bit from this world.

Ques. Should it be confined to the christian circle or everywhere?

T.H.R. Everywhere, as it will be in the heavenly Jerusalem.

W.B. That makes one ashamed of oneself.

F.E.R. Yes; but what would the world be without christians? If christian influence were taken away what kind of a place would the world be, and what will it be? All that is true in the believer indicates what Christ will be by and by with regard to all on earth. One great thing is, that as Christ is the Head of every man all then will

come under His healthful influence as Head. He is the source of every health-giving influence that every one might come under it. Christ is the Head of every man, and all distinctions of men are lost sight of in view of that.

Ques. Would you say that Romans 8 is individual?

F.E.R. Romans is taken up with the individual path of the christian down here, it leads him in the path of righteousness. If I want to understand my individual path for the will of God I go to Romans. We never get to a moment where we can do without the truth in Romans. It is of the last importance to us. The truth in it does not go on to the assembly, though it may be preparatory for it. If you are in the truth of the assembly, you will carry out the instructions of Romans in your own path.

Ques. Would you say the commandments of the Lord in John 14 go beyond Romans?

F.E.R. I do not know. I think in John 14 the Lord is speaking more to His disciples collectively. Verse 23 is individual.

Ques. Why does it pass from the collective to the individual in this verse 21: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him".

F.E.R. Verse 21 is a test. All tests are presented individually. If you want to know whether you love Christ, the question is, Have you His commandments and do you keep them? John's epistle abounds in tests of that kind.

Ques. There is individual communion there. "We will make our abode"?

F.E.R. Yes, evidently so. So in the promise to the individual in Laodicea: "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me"; but what is true to the individual can hardly come up to what you have in the assembly.

W.A.W. I suppose we are shut up to the Spirit in

these three chapters -- 14, 15, 16?

F.E.R. Yes. What can there be in this world where Christ is rejected save what is of the Spirit of God? How could anything be maintained here for God except in the Spirit of God? The chapters are in connection with the witnessing for Christ. Chapter 14 is preparatory; chapter 15, fruit-bearing; and in chapter 16 we have the witness, and then the position of the disciples is more definitely brought out in regard to things. "He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you".

W.G.B. Do you distinguish between the Spirit dwelling in the believer and in the assembly?

F.E.R. He dwells in the assembly as being in believers. The Spirit never came upon one single individual. The Spirit came on the hundred and twenty on the day of Pentecost. The body was the vessel of the Spirit. Christ prepared the vessel, the Spirit came and takes possession of it, and by the fact of the baptism of the Holy Spirit believers were all formed into one body. We are builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit. New birth does not in itself demand the presence of the Spirit. New birth was there before the Spirit came and will be after the church is gone, when the Spirit will consequently be no longer here. Now every one who partakes of the Spirit is brought into the dwelling-place of God by the Spirit. Christ prepared the material for God's house, and on the day of Pentecost the Spirit came to take up His abode, and He has been here from that day to this. By the fact of having part in the Spirit individually we are brought into the place where the Spirit is. The Spirit is in each individual, but He is not in you independently of the rest.

T.H.R. In speaking of the indwelling Spirit you have to take care that you do not separate yourself from the company upon whom the baptism of the Spirit came.

F.E.R. That is very important.

T.H.R. Each believer has the Spirit, but do not put it apart from that which is collective. It is an immense

truth that Christ's presence here on earth was succeeded by a company which Christ formed, and the Spirit came to it, and we partake in that Spirit, and we have to take care that we do not sever ourselves from that which the baptism of the Spirit formed -- the house of God.

Ques. "Filled all the house ... sat upon each". What do you make of that?

F.E.R. The sound filled the house, and each one partook of the Spirit. That is, the influence went further than the persons. 'Dwelling' is in contrast with Christ, who was departing. In John 14 the Spirit was to abide -- which Christ did not. Every one of God's household partakes of the Spirit, and the Spirit undertakes to support and conduct you in your individual path here. The Spirit is connected with the individual in Romans 8; so in 1 Corinthians 6 -- I must take care what I do with my body, because my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Ques. Partakers of the Holy Spirit -- what is that?

F.E.R. That means 'companions'. People may come into the sphere of the Holy Spirit's presence and operations who have not received the Spirit.

Ques. Is it the sphere of which Peter speaks when he says, "If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious"?

F.E.R. That raises the question whether you are really a christian or not. If you are, you taste the Lord is gracious, and then you go further. Everything for God here must be in the Spirit, and if we realise that we shall refuse everything of ourselves and of the mind of the flesh and all fleshly interests. If not we are content with the mustard-tree or the great house and the three measures of meal, but in the eye of God that is confusion.

Ques. "Drink into one Spirit", what is that?

F.E.R. "One Spirit" there it is not exactly the Holy Spirit. It indicates the end of Jew and gentile in unity.

Rem. There was nothing here for God when Christ was here save Christ.

F.E.R. We want certain sentiments that are in the

Spirit, such as patriotism and loyalty.

Ques. What sort of patriotism?

F.E.R. The love of your country. I do not mean of England; and we want loyalty, but in the right quarter -- loyalty to Christ. Loyalty is a great thing, but we first want the idea of God's King, and you cannot get that down here. I want to love my country, but I should not like to be a patriot in regard of so small a country as England; and I should be loyal, but with the right idea of a king, and for that I must have the Lamb and the Lion. In Revelation 5 there are the two, and until I see the two in the King, no king will exercise much influence over me. In the Lamb you get the meekest Man upon earth, and in the Lion one strong against all evil.

Ques. But if you saw a king with fine moral qualities you would think more of him than of one who had not?

F.E.R. It is all of that man who is gone for God. Now that I have the true idea of the King. I am not going to be carried away by what man admires.

E.C. Psalm 45 is what should characterise the true King, "And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness".

F.E.R. Yes. There you get the Lion and the Lamb. Meekness now in connection with a king would not be admired. I do not think God's King will be condescending.

GOD'S KINGDOM AND HIS PROVIDENCE

2 Peter 1:10 - 21

I desire to call attention to two expressions which occur in the above passage. One is in verse 11, namely, "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ". The other is in verse 16, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty". Then the apostle recalls in the verses which follow what had taken place on the mount of transfiguration. Jesus received glory and honour from God the Father, when there came a voice from the excellent glory "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". He had taken three of His disciples with Him up into the mountain, and those three were eyewitnesses of His majesty. There is one thing to be remarked about the Lord, and that is that He received nothing but what was His own. It was impossible for Him to receive anything beyond this. Everything that that voice said was properly His. I think this presents a very different idea from what we regard as glory in this world. People look for and receive recognition and glory from men in the world, but with the Lord these have no place at all. It was impossible for Him to receive honour from man; and when He received it, it came from God the Father in the declaration of who He was. Then the apostle goes on to say, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy". The word of prophecy referred to the glory of the Lord. Now, the word of prophecy was confirmed by the transfiguration, which James, Peter and John were permitted to see on the mountain, a vision of the kingdom of God.

I will say a few words on the distinction between God's kingdom and God's providence, for I fancy that people

sometimes go so far as to mistake the latter for the former. But there is God's providence, and there is His kingdom, which is the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The idea connected with kingdom is that of authority or sway, and there is a great difference between the kingdom of God and the providence of God. The kingdom is received by faith. It comes about in this way: a man apprehends by faith the Lord Jesus, and receives the kingdom, but every one has to do with God's providence. There is on man's part in the present day a strong tendency to rebel against the providence of God.

I will give you one idea of the providence of God as in contrast with His kingdom. I look upon providence as a veil that hides God. God is hid from men behind the veil of providence, but when I speak of the kingdom, God is no longer hid. He is not veiled there, but made known.

Now, I believe it is a great mistake to rebel against the providence of God. A man rebelling against that practically says, 'If I had the opportunity I could rule the world better than God'. As I said, the providence of God is a veil, and to be veiled is the very opposite idea to being revealed. If you were veiled you would be hid, so God is hid by His providence. When I speak of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, I do not speak of a veil, but of a revelation. There are many things that I cannot understand which are allowed in God's providence. I see some men very rich and others very poor, some struggling for a bare existence, and others rolling in wealth, and this without any moral title; and that is all allowed by God in His providence. And it is perfectly useless for man to struggle against the providence of God; but the providence of God is no revelation of Him; that I press strongly. I think it is wisdom to accept the providence of God. There is great effort in the world to do away with the effects of that providence. If it were possible for man to set aside the orderings of God's providence, and to revolutionise everything, a state of things so brought about would never last; but it is impossible to do away

with the existing order of things because God's providence is stronger than man. Then there is another consideration, namely, that if as to outward things a kind of millennium could be brought about it would leave man exactly where he was before in regard to the pressure of death and judgment. It would not relieve man from that pressure. Men would die as they did before, and after death comes the judgment. It is plain to me that men will continue to rebel against the providence of God, but whatever change they can compass, it will leave them as to the most serious questions precisely where they were before. I think it is far wiser to accept the providence of God; God is perfect and therefore can rule the world much better than man can. There are many, suffering here in the world, who rebel against the providence of God; and there are others, who have a great deal of advantage in this world, and they practically worship the God of providence; but that does not alter in the slightest the fact that all are alike liable to death, and after death the judgment.

When the Lord Jesus comes, I do not think that God will be hid behind a veil of providence any longer. Wise men accept His providence now, but I do not think they will have to then. Now, I would have you mark this -- whatever a man may have under God's providence, is no sign of God's pleasure or otherwise towards him. A man may be a wicked and designing man and yet may be greatly advanced in this world's goods -- for it is an evil world -- but there is no pleasure of God in that man, because God looks not on the outward appearance, but on the heart. A man who has great natural advantages and worldly acquirements exercises a strong influence in the world by that which is outward -- his appearance. The prophet Samuel was greatly taken by the appearance of the elder sons of Jesse, and even he would have chosen one of them to be king in the place of Saul, but the answer that God made to him was, "The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance,

but the Lord looketh upon the heart". God chose the youngest one, that was David. I believe that though a man be as rich as Croesus, and there are men with millions, God may have not one atom of pleasure in him. A man may be satiated with goods and then he himself ceases to have pleasure in them. Other people think him wonderful, but he does not think much of it himself. The wise man would seek to find out where God's pleasure is. Under the providence of God men may have many things, but they do not thus get any knowledge of His grace. The pleasure of God is in grace, and the result of grace is the kingdom. It is important to see that the result and climax of the grace of God is His kingdom, and that means the setting aside of the power of every enemy of God and man. You get a type of it in David, who set aside all the enemies of God and Israel. Death, the last enemy, will be destroyed. That is the great end of God's kingdom, and then the Son will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father. Now, the present moment is the moment of God's grace. I will tell you what God's grace is founded on. It is founded on the fact that redemption has been accomplished; God's righteousness has been vindicated and reparation for sin made to God by One who was capable of doing so. The Son of God became Man in order that He might make reparation to God. The righteousness of God has been vindicated and sin put away, and the One by whom this was effected has been raised to the right hand of God. He is exalted. He received glory and honour on the mount, and that has now been confirmed at the right hand of God. That is what has now come to pass, and all is founded on the fact that He made reparation to God.

There have been many kingdoms in this world that have passed away. The kingdom of England will pass away some day; it is not an eternal kingdom. It will be succeeded by another kingdom. The Grecian kingdom and the Roman kingdom as well as many others have one after another passed away. If you look into the foundation

of any kingdom that has existed in this world, you will find that it will not bear investigation. Now the kingdom of God exists on the foundation of righteousness -- in the reparation made to Him by the Lord Jesus Christ. It subsists on moral foundations. The righteousness of God means that sin has been put away and the power of death annulled by the sacrifice of Christ, and that is the blessed foundation on which the kingdom rests. Grace will do for a man what providence never yet did for him.

I have seen men successful in the world; wicked men often become prosperous as this world goes, and God allows this in His providence. But God in His providence does not relieve a man from the pressure under which he lies. Prosperity leaves him as to this exactly where he was before. When a man passes out of this world he has to leave everything that he has received in the providence of God here, and to face judgment.

Now, I am going to tell you what the pleasure of God's grace is. He has pleasure in the administration of relief. It is His pleasure to relieve man from the pressure and consequences of sin. I find that from Scripture. When the Israelites were in Egypt they were under the pressure of the Egyptians, their task-masters. It was God's pleasure to bring them out of Egypt, but it was not His pleasure to prosper them with silver and gold, although He did allow this in His providence. It was His pleasure to relieve them from the pressure of their task-masters. Job was a great man in God's providence, but he came under great pressure from Satan, and lost all his riches as well, which were afterwards restored to him. It was God's pleasure to relieve him from the pressure of death and of Satan, though in His providence he restored to him too his riches.

I pass on for a moment to the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ here on the earth. He "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil". That is how Scripture describes His service. He was here in the ministry of peace. He preached peace towards men.

He made known that it was the pleasure of God to relieve man from the various forms of pressure under which man was suffering. He cleansed lepers, gave sight to the blind, raised the dead, and preached deliverance to the captive. He was making known, not the providence, but the pleasure of God. While the Lord was here He was always against one whom Scripture speaks of as the strong man, He first bound the strong man, and then spoiled his goods. To spoil the strong man's goods the strong man must first be bound. It was the Lord's great work to make evident to man what God's pleasure is. No evil could stand before Him. All the power of evil disappeared before Him, and He went about doing good, for God was with Him. That was in a sense the beginning of the kingdom of God. It was only the beginning of it, but it was the power of the kingdom. It was the wonderful shewing forth that there was a power down here on man's behalf superior to the power of the devil. That is what the ministry of the Lord meant. Other things had to be accomplished; Christ had to taste death for everything, by the grace of God, so that the kingdom of God might be established on solid foundations. He was raised again from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God. It is my pleasure to be able to tell you this. You can see that the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ has not altered the providence of God; it has left things here in that respect precisely as they were before. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes again He will change all. The Holy Spirit has now come down to make known His glory. Christ is Lord of all now.

Now I want to shew you the salvation of God. God's pleasure is expressed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I will tell you what that is. It is 'salvation'. It is summed up in that one word. I wonder if you would ask me what I mean by salvation. I mean salvation from God's judgment and from Satan's power. I will give you a picture of it in the case of the children of Israel. When they were in Egypt they were saved from God's judgment when the destroying

angel passed through, but when they had left Egypt and were on the way to the wilderness, with the sea before them and the Egyptians behind them, God saved them from the power of the enemy. I say that God's pleasure as to man is salvation. Do you know the way to it? God only calls on you to believe what really is. He does not expect you to believe anything which is visionary or unreal. He calls upon you to believe that Christ is Lord of all. It is a great thing to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is one thing even beyond that, and that is to confess Him as Lord. God's pleasure is salvation. Salvation is found in receiving the kingdom of God.

Since reparation has been made to God by the Lord Jesus Christ, you have no reparation to make to Him. It is wonderful to think that we have no reparation to make. The Lord Jesus Christ has made reparation, and the proof is that God has raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to His right hand. If reparation has been made, the believer has nothing to be judged for. I am justified by faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. If a man believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, he is removed from under the power of Satan to the authority of God. It is either one thing or the other with all here. No one is really his own master. You are either under the power of Satan, or under the authority of God. The escape is from the one to the other. Man is not, and never was, and never will be a free agent. Even an angel is not a free agent. There are angels who have fallen, and angels who have not fallen; but none of them are really free agents. It is a perfect illusion for man to think that he is a free agent. You have only to know a little of the world, and you will see what man is governed by.

You will never know Christ as Lord until you have believed that God has raised Him from the dead. The believer knows that God's pleasure is in his salvation. It is the greatest possible comfort for him to know that the providence of God is a veil, and that it does not express

the pleasure of God. If I wanted to know the pleasure of God I would get behind the veil. I see that the Lord Jesus was here on earth, the expression of God's pleasure to man, and when I see Him at the right hand of God, I see expressed in him the pleasure of God. What a wonderful thing it is that I can, down here on the earth, be free from God's judgment and from the power of the enemy. I have left the authority of the enemy for the kingdom of God, and that really means that I am delivered from the power of the enemy.

But you may ask, "What about death?" I will say a few words about death. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ really means that you pass from death into life. Reparation has been made and there is a perfect declaration of the righteousness of God in the death of Christ, and this is as true now as it was eighteen hundred years ago. It is just as true today as it was then that Christ is Lord of all. He was Lord of all then and is Lord of all now. The believer is in the light of life.

I am certain that there is no one here who has not heard of the light over and over again. To believe is to receive life. Have you believed in your heart? Have you been delivered out of the power of darkness and transferred to the authority of God? We read that with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Do you understand the value of confession? Scripture reveals that the pleasure of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ and to confess Him as Lord is to enter into that pleasure. The wealth of this world which a man may have in the providence of God does not secure his happiness.

May God bring you to understand what His pleasure is.

DISCIPLINE AND LIGHT

Hebrews 12:1 - 29

In order to understand the book of Hebrews it is necessary to see that it largely corresponds to what Leviticus was to the Jew. The subject of the book is approach to God, but not as Jews; there was in Israel the idea of approaching God, but not as we approach.

Exodus gives us the redemption of God's people from the power of the enemy, and the consequent setting up of God's dwelling-place among the redeemed people: so we get the detail of the tabernacle. In Numbers the people are taken account of, first, as for the wilderness, and secondly, as the people of God who were to inherit the land. This is what is typified, I suppose, in the two numberings. Both thoughts are combined in the christian.

Between the books of Exodus and Numbers we get the book of Leviticus, and the subject of that is, as I have said, approach to God; and the priests therefore come into prominence.

In the epistle to the Hebrews the truth all through is leading up to approach to God.

The Jew understood that the priests only could draw nigh; Aaron and his house were concerned with the worship of God; you can understand, therefore, the difficulty that a Jew had in understanding the common priesthood in christianity of believers; that through Jesus by one Spirit we all have access to the Father. Every christian must be a priest if indwelt by the Holy Spirit. There may be in many cases gift, but gift does not make a man a priest; the Holy Spirit constitutes a man a priest. Most of us have been brought up with Jewish notions regarding a priestly class as distinct from the laity, but these have no place in the christianity of Scripture.

There is another truth connected with the common priesthood of believers which comes out in Hebrews:

namely, that of boldness for entrance into the holiest, and consequently a place outside the camp. The Jew in the millennium will have neither the one nor the other. It is peculiar to the time when Christ is glorified in heaven but rejected here.

The first two chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews are introductory, then warnings follow, but in general, up to chapter 7 the epistle is occupied with the Priest. Even in the Old Testament we find that the whole tabernacle system depended upon the priest. The secret of our priesthood is our identification with Christ the great Priest. He leads us to worship the Father. The question is, how is the Priest so to engage us that we may be drawn to Him. He is in heaven for us; and nothing will avail for heaven but love; faith and hope have no place there; our link with Christ in the Father's presence is love. I will quote a verse that proves this: "The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me". John 16:27. Hence the service on the part of the High Priest towards us is with a view to engaging our affections with Himself where He is. He is the One who makes us at home in the Father's presence. You can see thus that the whole question of the service of God depends upon the Priest and our affection toward Him. It is not difficult to get the idea in type in the case of Aaron and his sons.

The next great point in the epistle is the sanctuary (we have seen that the first is the Priest). The sanctuary I understand to be the full blessed light of God, as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in Christ in His purposes of grace; its character is moral, not material, and it is the Father's pleasure to have us there in the brightness of that light; that is the sanctuary as I apprehend it.

Then in the last three chapters of the epistle you get the life of faith and the christian state. Chapter 10 presents privilege and brings us to what is collective; that is in the service of the sanctuary, but the life of faith is evidently individual, and in it we find ourselves surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. If you could have

placed any one of these in the circumstances of another, his faith would have found expression as in the other. Faith has God in view, and the world to come. Every witness in chapter 11 was of some principle of the world to come. As the world got darker God gave more light as to the world to come, and faith walked in view of that. The object of chapter 11 is to put you in a line. You have been previously looked at in your priestly place, which is privilege, but in this chapter you are in the line of those who have gone in the path of faith.

In chapter 12 two very important principles are seen -- one is the discipline of God, and the other the light of God's will. The present moment is not that of display but of mystery, and that involves testimony. We have now not one testimony, but the harmonious meeting of every testimony, the full light of God, which centres in Christ, at the right hand of God. When all is accomplished and in display, it is no longer a moment of testimony: but now we all, by the Spirit, behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, and are changed into the same image. We are accustomed to say that we are in the light as God is in the light. This is true, but I ask, are you as to the joy of your heart practically there? Are you in spirit outside the darkness of this world, and in the enjoyment of that light in which God has shone out? With us it is too often true, 'If clouds have dimmed my sight', and our souls are not then in the brightness. A good many things come in to obscure our spiritual vision. A man with a cataract does not see clearly. It would be a very blessed thing for our souls to be kept abiding in the full light of God's testimony.

There are two things displayed in Christ -- God's nature and His testimony, but I speak now of the testimony only. In order to be in the light of God's will you must accept the discipline of God. That which is of the world which attaches to us is intolerable to the holiness of God, and God's ways of grace (in which He uses discipline) are to this end, that we may be in spirit apart from

the course of things here. If we had any true sense of the holiness of God it would tell in our houses, in our ways and in our demeanour. Many things may in circumstances come in to try and to distress us, but God's end in all is to remove what obscures our vision, so that our souls may be in the blessed light of His testimony. This is not a question of the assembly, but that which attaches to us individually -- to be in the full light of the glory of the Lord.

I shall say a few words now about the light of the testimony. "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem", etc. (See verses 22 - 24). This passage presents to us God's various testimonies, and they converge at one point, and the value of this to us is that the soul should be in the full light of the things which are going to be shortly displayed. Now I see three great testimonies of God, which came out in detail in times gone by. (1) His purpose to bless, as seen in His dealings with Abraham; (2) His purpose to dwell, which comes to light in connection with Israel, "let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" Exodus 25: 8; (3) His purpose to rule, which comes out in the throne of David, and which brings in view the kingdom. It is blessed to observe that all these testimonies came out in favour of man.

The law brought curse, but four hundred years previously to law, God had given to Abraham testimony of His purpose to bless, and you may be sure that there can be no such thing as sorrow in the blessing of God. Then in type was set forth the testimony that God would dwell with His people. This is even more wonderful than discovering His purpose to bless. He would set up His tabernacle among men. In connection with the tent of testimony God moved about with His people in the wilderness. When they dwelt in tents, God dwelt in a tent, and this was a greater witness of grace than even the temple in which God dwelt when they came into the land of fixed habitation. It is inconceivably blessed that God should

dwell with man. Then (3) He will rule in order to subjugate all the enemies of man and of God. This is the great end of the kingdom; the subjugation of evil, and "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death", and when that is so, the kingdom is given up that God may be all in all. I believe in the enumeration here that we get all the testimonies. We have come to mount Sion, not to a power which strikes men with terror, but to the enduring mercy of God when man has by sin and perverseness forfeited all.

Mount Sion means sovereign mercy when we have no vestige of title. The only ground upon which any can be with God is that of the sovereignty of His mercy, and only the elect of God understand the sovereignty of God's mercy. "The city of the living God" is the great ruling city. Jerusalem on earth was the "city of the great King". So "Jerusalem above" is the heavenly metropolis. Then other testimonies follow "to God the Judge of all", etc. Man is not the judge -- God is the true Judge of all the actings of men. "To the spirits of just men made perfect". These men are made perfect through redemption. And Jesus is in view as the Mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, which witnesses to the righteousness of God established in the sacrifice of Christ. The blood of Abel was the witness of violent will, but the blood of Jesus is the witness of death accomplished for God's glory and the righteousness of God vindicated, and as a consequence there is a call for blessing, not for vengeance. Then follows the exhortation, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh". He speaks from heaven. When God spoke on earth, He spoke on the ground of man's responsibility, giving him a law, but when He speaks from heaven, He speaks of that which is His pleasure, of His purposes in Christ.

In conclusion, I ask you, are you conscious of being on the ground of sovereign mercy with God? It is a great thing for us to have our hearts on those things in which He finds His pleasure. God's testimony makes known

His pleasure. May God keep our hearts in the light of His testimony. It is a greater thing to be in the light of His nature, but it is most blessed to be in the light of His testimony. If we were so habitually we should be much brighter down here, but for that we must be prepared to accept His discipline, the end of which is to make us partakers of His holiness.

THE MINISTER OF THE SANCTUARY

Hebrews 8:1 - 13

The ministry is the proper function of Christ as Priest; His sympathy with us is incidental to our present condition as being down here. But the service of the sanctuary is the proper function of the priest. Ministry is the service of God in the sanctuary. But if people do not understand the covenant, it is impossible that they could be up to the ministry, that is, to the service of God. Approach to God all through Scripture is according to the covenant made. Abraham had more access to God than the people had under the law. God made known in a covenant what His disposition was towards Abraham, and his liberty followed and flowed from the knowledge of God's disposition towards him. The people under the law were made to feel the extreme difficulty of approach to God; they were made to feel the distance between them and God; and for this reason, that the order of the covenant for the time being was law.

The present covenant is set forth in the death of Christ; and therefore you get "the new covenant in my blood". In proportion as you understand the meaning of the covenant, you will understand the ministry. The Lord in the Supper brought before the disciples what was God's disposition towards them; and the effect of it is to bring us into the place of worshippers.

Christ is the expression of the covenant. If you want to know the disposition of God towards you, you must see it as set forth in Christ. The two points in the covenant are righteousness and love, and these are set forth in the death of Christ; and that is to make nothing of us, we become nothing in the presence of divine love.

Righteousness comes first, because we have been actually in sin and we have to be assured that there is righteousness for us. Our sins and iniquities He remembers no

more. We have no more conscience of sins; but that is not what God is towards me; what He is towards me is love -- where righteousness is accomplished, love is revealed. So we get "This cup is the new covenant in my blood".

In coming together in assembly the great thing is, that our hearts should be in the sense of the disposition of God towards us. The Lord's supper thus comes in as introductory. We are called together by the Lord's supper. I do not think there is very much power in the meeting until you get the Supper. It is a sad thing if in the church God does not get His part, that is, worship; but it flows from the sense of God's disposition towards us. The secret of God getting His part is, that you know what it is to sit before the Lord, with the consciousness that God has nothing for you but love. If a company came together in the sense of that, I do not think they would care very much for the world; when we are sensible of God's love we respond to it. God is going to have His people in heaven to satisfy His love, and when we go, one thing is certain, that we shall drop everything of this world, we shall retain only what is of God.

If God will have the satisfaction of His love in having us in heaven, He must have satisfaction in the gathering together of the saints now. If we were all under the influence and sense of the love of God, there would be a remarkable outflow of worship. Eternal life is very simple, it is Christ; and if we are near to Christ, we are in the region of life.

The sanctuary is a moral idea, it is a scene of supreme rest and glory -- the scene where God has been pleased to reveal Himself; the light in which God has been pleased to make Himself known in Christ -- that is the sanctuary; but for us, all that is moral.

OUR LORD'S MORAL GLORY

Hebrews 1:1 - 14

Every moral quality of the Lord was of Himself. He derived nothing in that sense from man, He did not even get learning from man; the Jews said, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" John 7:15. Whatever moral quality we see in Christ as a Man down here upon earth, the perfection of faith or confidence, or allegiance, or devotedness, nothing was derived, all was of Himself. He became Man, and in becoming Man He beautified and adorned the humanity that He took; and every real trait of beauty in humanity in His case was of Himself; He took that state and form that He might glorify God in it completely. He was manna come down from heaven, and everything was carried out down here in heavenly grace, in that which was of Himself....

I see four points in Christ; I see manhood beautified and adorned here upon earth, so that God should be glorified in man; I see God glorified in man in the putting away of sin; I see in the resurrection man accepted; and in the exaltation of Christ, man glorified; Christ is in heaven the glorified Man; and that Man is to be the glory and delight of the christian ...

The quotations in the chapter (Hebrews 10) are taken almost exclusively from the Psalms. The quotations begin with setting forth One who is of God's nature, and is viewed as in the relationship of Son to Him -- who is the object of homage to angels -- whose everlasting throne is based on proved discrimination between righteousness and iniquity -- and who in contrast to all created things remains "the Same", and His years do not fail. For the time, all is hid in Him in the place which He as Man is called to occupy provisionally at the right hand of God, but will be displayed when the moment shall have come for His foes to be made His footstool....

Thus we have before us that blessed divine Person, who, being the effulgence of the glory and the exact expression of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high....

There are two cardinal points connected with christianity; one is, that Christ is Lord; and the other, that the Holy Spirit is here. They are correlative. The Holy Spirit here is the proof of the place Christ is in. He has been sent down from heaven to report the glory of the Lord. Christ is Son over God's house, but His real title to it is, that He is divine. The proof that Christ is divine is the place that He has as Man; to be such a Man He must be divine.

THE GOSPEL

Luke 2:8 - 14; 2 Corinthians 4:3 - 8

The gospel is a very wide term; many passages speak of the gospel, but no one passage teaches in so many words what the gospel is, or attempts to define it. The expression has become conventional in contrast to law, and we speak of the gospel of Luke or of John, etc.; we get law and prophets in the Old Testament, but we have the gospel in the New Testament. The gospel is the approach of God to man for man's salvation. God being in the light is the foundation of it; God approaches man in grace and truth and in that very approach He makes known what He is. "The only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him". The moment God comes near in the only-begotten Son, He is declared in the One who is full of grace and truth.

The gospel is very little understood by many believers. The defect is in preaching the benefits of Christ's death instead of CHRIST Himself. If anyone asked me what the gospel was, I should say, 'CHRIST'. God addresses Himself to man in the Son (Hebrews 1). There is a great lack of apprehension of what is bound up with Christ -- that Christ is the centre and head of a system of things. God is not labouring in connection with this world, but in connection with that system of things of which Christ is the Head. The Christ is an official title, He is the Anointed of God. Jesus is His personal name, and Christ is occasionally used personally, but generally it is the Christ -- the Messiah -- which is an official title. Many might be anointed besides Christ, but He is the anointed Man, which indicates a position which is established and maintained in Him. The prayer in Ephesians 3 is "that the Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith"; without the article it might be personal, but "the Christ" is official. Then again the Christ is the Head of every man.

God is not exactly a personal name; Jehovah or Almighty would not be strictly personal. God is the supreme Being in contrast to man; He is the Author of man and of everything; it is the term or title of supremacy. There is one God in three Persons; to speak of the Father or the Son, or the Spirit conveys a personal idea. "Father" and "Son" are relative names; "Christ" is not exactly relative, it is the anointed, and we too come under the anointing; it is not relative to any other person like "Father".

Ques. Is not the mystery of the Christ the church?

No, it goes much wider than that; the body stands in relation to Christ, the church is part of the mystery of the Christ, but that mystery takes in all that will come under Christ -- the universe of bliss. Everything will take its character from Christ, and will express Christ. There is but one Man before God, and everything which comes within the universe of bliss will take its character from that Man.

The angel said, "I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord". The angel announced glad tidings to all the people -- that is, of Israel -- but when the heavenly host come in they carry the thought wider, and speak of "good pleasure in men"; the gospel could not be confined to Israel. It is "good pleasure in men" by Christ; it refers to what is said in Psalm 72, "men shall be blessed in him", they are blessed in Christ.

Ques. Is Christ as the new Head on the line of purpose or of responsibility?

On the line of purpose. God set forth the responsible man first, but then He sent forth His Son, the Man of His purpose, and the universe of bliss; although it is the witness of how God can recover from all the ruin that has come in, is the fulfilment of purpose. Nothing was accomplished in man himself, in Abraham or in David; all was accomplished in the Son of man, the Son of

Abraham, the Son of David. God ever had in view the incarnation -- the living bread come down from heaven. The real reason of Christ becoming man was that He might become the Head and centre of the universe of God. That is the first principle of the gospel. The gospel is sent to man that he might be delivered out of the present course of things, which is dominated by Satan, and be brought into relation to the Sun of righteousness, who is the centre and Head of the universe of God. This is effected in two ways -- by faith and by the Spirit.

We have to apprehend the light in which God views man, the position in which man is in regard of God. God has the right to the supreme place in the affections of His creatures. But man is under death and in sin, and he is liable to judgment, and in bondage to a system which is controlled by the power of evil. If God is going to approach man in grace, He must take account of what man is; not what man is in his own estimation, but as God sees him. God's grace is adapted to man as God sees him; it really meets all that was raised by the question, "Where art thou?" Three great things come in to meet all this. God comes in, first, that a man may be relieved of the fear of judgment, and secondly that be may live, and then, thirdly, that he may be delivered from the bondage in which he is held.

God delivers man first from the fear of judgment; he gets forgiveness so that he may never come under judgment; then secondly God provides that he may live -- he is under death here, but God provides that he may live; and thirdly, he gets salvation. Righteousness meets the question of the judgment; life meets the question of death; and deliverance meets the question of bondage. These three things are good news. We cannot get salvation until we get life. It is first righteousness, then life, then salvation.

Ques. Why is man lost?

Because he is in utter bondage to a system which is ruled by the power of evil; that is the position of a man

in the eye of God, and he needs to be delivered from it, and that is salvation. The light of God comes in first as to righteousness; that is the first point, God declares His righteousness. God comes forward in Christ, and presents Him as the commencement of a new order of things. He is the beginning and centre of another world. Paul preached Christ crucified, the end of the old man, but he also preached Christ as the wisdom and power of God, the Last Adam and the Second Man.

Ques. What is it to preach "Christ Jesus the Lord"? 2 Corinthians 4:5.

To make known that all the authority and power and glory of God is set forth in His face.

Ques. What is the meaning of the previous verse -- "the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ"?

Why, He has got the place of pre-eminence in the universe of bliss; He is the Head and centre of that universe. Adam was the centre and head of this universe, but all that has ended, and Christ is the beginning and Head of the vast universe of bliss.

Ques. What is the meaning of the figure -- "the Sun of righteousness"?

Christ is the Sun of righteousness, and the figure is used because what the sun is to this system, Christ is to the universe of bliss. The sun rules everything in the solar system, all is held in place by the sun; and that is just what Christ is in the universe of bliss. There is light and warmth -- that is righteousness and love -- and He gives colour to everything.

Ques. What is the ministration of righteousness?

The ministration of righteousness shows how you are put in righteous relation to God; the purpose of the gospel is to put you into relation to Christ who is the centre and sun and head of the universe of bliss. In Romans you do not get life until the eighth chapter, and you get salvation there too. Salvation and deliverance are very near akin. You have to put Romans 6, 7 and 8 together to get salvation.

People learn the gospel through those who preach, so what I want is that the preachers should preach an intelligent and intelligible gospel; but the fact is I have first to correct myself. We have no right to quarrel with a man's service, he stands or falls to his own Master, but we are entitled to see that the gospel is really known; the principle is that we speak that which we know. These three points have to be kept in view in regard to man's position -- judgment, death, and bondage. I might say responsibility first, perhaps, but then responsibility is enforced by judgment. Then death is man's state in the eye of God, and he is in bondage; these things are not to be gainsaid. The gospel meets responsibility by righteousness, and death by the Spirit, and bondage by salvation. The last two have been too much omitted in preaching, and people have sometimes thought that they needed salvation in regard of God. This is a mistake.

Ques. Where do you touch life in the type of Israel? "Thou hast guided them by thy strength unto the abode of thy holiness" (Exodus 15:13). The springing well is a clear type of the Spirit, and when the Spirit of God is brought in you touch life. You get salvation in Exodus 14, and life is suggested in being brought to the abode of God's holiness. As to the children of Israel, they got salvation, and yet after all God was testing them after the flesh. You must remember that the two parts of Numbers (chapters 1 - 20 and 21 to the end) are contemporaneous in the history of the christian. One does not follow the other, but they go on together, The latter part of Romans 7 does not contemplate a christian; it is before a person has become a christian in the true sense. John 3:16 is a statement of the mind of God; it speaks of eternal life, but the subject of righteousness is not touched.

Ques. What is a christian?

A man is a christian when he has the Spirit. "If any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of him". The purpose of the gospel is to bring you to God in righteousness -- to put you in relation to Christ the Sun

of righteousness. Righteousness is relative, and we are estimated as righteous when we stand in relation to Christ as the earth does to the sun or the moon to the earth. It is in Christ we stand in righteousness, and that is brought about by the Spirit. When there is faith in Christ a man is justified, but there is a point further, the man must stand in relation to God.

Ques. Does that bring in the thought of the Head?

Exactly, you are justified in Christ, and Christ is the end of the law to every one who believes. Redemption is in Christ who has taken up the liabilities of men, and believers in Christ are justified. It is not a thing of sight, but a thing unseen, and we only get the good of it by faith. Redemption is in Christ Jesus, and man is brought to God in being brought into relation to Christ; being brought to Christ he is brought to God. Man meets God in Christ; God presents Himself to man in Christ, and meets man there.

In that which Christ has accomplished God has taken up His rights over every man; no one can deny that God has a right to every man, and God has taken up those rights. No doubt on the part of God the gospel goes forth to bring to light the elect, but still God has rights over every man. If a man does not believe in Christ he will get no good from the gospel. In much preaching of the gospel the great defect has been in failing to set forth Christ as He is in the mind of God -- the head and centre of a whole universe. If I am not in relation to that Man I am not in righteousness. I want people to apprehend Christ as the head of that system; this present system is all effete, it is all tinsel and death, and it all came to an end for God in the death of Christ, Now everything for man depends on standing in relation to that Man who is head and centre of God's world. Abraham, Noah, all the Old Testament saints, stood in relation to that Man. Any man who is in bondage to the world system is lost. A man in Romans 7 is looking to himself for righteousness, but the only thing is to be in relation to Christ. Christ is

the justification of the world to come; not one word of reproach will ever be spoken against the world to come, because all is justified in Christ. We stand in relation to Christ now, and therefore come into justification. Christ is at present hidden beneath the horizon, but He is there; He has not yet arisen to Israel or the world, but He is the Sun of righteousness to us; He is the true light -- "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" -- and He is our justification.

Ques. Are there not three kinds of gospels: the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of the grace of God, and the everlasting gospel?

There is only one kind of gospel at the present moment; there is only one Sun.

Ques. Why do you say that Christ is the justification of the world to come?

He takes up the world to come as having, in the grace of God, tasted death for everything; He takes all up on that ground, and therefore is the justification of everything. The righteousness of God is established in that Man, but then He is great enough to establish righteousness for all else. Man was under death, but Christ has tasted death, and now righteousness is established in a Man who is competent to impart His Spirit to others.

Ques. What does Paul's expression, "My gospel" mean?

It is an enlargement; Paul gave an enlargement to the facts. What he preached was that Christ died for our sins and rose again. The gospel is all founded on the death and resurrection of Christ. What was preached even in the lifetime of Christ anticipated what was coming out in His death and resurrection.

THE WILL OF GOD

Romans 12:1 - 6

Rem. We thought we might take up the subject of the will of God in continuation of what we had before us last time. I suppose that the thought of the will of God takes us further than the gospel?

The will of God is more positive; it is the introduction of what is according to Himself; and it calls for the displacement of what does not answer to His mind, even of that which. He Himself ordained. Eden was established by divine appointment, and Adam was set over it, but he fell, and all that was displaced to make room for what is according to God. So we get, "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second" Hebrews 10:9. He takes away even that which was of divine institution because it did not meet His mind. God brought in certain things in the course of His dealings with man which were not really according to His mind, and all those are displaced in order to make room for what is entirely according to Himself, and for His own pleasure. I suppose Psalm 40 gives us the first definite idea of the will of God. "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God".

Christ came to give place to all that is according to God, so that all may suit and answer to God's pleasure. We get it coming out in the ministry of the Lord; the cross is the foundation of it all, but the will of God indicates to me the idea of everything being ordered according to God's mind and pleasure. There must be a great difference between what must be when God is in the light of revelation compared with the time when He was hid.

Anyone can see what a difference has come in; a great many things could be tolerated when God was hid which could not be borne with now that He is in the light.

When God comes out in light, in the revelation of Himself;

all must be according to His pleasure. So the sacrificial system had to be taken away; christendom has tried to revert to it but it cannot have place now.

Ques. Had God ever any pleasure in the sacrificial system?

No, I do not think so; there was a certain typical teaching in it, but God had no pleasure in it -- "neither hadst pleasure therein". Now that He has come out in grace and love, all must be according to His pleasure.

The will of God is a very large thought, and it will not be completed until everything is made conformable to the pleasure of God. The application of the will of God to us is that we are set apart for priestly service; we are sanctified by the will of God. But then the will of God has its application to Israel, and even to the whole world; Christ came to be a light for the revelation of the gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel.

Rem. The will of God will be effected when God rests in His love.

I think so. We have to take into account that in the order of things which God has proposed to bring to pass, everything is to take its character from God; He will reconcile all things unto Himself: Things in this world have, to a large extent, taken their character from Satan.

Murder, lying, lust, pride and deceit are here; all this takes character from Satan. But in contrast to that, in the order of things which God purposes to bring to pass everything will take its character from Himself. That is the great contrast between the world that now is and the world to come. Christianity is in this world, and modifies things, but it has not altered the ruling principles of the world. There is a vast deal of murder which is not punishable by human law; every man that is greedy of gain is a murderer. "Every one that is greedy of gain ... taketh away the life of the owners thereof", Proverbs 1:19. A man enriches himself at the expense of others, and in that way takes away their life. The effect of christianity has been to bring in consideration for suffering and woe.

All the schemes for the alleviation of suffering which are abroad in the world today came in by christianity. They did not come through philosophy or science; I do not think there was anything of that kind among the Greeks or Romans. It is a well-known fact that the exposure of children among the Romans was of common occurrence.

Ques. How far has the will of God been already effected?

In principle everything is effected in Christ. Everything has to come forth from Christ; He is the one Source of everything that is according to God. He is the living Bread which came down from heaven to give life to the world. "By the which will we are sanctified" is the sense in which the will of God has been effected so far as we are concerned. We get in christianity in anticipation, all that is going to fill the universe of bliss; we have not to wait for the day of display. Life is not yet given to the world, but we get the good of the living bread today.

When God comes out in the revelation of Himself the necessary consequence is that all must take its character from Him. It is brought about in regard to us already; that is what comes out in the detail of this chapter; we are to take character from God. The effect of the glad tidings is to put us in relation to Christ as Head and as Lord, and therefore it brings us into an order of things which is virtually that of the world to come. We come into the good of the living bread by being brought into relation to the Head. We receive from Him living water -- His Spirit -- and we live by Him. "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me". When Christ becomes food to us there is no discontent or anything of that kind. "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst". That is the practical result of being placed in relation to Christ as Head, and the first principle of the gospel is to set us in relation to Christ as Head and Lord.

Ques. Why is the one body introduced here?

Because all takes its character from God now. This

world takes its character from Satan, but the new world will take its character from God. Now the first principle which is of God is unity. The thought of unity really takes its rise in God. You remember the prayer in John 17, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" verse 21. The great thought in the Old Testament was there is one God, but in the New we get that God is one, and the Mediator of God and men is one. The Father and the Son are one in the unity of the Spirit, and hence the first principle of christianity is unity; we get it pressed in every epistle. In the Old Testament what is insisted on is that there is one God in contrast to the multiplicity of heathen gods, but in the New Testament Persons are revealed in the Godhead, and it is now brought out that "God is one". There are three Persons, but there is no diversity of mind; the Father and the Son are perfectly one in mind and counsel, and the Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. In counsel and thought and purpose in regard of all men "God is one". The revelation of God has brought to light the unity of the Godhead, and hence the first principle in regard of men is unity. So we get here (Romans 12) that "we, being many, are one body in Christ". Then in Galatians, "Ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28); and in 1 Corinthians 12:13, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit". Then in Ephesians, "There is one body and one Spirit" (4: 4); and in Colossians we get "the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God", 2: 19. We get the same principle in regard of Israel, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity" (Psalm 133:1); that will apply to Israel and Judah; they have been apart, but they are

to dwell together in unity. The principle of unity is to pervade the whole divine system because it is characteristic of the revelation of God. So in this chapter (Romans 12) the first principle in connection with the will of God is that there is to be unity.

Ques. Does it say, "There is one mediator" because He is distinct?

There is not one Mediator for the Jew and another for the gentile; there is no longer a Mediator for the Jew only, but all the truth of God has come to light; God is fully revealed, and Christ is Mediator between God and men. Christ is distinguished because He has become Man, but that does not separate Him from the unity of the Godhead; it is still true, "I and my Father are one".

Ques. What is "the mystery of his will" in Ephesians 1:9?

The mystery of His will is to gather up all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and on earth. The will of God embraces all things, and all will be taken up in Christ. The church is the beginning of the will of God, but His will in the full extent of it is to gather up all things in the Christ. The will of God does not end with the church, though it begins there; the first element in the will of God is the church -- the sanctified and worshipping company -- but the will of God goes out to all things, and He has made known to the church the mystery of His will to head up all things in Christ.

Rem. I thought the mystery had more reference to the church.

I do not think so, for it goes on to say, "having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him". The word "mystery" is often used in Scripture, but it is always qualified by what follows.

Ques. The heading up of all things was already revealed, then why is it spoken of as a mystery?

I do not think it is a mystery because it has no existence, but because it is not yet made manifest. When Psalm 8 was indited it had no existence because Christ had not yet come, but now it has existence because Christ is there, but it is not yet manifest, and is therefore in mystery. You get hints of the kingdom in the Old Testament, but you could not speak of the mystery of the kingdom then; but now that Christ has come the kingdom has place, but because it is not yet manifest it is in mystery. All the will of God is hid in Christ and pledged in Christ, but the part of God's will which is being accomplished at the present time is the church, and that is in mystery because it is not yet manifested.

Ques. So the mystery of His will covers all?

Yes, I think so. It is not only that it is made known to us, but the thing exists. In Old Testament times the will of God was more or less indefinite, but now the Son has come, the One in whom all things are to be headed up and the mystery of God's will has a very definite place now.

Ques. What is the meaning of, "The mystery of God should be finished"? Revelation 10:7.

I think it means that all which God has been working out according to His will is finished, and everything has become manifest, so that it is no longer a mystery; it is the close of God's ways and dealings that is in view.

Rem. Then things which are in mystery began with Christ.

Yes, I think so, and not until Christ came. I doubt whether there was the existence of anything according to God's will until Christ came; all that God was doing in Old Testament times was in view of Christ. There was no real point of departure until Christ came; He was the beginning of the new order of things which is for God. But things are not yet become manifest; even Christ is hid; when He is manifested there will be no more

mysteries. The Spirit of God makes mysteries manifest to faith, and we ought to be in the intelligence of them.

We ought to be consciously in that system and order of things by which God means to supersede everything that exists. God will have a say in this world yet, but at the present time the gospel is the only thing that God has to say to this world, and the purpose of the gospel is to deliver people out of the world, and to bring them into the system of which Christ is Head. The gospel effects our translation from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

Ques. Why does it speak of being "transformed" before the will of God is mentioned? Romans 12:2.

We must be transformed in mind in order to take in the thought of the will of God. The natural mind cannot take it in, not even the greatest human intelligence; it is absolute foolishness to the natural man to speak of establishing an order of things which is entirely according to God, and which is to supersede the existing order, he cannot conceive it.

Ques. What is the mystery of iniquity?

It is the mystery of lawlessness; it is not manifested; people do not care to proclaim themselves as lawless, but we know that this principle is at work, and that it characterises the general state of things today.

Ques. Is it the will of God that we are to be conformed to Christ now?

Yes, we are to be so impressed by the revelation of God that the character of God comes out in us now, so that we become practically the children of God, shining as lights in the world, and holding forth the word of life. We get the detail of the will of God in this chapter (Romans 12), and all that comes out is really the character of God; it is all according to what Christ was down here. The first great thing is to think soberly of oneself; 'I' should have no place in my own thoughts. Then love is to be without dissimulation, evil is to be abhorred, and we are to cleave to what is good; then at the close of the

chapter we are not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome in the power of good. It is the character of God coming out in the saints.

We touch the will of God by being attached to Christ; we cannot accomplish the will of God; it is by being attached to Christ that the will of God is effectuated in us. If the will of God comes out in us it is really by Christ; we are married to Another that we may bring forth fruit unto God. Two things come out in the early part of this epistle: first, we are brought to Christ as Lord, and are brought into the kingdom in that way; and second, we are attached to Him as Head. The latter part of the epistle rests on these two things. He is Lord to us, and we are brought to Him as Head, that we may take character from Him, and we get the consequences of this in chapter 12. Taking things practically, we cannot do anything except as under Christ the Lord; no man is free from the power of evil save as being under the Lord. We can only stand against evil as being strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Salvation depends upon the fact that there is One who has power and authority completely superior to all evil. It is in the knowledge of the power that is in Christ that I come into the enjoyment of salvation. Then again we have no divine character save as we derive from Christ as Head.

Ques. Do we get power then connected with the Lord, and life with the Head?

Yes, life is connected with Christ as Head.

The will of God is to substitute one order of things for another, and our deliverance from this present evil world is included in that will. Galatians 1:4.

Ques. What are the mercies of God?

A man is so affected by the presentation of all that is of God, that he is content to be here for God's will. The ground covered in this epistle is very large; the first eight chapters bring in the church, then in chapters 9, 10 and 11 we get the restoration of Israel, and their reception is life from the dead for the nations.

Rem. But we do not get the thought of mercy until the end.

No, it follows on the close of the eleventh chapter, for in chapters 9, 10 and 11 we get the mercies of God exemplified in a remarkable way; sovereignty is brought in, and we get the compassions of God.

Ques. What is the thought in "a living sacrifice"?

A sacrifice is a thing devoted, and that cannot be recalled; that is to be true of the believer's body. The proper moral consequence of all that has been unfolded in the epistle is that you present your body as a vessel for the will of God. The body is to be, not a vessel for the flesh, not for my pleasure, but for God's pleasure, and that in which the will of God is set forth.

The compassions of God take in the whole range of God's dealings with men, both with Israel and the nations, and if we are affected by them the proper consequence is that we present our bodies to God as vessels for His will. If we do so it raises many questions; what are you going to do with your body? What use are you going to make of your tongue? It raises the whole question of what you are going to use your body for.

Rem. There is a good deal of talk about consecration in certain quarters at the present time.

That is because they have not presented their bodies to God; a man who has done it does not talk much about it. The Spirit would not lead a man to talk about it very much, nor to hold meetings to discuss it.

One great principle in God's ways is the principle of recovery; He delights in recovery. "It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found" Luke 15:32. That principle runs through all the ways of God; the church, in a certain sense, is recovery; so, too, Israel and the nations, and yet everything is morally new, because everything is of Christ.

I think few people really apprehend the will of God in the wide extent of it; they look at it in connection with

the details of their course down here. We need a sober judgment in regard to the details of life, and we have to remember that many things are sent to test us. I do not doubt that the will of God will greatly affect me in the details of life, but that will is connected with all that which He has established in Christ -- all that of which Christ is the beginning, and centre, and Head. Details down here test us, and bring out what we are about, and show what governs us, but I think we are left to judge as to our course down here. I do not think that God has any particular will as to whether I live in Peckham or in Greenwich. The great thing is, what governs you? If you are governed by the will of God, and you find yourself in circumstances which require a judgment, you will judge right. We should be governed by principles; in mind and spirit we have to be here absolutely for what is of God and His testimony. In regard of the detail of life we have to be guided by the Spirit; the Spirit will keep me right, and then I shall do what is right. What people regard as providential guidance very often deceives them; and those who speak much about guidance are often in bondage, and are mistaken in the end. It is in the detail of life that we are found out as to what line we are on. I have been tested myself in that way many a time. There are many things which are perfectly lawful, but the question is, are they expedient? If the affections are rightly directed the details of life will all find their place in reference to the will of God. That will is very simple; it takes in all that which it is His purpose to effect in Christ.

Ques. What does James mean by "If the Lord will"?

It comes in to test your spirit; are you free in spirit, and in dependence? It is the spirit in which you take up things here. The christian does not do things independently. Christ is our Lord, and what we do, we do to the Lord; He expresses to us the authority of God. You might do the lowliest thing to the Lord; a housemaid

may sweep a room to the Lord.

The first thing is to get an apprehension of the scope of the will of God. We are led into it by divine teaching and it all hangs on God's revelation of Himself. God having come out to reveal Himself there must be a universe that takes its character from Him. Our part in it is that we are a sanctified and worshipping company on the one hand, and on the other a vessel of testimony for God's will here. That is the will of God for us. In a coming day the earth will be completely controlled by the will of God; His will will be done on earth as in heaven; all will be established in the light of God. In Genesis 1 there is light on the first day, and then the sun on the fourth day, and then the ordering of the whole sphere, and so it is in the moral universe. The Sun of righteousness is set in the heavens, and everything placed in relation to Him.

THE WORLD TO COME

Hebrews 2:5 - 9

We get two great thoughts in the epistle to the Hebrews; the first is the Israel of God, and the second is the service of God; and both are essential elements of the world to come. Divine thoughts in relation to the earth are connected with Israel, and hence if we get the establishment of divine thoughts, it is in connection with the Israel of God. In the first part of the epistle we get the Israel of God, and from the seventh chapter onwards we get the service of God. But there must first be the Israel of God if there is to be the service of God. The Israel of God today are the companions of Christ, those of whom He says, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me".

The thoughts of God are identified with the Israel of God. In chapter 1 there is the throne of God; in chapter 2 the Apostle and High Priest; in chapter 3 the house of God; and in chapter 4 the rest of God, and all these thoughts are identified with the Israel of God.

Ques. Would the expression "the Israel of God" in Galatians suggest the same idea?

Yes; the Israel of God is in contrast with the spurious Israel; the companions of Christ who form the house of God are the true Israel. We have the light of the world to come today because all is established in connection with the Israel of God. David's throne was God's throne; then the apostle and high priest take up the thought of Moses and Aaron; then the house of God and the rest of God were connected with Israel, and when we get the Israel of God we get all these divine thoughts established, and in that way we anticipate the age to come. There is a little difference between the thought of the world to come and that of the age to come. The world to come means the habitable earth to come, but

the age to come is in contrast to the present age. The world to come gives the idea of the sphere, and the age to come the moral character. In the world to come there will be the establishment of every divine thought, but then we have these things all established now in Christ and His companions -- the true Israel. Very much that we find in scripture is really anticipative; we enter anticipatively, as having the Spirit, upon many things which strictly belong to the world to come. If we get hold of the thought that christians are the companions of Christ, it lets in a great deal of light, and we see how we can anticipate the world to come.

Ques. Will you say something as to the service of God?

Well the first thing is to apprehend that the conditions of the service of God are completely changed by the fact of the change of priest. One important point in regard to the priest now is that all the propitiatory work is over; the priesthood is founded on the fact that there is no more offering for sin. The priesthood is entirely changed, and on the other hand the disposition of God is made known, and therefore the whole conditions of the service of God are changed. Priesthood in the past was connected with offerings for sin, and the disposition of God was not known, but now all is completely altered. God Himself is declared, His disposition is made known, and with the change of priest everything is changed. The priest subsists although the propitiatory work is all done, and now we have the new covenant, and the will of God established in Christ. We commemorate in the Lord's supper that the propitiatory work is all over on the one hand, and on the other the disposition of God is made known to us. The mind of God has been completely met in Christ; God has been glorified in Christ in regard of everything.

The service of God is worship, but if we do not apprehend the changed conditions we cannot approach God or serve Him according to His mind. The introduction of

a priest after the order of Melchisedec changes the whole character of the service of God. The Aaronic priesthood is set aside; the propitiatory work is all accomplished, and the disposition of God is declared.

Ques. What is the connection between the throne of grace and the world to come?

The throne of grace is characteristic of the world to come. God's throne is established in Christ; "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever". The Psalms often speak of the throne, and God's throne and kingdom are established in Christ; we have the light of the throne in Christ; it is not yet displayed, but it is established in Christ.

Rem. It is a throne of grace.

Yes. Grace and righteousness are not opposed principles; grace reigns through righteousness. The heavenly city is the seat of the kingdom; grace is identified with the city, and the throne of God is there, but all is connected with Christ; He will take up the throne and the kingdom with His saints. But we have not to wait for the day of display; it is true for God and for us that His throne is established in Christ. We have both the kingdom and the city in Christ.

Then in the second chapter we have the Apostle and High Priest -- the true Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron were connected with Israel, and not with any other people, just as the throne was connected with David. Now Christ is both Apostle and High Priest, and the children whom God has given Him are the true Israel. Israel was God's house, but we are God's house now, and the companions of Christ. The Israel referred to in chapter 4 could not enter into rest, but we who believe do enter into rest.

Ques. What is the thought in "companions of Christ"?

It is those who share in His rejection who are looked at as His companions. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to

them gave he power to become the sons (children) of God, even to them that believe on his name". Those who believe on His name come into the place of His companions.

Ques. Is the thought in this chapter that we enter already into rest?

It does not raise the question exactly of whether it is present or future, but it is we who believe who enter into rest. This point is to see that there is a circle where every divine thought can be made good, that is in the circle of Christ and His companions. "Behold I and the children which God hath given me", refers to those who are companions of Christ in His rejection. The disciples were in that place, and we come into it now; it is a place of great blessing and favour. It is the true Israel of God, and God's thoughts are made good there.